Chapter Three
The sun dipped over the horizon and only made it harder to see in the old and abandoned mill. The place hadn’t hosted workers in years, but recently it’d served as a facility to help make innocent people susceptible to mind control.
Small pieces of debris and tiny remnants of old equipment littered the ground, most of which looked to be from the commercial days. Even for a super-human like himself, it was a challenge to tell what could be useful or might provide any insight into their enemies and their plans.
Lucan had tossed every square inch of the place and turned up nothing useful. Hours of searching for squat. It didn’t help that the government had already sent in dozens of men before the hybrids could really take a good look.
Even then, from what he could find out from Colonel Hall, the government people hadn’t exactly found a treasure-trove of evidence. They’d found a few syringes and pieces of equipment here and there, but nothing to prove a major and sinister mind-control operation had operated out of the place.
Hell, if they’d found all the equipment, the general wouldn’t be demanding they run around proving the case.
Something about the whole situation bothered Lucan. When had the Group gotten so clean? At least, they all assumed the Group was involved. He doubted some other random organization would be so hell-bent on using experimental technologies to fuck with the hybrids.
Lucan had never known their scientists to be like this before. Most left shit everywhere when they bailed on a place. Usually piles and piles of data. Or for that matter, people.
After all the Luna Lodge hybrids had been left to rot and die when the authorities had come close to discovering their facility. And yet this place had been cleaned up before they’d had a chance to find much of anything that could be used against the Group.
Frustration ran through him. He was sick of going up against these people and coming back empty-handed. Just once he’d like to see the hybrids get a real win that didn’t result in his people being public enemy number one in the news and more government troops being sent to watch them.
Lucan picked up the chair sitting next to him and tossed it at the wall. It clattered against the wooden door frame and landed hard on the floor next to it. The chair cracked in half from the force.
“Fuck,” he roared.
Several birds that had been roosting overhead fluttered out the holes in the ceiling.
He stopped, focusing and listening for a moment.
In his anger, he nearly missed the sound: a small ting of metal that echoed through the room. He’d barely heard it, and he was a hybrid. A human would have missed it.
He carefully looked around the room before focusing on the area near the door. A small key lay on the floor. It definitely wasn’t there before. He’d knocked it loose from its hiding space.
Lucan picked up the key and stared at it. Apparently the government people weren’t as thorough as he thought.
He didn’t really care. More than anything, he cared that they now finally had some sort of concrete lead.
Lucan turned the key over in his hand.
11203.
The numbers were written clearly across the key with US Post on the back. Maybe a post office box?
Lucan looked over the key a bit more, trying to make sure it wasn’t hiding any more surprises. It seemed odd that the people behind the mind-control operation would rely on something like a post office box, but it wasn’t like anyone had a clear understanding of what sort of strategies they used.
When his further inspection revealed no hidden trickery or secrets, he decided the key was exactly what it appeared to be.
He pulled out his phone and started looking at nearby post offices. It couldn’t be that far away, or it wouldn’t be useful at all.
Lucan chuckled. It was his lucky day. Only one of the post offices had a number that matched the key.
He glanced at the time on his phone. It was two towns away. He’d be cutting it close, but it was the only lead they had.
He dialed Cato. A second later the call connected.
“I think I found something,” Lucan said into the phone, as he made his way quickly back to his motorcycle out front.
“What?” Cato said, genuine surprise in his voice.
“It’s a key to a post office box. Might not be anything, but I’m going to check it out now.”
“A key? They managed to miss a key?”
“It was hidden.”
“Okay. You want backup? I could send Nikon.”
Lucan hopped onto his bike. “Nah, let him mend. I’ve got this.”
Cato sighed. Lucan knew the stress of being leader was already starting to weigh on him. Knowing his men were suffering and there wasn’t anything he could do didn’t sit well with any man of action, let alone a hybrid.
