Chapter Eighteen
Lucan stepped out of the alley and toward his bike. Something was wrong. A strange sweet chemical odor filled the air. He could smell Jamie everywhere, along with the noxious and all-too-familiar smell of pepper spray.
Nikon stood near his bike, waiting for him, looking just as confused as he was.
“Where is she?” Lucan said. He could hear the panic rising in his voice, but there was no hiding it.
If a mind-controlled person had gone after Jamie before, they could go after her again. It also wasn’t a good sign that he’d just run into one of them.
Nikon shook his head and held up Jamie’s purse and pepper spray.
Lucan smelled the cap.
“She sprayed it,” he said, looking down the road in both directions. There was no sign of her anywhere.
He pulled out his contacts. He could see better without the damn disguise anyway. Another search of the area revealed nothing.
“I must have just missed them,” Nikon said from beside him. “They can’t have gotten far.”
Lucan could feel the beast in him raging for his woman. She was in danger, and he didn’t even know where to start looking. He should have just stayed there and watched for her instead of chasing after the woman. She had just led him away.
He growled. That was probably their damn plan.
“We have to find her,” Lucan said.
Nikon dialed Cato. A second later, he explained the situation.
After a few moments, he turned to Lucan. “Her phone?”
Lucan rifled through her purse, but the phone wasn’t in there anywhere. He shook his head.
“Good,” Nikon said. “They’re running a trace on it. We’ll find her.”
A text came over the line after a moment with the address. Nikon rattled it off, and Lucan entered it into the mapping app on his phone.
“It’s a building on the other side of town,” Lucan said. He shook his head and clenched his fists. “We need to get there. Now.”
* * *
Jamie’s head throbbed as she opened her eyes. Her mouth was dry, and it felt like she’d been drinking all night but was still drunk.
“It will wear off soon.”
She lulled her head to the side and sought out the voice.
Aaron sat across from her in a chair, his hand crossed over his stomach and leg on one knee, like he was watching his favorite TV show or something.
Slowly she sat up on the couch and looked around. They were in some sort of brick room, but the cracks, dirt, and webs suggested the building had seen better days.
Jamie tried to focus on her surroundings, but it was hard when she was so fucking thirsty.
Aaron snapped his fingers, and the woman she had seen before stood in front of her. Her outstretched hand contained two blue pills and a glass with clear liquid.
Jamie stared at it and then at him.
“It’s for your head. Just painkillers and water.”
The thumping wasn’t going to just go away, and she needed the water. It was better to take the risk. If he wanted to kill her, he would have already done it.
“Where are we?” she croaked out. She only hoped that Lucan realized she’d been taken.
She swallowed the pills and water.
Aaron chuckled.
“Well, I guess you’d call it my secret facility,” he said. “I’m like a super hero that way.”
She could see by the way he puffed out his chest that he must really think of himself in that way.
“You’re responsible for the mind control.” Jamie narrowed her eyes.
“One of my greatest projects. This is the main control facility, even though I have to use local signal boosts against those filthy creatures in the town that contains their little zoo, but this is really the important place, the front line against the enemies of humanity. If I’m kind of like a super hero, then they are super villains.”
Jamie scowled. “So, yeah, you’re a super hero who blows up innocent people.”
Aaron placed his foot on the floor and leaned in toward her. “Sometimes sacrifices must be made for science, and in war, there is always collateral damage.”
She glanced around again. The room was full of crates and barrels, but she didn’t see much that looked all that scientific to her. What she did see was a lot of people standing like rigid statues.
“What’s wrong with them?” She licked her lips before turning to look at him again.
The stupid pervert took the chance to stare at her chest again.
“They’re awaiting orders.”
“Orders?”
Aaron cleared his throat, stood, and placed her phone on the desk.
“The hybrid should be here soon if he’s actually smart enough to figure it out. Which is a big if.”
Her heart thumped wildly in her chest. “Leave Lucan out of this.”
Aaron sat on the couch beside her. “I’m afraid he has to be taken out now,” he said. She shivered when he traced a finger along her shoulder and then her arm. “He’s too much of a threat now that he’s… been with you.”
“You don’t have to do this. You could just let me go.” She whimpered.
His hand clamped down on her wrist and yanked her forward. She stared into his crazed eyes.
“Why? So you can go back and fuck that filthy animal? So you can betray your species?”
“Please,” she whispered.
Aaron seemed to gain some control over himself. He leaned back and stared at her with the same cold eyes as before.
“You know it wasn’t supposed to be this way,” he said. “I was just going to study you. Maybe use you to tempt out some of those animals for capture. But then…”
Aaron’s eyes softened, and he brought his other hand up to trace the line of her chin with his thumb.
“But then I met you. And everything changed.”
He leaned forward. She tried to lean away from him, but his hand let go of her arm, only to wrap around her neck.
Aaron pressed his mouth to hers as he forced his body over hers, shoving them both down onto the couch.
Jamie hit and scratched him only to have his hands pin hers above her head.
It was then she did the only thing she could do.
She bit him. Hard.
Aaron pulled away, blood running from his mouth as he looked down at her.
He spat to the side and grinned. Not exactly the reaction she was hoping for.
“You’ve got spirit,” he said. “It’s what I love about you. We’ll be perfect together. As soon as you get your implant, everything is going to be just perfect.”
Jamie struggled harder against him. She finally managed to pull her leg free enough to ram between his legs.
“Fuck,” he grunted.
The back of his hand cracked against the side of her cheek.
Jamie stared at him as tears welled in her eyes. The pain pumped through her face.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. Just cooperate, and I won’t have to hurt you.”
Aaron leaned down again and placed kisses against the spot where he’d hit her. He moved himself firmly in between her legs.
“We just need to make you forget him, and it will all be better.”
Jamie sobbed now and stared up at the woman standing next to her.
“Help me,” she whispered.
The woman only stared blankly down at her.