Slow Burn (29 page)

Knox put his gun in my back. “Move,” he said.

I took unsteady steps forward, unsure of where I was going.

“Stop,” said Knox. I did, and he moved in front of me, picking up what appeared to be a random square of forest floor, covered in leaves. But when he moved it aside, I realized it was man made, and it had been put there to disguise a set of metal doors in the ground. Knox knelt down and entered a code on a keypad. The doors swung downwards, revealing a staircase into the ground.

We descended down into the depths, underneath the forest. The doors closed above us, but it wasn’t dark down here. The walls were poured concrete, sturdy and industrial, and they gleamed under fluorescent light fixtures.

At the end of a narrow hallway, we were greeted by a man with a gun. He was just as muscular as Knox and Griffin. He cocked his head to the side. “Knox? We figured you for dead.”

“I’m alive, as you can see,” said Knox. “I’m completing my mission. You might want to radio Caldwell.”

“Who’s this?” said the guard, reaching out to caress my cheek.

I jerked my head back.

Griffin clenched his teeth.

“That’s classified,” said Knox. “Need to know.”

“She’s pretty,” said the guard. “Hope you got yourself a taste.” Griffin surged at him, and the guard laughed as he sidestepped. “Well, if it isn’t Griffin. Why isn’t this asshole dead already?”

“Classified,” said Knox. “You gonna let us in or not?”

“Oh, sure. Fine, fine,” said the guard, pressing a button on the wall.

The doors behind him swung inward. We went through them.

As soon as we were away, Knox shoved Griffin up against the wall, face first. He spoke in a furious whisper, presumably so that any cameras or sound equipment wouldn’t pick up his words. “What the fuck was that, huh? You trying to screw everything up?”

Griffin’s jaw twitched. “He said—”

“I heard him. Control yourself.” Knox let Griffin up. We all continued to walk down the next hallway, identical to the last. Bright, bland, institutional.

At the end of the hall was an elevator. We climbed inside, and we went down.

Finally, the elevator settled, stopped, and the door opened.

Someone was waiting for us there. He stood in a white lab coat, his face eager. “Leigh?”

I choked, suddenly unsteady on my feet.

“It is you,” he said. “I saw you on the cameras, and I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think we’d ever find you.”

I was shaking all over. “Dad?”

I was in a small, white room, the lights brilliant overhead. I sat on one side of the table, my father on the other. He’d untied my hands. He was very excited.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” I said.

“I am?”

“Griffin said that they captured you and that they’d kill you,” I said.

“Oh, when I was on the run, I did think they wanted me dead,” said my father. “Burt Caldwell, the man in charge down here, he’s a difficult man sometimes. He’s quite committed to his ideas. And I had upset things for him. He was angry. I assumed he would have me killed.” He leaned across the table, his eyes shining. “But I misjudged him. He allowed me to live, and he’s willing to allow you to live as well.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “If you’ve been alive all this time, then why have I had to keep running?”

“Well, it took some time to negotiate the deal.” He studied the table. “When they informed me that they had found you in Thomas, I suppose I was a bit easier to work with.”

I didn’t know if I liked the sound of that. “Dad, did they hurt you? When you say negotiate, do you mean torture?”

He reached across the table to pat my hand. “Of course not, sweetheart. I’m fine. I’m taking care of you. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

“Look, you don’t have to work with these people anymore. We have a plan, and we’re here to dismantle this entire operation.”

He leaned back in his chair and laughed. “Oh, I assure you, that’s not going to happen. Operation Wraith is solid. There’s no way you could hurt it. Besides, there’s no reason to do that. Not when you and I are going to be working together now.”

“What?”

“That’s the deal,” he said. “You’ve got the serum, so you’re uniquely qualified for a position here. We’ll be close, and we can spend more time together. I think it will be quite nice. I’ve missed you.”

“A position...?” Then it dawned on me. “They’re going to make me an assassin.”

“Indeed,” said my dad. “And you’re going to do such a good job, sweetheart.”

A gnawing horror was growing in my stomach. “Dad, no. Don’t do this. You could help us. We could tear this whole place down. You’d be free.”

“I’m telling you, that would be impossible.”

