Chapter One
Gideon thought he’d known the risks. Underground fighting was dangerous, but the right bouts paid well. Determining weaknesses, building strategies, defeating opponents—totally his wheelhouse. But he’d made a mistake. He’d won too much, too fast. And he’d impressed the wrong people. He should have known the invite to a special tournament in Philly had been too good to be true. But he’d been swayed by his friends and that hefty bonus for attending.
The cold in the room didn’t bother him, despite the fact he only wore a pair of thin blue cotton pants that reached him mid-shin. They reminded him of hospital scrubs a short guy might wear. They never clothed him in anything but the same colored bottoms with an elastic waist, even when the temperature of the room would grow so cold he could see his breath.
Another needle slid under his skin, and he roared, his skin on fire, his blood already blazing from the crap they’d shoved into his body. Despite making him more resistant to injury, they continued to push his limits, working hard to scar him, to burn him, to fucking kill him.
The douchebags who did the majority of the hands-on work hooked up tubes to the ports in his wrists. His blood left him in a hurry. The sterile lab where they’d imprisoned him could have been used as the standard for any mad scientist horror movie. Though clean of the blood spatter that had previously marred the white tiled floor—and God bless the bastard who’d been in here earlier—the entire room had been designed to collect samples from the unwilling.
Jars of tissue, organs, and different fluids lined the cabinets on the far wall. An array of sharp cutting instruments sat on the metal table next to his exam bed. Overhead lights blinded him when he lay flat, forced to stare at the ceiling. In the cabinets and drawers on the wall opposite the door, tons of restraints just waited to be used. Nothing so simple as ropes or chains. These fuckers used unbreakable steel alloys.
Drains under the tilting table onto which he’d been strapped collected whatever fluids didn’t run into the sterile bags hanging on the nearby wall. He could only be thankful they’d only gone for blood so far. At the thought of what else they might eventually want, he cringed, knowing it was only a matter of time.
Damn it, I have to get out of here.
A subtle glance around him showed white concrete-block walls, a cement floor, and one wide, metal door caging him. No windows, but a few cameras in the corner of the ceilings afforded viewers this macabre peep show. At the center of it all lay Gideon, strapped to a fucking tilt-a-whirl table.
They kept him horizontal until they wanted to drain him, four white-coat computer nerds typing his every reaction into their computers. He’d overheard a few of them refer to specialties in neuroscience, infection diseases, and bioengineering. Honestly, he couldn’t remember any more, bemused by all their science talk.
They tracked more than just his vitals. The electrodes notched to his temples worried the hell out of him, because he had a bad feeling they already knew he’d been abnormal prior to his abduction.
The nerds, though, he could handle. Once free of the table, he’d deal with the thick-necked guards standing sentry on either side of the secured door too.
The security in the place looked to be top notch, but nothing was infallible.
Doing his best to ignore the blood leaving his body, Gideon nearly vomited when they raised him from a horizontal to a vertical position. His wrists and ankles remained strapped to the table, in bands that had absolutely no give. Not even under the force of the super strength he now possessed.
“He’s healing much faster. Look.” Dr. Edwin Lang, the man in charge, vibrated with excitement as he handed his assistant a long, thick needle. Lang gave the appearance of a man of science. Intelligent blue eyes blazed behind dark glasses. His short, black hair was threaded with silver, and he wore a collared shirt and slacks under his white coat. Professional, smart, and scary as hell because he looked normal.
His assistant, on the other hand... Duane Smith held the needle Lang had given him like a prized treasure. Smith seemed to worship the ground Lang walked on. He appeared to be in his mid to late thirties. Flat brown hair, flat brown eyes, average in every way, until one really looked at him and saw the crazy.
The hypodermic needle he held would have ripped through a regular person’s vein with ease. It was sharp and thicker than normal. Yet Smith had to work to pierce Gideon’s newly layered skin.
Gideon would have appreciated the epidermal armor they’d genetically mutated into him if it didn’t hurt so damn much when they tweaked him.
