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  He knew what that meant since guards taunted him from time to time with what went on at that location, assuring him it would mean the termination of his life. The march there had abruptly ended, too, when one of the males had flipped open and spoken into his ringing device. They’d returned him to his cell, informing him that he’d be participating in a new drug trial to increase intelligence. Did they just want to frighten me? Make me think I would die? The mind games the humans played pissed him off.

  The cell door beeped, indicating someone would enter. He turned his head to watch the human who controlled the facility step inside his living space. Polanitis was a monster with dead-looking eyes and a mean disposition. The male smiled as he walked closer but came to a halt on the other side of the line marking the safe area beyond the reach of his chains. The male crossed his arms over his chest.

  “I wanted to share something with you, 710. I notice everything, you know. I see the way you stare at Technician Shiver. She’s a hot little thing, isn’t she?”

  710 tensed but kept his emotions hidden. The small brunette always held his attention. Her touch was gentle every time she drew blood and she peered at him intently with big brown eyes, as if he were a real person. She was the only technician who had ever shown him any kindness.

  Polanitis looked smug. “She makes your dick hard, doesn’t she? We’re working on a new formula of the breeding drug to fit our current needs. Once it’s perfected, I’m willing to send her in to you for breeding experiments if you are a good boy.” He smiled. “You’ll get to fuck her.”

  710 stopped breathing, trapping the air inside his lungs. He knew what the breeding drug did to males. It caused excruciating pain and an overriding desire to mount a female. He’d been dosed with it once when he’d been much younger. The nightmares continued to bother him, of the time his mind had fractured under the pain. He didn’t know if he’d hurt anyone while under the influence of the drug since he’d retained no memory of his actions but it was possible he’d harmed a female.

  “Technician Shiver is currently working with Dr. Brask to perfect the formula so it doesn’t create such violent and painful side effects. I know you’d like to mount that hot little body. We feel certain that you wouldn’t hurt her since you’re damn near tame when she’s around.”

  Rage filled 710 as he averted his gaze from Polanitis. His stomach heaved and the food they’d recently fed him threatened to come up when he realized she must have purposely set out to gain his attraction, hoping he wouldn’t harm her under any circumstance. It had worked. A sense of betrayal burned inside his chest, despite knowing it wasn’t a reasonable emotion. She was human after all, his enemy. He should have known better than to think she’d be different.

  “It shouldn’t be too long before they find the right dosage and I’ll personally escort her into your cell. In exchange, you’re going to stop attacking the guards.” Dean Polanitis narrowed his gaze, his tone revealing his anger. “Do you understand what I’m saying? I lost two good men I trusted thanks to your last outburst. It’s not easy to find replacements. You are going to do everything I say.”

  710 met the monster’s stare, wishing his chains allowed him to cross the room and rip out his throat. He’d wanted to kill the male before but now it had become an absolute need. “I won’t mount that female.”

  Polanitis’ expression wasn’t a pleased one anymore. “Sure you would. Here’s the deal. You stop hurting my security teams and I’ll send her in here to you. We’ll loosen those chains enough that you can reach her once you have her alone. Wouldn’t you like that?”

  A growl tore from 710. The breeding drug would drive him insane and an image popped into his head of Technician Shiver as a bloody corpse on the floor of his cell. He’d attack if she was sent to him after he was dosed. As much as he hated what she’d done, she didn’t deserve a brutal death. “I’ll kill her.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  The smugness on the human’s face infuriated 710 enough to bluff. “Send her in. I’m an animal who kills. I can go without eating for a while when you punish me for her death.”

  “You’d really kill her?”

  “Yes. She is one of you and I would enjoy taking revenge against all here.”

  Polanitis swore viciously. “I misjudged you. You’re going to do what I want or die. Stop attacking my men and don’t cause any more injuries when they move you to one of the labs to perform tests in a new trial. You will also answer every one of the questions they ask you. You’re worthless otherwise and that means you serve no purpose. That means I get to kill you.”

  It was 710’s turn to smile. “You’ll eventually do that anyway.”

  The male’s neck and face turned red. “I hate you fucking animals. You’re going to behave like a well-trained dog. Do you understand me? If the doctor in charge of this project asks you anything, you tell him whatever he wants to know. You’re going to stop hurting my guys, too, or I’ll bring one of your women in here and punish her every time you defy me. I’ll bend her over that table in the corner so you have to watch me hurt her and afterward I’ll call in some of the guards to take a turn. Would you care about that?”

  710 growled in anger, understanding the threat. “Don’t hurt the female.”

  The smug expression returned to Polanitis’ face. “Stop breaking my men’s arms, or worse, damn it. We have results we need to send in to my bosses but you’re causing me headaches. It’s a major security risk when I have to hire unknowns to replace them and we have to pay out hush money to their families. I’ll have to kill every damn animal in here if it looks like one of them might get us busted. Am I making myself clear? You’ll be responsible for the deaths of every damn one of your kind. The only reason you’re still breathing is because you’re leverage for something I want.”

  “Yes,” 710 snarled, not sure what “busted” or “leverage” meant but he got the context of the threat.

  “Then we have a deal?”

