Page 86 of Dangerous Deviance
Derek snarled. “Come on, man. Listen to yourself. It’s—”
“It’s the programming,” I said, interrupting him. He stared at me blankly. Axe stopped his blade too. “They’ve been trained to do this. Tortured beyond belief. You saw them,” I said to Axe. He gave a subtle nod. All of those women had scars across their bodies. We would never understand what they had been through. “There’s a good chance that most of them led normal lives, but somehow were led to the Skyline Shift.”
We were all silent for a while. The lights flickered above us. Derek shifted in his seat, the chair creaking underneath him. Axe held the knife still against the stone, waiting for us to decide.
“It’s not the women,” I repeated.
“It’s the programming,” Derek said, repeating my words. “I looked up the names on that flash drive, and none of them had links to us. They might have known our names, or at the very least, Muro’s business. So,” he shrugged, “I can agree with that. They were regular people.”
“Regular people can still be evil,” Axe argued.
I shuffled my feet. Axe was hard to change.
“What about Ellie? She was okay by the end, right?” Derek asked. “Which means whatever Mercia did, helped.”
Mercia might have given Ellie direction, but Ellie had fought for herself on a daily basis. I had seen her on the rooftop, her lips always moving, her ears twitching as she listened to the voice in her mind. And even when the violence took over, she had fought ithard. Resisted it. Apologized for what she was about to do.
“We drove to Brackston and Pebble Garden,” I said, lifting my chin. “She didn’t try a single thing.”
“No driver?” Derek asked. I nodded. That was one of our rules with the women, and I had forced myself to let it slip, to give Ellie a chance to prove herself. “Then perhaps there is an alternative,” Derek continued.
“The quickest solution is eliminating the enemy,” Axe argued.
“But we can’t go in there with brute force,” Derek said. “We have to take down the Midnight Miles Corporation one step at a time. Starting with the Skyline Shift.” Derek turned to me. “What do you want, Wil?”
I thought about it. For years, I had thought that I wanted a toy, a woman with fight inside of her who eventually surrendered to me, becoming mine, and mine alone, forever. And part of thatwasEllie. She had surrendered, more than any woman ever had, and that kind of vulnerability stuck with you. Even if she was the only one giving up power, it had marked both of us. And I wanted more now. It wasn’t just about playing god. It was about trust. I wanted her to choose me. To trust me.
And I wanted to protect her, even if that meant that she chose a different life for herself.
“We destroy the camp,” I said. I weighed the saw in my hand, then settled it back on the table. “We can deal with the rest of Muro’s men later. But first, we start with getting rid of their secret weapon.”
“Now that,” Derek said, grinning, “I can get behind.”
Axe even gave a hint of a smile. “Welcome back,” Axe said.
Invigorated by their support, I leaned forward on the table. “We’ll eliminate Bates first. He’s the head of the operation. We take out him, then get Mercia to help with the rest.”
“But how the hell do we kill him when he’s surrounded by all of his trainees?” Derek asked.
I didn’t know. Hell, I didn’t know a damned thing about taking out an army like that. But I knew that this was what we needed to be done.
Somehow, we had to get through this. We had to form a plan together.
“Let’s figure this shit out,” I said.
Axe put down the knife and the three of us brainstormed, thinking of the best way to take them down. We had to do it swiftly and efficiently, and in such a way that Gerard was on board. The woman would live, and with Mercia, we could give them back their lives. Perhaps even hire them as our soldiers. It didn’t make up for what they had gone through, but at least they wouldn’t be dragged down by a life they didn’t choose for themselves.
Because I may not have chosen to fall in love with a soldier who was sent to kill me, but I would choose to stand by her. To protect her. To do everything I could for her.
I had to do this for her. For my Ellie.
And for myself.
CHAPTER 23
Ellie
No matter which direction I looked, it all looked the same. The same set of trees. The same bursts of light. As if nothing would change the fact that I was lost in the woods, somewhere in Sage City. I knew, technically, that I was in the uncharted territory behind the Adlers’ house, but it wasn’t as simple as that. I felt truly alone for the first time in months, maybe even years. It was always my family, then just Julie and me, then Dr. Bates. Then it was just Wil. I thought of Billy and Jane, and the other women that had been found here. Like me. I thought of the moment I first looked up into Axe’s eyes:For my brother, he had said.He’ll take care of you.