As it was, whatever they’d just injected him with made it suddenly hard to breathe. Fluid built up in his lungs and he coughed it out, unnerved to see a black, tar-like substance hit the floor while his lungs burned, starved for oxygen. Rumor had it the last guy to cough up the black stuff had died after turning into something…not quite right.
Freaked out but determined not to show it, Gideon held onto his sanity by a thread.
How had a simple no-holds-barred fight turned into a scene straight out of Frankenstein? And how long had he been here? Time in this horror show seemed endless. Had his friends cared that he’d disappeared? Were they in another room being tormented by other white coats?
He resisted the urge to give in to the pain and pass out. He wanted to strike back, to take out the half dozen assholes surrounding him. But strapped as he was to the upright table, he couldn’t do more than glare at the butchers bent on cutting him open. He did manage to contract the muscles in his arm to shove out one of the tubes. A weird ability he now possessed, to use his muscles to manipulate foreign objects in his body. He instinctively sensed what would harm him, yet it took a while for the toxins they injected him with to ooze out from his pores.
Freed from one of the tubes in his arm, his blood spattered in an arc over the coats and goggles of the two doctors conversing on his left. Everyone scrambled back while the tube danced around like a cobra about to strike. An alarm went off, loud and insistent.
He knew exposure to his fluids, when undergoing treatment, was a no-no, ever since the last assistant doused with a spray had convulsed and died within seconds of it hitting his eyes.
Gideon sneered at the scientists racing around, doing damage control. “You wanted my blood? You got it.”
The steel door hissed open, and two people in hazmat suits, accompanied by two more guards, entered.
Gideon’s brain clicked into high gear. Assess the threat. Find a vulnerability. Attack.
A feral, inner voice suggested he rip out some throats and strangle the enemy by their own intestines. Not that Gideon didn’t agree with the sentiment, but that beastly voice scared him. Because it wasn’t his.
Sweat poured down his face while the hazmat guys caught the tube and plugged it up before the blood bag it had been attached to fully drained. Gideon’s arm didn’t need any repairing, though. Thanks to these douches, he healed at a rapid rate.
“What now, sir?” Smith asked, his expression grim. He gave Gideon a look that promised retribution, and the sadist knew how to wield a knife. Though Gideon no longer scarred, it still hurt like a bitch when Smith carved into him.
The hazmat group soon left, but the extra guards remained behind. To Gideon’s aggravation, the one to worry about had joined the crew.
The thugs Dr. Lang called security came in one size—freakin’ large. Muscular, disciplined, and inured to screams and the sight of blood, the guards did nothing more than watch the proceedings with disinterest. The one and only time Gideon had torn a reaction out of them had been on his first escape attempt, when he’d managed to drag sharp fingernails over a guard’s face. Yeah, he now had retractable claws, because destroying him from the inside out was no fun if his changes weren’t visible.
The guard hadn’t recovered. His buddies had returned later that day and beaten Gideon almost to death, back before he’d grown such tough skin and dense bones.
The only reason he’d come out alive—the gray-eyed bastard currently staring at him. The one guy who hadn’t tried to hurt him. They called him Palmer. He was different from the others, an anomaly, hard to figure out. Gideon hated him on sight, especially because he’d swear he’d once caught a glimpse of compassion on the dude’s face.
Palmer, Lang, and Smith were all obstacles to overcome. The other scientists and guards didn’t worry him. He intuitively knew how to take them out of the equation. But those three would be a problem. Dr. Lang had a real boner for finding out what made Gideon tick. Smith, the sick perv, got off on doing as much damage as he could, and he’d taken a real interest in trying to break Gideon. But Palmer worried him the most, because Gideon couldn’t read him.
“Dr. Lang?” Smith asked again. “Would you like me to reattach the line? Or maybe up the dosage of the serum?”
“What is that shit?” Gideon asked, not surprised to hear himself slurring. His tongue felt thick, and his sharpened teeth kept scraping his gums and lips. He tasted copper almost all the time now, and he hated it…as much as some new part of him craved it.
Again with the inner monster. His heart raced, and fear blossomed from the seed rooted inside him.
As usual, when he hit rock bottom, Gideon felt Palmer’s dark gray gaze on him. He raised his head and glared at the fucker, only to see dispassion on the guy’s face, which irritated Gideon even more.
