Blood Victory
The Black Hawk is lifting off above the parched landscape of Marjorie Payne’s ranch when their angle shifts and the bright-orange sunlight reflecting off the windows of Cole’s personal helicopter leaves the glass. Now she can see inside the passenger compartment, where a familiar face is watching the Black Hawk rise into the dawn.
It’s been six months since she’s heard his voice, even longer since she’s laid eyes on him. Once she called him Dr. Thorpe; then, when they became more comfortable with each other, Dylan. Then, after he tricked her into taking a drug that could have killed her, he became a nameless monster until his real name was revealed to her. Noah Turlington.
Luke falls silent when he realizes what she’s seen.
When she looks to him for an explanation, he says, “Yeah, there’s also that.”
And Charley realizes she might not be too tired for anger after all.
42
Lebanon, Kansas
“Sit,” Charlotte says.
Noah Turlington obeys.
Leave it to Cole to lace the grounds around his top-secret command center with paved walking trails and little clusters of benches shaded by sycamore trees like the one she’s sitting under now. While most of the vast farmland next to the airstrip is just empty fields, these landscape ornamentations around the hangar and the main house will mislead unwanted visitors into believing this place is a corporate retreat dropped in the middle of America’s rural heart. Although with Cole’s levels of security, she has trouble imagining unwanted visitors getting anywhere near here.
Noah’s windbreaker is more suited to the cool breeze kissing the property than the heavy woolen blanket Charlotte wears over her shoulders. But ever since they finished her examination in the infirmary, she’s been clutching it for security, not warmth.
Luke offered to attend this uncomfortable sit-down with her, and while she appreciated the gesture, she needs to do this one alone.
“He says you helped,” she finally says.
“Cole said this?”
“No, Santa Claus.”
“I see. So we’re going to do sarcasm.”
“Dr. Turlington, it will be a very long time before I’m interested in what you think of my tone.”
Noah bows his head and clears his throat. What he cleared it for, she’s not quite sure, because he doesn’t say anything further. Maybe he realizes he overstepped and got this meeting off on the wrong foot.
“You weren’t supposed to be here,” she finally says. “Ever. That was the deal I made with him.”
“With Santa Claus, you mean.”
When she glares at him, he gives her a smile that’s probably earned him far too many things he doesn’t deserve. Fine. She’d prefer charm over condescending superiority. If it’s a choice between one or the other. But does it have to be? She’s the one who called this meeting, after all.
“Well, he’s kind of like that for us, isn’t he?” Noah asks. “The man who makes all our dreams come true.”
“I’m not sure I’d call this a dream.”
“I didn’t say it was a pleasant dream. It’s just beyond the realm of the everyday, that’s all.”
“Sure, OK.”
“Charley, can we . . .”
“Can we what?”
“Can we maybe agree on some sort of suitable punishment I can go through? Some benchmark I can meet that will satisfy you in some way? I mean, unless we’re all going to find some way to call it quits, which I don’t recommend, we’re going to have to work together somehow.”
“I didn’t agree to work with you. You were supposed to be off in some lab trying to turn your drug into something Cole could actually sell to the world. I was working with him, not you.”
“Because he’s a saint and I’m not?” Noah asks.
“Because he didn’t almost kill me in Arizona. You did.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“You can’t forgive me for lying to you, and I don’t expect you to.”
“That sounds about right.”
“Good. Then in light of that, maybe you can stop asking me to apologize since you’re never going to accept any apology I give.”
“I don’t need an apology.”
“What, then?” he asks.
“Answers.”
“Fine.”
“The woman you tested Zypraxon on before me, after you left Graydon.”
“I didn’t leave Graydon. I was forced out.”
“You weren’t. Cole didn’t fire you. He just shut down your labs.”
“That’s Cole’s version.”
“Stop deflecting. The woman you tested it on before me. Who was she?”
“I’d rather not discuss this.” He’s staring right at her when he says this, a poor attempt to make it seem like some empowered assertion of selfhood rather than a curt dismissal.
“I bet you wouldn’t. There’s a lot I wouldn’t have discussed with you back in Arizona if I’d known who you really were.”
“That’s fair, I guess.”
“You guess? You spent months picking my brain, trying to find anything that could let you manipulate me into taking your drug. And now you’re going to stonewall me?”
“Here’s the answer you want.” The charm’s gone. So’s any pretense of cold remove. There’s an intensity in his eyes that seems genuine. “I didn’t know you’d live. I’d love to make up a story about how I’d fine-tuned Zypraxon to the point where I was sure it wouldn’t be a risk. But that would be a lie, and I’ve told you enough lies.
“I had a theory, a theory that was mostly conjecture. Every test subject until then, every one, including the woman before you, had experienced violent physical trauma throughout their lives. It was the one thing every failed test had in common, and it suggested their neural pathways might have been altered in similar obstructive ways. You hadn’t. You’d been near violence, but it had been hidden from you. You were never the direct victim of it. But none of that was enough to make me confident you’d survive the test. That’s not why I picked you.”
“Then why?” she asks.
“I picked you because of what it would mean if you did survive. Not just because the drug had finally worked, but because of who you were. I knew you’d see the potential. You’d be my ally, and together we would change the world. And I was almost right.”
“Is that what we’re doing?” she asks. “Changing the world?”
“Ask Zoey Long.”
He’s given her some version of these answers before, but up until now he’s always overstated how confident he was she’d survive her first dose. Should she count that admission as a victory? Is there ever going to be any such thing as a victory when it comes to Noah Turlington?
“If you’re going to change the world with someone, you should ask them first,” she says.
“Noted,” he says with a nod.
“Cole should have asked me before he brought you here.”
“I think he could benefit from hearing that.”
“He did. In no uncertain terms.”