Chapter Thirty-Nine
It wasn’t the first time Jean-Luc woke up to find himself hungover, naked, and strapped to a bed. He hoped it wouldn’t be the last—well at least as far as the naked and strapped to the bed part went, because that particular kink he very much enjoyed. If Claire was into it, he hoped to try some bondage as their relationship progressed.
But his current situation? Not kinky, not sexy. Nope. It sucked.
His head ached like it had while he was infected. His mouth felt like he’d spent the last several hours chewing on sand. The hospital bed he was strapped to might as well have been a slab of rock.
Actually, he’d slept on rocks before. They were more comfortable.
His first thought when he opened his eyes was, another damn hospital. But then he began to focus, his fuzzy brain coming back online. If this was a hospital room, it wasn’t like one he’d ever seen. Because damned if that wall of tools didn’t look like it belonged in a torture chamber. One of the walls had a mirror-like sheen. He lifted his head, and couldn’t see anything but his own reflection. A one-way mirror.
Was the bastard with the pock-scarred face on the other side?
And what had he done with Claire? If he found out she was strapped down in some other room like this, cold and humiliated, he’d rain hellfire down on their captors, and didn’t care if he had to break every bone in his body to get free and do it.
He wiggled a little, testing the straps. No give at all. Yeah, it was gonna hurt getting out of these babies. He could do it, though. He could be fucking Houdini when he needed to be.
A door opened behind him and he twisted his head around as much as possible to see who it was. He released a breath in a whoosh of relief.
“Claire!”
She wore a surgical mask, gloves, and a white lab coat over pale blue scrubs. She didn’t acknowledge him. Instead, she walked over to the machines monitoring his vitals and wrote something down on the clipboard in her hands.
“Claire? Are you all right?”
She said nothing, only crossed to his bed and studied the healed knife wound on his arm. She took notes like he was a lab specimen. All cool and clinical.
“Ma belle, please.” He wasn’t proud of it, but his voice broke. She was killing him with this dispassionate act as surely as if she was stabbing him in the chest. “Talk to me.”
She finally looked at him, and there—there was his Claire. She was utterly terrified.
“Oh, cher. What did he do to you?”
Her eyes swam with tears. She gave a small shake of the head and flicked her gaze toward the one-way mirror. She leaned over and shone a light in his eyes, and something fell on the sheet near his hand. He closed his fingers around a paperclip.
God love the woman.
Continuing the exam, she leaned in close to his ear. “Ostermann created the virus. He wants to infect you again to test Akeso. Get out.”
Hell no. He wasn’t going anywhere without her, and he tried to catch her gaze to make sure she was aware of that fact. But she didn’t look at him again. She finished writing something on her clipboard and walked out without a backward glance.
…
Claire released her breath in a ragged rush as the door to Jean-Luc’s cell clanked shut behind her. She would not cry. Could not cry. Her best—only—option was to follow along with Ostermann’s crazy plan, or else she’d end up strapped to a table, too. Then she absolutely wouldn’t be able to help Jean-Luc.
She sucked in a breath, pushed her shoulders back, and straightened her lab coat. Pulled herself together. She had to be coolheaded to pull this off. All icy, clinical observation. No emotion. That’s what Ostermann expected, and she’d play it up.
She stepped into the observation area and made herself keep her gaze focused on Ostermann. She wouldn’t look through the window at Jean-Luc. If she did, her mask might crack.
Ostermann stood over a table filled with the reports and images she’d pulled from Jean-Luc’s MSF medical file. He indicated the progression of photos showing the knife wound on Jean-Luc’s arm from the day he’d first arrived at the hospital to the day she’d taken out his stitches. “I’m fascinated by his arm. How long did you say he had the stitches?”
“Only a few days.”
“With a knife wound that deep and infected? And he’s already healed?”
“Yes. Accelerated healing appears to be an unforeseen side effect of Akeso.”
“Absolutely incredible.” He turned and she inwardly flinched at the fascination in his eyes. “Dr. Oliver, do you realize what you’ve done here? You’ve not only created a panacea—you’ve pioneered your own eugenics program. The recipients of our project will be healthier, and heal faster. Humans will be superior in every way.”
Her skin crawled. She didn’t know how, but she managed to keep her disgust out of her voice. “How do you plan to choose? There are millions of people in the world.”
“I’ve already started.” He picked up a tablet, opened a file on it, and passed it to her. “Only the best and the brightest made the final cut.”
She swiped through the photos, hesitating only briefly when she recognized Dr. Jürgen Nacht. The young, groundbreaking geneticist had vanished from his apartment in Frankfurt shortly before he was meant to speak at the Infectious Diseases Summit in Martinique. His disappearance had caused unease in the scientific community, but then Martinique had happened, and he’d been all but forgotten.
She set the tablet aside. “They’ve all agreed to take part in this?”
“I didn’t give them a choice like I did you, but they will see the logic, just as you did.”
“Are they here?” She was surprised her voice came out so steady and calm while she quaked inside.
“Some of them. I suspect the rest will come willingly once I put the plan into motion.”
He had an undetermined number of people held hostage somewhere in this castle? Oh, God. “Where are they? I’d like to examine them, make sure they’re all healthy enough.” Keep him talking, Claire. Find out as much as you can. You can do this. “Will your bodyguards be included?”
He tsked. “We’re only selecting the best humanity has to offer. Those men are little more than thugs. Completely expendable.”
“How many in total do you plan to save? I need to know how much Akeso to develop. Enough for…thousands?”
He waved a hand dismissively. “You’re thinking too big. It will only take one hundred and sixty people to repopulate the earth.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that theory, but it is only a theory,” she said carefully, wondering how far she should push him. “There are concerns such a small population would suffer a damaging decrease in genetic diversity. There are too many variables involved in reproduction.”
“That’s why I’ve secured two geneticists. They’ll help us avoid that pitfall.” She had the feeling he’d have patted her on the head if she were standing close enough for him to reach. “You didn’t think I’d let the future of the human race be determined by something as base and animalistic as sex? No. All of the children in the New World will be created in a lab, using only the best genes.”
He was deluded if he thought people would abstain from sex, and sex inevitably led to babies. What would he do with naturally conceived children in this new world of his? She shuddered to think.
She had to stall. Somehow. She looked through the window at Jean-Luc. “It’ll take a while to produce enough Akeso for that many people.”
“Then you had better get to work, Dr. Oliver,” Ostermann said simply. “I have a schedule to maintain. You have three weeks before I release the first wave of viruses.”
Three weeks. Her hands grew slick with sweat as she watched him walk away. Twenty-one days before he released the viruses—plural? What others had he manufactured besides Delta Hemorrhagic Fever? And how on earth was she going to stop him?
She couldn’t do it alone. She needed Jean-Luc and his team.