Dr. Lang frowned in thought. “Try the blowtorch.” Blowtorch? “In his current state, I think the new composition of his cells might react even better now.” Lang nodded to Smith, then to Gideon. “You’re a real standout, Gideon. Do you have any idea how quickly you’ve progressed in the short month you’ve been with us?”
That answered one question. Time had no meaning in this place…wherever “this place” was. He had a feeling they’d left Philadelphia far behind.
“Where are the others?” Maybe if he kept them talking, they’d forget about taking a fucking blowtorch to his body. And maybe they’d finally tell him what had happened to his friends, because he had no memory of anything past getting dizzy in the middle of the fight, then this.
He didn’t expect an answer. He hadn’t gotten one since arriving. But Lang surprised him. “Your friends didn’t do as well with their injections.” Shit. They have Ollie and Rod. “Unfortunately, we had to dispose of them.”
Gideon felt his stomach drop.
Smith gave a sly smile. “If it’s any consolation, they’re right here with you.” He moved to the cabinets and grabbed a jar containing what looked like a brain. “Think of this as moral support. Rodriguez solved an important question concerning the serum’s effects.”
Gideon stared in horror at what remained of a friend he’d known since grade school.
“Oliver lasted much longer than any of us could have anticipated, though.”
Lang nodded. “Yes, he had a surprising fortitude we hadn’t expected. But, well, the B series didn’t work with his physiology. He drowned two days ago.”
Gideon could barely hear over the rage building. His friends hadn’t deserted him, hadn’t sold him out either. The poor fuckers were dead.
He strained at his bonds and felt something inside him…change. “Drowned?”
“His lungs filled with fluid, just like yours did. Except Oliver couldn’t manipulate the toxin to his benefit,” Smith explained, almost kindly, and nodded to the black crap near the drains.
Gideon worked his forearms and felt the metal holding him bend.
Before he could free himself, Smith ripped the pants from his body, lit the torch, and stepped toward him with a huge smile on his face.
The bastard was going to die a slow, painful death. Just as soon as Gideon could get himself free. With that thought in mind, he stared into Smith’s face, let that thing inside him see the threat facing them—him—and heard himself growling.
Lang started. “Wait, Duane. Don’t—”
Smith didn’t burn him just anywhere. The asshole torched Gideon’s balls. Agony became his whole world. He saw white while the stench of smoking flesh filled the room.
A few of the scientists gagged. Not content to just emasculate him, Smith burned a familiar pattern up Gideon’s ribs to his chest—Smith’s fucking name.
Oh yeah. We’re hanging this guy by his own intestines, just after I slice his dick off and shove it down his throat.
He growled some more, felt himself bonding to the thing inside him.
Lang seemed fascinated, not at all repelled by the scent making even Gideon cringe.
A glance at the guards showed them finally reacting. Most made a face at the smell. Palmer though, didn’t blink, just stared at Gideon while he suffered.
“Hurry. Get his stats right now. Do you see it?” Lang asked one of his white coats. “I saw it there, in his eyes.”
“That smell is awful,” the guy whined. “Can’t we turn on the fan?”
“Yes, yes. The automatic processes shut down after the hazard alarm, or they would already have turned on. Peters, reset them would you?”
Peters nodded and left.
Sick of being on display, Gideon concentrated and reached inside himself. Not sure how he did it, he somehow communicated with that other part inside him. He’d only reached that thing one other time, and then only by accident. Like turning a switch, he stopped healing. Blistered, bleeding, his vitals rose and fell, all over the place.
He heard Lang swear. “This is tedious, Gideon. I know what you’re doing.”
Gideon refused to play the game. Hell, at this point he welcomed dying just to ruin Lang’s day. God. Rod and Ollie are dead?
“It’ll hurt worse the longer you prolong your recovery.”
He didn’t care. Anything that annoyed Lang and his cronies worked for him.
Lang sighed. “You won’t be able to maintain your state. Your body will automatically begin to regenerate after a time, but fine. Be stubborn. We’re do for a break anyway. Come along, gentlemen,” he said to the others. “Time to see how Elijah and Carter are faring.”
