“She’s your match, Pete,” Doctor Rovinsky’s voice rang out. “Don’t you want her?”
He stopped slamming his body against the door. “Of course I do, but not like this. She’s a citizen. She has the right to choose.”
“Choose what?” Allison asked from behind him. “What do they mean I’m your match?”
He ignored her for a minute. “Don’t do this. I won’t go along with it.”
“Peter, it’s me, Doctor Paulson.”
He relaxed slightly. He’d always been closer with Paulson, the one member of the science team who treated him like a person and not a walking-talking experiment.
“Peter, let me talk to everyone. Everyone’s excited because you’d be the first soldier to find his match.”
He understood their sentiment, which was why he’d been sneaking around the past month with Allison.
“Why don’t you and Allison talk? Explain things to her. Let her make an informed decision. You don’t have to hide your relationship anymore.”
“You don’t understand, Doctor Paulson. Allison can’t stay here. Her family will be looking for her.”
Another voice, one he thought was his commanding officer’s, rang out. “It’s been taken care of.”
“What do you mean?”
“Yeah, what does he mean?” Allison’s voice quavered.
“A note has been left from Allison explaining she finally ran away to New York to become a singer.”
Peter whirled to see Allison’s golden skin whiten and lines bracket her mouth as tears dripped from her eyes. “How do they know so much about me? What did you tell them?” she whispered. “How could you?”
Abandoning his position in front of the door, he kneeled at her feet and clasped her cheeks in his hands. “I swear, I said nothing. I thought no one here knew about you. I promise, I never would’ve said a word.”
She sniffled. “Can you tell me wherehereis? Is this a Russian spy compound?”
Again with the Russian spies. He found a sliver of humor in the situation. “You and your obsession with the Russians. This is an American military base.”
“American?” She lifted her head slightly to peer at him and his heart lurched at seeing her look hurt and lost. “I guess I was confused because one of the men who trapped me here had an accent.”
“Oh, well, he is actually from the Soviet Union. Ukraine to be exact, but he defected before I was born.”
“Where is here? We’re not far from my house, are we? It was a fast ride in the car once they grabbed me.”
“Where did they find you?”
“At the movie theater. I was walking from my car to work.” She sniffled and tugged at her trapped hand.
“Shit. Sorry.” He felt like an ass because she was still tied to the side table, which was too heavy to move one-armed. For him, it was child’s play to lift the table and slide the metal handcuff loop off the leg to free her.
“Thanks,” she said, rubbing her wrist where he could see red chafed marks. He wanted to kiss the marks and then he wanted to kill the men who’d caused them.
“Don’t thank me. It’s my fault you’re in this situation.”
Her arms wrapped around her bent legs, with her feet flat on the sofa. “Peter, I’m scared. I don’t understand anything that’s happened.”
He found a seat on the sofa next to her but gave her space despite his desire to hold her on his lap and comfort her. “I’ll explain, but it’s a long story.”
She held up her wrist with the handcuff dangling, “Go ahead. We have time.”
He took a breath, not sure where to start. The beginning, he guessed. “Around twenty years ago, the US government started playing around with some genetic stuff. They were trying to cure certain diseases, but then they discovered something else. They were able to map a human’s genes and then predict which other set of DNA would best combine with them. Are you with me?”