“But Griffin—”

“Oh, let’s not talk about him. I was watching the cameras and I saw that outburst he had on the way in, after the guard at the door made a comment about you.” He made a face. “That was totally inappropriate, of course, sweetheart. I’ll have a talk with that guard. But I have to say, I was flabbergasted that Griffin reacted that way. It was almost as if he thought the two of you—but that would be ridiculous.”

“What are you talking about?” I said.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m quite familiar with Griffin Fawkes. He’s not capable of seducing you.”

“What?” I was confused. “Like you’d care, Dad.”

“Of course I care. You’re my daughter. I don’t want a thug like that thinking he has the right to corrupt you.”

“
Corrupt
me?” I sighed. “You don’t even know me, do you? You don’t know anything about me.”

“Well, that’s why it will be nice when we’re working together, because we’ll really get the chance to bond.” He smiled at me.

I didn’t smile back. “Griffin saved me, Dad. Before Griffin, I was on drugs. I was promiscuous. I was getting in car accidents. And I didn’t even care about myself. Then he showed up, and everything—”

“Promiscuous?” He raised his eyebrows.

I looked at the table. Had I just said that to my own father? Yeah. I had. I lifted my gaze to his, defiant. “Yeah. Maybe you would have noticed if you were ever around.”

“You’re exaggerating, Leigh.” He waved away what I’d said. “You spent your time with kids from good families, whatever was going on. That Griffin character, on the other hand, is a hoodlum. You may not know this about him, but he was in prison for armed robbery, and I hardly think he’s a good influence on you.”

“Hoodlum?”

“I know you’ve spent some time with him, and you’ve probably grown a bit attached,” said my dad. “Heck, I liked him too. But he’s really a liability, and you have to understand that. It’s just business. And I don’t like to think of the way he’s warped your mind.”

“Where is he?”

“Don’t worry about it. The sooner you get him out of your mind, the better. We’ll be starting your training soon. I suppose you’ll want to see your new room.”

“I don’t want to be an assassin.”

He sighed. “Listen, Leigh, please don’t be difficult. Caldwell doesn’t like difficult. I’ve done my best to protect you, but my influence only reaches so far.”

“What did they do to you?” I said. “The last time I talked to you, you said Dewhurst-McFarland employed evil, greedy people. You said you were glad to be free of them.”

“And free of all my money? And free of my job? Free of the respect my position accords?” He shook his head. “Sweetheart, I was putting a good face on a bad situation. And that’s what you need to do about that Griffin boy. He’s probably going to be killed, so it would be best if you put him out of your head and moved on to better opportunities.”

I stood up, my chair clattering back behind me. “What? You can’t kill Griffin. I love him.”

“Love him?” My father shook his head. “No, that’s not possible. He’s not the slightest bit capable of that kind of interaction. I helped him escape precisely because I thought I could trust him with you. That he’d keep his hands off of you.”

I reached across the table and grabbed my father by the tie. “You can’t kill Griffin. If you can save me, you can save him too.”

“Let go of me,” he sputtered. “I most certainly won’t save him. After what he did to an innocent girl like you—”

I pulled the tie tighter. “I was hardly innocent, Dad.”

I was choking him. His face started to turn red. “Leigh, he’s better off dead.”

I remembered the plan, then. Griffin and I had gone over it so many times. I’d be taken away for questioning. I would use the capsule Griffin had given me to knock out my captor. I hadn’t expected my captor to be my father, but here he was. Griffin’s life was in danger. I had to save him.

I had the capsule. I crushed it in my fingers and covered my father’s nose and mouth with it.

His struggles began to fade. Within minutes, he was completely passed out, a puddle on the ground.

I ran for the door to the room. It was locked. How was I supposed to get out of here? I looked back at my father’s inert form. How long would he be out?

I wrung my hands. I didn’t know what to do. What was the next step? The plan. Griffin had grilled me and grilled me.

I took a deep breath. Right. The plan was to get in the duct work. I looked at the wall, running my gaze over foot after foot of blank concrete.

Then I spied a grate. I needed to get in there. But I couldn’t reach it by myself. I was tall, but not tall enough.

I glanced around. The table!

I pushed the table up to the wall, stood on top of it, removed the grate, and crawled inside.