Gideon recognized the names. Elijah Ortiz and Carter Freeman had been two of the big name fighters in that fake tournament. Apparently he hadn’t been the only sucker to fall for Lang’s scheme.
He wouldn’t call them friends. He didn’t know either man well, other than to understand they’d been more than they’d seemed. When he’d sized them both up, he’d sensed they possessed that something he could sense but couldn’t define. The other combatants would have been easy prey. Not Ortiz or Freeman, though.
Gideon refused to heal or revive himself until the doctors left, and he hung in a hazy state of semi-consciousness. His gaze fell on the jar Smith had held. Jesus. Poor Rod. They’d been friends since fourth grade. Two hard-asses with poverty, abusive parents, and no interest in school in common. They’d fought their way through life, until they’d met Ollie and joined his gang. The outlaw motorcycle club had finally made a name for themselves. Gideon, Rod and Ollie had grown tight, part of a family.
Then the Feds had ruined everything. After a few years in jail for running guns, they’d rebuilt themselves. New names, a new career in the underground fighting circuit. They’d gone straight, mostly, except for the gambling. And all for what?
He hated this. Hated the pain, the reminder that though he’d come far, he’d ended up a victim all the same. It was like he’d never left home.
On the verge of real death, that beast inside him forced his body to heal. Unable to stand it, Gideon screamed at the pain. He tried to hold back, but third degree burns and the poisonous serum racing through his system made suffering in silence impossible.
“Loud one, isn’t he?” One of the guards cracked a smile.
“Gotta take a piss,” another said.
“Go. In fact, why don’t you and Yates take your break?” Palmer suggested, his voice deep, authoritative. “I’m hungry. I don’t want to wait ‘til midnight for dinner.”
The guard checked the clock on the wall and nodded. “Will do. You and Pratt got this?”
Pratt nodded. “He’s burnt to a crisp. It’ll take him at least thirty-six hours to be ready to do any kind of real damage again.”
“Give him twenty-four to be safe,” Palmer disagreed. “The last time he recovered from damage this severe, he healed in thirty-six hours. But they’ve been giving him more serum. For all we know he’s getting faster. So we err on the side of caution.”
Yates and the guard left, leaving Palmer and Pratt remaining.
Pratt snorted. “Smith is fucking crazy. Burning the guys balls? Who the hell does that?” Then he ruined any semblance of empathy. “I say waterboard him. Shoot him full of more of that EL13 shit and watch him drown in his own blood.”
“Did you try the serum?” Palmer asked, not concerned in the slightest that Gideon continued to rage, growl and scream as his body healed itself despite the pain making him want to die.
Pratt’s brows went up. “Are you kidding? No way in hell I’d volunteer for that crap. I don’t care what they pay. Becoming a supermerc isn’t worth dying over.”
“Not even for fifty grand?”
Pratt grinned. “Not even. Fifty thou, just to take a few injections?” Pratt laughed. “They said if it didn’t work, I’d get to keep the money and the effects would just wear off. Yeah right.” Pratt was smarter than he looked. “Nothing’s ever free. I figured anyone offering that much to try an experimental drug had to be giving me a line. Have you seen the sorry rejects who took that deal?”
“No, why?”
Pratt’s voice lowered. “They’re all wrong, man. I heard from one of the scientists downstairs that Lang dumps them on an island up north. Imagine being stranded with all those freaks. Jesus.”
Palmer shook his head. “Bad scene.”
“No shit.”
They watched as Gideon healed. He felt their stares, and his inner beast—for lack of a better term—watched them watching. It waited, biding its time. Because what the guards didn’t know was that the creature had helped heal Gideon from the inside out, leaving an outer layer of scorched and burned tissue to fool them into thinking he couldn’t escape.
But he had more strength now than he’d ever had. Gideon curled his fists to hide his emerging claws. Both saddened and furious over his friends’ passing, bewildered at how his life had come full circle, he resolved never to be a victim again. It was time to escape this hellhole.
Or die trying.
