Lark nodded. “Good.”
Grady’s lips twisted and he shook his head, pacing away from her. “Not good. You saw what just happened and that was mild in comparison to some of the episodes I’ve had.” He whirled around. “I could hurt someone, Lark!”
He was angry again, but instinct told her this anger tinged with frustration was wholly his. “Okay.” She nodded again, racking her brain for a solution that didn’t have him walking out of her life. “Okay. Give me twenty-four hours. If I can’t find an answer for you by then, we go hunting.”
Grady raised a brow. “We?”
“We.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she shot him a look that dared him to contradict her. “You’re Black Bay, now. One of us, and you’ll need someone to watch your back. That someone is me.”
Chapter Six
WhileGradyhadn’tagreedto be a team player – yet – he had agreed to give her the requested twenty-four hours before he went on the hunt. Knowledge was power, he knew that, understood that, so if Doctor Dietrich could give them any insight into what was going on with him he’d wait. Or, at least, that’s what he said. Lark would like to take him at his word, but she was also fully aware of how some stubborn people operated. Placate the worrywart and then go right ahead and do what you were going to do from the start. Ha! Just let him try. She’d set Kong to watch the tunnel in case Grady got by his regular security detail – who were all back on full alert now that Lark’s favor was complete.
Where Lark was all speed and venom, her best friend was a battering ram of brute force. One punch from Kong and Grady would be down for the count. She hoped it didn’t come to that, hoped he’d give her the promised time, but in this, she’d rather be safe than sorry. If Grady Carter left Black Bay and disappeared without a word, Lark would be… devastated.
At first, her interest in the soldier had been largely intellectual. Sure, he was handsome, she wasn’t blind to that. But she was surrounded by handsome men. Quite a few of the human soldiers under General Davies’ command were good-looking. So while she was attracted, she was also fascinated by what Grady could do, what he was capable of, as well as the science behind the bio-robotic fusion. Not only that. She’d wanted to help him regain his memories because his sister, Paige, was her friend, and she’d hated seeing what his loss of memory was doing to the nurse.
Spending time with him, however, had altered that initial fascination. She’d become more and more interested in the handsome man beneath the augmentations. His service record she had accessed had been impressive, yes, but it was the stories Paige had told her, of the big brother, of the honorable man, that had her attraction to him growing. She wanted to meet that man. Strong, protective, and stubborn, but also someone who laughed easily and had often lovingly teased his baby sister.
With his memories restored, or mostly restored, she’d seen hints of that man today, and he was breathtaking. He’d even smiled at her, and that smile had been gorgeous. She’d almost tripped over her own feet upon seeing what she’d only glimpsed in pictures before. Those images hadn’t done it justice. Sexy, beautiful man. What would he be like once he was free of the burdens that currently weighed him down? Lark wanted to see, wanted to know, so she’d get him whatever intel he needed.
She took a couple of deep breaths and steeled herself to enter Doctor Dietrich’s cell. She hated being around that woman and all the nightmare memories she stirred up inside Lark’s mind. Her childhood had been a tapestry of pain. Physical and psychological torture. The claustrophobia of being restrained, blindfolded and her jaw clamped shut so she couldn’t defend herself. Knives slicing into her skin, being gouged with red-hot pokers, her bones being broken over and over again as the scientists and medical staff stood over her, timing how long it took for her to heal. Room temperatures were lowered to freezing for days only to be thrown back up to searing heat until her nerve endings screamed. High-pressure hoses, battering her naked body with icy water. Rooms plunged into darkness or rooms lit up so bright it burned the eyes and made sleep impossible. No food… poisoned food… the list went on. All by that woman’s order.
The General had seen what questioning Doctor Dietrich was doing to her, how unsettled and angry she’d become after the fact. He’d told Lark she didn’t need to question her anymore, despite Lark’s ability making her ideal for interrogation. His concern was sweet but unnecessary. One thing all that torture had done was to make her strong enough to rapidly shake off a whole lot of unpleasantness. Not that she’d ever admit that in front of Doctor Dietrich. The woman would take the admission as justification for her actions. Lark would never give the woman that kind of satisfaction.
“Want some company when you go in?”
Lark looked at Mako, who had followed her into the brig, with surprise. “What are you doing topside?” Her eyes skated over his clothing. “And on guard duty no less.”
Standing three inches taller than Lark at an even six feet tall, Mako had a grayish skin tone, but not as a result of illness. He’d been created primarily with shark DNA as well as a host of other aquatic creatures to a lesser degree. His eyes were as black as the deepest part of the ocean and he was unable to grow hair anywhere on his body. While he eschewed the use of contact lenses to alter his eyes and make them look less alien, he had gotten some eyebrows tattooed on his forehead so he blended in a bit better. He also had visible gill slits under his jawline and beneath his ribcage when he wasn’t wearing a shirt to cover them.
He rarely came topside when he was on Black Bay, especially during the heat of the summer months. He spent most of his time a level down, near the exit pool, maintaining the submersibles and dive equipment necessary for those of them who couldn’t breathe underwater. The rest of his time was spent in the deep where he was most at home. He’d spend days, even weeks away, swimming and exploring the mysteries of the ocean. Often bringing back interesting little trinkets he’d find along the way.
Currently, he was dressed in a long-sleeve black turtleneck under the Black Bay uniform shirt, black cargo pants, with combat boots on his feet. The last threw her for a moment she was so surprised to see them. Mako hated wearing shoes.
He shrugged up one muscular shoulder. “Got bored.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Lark shot him a narrow-eyed look of suspicion. Nope. Nu-uh. She wasn’t buying it. When Mako got bored he went for a long swim, he did not don footwear and volunteer for guard duty. Now that she thought about it, he’d been on one of those long swims when Doctor Dietrich had arrived at Black Bay and had only recently returned. Would have just recently learned she was here, making this visit even more suspect. “Try again.”
“That’s what I said,” the other guard, a human named Troy chimed in. “But I called the General to check and he said the shift change had been approved.”
She shot a similar narrow-eyed look at Troy. Considering she’d just bribed some guards to look the other way for her, Lark couldn’t help but wonder if a similar scenario was in play right now. The man threw his hands up to chest level, palms out. “I swear.”
For a heartbeat, she considered ensnaring his eyes with hers and forcing the truth from him but decided against it. She turned back to Mako. “You can’t kill her.”
“I don’t want to kill her.”
Lark looked, but there wasn’t a single ounce of deceit on his face. Huh. Everyone wanted to kill Doctor Dietrich.Everyone.There were days that Lark struggled not to come in here and snuff the bitch out herself, even knowing they still needed her for information.
“I want her to suffer for a long, loooong time.”
Ah. There it was. That made more sense.
“I’m not hearing any screams, groans, pleading…” Mako looked around the brig, his eyes lingering on Doctor Dietrich’s door. He shook his head, his forehead crinkling. “So far, this looks way too comfortable for her. What’s her room temperature set to?”
A question she wasn’t surprised to hear considering the good doctor’s most frequent manner of torturing Mako had been to leave him in hot, dry rooms, suffering and begging for water as his skin cracked and bled over and over again.
Lark swallowed down the lump that had risen in her throat. She placed a hand on Mako’s shoulder. “We don’t torture. We’re better than her.”
