Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64702 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64702 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
The general is back on the line. “You have fourteen minutes until the next jolt.” He recites an address that I know well. It’s my mother’s house.
The line goes dead.
I rotate to face the other two men. “I’m going alone. At best, he wants me. At worst, this is a trap to use Red Dart on all of us. We can’t risk that happening.”
“You’re not going alone,” Caleb orders, no give in his voice.
“I don’t have a choice.”
Caleb tries to bring reason to the equation. “Let’s think about this.”
I glance at my watch. “I have about twelve minutes until he shocks her again. I’m leaving. You stay here and lead the Renegades. Just make sure that if Addie and I don’t make it through this, you make it worthwhile.” Vehemently, I add, “Make General Lawrence and Julian pay, Caleb.”
My attention snaps to Jensen. “Caleb needs someone to do the dirty work if I’m gone. To cover his back. You be that someone if I’m gone.”
I fade into the wind.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Creed
Appearing at the location given to me by Lawrence with time to spare before Addie’s next shock treatment, I found myself at the back of a vacant house, about a mile from my mother’s place. Two soldiers stand in my path. One points me forward at what appears to be a basement entrance, but the soldier that pulls ahead of me bypasses that door to open a trapdoor covered by grass.
I step forward and spy the exposed stairwell leading underground. I’m motioned forward, and while I’m ten thousand shades of uncomfortable—I mean, doing as they say is stupid as fuck—I do it anyway.
For Addie.
I travel downward several feet before entering a narrow tunnel, the soldiers on my heels. It doesn’t take me long to surmise that it connects at some junction to my mother’s basement. I test my boundaries, reaching for the wind. If there were the tiniest of cracks in the surface above them, I could call it for aid, but I find nothing.
The tunnel is long, a good mile underground, between the vacant house and what I assume to be some sort of lab. When I finally reach just that, a lab of sorts, I spy Addie and she me. “Damn you, Creed. I told you not to come!”
I would laugh at her ability to challenge me even under duress if she wasn’t inside a cage and I wasn’t so damn pissed. Lawrence has proven he’ll do anything to control the GTECHs, even hurting his own daughter.
“You know I had to come for you, baby,” I say softly, checking the lab for possible exits and finding only the one I had come through. “Are you okay?”
Anguish lances her voice, tears pouring down her cheeks. “No. No, I am not okay. I would rather be tortured than have you come here.” She’s sitting with her arms bound behind her, electronic wires attached to various parts of her body. No one else is in sight.
“Step into the cage.”
General Lawrence’s voice blasts over an intercom.
I inhale sharply, aware of the trap I’m being lured into. Once I’m in that cage, I can’t do squat to get us out of here. “She’s on remote control,” Lawrence adds. “One punch of a button, and those wires will jolt her. Would you like a demonstration?”
“You sonofabitch!” I growl. “She’s your daughter!”
Addie’s crying harder now. “Don’t, Creed. Don’t come into this cage. I beg of you. He’s got plans for you.”
I’m going in all right, but I won’t be staying. I charge at the cage, crossing the room with the agility of a GTECH on speed, the difference in my enhancements offering me extra speed. I pick up Addie, chair and all, and then freeze. Addie gasps and buries her face in my shoulder. Brock stands in the cage doorway holding a gun, his eyes as black as coal. He’s GTECH, which is how he got into my path before I got out of the cage, but in theory, his transition is impossible. Conversion is a month’s long process.
“Green Hornets,” Brock says. “Compliments of your mother.”
His hand trembles. Whatever Lawrence has done to him isn’t going over so well, and judging from the crazed look on his face, the man isn’t stable. “Easy, man,” I say. “I’m backing up.” Slowly, I ease back into the cage and set Addie down, ripping away the wires attached to her before she can be shocked again.
“Step away from her, Creed,” Lawrence orders through the intercom.
Brock’s finger twitches on the trigger. “You heard the man.”
Reluctantly, so fucking reluctantly, I do as commanded, holding Brock’s stare. “So, this is your plan. To be some souped-up GTECH doing Lawrence’s bidding? He’s using you, man. This isn’t going any place good for you.”
“Shut up!” he yells. “Shut up!”
A clicking sound has me whirling around to face the weapon extending from a hole in the ceiling, now in front of me. Addie! Fuck. I have no wind to protect her. I step in front of her to guard her. A red light flashes on my chest. Lawrence’s laughter radiates through the room a minute before my body begins to zip, my nerve endings standing on end.