“He keeps asking for an assignment,” Cato said. “I just don’t know what to do with his anger.” Cato sighed again. “I can’t send him out when he’s like this. He’ll just make new problems.”
“He just needs time,” Lucan said.
Cato grunted. “I’m not so sure that’s all it will take.”
Lucan struggled to find the right words, but he just wasn’t a second-in-command who was good at these things. The best way he could help was to find out who was responsible for the attack that had cost Nikon his brother and take them out of the equation.
“Okay, stay sharp,” Cato said. “No telling what you’re walking into with all the shit going on. Do whatever you can to not fight anyone in town, mind-controlled or not. You never know. This could be a trap.”
“Got it.”
Lucan hung up and placed the phone in his pocket.
Cato wasn’t wrong. It could be a plant. With as clean as the place was, it could just as easily be something they meant for them to find to lead the hybrids on a wild goose chase. Either way, though, he had to check it out.
He hit the clutch on his bike and revved the engine before taking off.
* * *
“Shit, the creeper is back for you,” Jamie said.
May wrinkled her perfect small nose and tossed her soft blond hair over her shoulder. The twenty-year old was the wet dream of nearly every college meathead within a five-mile radius, and she liked to let everyone know as often as she could.
Jamie only thought of dunking her perfect head in the toilet about a dozen times a night.
“He’s all yours, Jamie,” May said, and sniffed. Last time he was in, he called me vapid, whatever that means.”
Jamie had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing. She wasn’t fond of Aaron, and he for sure was creepy, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be right about May.
Jamie was fairly certain the only thing of substance May ever talked about was her favorite margarita flavor, which was apparently strawberry. Also her favorite condom flavor as well.
There was no such thing as TMI when it came to May. She seemed to think her opinions were obviously of interest to everyone around her.
“It’s fine, May, you just take bathrooms.”
The girl opened her mouth and huffed loudly. “I don’t do toilets.”
Jamie rolled her eyes. Then, a moment later, she gave May a sly smile. “Funny how you had no problem doing Jake in them last night.”
The cooks in the back laughed at her burn. Jamie took more than a small amount of satisfaction as May stomped off.
Feeling slightly better, she turned to where Aaron sat at the front of the pub. Her stomach lurched as the perv leered at her from across the room.
“You can do this,” she whispered, and walked over to the table, smile firmly in place. She stopped alongside the table. “What can I get you tonight, Aaron?”
He insisted she call him by his name. The creep seemed to get off on it.
“What would you suggest?”
He leaned in, almost suggestively, his eyes pinned to her chest.
Jamie bit the inside of her cheek. Trying to refrain from opening her big mouth like she normally would got harder and harder with each day.
Most men looked. Hell, she wore the low shirt so they would.
But most men also had the decency to look away when they’d been caught. Not Aaron. He only held her eye like he was suggesting something she wanted no part of.
“The special is the pot roast, and it’s fantastic,” she said.
He stared at her chest for a little longer before meeting her eyes. “Whatever you think is best.”
Jamie pressed her lips together as she wrote on her pad. “Pot roast it is,” she said, and turned around.
She knew he was still staring at her, but his gaze had moved to her ass. He always did when he was in the pub. Every. Damn. Day.
Jamie tore off the ticket and slapped it in the window. She glanced over out of the corner of her eye and found his eyes still on her and shivered.
“I hope I never get old,” May said as she placed a ticket on the counter next to hers. “Especially if that’s what I have to look forward to.”
Jamie ground down on her teeth. Old?
She snorted loudly. “You couldn’t even pass your film class,” Jamie spat out. “Welcome to your fate.”
May frowned as the guys in the back whistled. “I don’t understand.”
Jamie laughed in her face this time. She was over being nice today. Two more hours, and she was out for two days.
“That seems to be a constant state for you,” she said.
Jamie walked away, fist bumping herself mentally. So maybe she was being childish, but there was only so much crap a person could take before they snapped, and she figured this was better than giving the shit a swirly.