I managed to get a floor down, like Griffin had told me. The plan was for Griffin to meet me here in the ducts, but if they were trying to kill him, then I didn’t know if he’d make it.

And he wasn’t there.

Of course, we’d always assumed that Griffin would be taken away to be killed, hadn’t we? Maybe I hadn’t paid attention to that part. How was he supposed to get away and meet me?

I hadn’t thought of Griffin as vulnerable, I realized. Out there, in the regular world, Griffin was so lethal and sure of himself. No one had hurt him yet. I assumed that no one
could
hurt him. But that was stupid, I realized. Griffin could be hurt. He could be killed. These were the people who had made him what he was, and they knew all his weaknesses.

He must have told me to come to this level for a reason. Possibly, he knew he’d be brought here. I began to crawl through the ducts, finding grates and looking into each of the rooms.

They were all identical—small white rooms with a single metal chair in the middle of them. The chair had arms, with metal bindings that hung open over the arms and legs. I could see that the bindings would snap closed over a person’s upper arms, forearms, legs, and feet. If someone was strapped into the thing, he wouldn’t be able to move much.

I kept crawling and looking. Empty rooms.

Finally, I came to one that wasn’t empty. There was someone in the chair.

But his head was slumped over, and his neck was bloody. He was dead.

He wasn’t Griffin, though. His hair was the wrong color.

I kept going.

Another empty room.

Then I heard voices. “I’m telling you, I have a large batch of the serum hidden out there. If I don’t check in, there are people who’ve been instructed to send it to news agencies all over the world. You’ll all be exposed.”

That was Griffin’s voice. He was making a big bluff to keep himself alive. Smart Griffin!

I hurried down the duct until I found the room where he was being kept. He was bound in the chair, metal bonds digging into his skin. I peered through the grate at him. He seemed to be in pain. The chair was cutting into his skin. The bonds were sharp. He was bleeding. I covered my mouth with my hand, stifling the cry I wanted to let out.

“You don’t have a batch,” said a man who stood over Griffin.

“I was with Frank Thorn, wasn’t I?” said Griffin. “He stole the serum. You think he only stole enough for his daughter? No way, he wanted insurance, and he gave it to me.”

“Frank Thorn would have told us if that was the case.”

“You think so?” said Griffin. “You think he would have admitted that he entrusted the serum to someone like me? Because I think he was too busy making sure he didn’t look bad to do something like that. I think he wanted any knowledge of that batch buried. But too bad.”

I almost believed Griffin. He seemed so convincing. But if we had something like that to work with, he would have told us, right? He was making it up, buying time. I needed to help him. What could I do?

The door to the room Griffin was in opened, and my father came in.

He was awake already? That capsule hadn’t worked very well, had it?

Or maybe I hadn’t held it over his mouth for long enough. Griffin had told me how long, hadn’t he? I couldn’t remember...

“Why isn’t he dead?” said my dad.

“He’s claiming you gave him some batch of the serum,” said the man.

“He’s lying,” said my dad. He strode across the room, placing himself between the man and Griffin. He leaned over Griffin, his face close. “I asked you to protect my daughter.”

“I did,” said Griffin. “She’s alive, isn’t she?”

“French said you were some kind of eunuch,” said my father. “She said you’d never touch her.”

Griffin laughed. “That’s what you’re worried about? You don’t know your daughter very well.”

“I know it makes me sick to think you’ve contaminated her.”

Griffin shook his head. “What happened to you, Frank? I thought you wanted to do the right thing? How can you be working with them again?”

“They’ll keep Leigh safe,” said my dad.

“And they’ll let you keep your money?”

“Shut up.”

“If you cared so much about Leigh—”

“Don’t say her name.” He turned away from Griffin, facing the other man. “Don’t listen to another word he says. I want him dead. I want him to pay for violating my daughter.”

“Violating?” Griffin laughed.

My father turned back around. He grabbed Griffin by the neck. “You slime.”

Griffin was grinning. “She loved it Frank. It was all her idea.”

My father slapped Griffin. “Kill him. Kill him now.” He stalked to the door. He paused. “And if you see my daughter anywhere, contact me immediately. She’s missing.”