Alex Palmer studied the poor bastard hanging limply on the upright table, making sure to keep his expression wiped clear of anything resembling emotion. He had to appear impartial to anything the doctors did. Katie’s life depended on it. But God, it wasn’t easy.
The shit going down at U-Ground Services boggled the mind. The transportation company was a front for an experimental laboratory funded by some of the richest, most immoral people in the world. Man, it just figured his sister would find her dream job here, at this front for hell.
On paper, U-Ground seemed perfect. In reality, it used previously-funded government projects that had been scrapped years ago and made serious cash with a security force that couldn’t be beaten. Instead of the psychic supersoldiers the government had planned to create, they’d make super mercs. Mercenaries who could withstand bullets, heal themselves, and kill with the swipe of their claws or blast of their minds.
Except the government had abandoned their projects because too many people had been harmed in the process.
Originally called Project Dawn, the operation had involved military folks injected with a serum that recombined their DNA and accelerated new cell growth. Unfortunately, only a small percentage reacted favorably to the serum. The Circe’s Recruits squad had successfully turned into hulk-like beasts with toughened skin, fangs and claws. They helped save lives.
The unfortunate majority of the initial subjects of Project Dawn had denigrated into violent, mindless creatures who killed for sport. And so the failed test subjects had been hunted down and destroyed after their rampages came to light.
To make matters worse, the original doctor who’d headed the project, Elliot Pearl, had ventured off on his own and started over. He’d created new batches of monsters, what he called Circs. The new Circs had seemed to fare better, getting most of the benefits of the serum with few drawbacks. Until the mutations started.
Uncle Sam had finally realized they needed to permanently shut down the horror they’d helped build. According to the classified documents Katie had gotten her hands on, the illegal lab and head scientists had been shut down and disposed of.
It should have been the end of it. Except Dr. Edwin Lang, one of Elliot Pearl’s interns so many years ago, had decided to start his own lab.
What were the odds Katie would find all this classified information and let him know? A coincidence? After four months searching for her and still not finding her, only receiving the occasional text, he didn’t know what to think. But he knew one thing—it was time to end this charade.
“Hey, Pratt. I need to make a call.” He leaned closer, his eyes on the cameras mounted above, and whispered, “I’m in the doghouse with my lady. If I want to see any pussy when I get home, I need to do some smooth talking. I’ll just be a minute.”
Pratt smirked. “Go ahead. God knows you need to get laid. Take that stick out of your ass, finally.” They both glanced at Gideon Spencer, who remained unmoving. “He isn’t going anywhere.”
Though it went against protocol to only have one guard present at a time, Alex chanced it. He punched in the code and stepped right outside. Then, instead of using the company phone, he texted his sister on the cell phone he wasn’t supposed to have inside the compound.
Katie, enough. You’ve done all you can. Get your ass to ground. I can’t wait any longer. Honey, please. Disappear. It’s going down now. Call me when you get this.
He heard nothing. But then, she only communicated on her timetable, whatever the hell that was.
Then he sent another text, knowing this one he couldn’t take back. Once he sent it, all hell would break loose. 23:30. A go. South gate. 2-4-5-5-8. Extract for 4. Pocketing his phone, Alex walked back inside, only to see Pratt fucking with Gideon.
“Hey, get away from him.” Alex frowned.
Pratt pushed a button to slide the table back to a horizontal plane. Then he pushed another, rocking Gideon up and down, and no doubt screwing with the guy’s already frazzled brain.
“Pratt, come on. He’s got to heal so the docs can work with him later. You know how pissed off they get when the subjects aren’t functioning.”
Pratt sighed. “Whatever.” Then he smirked and withdrew a large knife from a side sheath strapped to his leg. “But this guy heals awful fast, and I don’t—” His eyes grew wide. His lips parted, and a gurgle of shock escaped.
Alex noticed something sharp poking through Pratt’s left side.
“Oh, shit.” Alex leapt forward, but it was too late. Gideon Spencer had one of his hands free from the supposedly unbreakable restraints. That hand was tipped with claws and buried deep in the small of Pratt’s back.
Gideon’s fist pushed through, gripping a mass of bloodied guts, then he ripped it back and laughed.
And the sound was anything but human.