Page 5 of Black Bay Defender
“Back off!” Lark shouted at them in return, holding her arms up, palms out. Guns being pointed at him would only aggravate the situation. Whatever was happening, he was fighting it. He was struggling, but she had faith in him. Hewouldovercome this. She’d come to know Grady Carter somewhat, and one thing he wouldn’t tolerate was being made a puppet on someone else’s string.
She also had faith in herself. If he fired that weapon she could easily slide out of the way, any damage would be to the storage shed currently behind her that held grounds maintenance equipment. But his guards would see it as an act of aggression and wouldn’t hesitate to bring down a threat.
If he were anyone else, she would have held his gaze and simply talked him down using her ability to mesmerize, but that didn’t work on Grady. He would need to figure this out on his own and fast.
Five more seconds… Ten… The only blessing was that he hadn’t fired. Yet. Fifteen… Twenty…
An anguished roar ripped from his throat and suddenly, the green light was gone and the weapon returned to its slot in his arm, the panel reclosing over it.
The breath Lark had been holding whooshed out of her in an audible exhale of relief. Jesus, that had been close. Too close. She hadn’t been worried about her own life. She was too fast. Maybe if he’d shot without warning she would have been screwed, but outside of a surprise attack, the way her hybrid genes allowed her to move would have kept her out of harm’s way. She’d been worried about Grady.
Another thought suddenly struck and depression hit her like a speeding bus. If that was how he reacted to a simple hug, how would he react to greater intimacy? Because Lark wanted to do more than hug him. A lot more.
Seeing that the guards had yet to step off, she glared at them, letting them see the full brunt of her current bad mood.
They took a step back, but that was it. For a moment, Lark contemplated unleashing her fangs and hissing at them to get her point across, but too many people already feared her. She didn’t want to add to that list. Not if she could help it.
“He’s fine,” she announced. Looking at Grady, she asked, “Right? You’ve got it under control?”
He looked pissed off in the extreme but nodded sharply.
Lark returned her attention to the hovering guards. “He’s got it under control. Back off.”
The young officer who replied never removed his gaze from Grady, nor did he lower his weapon. “With all due respect, ma’am, no.”
“Fine,” she bit out before returning her attention to Grady. “We’ll just ignore them. You were telling me about your friend?”
Grady glared at her. “And are we also going to ignore what just happened? I could have fucking killed you!”
“You didn’t though.”
“That doesn’t change shit and you know it.” With a muttered expletive that should have turned the air around her blue, Grady turned on his heel and stomped off, his guards following in his wake.
Lark watched him go, her hands fisted tightly at her sides. She wanted to follow him. Wanted to push him to finish the discussion, but his guards were already on edge, and twitchy trigger fingers were the last thing she or Grady needed. She’d give him some time to cool down, but she would find him later. This wasn’t over.
Grady returned to his quarters they’d set up for him in one of the unused offices in the administration building. Back to isolation where a monster like him belonged. He wanted to hit something. Destroy things. But this room wasn’t exactly packed with furniture and he’d already demolished his footlocker when he’d kicked it in a rage, and had to get a replacement cot after he’d thrown his old one against a wall.
What a fucking nightmare. When he’d pulled a gun on his sister over a month ago, he hadn’t known who she was aside from a target he’d been sent to eliminate. When his subconscious had risen to the fore and fought not to pull that trigger, he hadn’t understood. It was only later, when wisps of memory had begun to trickle through that he’d realized the enormity of what he’d almost done.
This had been different. HeknewLark. Knew she wasn’t a target or a threat. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her on any level, and yet, he’d had no control over his body. He’d had to fight hard to get even the smallest crumb back. And that scared the shit out of him.
A combination of rage, fear, and disgust was a rancid stew in his belly. He needed to stay away from her. That was the only choice because hewould notrisk her.
He paced his room trying to work off his aggression so he could think clearly once more. When that didn’t work, he dropped to the floor and began doing push-ups. Rep after rep. Breathe in, breathe out.
Maybe he should leave Black Bay. There were others involved in the Resurrection project. Scientists, government officials… He could return to his original plan to hunt them down and eliminate them one by one and save Doctor Dietrich – the woman that had led him to Black Bay – for last.
Yes. He liked this plan. He had their names and their home addresses. Even if they’d scattered like rats after what he’d done to Doctor Jerome, he’d find them. He had the means. Before he killed them though, he’d question them, discover if any of them knew the location of the other soldiers. That was intel he could feed back to General Davies. The man in charge of Black Bay was someone Grady could trust to get those soldiers out. He’d know what to do.
Plus, there was still the matter of that man he couldn’t remember but kept seeing in his head. He needed to find him.
Doctor Tanner Blackmore strode into the top-secret facility and was greeted by the artificial intelligence that was the central core of this project. His lip curled at the sexy purr of that female voice. Doctor Craig Jerome’s doing. The bio-robotics engineer couldn’t resist having his ego stroked daily. Tanner had yet to figure out how to change that voice since Doctor Jerome had made it nearly impossible to bypass without his input, and Doctor Jerome was now dead.
Tanner wasn’t privy to the details. All he knew was Doctor Jerome was gone and the second in command of this project, Doctor Anne Dietrich, was missing, leaving Tanner now in charge.
They also had an asset in the wind. The Commander, Navy SEAL Weaponized Combat Unit 7, or NS-WCU7 for short. While the AI was running constant searches using facial recognition, the likelihood of them getting a hit was slim to none. The Commander had been chosen for this program because he’d been considered one of the best. One of the elite. He knew how these things worked and would avoid any such detection.
What a mess…
