“I doubt it,” Austin said.
Connor hesitated.
“It was impossible to keep you under on the way here,” the tall guard at the door said. “And we were using drugs designed to tranquillize elephants. Painkillers aren’t going to do what the doc’s drugs couldn’t.”
Connor popped the pills.
“Leave, Austin,” Connor said after he’d swallowed them. “You’re obviously terrified of them, so if you have a way out, take it.” As much as Connor could do with their help, he couldn’t use Austin if there was a risk that he’d sabotage Connor’s attempts to free Adonis. He could, however, make use of Austin’s escape to cause a distraction… And he didn’t need to fight everyone—he didn’t need to break the tank—he just needed to get the top doors of it open.
“Not without you.”
“I’m not leaving him here,” Connor said. It would be a nightmare if he got caught because of Connor, and then Connor escaped while Adonis was kept locked up. Connor wouldn’t let this be Adonis’s fate, no matter what he had to do to change it.
Austin’s jaw tightened. “Connor,” he said in a strained voice, “the only reason we have a chance is because they have him now. If they don’t, that leaves only the two of us as carriers of the genes they want to study. And we’re a whole lot easier to get a hold of than that thing in the tank. But if they have him—”
“—then they don’t need us,” Connor finished. “Which explains why you waited to help me. Waited until this point to try to tell me anything.”
“Telling you anything before now would have only gotten you locked up,” Austin said. “And trust me—I’ve been there, done that—it’s not worth it.”
“But it’s fine to leave him to that fate, is it?” Connor snapped.
“We have to look out for ourselves. Nobody else is going to,” Austin said, steel in his voice.
They stared off.
“Someone’s coming,” the taller guard said. He straightened up, standing on alert as the door opened.
Connor’s dad walked in. He nodded at Austin. “Your dad wants you.”
Austin’s angry expression had been replaced with a cool poker face. Without a backward glance he left the room, the guard following at his heels. Connor watched them go until the door swung shut behind them.
His dad approached him. “You’re already upright,” he said, more to himself than Connor. He spotted the bottle of pills in Connor’s hands as he dragged a stool over to sit in front of Connor. He took it from him, reading the labelling. “How many of these did you take?”
“Four.”
“Feeling any effects?”
“No.”
“Double up on it. Four isn’t going to do much with your constitution.” His dad shook out four more into Connor’s palm. Connor hesitated only a moment before taking them.
“I’m a genetic experiment?” Connor cut to the chase.
His dad looked at him sharply.
“I’m not saying it as an attack or a barb,” Connor said calmly. He knew his dad. His temperament, at least, if not all the dirty, disgusting secrets he kept, and he knew that a calm, curious approach was his best bet to get the ball rolling. Ask about the science, and once his dad started, he wouldn’t stop. “I’m just asking. Austin mentioned the two of us were the only subjects to survive. That we carry valuable genetic information in us. I’m assuming that means we were part of a genetic experiment. Is that right?”
“That’s right.” His dad’s answer was clipped and rough.
Connor’s gaze lingered on the bruising around his nose. “Are you really going to hold that against me?” Connor asked as his dad inspected his face in turn. Connor knew there was more damage than on his dad’s face, that was for sure. “I was heavily drugged, and I barely remember it.”
Ben didn’t answer.
Fuck. If Connor couldn’t get his dad talking, he didn’t have a chance of getting to anyone else. He opened up the bottle of pills and poured one out onto his hand, offering it to his dad. “Here. It’ll stop hurting, and you can stop holding it against me. What kind of genetics is it? Another merman?”
Ben glanced at the pill. After a moment, he took it and swallowed it dry. “It was a female subject. She didn’t do well in captivity, and we were looking for a way for her genetic information to survive her.” Ben picked up a pair of scissors and cut away Connor’s hoodie. “The experiments weren’t going well. The fetuses all rejected the new genetic information no matter what techniques we used.”
“Until me and Austin.”
