She stroked her palm over it. “What does this mean?”
Kong let out a little grunt. “It was supposed to remind me to be patient.” He shrugged up a shoulder. “Doesn’t work.”
“And the piece on your back?”
Kong looked at her for a moment and there was something in his eyes she couldn’t quite identify. “It’s about family.”
Katherine frowned a bit, not seeing the connection.
“Here.” Carefully, he moved her off him before rolling over onto his stomach and Katherine eagerly leaned in to examine the tattoo.
She drew in a breath as she got the full effect and couldn’t resist tracing her fingers over it. Up close, it was far more detailed than she realized. Done in shades of black and gray, it was sorealistic it was as if she was looking at a black-and-white photo. While the silverback gorilla, tall and imposing amidst the jungle setting, dominated the scene, there were other gorillas in the background – a slightly smaller one that might be a female as well as adorable little babies. A family. The gorilla was protecting his family.
Katherine swallowed hard at the thought that Kong might want a family someday because she wanted that too. But she didn’t want to get ahead of herself again. If she wasn’t careful to leash her optimism, she’d end up swan-diving straight into heartbreak.
“It’s amazing.”
“It’s Erik’s work. He’s an incredible artist.”
She’d heard that name before. “If he’s the same Erik I’m thinking of, some of the Resurrection doctors were talking about him.”
She was still leaning over Kong, examining the tattoo when he abruptly turned on his side, almost knocking her over. Surprised, she lurched back, out of the way.
He rumbled, and as weird as it might seem, Katherine was beginning to understand the language behind those sounds he made. This was his angry one, but she wasn’t sure what she’d said to set him off.
“What were they saying about him?”
The demand in his voice as well as the aggressive look on his face left her speechless for a moment but she quickly recovered. “Just that he’d be a good candidate for the cloned skin.”
Kong rumbled again – louder, meaner – and Katherine felt her belly dip. She knew Kong wouldn’t hurt her, but something had definitely pissed him off, and some primal instinct warned her to tread carefully.
“Did they approach him with that?” he asked with a sneer. “Did they dangle that carrot in front of him so they could get him on their table? So they could do their fucked-up experiments on him?”
Katherine shook her head. “I don’t know, Kong. I told you what I overheard.”
The fierce expression on Kong’s face melted away and he suddenly looked horrified. “Shit, Katherine. I’m sorry. I’m not angry at you.” Rubbing a hand roughly over his face he let out a sound of frustration before he looked at her. “Did anyone ever tell you about phase two?”
Katherine racked her brain, trying to recall if she’d heard something or seen something on her computer at the hub, but she came up empty. “I don’t think so. It doesn’t sound familiar.”
“Before we brought Resurrection down, before ORION and the soldiers were brought to Black Bay, we learned from a relatively reliable source that there was another phase.” His lip curled withderision. “They wanted to upgrade us. Me, the other Beasts, and they weren’t planning on asking our permission.”
Katherine was appalled, yet she shouldn’t have been surprised. Not after everything she’d already learned. The higher-ups, and doctors involved in the Resurrection program hadn’t asked permission of the fifty-two elite soldiers they’d taken either. They’d informed their families that they’d been killed in action, covering their tracks so they could perform their surgeries, and their bio-tech upgrades, and then, they’d wiped the soldiers’ memories, used the chips placed in their brains to modify their aggression levels, and made them incapable of questioning an order or diverting from it until the mission was complete. There were forty-nine soldiers still in recovery from what those doctors had done, and some of those modifications could never be removed. Not without killing them. Those soldiers had to learn to live with what was done to them by their own government. Some might never recover. And they wanted to do that to Kong? To Perrin and the others?
“But you stopped them.”
“Did we?” Kong asked. “Or did we just move them closer to their targets?”
Kong shook his head letting out a grunt. “Let’s not talk about this anymore.”
Katherine swallowed hard and nodded. “Okay.” But it was kind of tough to get her mind off the subject.
“C’mere,” Kong whispered, reaching for her and she burrowed into his chest and took comfort from his strong arms.
“Tell me about your birthday. When is it?”
“You’ll go with me then?”
Kong kissed the top of her head. “I’ll clear it with the general in the morning.”
