“Well,” he admits. “I don’t know about that, but you and the doctor weren’t married.”
“We’re closer than most married couples are.”
“That’s what women who aren’t married tell themselves.”
I take it back. He’s an asshole.
“And what do fuckwits who steal people tell themselves?”
He smirks. Nothing I say bothers him, because he doesn’t take me seriously. “Ma’am, Doctor Knight is doing good and valuable work here. Maybe he wasn’t keen to volunteer, but we need him. He’s a good man.”
“I know he is! And he’s my man! Not yours!”
It’s hopeless. Militaries have been capturing scientists since the dawn of time. I know they’re never going to let him go. He’s too brilliant not to be on their team. Maybe he can find some way to negotiate some better conditions. Or maybe… I feel my throat close up at the very thought… maybe he’s just done with me. I made his escape impossible. I caused a huge scene at the base. Every misfortune in his life has been due to me. So maybe I should let him go. Maybe he wasn’t telling me to go and have a good life. Maybe he was telling me to fuck off so he could have a life of his own.
“I’m going to let you go,” he says, that horrible look of pity on his face. “But on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You take a day off from this. You go home and you think about things. And then you come up with a more constructive use of your time.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
That’s enough for him. He lets me out of the cell. I go back to the little yellow car all this trouble really started in, and I pull out. Go home, huh? Think about more constructive ways to be a total victim to these assholes? Fuck that. I swing the wheel around. Plant my foot flat and head the vehicle toward the gates of the base.
They’ll call me crazy, I think as the front of the car hits the center of the gates and sends one crashing entirely off its mounts, the panel clinging to the front of my car as I proceed across the neat green turf beyond. They’ll call me a terrorist, I consider as steam cascades from the smashed-up radiator. Maybe they’ll even kill me. Is it weird that I don’t care?
Chapter Fourteen
Daniel
“You’ve been a bad girl.”
I murmur the words softly as Briarlee opens her eyes.
“Are you mad at me?” The first words out of her mouth are soft and small. I’m not mad at her. I’m glad she’s alive. I’m glad she’s with me. It’s no thanks to the people who told me she’d be safe. They were supposed to look after her. They didn’t.
They turned her loose. They left her to her own devices. Her downward spiral was a swift and chaotic one. The massive dose of Regenermax followed by total abandonment caused her to break down. I’ve seen the footage of her final act of rebellion several times. I don’t know how she survived it, but I know she’s never, ever going to do a thing like that again. I won’t allow it.
I thought she might do better without me. I thought she might find the freedom she’d wanted. I thought so many things. All of them wrong, all of them informed by the fear that I ruined her. In the end, it wasn’t what I did that ruined her. It’s what I didn’t do and couldn’t do.
“No, sweetheart,” I say softly. “I’m not mad.”
“I think I did something stupid.”
She did, but she was out of her mind. It wasn’t her fault. It was mine. From the beginning, Briarlee has been mine to look after.
“It’s okay now.”
“It hurts.”
“It won’t for long,” I say, pushing the button on her medical drip to send another dose of painkillers into her system.
One month. That’s all it took for her to be seriously hurt again. She wasn’t functional without me, and I think I know why. None of this was her fault. She might be broken in a way even I can’t fix. If that’s the case, I will never forgive myself.
“Doctor.”
It’s Spencer. That’s how I know him anyway. God knows what his real name is. He’s been my handler since I agreed to work with them. He’s actually a reasonable guy, a sharp contrast to the men who took me and tried to beat me into submission. I’ve been able to continue my regime of Regenermax.
“We can’t keep her here. You know we can’t. Not long term.”
Here is a facility in the mountains. It’s biologically remote, and a repository of the most dangerous substances known to man. Viruses that are supposed to be extinct are kept here, mutated and tested. Chemical compounds banned by every right-thinking government in the world are routinely synthesized and though it’s never spoken of, they must be administered. Everything from Black Plague to Novichok is housed in several feet of concrete and steel.