  It went against everything he believed in to willingly agree to do anything the humans demanded. He had no other options though. The threat wasn’t an empty one. He refused to be responsible for the female being harmed. “Yes.”

  Polanitis stomped to the door. “Good.”

  710 said nothing. The door locked and he walked to his mat on the floor. He sat and closed his eyes. Pain hit. Technician Shiver had found a soft spot in his heart but no longer. He had cared for the female, yet she didn’t deserve anything but his disgust and contempt.

  Chapter One

  South Dakota, the following year

  Cornas Research facility

  Jeanie had been given orders to call in sick to work but hadn’t done it. She jogged to another door, peered up at the small video monitor to see what was on the other side of the thick metal and used the stun gun on the electronic lock. The clicking sound it made was louder than she’d like as volts of electricity hit the reading device. The smell of frying wires was faint and almost instant. She turned off the stun gun and waited a few seconds to make sure the lights on the lock remained off. It didn’t power back up.

  She glanced at her watch, seeing there was only five minutes left. Time was running out. She hurried down the hallway and fried another sensor reader. She was terrified about being caught but she didn’t give a damn what they did to her. She had to protect the men and women locked inside those rooms.

  Her stun gun shorted out the readers to prevent Security from entering the cells. She’d already disabled the building’s main computer. Another employee might punch in codes to send gas throughout the cells but the command wouldn’t make it to the main computer. It was offline for good, thanks to a pot of hot coffee she’d poured inside the tower housing it. Sparks had shot out of it, there were some loud popping noises, and she’d feared it might catch fire. It had shut down and refused to power on again when she’d tried, just to make sure it wasn’t a temporary breakdown. The thing was toast.

  An alarm blared from speake
rs located near the elevator. Red emergency lights flashed as the scream of it rose in pitch. Damn. She glanced at her watch. The attack had started two minutes early and she still had one more floor to go. She zapped another sensor reader, spun and darted back to the elevator to call it to her floor. Her hand shook as she swiped her employee badge to gain access and shoved the stun gun deep inside her lab coat pocket.

  Two security guards were already inside the lift when it opened. They looked pissed off and worse—desperate. She stepped inside the confined space with them.

  “We’re going down,” one of them stated. “What are you doing? You know protocol. You’re supposed to hit the emergency exits, head to the tunnels.”

  She shook her head. “I have to destroy blood samples in a storage room first. Dr. Meckler was extremely clear about making sure it was my duty to do that if those alarms ever went off. What is going on?”

  “We’re being breached,” the second one grunted. “I hate fucking cops. Get it done fast while we kill the experiments. The backup system failed so we have to shoot them one by one. Hit those hidden stairs afterward. Don’t get caught. You know it’s a death sentence.”

  She nodded but inwardly cursed. The elevator dinged open on the bottom floor. One of the guards hit the button to keep them open, a feature they used often to move drugged test subjects on gurneys. He glanced at the other man.

  “It will warn us if someone calls the damn thing to another floor. I plan to use the hidden stairwell and be gone before the cops find us.”

  The second man glanced at the fake wall near the end of the hall. All the employees knew where the emergency exits were. The stairwells would lead to an old, unused sewer system that dumped out somewhere far from the building.

  She turned. “Let me help. Give me a gun. The ones down here are the most dangerous and they’ve seen most employees’ faces. They could identify all of us.”

  One of the guards hesitated.

  “There are fifteen of them down here. The door keypads are all slow to open,” Jeanie lied. “Come on. How long will it take for the cops to override the elevator keycard locks? We can’t let these test subjects live. Do you want your face splashed across the evening news until all your family and friends know you worked here? We’ll be screwed seven ways to Sunday with every police enforcement agency hunting for us too. There’s no point in escaping if we’re going to get caught in the long run.”

  The guard on her left passed over one of his handguns. “Take head shots.”

  “I know the drill.” Her stomach still turned, remembering the lecture from the person who’d trained her on the most effective way to murder an innocent human being, as if they were moths or other creatures that were mere annoyances. “Use two shots to make sure they die.”

  “We don’t have time for that shit or enough spare clips. Just don’t miss what you aim at.”

  The guards moved in front of her. One of them pulled his keycard out and buzzed it through the sensor reader. The door beeped and the man reached for the door handle. He intended to kill all the test subjects. He lifted his gun to shoot the helpless woman chained against the far wall.

  Bile rose in Jeanie’s throat as she raised her weapon. Not firing wasn’t an option. He was going to murder someone she considered a friend. He never even glanced back at her. She gripped the metal with both hands to steady her aim and pulled the trigger. She cried out in horror as blood and gore splattered the doorframe. Killing someone was ten times worse than anything she’d ever imagined. Distress almost paralyzed her but movement in the corner of her vision drew her attention. The second guard spun around, his gaze dropping to his fallen coworker.

  He paled, his eyes opening wide as he jerked his chin up. Pure rage twisted his features as they stared at each other. He uttered a word she couldn’t understand in her emotionally overwhelmed state. He raised his arm. He was going to shoot her.

