Page 78 of Unchained

Brooks rolled up his sleeve and locked the sick doctor in a death stare.

Leonetti pulled a syringe from his lab coat. Popping the cap off, he shrugged. He approached, grabbed Brooks’s bicep, and brought the needle to his skin. “Any last words?”

Brooks twisted his mouth to the side. “Yeah.” He flexed his forearm, ready for the rush of adrenaline and pain that would make his flesh feel as if it were stripping off the bone. “Fuck you.”

Anger filled his every pore. He’d survive this. He had to.

CHAPTER 24

Leonetti plunged the needle into Brooks’s arm and depressed the pump. The serum filled his veins, ice cold, followed by searing heat. He sucked in a breath. Each tendon in his body curled into a tight knot. His blood pressure galloped, sending alarm through his nervous system. A thick fog rolled over his vision. He let out a deep, guttural groan as he moved away from Leonetti and scrambled for support. His hands caught the cool, smooth metal of the medical table. His legs shook as blood surged to his muscles, turning them solid.

“Brooks! Help him, dammit!” A man’s screams echoed through Brooks’s head, the sound amplified by his elevated senses.

Brooks exhaled as the fire blazed through him then slowly ebbed away. The cloud over his sight drifted into the distance. He sucked in a mouthful of air, filling every cell in his body with oxygen. Adrenaline blasted along his nerve endings. He straightened away from the table and turned.

Leonetti’s arrogant smirk widened. “Well done, thirty-six.”

Brooks’s mind sucked him back into the past, to the shivering, helpless man he’d been under Leonetti’s care. Every encouraging word fed him like a full-course meal, reminding him that he wasn’t his own person while under Axalantheum’s power. Some twisted part of his brain thrived on taking orders, on accomplishing a task—no matter how bloody.

His body fell into sync with his new, accelerated heart rate. Every inhale came from deep in his lungs, slower and more even than his regular breathing. His mind cleared, and his every sense was on high alert, ready to attack. He turned to face Leonetti and cracked his neck to the side. The buzz of energy in his body needed release or it would consume him.

Leonetti beamed. “Now for your first task—kill the enemy.”

Brooks shifted his gaze to a man standing several feet away. A guard held a gun to his head. Familiarity struck him, but he couldn’t place a name or memory to the face.

The man’s skin turned gray. He looked from Leonetti to Brooks then shook his head. “What the—” Wetting his lips, he blinked. “Brooks. You know me.”

Brooks? Flashes of that name hit his memory bank like a solar flare. Indecision warred inside him.

“Thirty-six! Now!”

As if a whip had been cracked, all the memories his mind was trying to hold slipped away from him. He advanced on the enemy.

Crack!

A bullet whizzed through the room, and the guard holding the gun to the enemy’s head yelped as the bullet hit his throat. He went down faster than a hunted animal. Brooks located the shooter at the front of the tent. Dark hair and dark eyes met his stare.

Crack!

The second bullet took out the other guard in the tent.

“Hey!” Leonetti raised his hands, a hysterical note making his voice screech.

Brooks blinked.

“Th-Thirty-six!” Leonetti spluttered. “A-Attack!”

A sharp ringing sounded inside Brooks’s head. He grabbed his ear and winced as the sound got louder. Something wasn’t right. Confusion made his heart rate slow. He needed orders. Needed the confident, unwavering tone of the man who wielded power over him.

A firm hand caught Brooks’s shoulder, pulling him out of the thick cloud that was closing around his ears. “Brooks, it’s me. Nash. I’m Lexi’s fiancé.”

Brooks stared into the man’s gray eyes. Recognition hit him. Memories slid back into his mind, replacing the commands Leonetti had given him.

“We need to find Cam and get out of here. I overheard Leonetti call for backup earlier. If more guards arrive, we’ll be outnumbered,” Nash said.

“He okay?” a man’s deep voice asked.

Brooks jerked his head to the dark-haired man who was holding a gun aimed at the ground. His aloof unfriendliness struck Brooks. Recollection pummeled his brain. These men were new in his life, but he knew them. Axalantheum erased a lot of images from his head, and he had to work to hang on to the important ones.

---