I clench my jaw, tasting copper again. My hands twitch with the urge to claw their eyes out and snap their necks. No one threatens what’s mine and lives.
“Stop!” Claire orders in a shaky voice. “How much do you want?”
I roll my sleeves up, panting as harshly as her. Her eyes widen, scanning the room frantically for an escape. But there’s nowhere to run, I have them cornered like a panther about to strike its prey.
“Is it the boy?” her husband asks, his hands shaking so much he couldn’t shoot me even if the gun still worked. “Did you like him? He’s very cute! You can join us—”
I suck in a sharp breath, my entire body going tense like a spring about to release.
“You can have him, dear,” Claire jumps in, lowering her useless gun. “And all the money you can imagine.”
In no world would I ever let these predators live. If not Hex, they’ll go after someone else. Hell, who knows how many young people they’ve already ruined. Maybe it’s what happened to Eleanor and Katy, maybe that’s why they disappeared and no one batted an eye. To Claire Streiss and the other VIPs, everyone is expendable, a toy you can toss away when you get bored of it.
Claire nods and her husband propels himself at me with a howl.
I stop him with one hand, jabbing him dead-center in the neck. Something cracks and his eyes roll back while wheezing sounds rip out of him as he collapses to the floor. He won’t be getting back up ever again.
I zero in on my last target, shock and fear contorting her face. “Where are the labs?” I demand in a threatening voice.
She swallows hard, her eyes bouncing between me and her dead man. “How do you know about that?”
I kick his lifeless body toward her. “It doesn’t matter. Where are they?”
“I can take you there if you promise not to kill me.” She smiles then, some of the composure returning to her face. It’s like a switch has flipped and she’s already over the death of her partner. Like she doesn’t care. It’s very uncanny. “You are very good, Mong. Work for me? I could… really use a man like you on my team. This, what we are doing here, you can be part of it… It’s like nothing the world has ever seen before.”
“And what is it that you are doing here, exactly?” I humor her, inching in closer without her seeming to notice it.
“We’re writing history.” Her eyes glass over, like she’s only half here. “Everyone who’s here… We are part of it and we’re this close… We just need that last push, and we’ll change the entire world.”
That’s why I don’t like people in power. They think they are special, that they have the right to decide the fate of humankind just because they have money, resources and influence. They think they know best and that it is their right to sit at the top and command us, the less fortunate.
Those are delusions.
But the thing is, this drug formula that Matthew brought over from the US could make those delusions a reality. If brainwashing really is possible, and if governments have been fueling money into fixing the issues and low efficacy of the prototype that they developed based on that same formula, we must intercept them at all costs. This must end here, today, or we might not get another chance.
“Who is this ‘we’?”
She considers that for a moment. “Dear, don’t pretend to be clueless just because you are a mere employee. You know full well, just like everyone else who works for us in some capacity, that we run the world.”
But I need more than that. I need to know exactly who I am dealing with so the plan in my head can adjust accordingly.
I stop a few feet away from her and cross my arms. “Which government do you work for?” We know that America is involved, as well as most of Europe, but we have little information on the rest of the participants. If we want to fight this, we need the full picture.
Claire laughs like I’ve told her the best joke in the world. “Oh. No, no, no. You’ve got it all wrong, sweetie. Neither I, nor any of the people on this very special cruise work for anyone, much less the government. It’s the other way around.”
This is… a little unexpected.
“Surprised? Don’t be. It’s always been this way—governments answer to us because we prefer to pull the strings from the shadows.” She takes a step toward me, slightly leaning forward as if she is about to tell me a secret. “And you can be part of that now. You can have power like us and anything you ever dreamed of. So, what do you say?”
30
Aran
“I’min!”Hexyells,hopping on top of the mostly ruined couch and waving the tablet. “Fuck, yes!”
My attention veers to him automatically, and I can feel a tiny smile lift one corner of my mouth. He’s gorgeous. His cheeks are rosy as if he’s run a marathon, and he’s heaving a little from all the excitement that he must be currently feeling.
It’s infectious too, and soon my heart is beating like crazy. He’s in, my troublemaker genius hacked into the secondary network.