  She aimed the gun but her hands shook worse than before and she missed his head when she fired but the bullet struck his shoulder. He fell back with a shout of pain and landed on his ass. The wall he slammed into kept him sitting upright though. The look on his face promised death as he lifted his bleeding arm to shoot at her again. She fired twice. One bullet tore into his throat and the other one appeared to hit his heart.

  The deafening sounds ceased but Jeanie’s ears rang. The alarms were still going off. Blood spilled down the man’s chest, his eyes remained open, but he didn’t blink. His focus wasn’t on her anymore despite the eerie stare. She knew without needing to check for a pulse that he no longer had one.

  She swayed on her feet, not sure if she was going to puke or faint. Both seemed options as the reality of what she’d done hit home. Numbness settled into her mind. Probably shock, she rationalized. She lowered her arms but managed to keep hold of the gun despite the urge to toss it away.

  Pure agony shot through her midsection at the movement. She looked down. Her white coat had turned red just above her hip and it spread lower as she watched. It took a few seconds for it to sink in that she’d been shot. The guard had managed to hit her in the side before she’d killed him. She released the gun with one hand and flattened her palm over the wound. The pain grew worse but she needed to apply pressure.

  Spots danced before her eyes and she leaned to the side. Her shoulder hit the wall, keeping her upright. She blinked a few times but it didn’t change the view of her blood dripping on the tile floor near her feet. The sirens blaring from the speakers reminded her that more guards could arrive at any time. The company employed dozens of them on the day shift.

  The elevator doors behind her closed. She turned. It meant someone had called for it from another floor. It could be help but it would probably be more security guards coming to kill the test subjects. It would take the police time to hack into the security systems since she’d been unable to steal another employee’s badge to slip to her contact. The theft would have been immediately noticed and the codes changed, making it useless.

  She forced herself to move despite the racking pain. She reached the first body. The dead guard kept the door to the room open. She reached down and grabbed him. He wasn’t a large man but his deadweight was difficult to drag. She managed to pull him far enough that he no longer blocked the doorway.

  Her gaze focused on the woman chained to the wall. She appeared shocked as her dark gaze locked on Jeanie.

  “It’s okay, 433.” Jeanie groaned, gripping her side.

  “You killed them,” she whispered.

  Jeanie nodded. “Help is coming. I have to lock your door again and disable the sensor to make sure our security people can’t kill you before the police are able to get down here. Don’t be afraid of the strangers when they come. They are going to set you free.”

  She pulled the door closed and it beeped when the lock reengaged. Jeanie yanked her stun gun out of her pocket and zapped the sensor reader that could unlock it again. The smell of burning wires and the lights on it going out assured her it was fried. She had to step over the guard’s body to reach the next cell. The room spun as dizziness hit her. She turned her head, staring up at the elevator display, seeing that the lift was on the way back down.

  She moved faster, feeling sick, as though she would pass out. She realized that she’d never succeed in taking out all the readers before the elevator opened again. It could be the police but she wasn’t willing to risk the lives of the men and women trapped inside those rooms if it wasn’t. She glanced down at all the blood staining her coat and pants. It would be a miracle if she didn’t collapse before she reached the next cell.

  “Shit.” Desperation drove her to think of a solution. Her gaze drifted from the elevator display to the metal electrical boxes on the wall next to it. Both had locks on them to prevent anyone from tampering with the breakers inside but the covers weren’t bulletproof. At least she hoped not.

  Her legs gave out and she slid to the floor next to the body of the second guard she’d killed. Another g
un still rested inside one of the two shoulder holsters he sported. The guards always carried a few weapons. She released the one she’d used, not sure if it even had any bullets left. The stun gun slipped from her fingers into her pocket and she tugged at his gun. It slid from the holster and she forced her legs to move, getting to her knees.

  Her vision blurred and lightheadedness struck. She swallowed hard and used both hands to lift the heavy weight of the handgun to take aim. The sound was loud as she kept firing but bullets tore through the metal and the lights flickered. She paused, holding her breath, until total darkness surrounded her. The emergency lights clicked on, dimly illuminating the hallway, but one glance at the nearest cell with an undamaged reader showed it was inactive.

  “Thank god,” she breathed, realizing the doors would remain locked during a power failure. She hadn’t been sure if the safeguards on the doors were a part of the emergency backup system or not until then.

  She crouched until she sat on her heels, keeping upright. She lowered the gun to her lap as she stared at the elevator that wasn’t affected by the localized power loss. It would open at any second and she’d face whoever was on the way down. The guards would kill her once they realized what she’d done. The cops would arrest her until they figured out who she was. She prayed for the latter.

  The elevator doors opened and bright lights blinded her.

  “Drop the gun,” a man yelled.

  She couldn’t see their faces but didn’t have the strength to fight anyway. The gun slipped from her fingers. The lights came closer and pain exploded into the side of her face. The force sent her flying backward. She hit the floor hard and a moan tore from her lips.

  Someone gripped her roughly by her arm and rolled her onto her stomach. Her cheek was pressed painfully against the floor as someone grabbed a fistful of her hair and her arms were jerked behind her back by someone else. The agony from the bullet wound made her scream. A boot planted hard on her ass, grinding her hips against the floor.