Page 31 of Black Bay Protector
Frustrated, he ground his molars together. “So what’s next?”
The General opened his mouth to speak, but whatever he was going to say was forestalled by his phone ringing. Grumbling, he picked it up. “General Davies here.”
Jace was about to turn to Paige, to see if she needed anything when he heard the General say, “Are you fucking shitting me?” In a low voice, he muttered, “Christ, she’s like a ghoul who hears her name and appears.” With a grimace of distaste, he barked, “I’m on my way.”
When the General hung up, they didn’t have to prompt him, he volunteered the information readily. With a disbelieving shake of his head he told them, “If you can believe it, one Doctor Anne Dietrich just arrived at the main tunnel and is demanding to be let in.”
Jace’s initialwhat the fuckreaction was quickly supplanted by a savage sense of exhilaration. They had her. Finally. And she’d come right to their front door. ‘“Will you walk into my parlor?” said the Spider to the Fly’… “By all means, let her come in.”
Anne’s flight had been exhausting. Forced to fly economy, she’d been stuck next to some lard ass that overflowed his seat, encroaching into her space, and reeked of body odor. That, combined with a fussy baby toward the back of the plane that had screamed almost the entire flight, and her nerves were raw. Then, finding this place had been a lesson in frustration. Google had been no help. She couldseethe island in the distance, she just didn’t know how to get to it. There were no ferries or charters to take someone across. Blind luck had her stumbling upon the tunnel entrance and only because she’d been searching for hours for some way to access Black Bay.
Now, she was sitting just inside the mouth of a tunnel. The gates had closed and locked behind her as her rental car had been scanned, and a thick concrete wall was in front of her, boxing her in, while she waited for some General someone or other to give her permission to seeherexperiments. They were hers! She would not be denied. If it came down to it, she’d swim across if that was her only option.
Finally, the concrete wall slid open, allowing her entrance. Hitting the gas, she moved forward through the dark tunnel, her headlights illuminating the way. There were plenty of cameras along the route, monitoring her progress, as well as a few stations similar to the one where she’d first been questioned as to her reason for being there, but the screens stayed mercifully blank as she continued her journey.
Anticipation filled her, superseding any tiredness from the flight or earlier frustration. She was about to see the fruits of her labor, her life’s work. After all this time…
The tunnel angled upward, and she saw the light at the end, a beacon welcoming her to Black Bay. Anne drove faster, eager to reach it. A slight bump as she went from the tunnel’s interior onto a paved road and she kept going. She could see them just ahead. A group of soldiers, tall and strong, were waiting for her. And they were her soldiers. The government was utilizing them just as she’d always intended.
Stopping the car, she put it in park but didn’t bother to shut off the engine, too impatient to do more than unclip her seatbelt and stumble from the vehicle. Those faces. Stern, unforgiving at the moment, but oh so familiar. Anne almost wept. Her experiment had been a phenomenal success, but also, a complete failure. She’d created them to be faster, stronger, more predatory, and hard to kill. In that, she’d succeeded. But she’d also created them to be expendable. A dog of war that no one would love, no one would miss, and no one would mourn when they were gone. In that, she’d failed spectacularly.Sheloved them. And she had missed them. And when she’d thought they had been terminated she had mourned them as only a mother could.
“I have missed you so,” she breathed almost reverently as she drank in the sight of her children. More than one of them was snarling, showing their fangs. Several were growling, and all of their postures were aggressive.
An older man dressed in military fatigues stepped in front of her and blocked her way forcing her to stop before she ran into him. Nor would he let her maneuver around him to see her children. “Welcome to Black Bay, ma’am.”
The greeting sounded sincere, but when she looked up into his eyes, his gaze was flinty and cold.
“Since we intend for you to stay for quite some time, we’re going to set you up with some nice accommodations,” the man informed her. “Hell, it might even make you nostalgic since it’s a windowless room just like the ones these guys lived in under your care.”
She blew him off, flicking her hand as if to shoo away an annoying gnat. “Fine. Now I want to speak to my children.”
The man gave a disbelieving bark of laughter. “Yourchildren?” He shook his head. “You are one sick bitch.”
That got her attention. Looking him over with condescension, she took in the four stars on his shirt that marked him as a general and sneered. “Sick?”
“You took babies and locked them up, experimented on them. If we hadn’t shut you down…”
“Oh, please,” Anne cut him off and rolled her eyes. “Don’t you stand there and preach to me. Do you think the government didn’t know about them?” She gestured to the group behind him. “I assure you, they did. Theonlyreason they shut me down when they did was because they thought they might lose valuable military assets to another country. So save the bullshit for your garden, General.”
She’d scored a hit. She could see it on his face and in the way a muscle ticked in his jaw like he was clenching his teeth.
One of her children broke from the group with a sinuous stride and Anne stared at the beauty she had become. Her hair was like flames, her eyes those of the serpents that Anne had spliced into her DNA, and her scales shimmered under the late afternoon sun. Perfection.
“I’d like to question her, General. She can give us valuable intel on the upgrades.”
The General’s lip curled, not liking the idea, but he nodded. “Take two others with you.” He looked Anne up and down, his eyes filled with disgust. “Break her. Whatever it takes.”
Chapter Sixteen
Jacewantedtobepresent for Doctor Dietrich’s interrogation, but Paige needed him. She still looked so pale, her arms wrapped tightly around her torso as if she was hugging herself, trying to hold the pieces together. He searched his mind for a distraction, something that might please her and get her mind off of what was done to her brother.
“I need some space,” she told him, her eyes not meeting his.
Everything inside of him rejected that request. He needed to protect her, and he couldn’t do that if she was pushing him away. Worse, he recalled that she’d ended a long-term relationship after the news of her brother’s death. Would this new tragedy drive her away from him now too?
“Paige…”
Instinctively, he reached for her, but she raised a hand to deflect him. The rejection stung. His heart felt like it was cracking open in his chest, bleeding.
