AllFreeNovel
Share Us
eir tender mercies. ”
It hurt her to think of her adorable bulldog, Mr. French, in some boarding cage, but she couldn’t do anything for him just now—and besides, knowing Liam, it would be the cushiest pet spa of all, and Mr. French wouldn’t want for a thing. Right now, she needed her dog’s unquestioning love more than he needed hers.
Her world had narrowed down into the single goal of kill or be killed, and her sweet pet didn’t have any place in that. And she wasn’t cruel enough to pretend he did.
Even if she wanted to.
“May I ask you something?” he said, and she blinked and focused back on Liam. “Your . . . new biological status. How dangerous are you, Bryn? Really?”
“Not dangerous to you or Patrick,” she said. “Maybe a little, to my sister, because she’s already got the nanites. These upgrades can’t infect regular people, only those brought back with Returné. ”
His smile didn’t waver as he said, “You wouldn’t be lying to me about that, would you?”
“I wouldn’t, Liam. ”
“I’d fully understand if you felt the need,” he said. “But it would be a rather massive mistake to give in to the temptation. ”
She nodded, just a little, and didn’t break eye contact. “You’d kill to protect him,” she said. “I know that. ”
“Specifically, I would kill you to protect him,” Liam said. “If you posed a clear and present danger. But I will take your word for it that you don’t. ” The unspoken part of that was for now, and Bryn clearly understood it, and acknowledged it. “Dinner is being served. I thought you might be hungry. ”
She was, she realized. Very. Which was upsetting and worrisome. Bryn clutched the clothes to her chest, closed the door and dressed very quickly; it all fit, more or less, and as she came out of the room she saw her sister waiting in the hallway.
Annie looked pale and drawn, and when she saw Bryn, her eyes filled with tears. She came over, and they hugged silently for a long, long moment. “I was so worried about you,” Annie whispered. “God, Bryn. You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Bryn said, and patted Annie’s back. “Not like we haven’t been through worse, right?”
“That is way too right to be funny anymore. Oh God, I guess we’re going to have to call the fam pretty soon and lie to them, aren’t we? Just so they don’t freak out and do something stupid like call the cops and file missing persons on us. ”
That was an excellent point, and Bryn was a little startled that she hadn’t thought of it. “God, you’re right. We had to ditch the cell phones, after all. They might think we’ve been—”
“Abducted,” Annie said, and burst into strange, borderline-hysterical laughter. “Funny, isn’t it?”
The laughter was infectious, and Bryn felt it bubbling its way up out of her too—not humor, exactly, but a black kind of amusement liberally mixed with despair. She clung to Annie, and Annie held on to her, and they laughed it out until they finally got enough breath to separate.
Annie wiped her eyes and said, “I guess we really should eat something, right?”
“I hope they have steak,” Bryn said. “I really hope they have steak. ”
In fact, they did. Evidently, Riley and Pansy had put their heads together, and dinner was mostly available self-serve in pots and pans . . . but there were steaks, big ones, and a small stack of them were left almost raw. When Bryn took a plate, Riley—who looked rested and fresh, too—pointed her toward the meat. “Specially made,” she said. “I think you’ll find it’s what you need. It helped me a lot. ”
“You already ate?”
“Had to,” Riley said. That was a short answer, but it conveyed a lot, especially when she raised her eyebrows just a bit. “Pansy was kind enough to fix something. ”
That must have been quite the culinary conversation, Bryn thought. “Is Manny awake?”
“Oh, yes,” Liam said, where he was spooning broccoli onto his plate beside a chicken breast. “Mr. Glickman woke very loudly. He is now barricaded in his room and says he will not come out until you and Riley vacate the premises and he has a chance to decontaminate the rooms. ”
“He’ll come around,” Pansy said. “It was just the shock. He’ll be monitoring to make sure everything stays chill. If it does, he’ll come out in a few days. You’ll see. ”
“We don’t have days,” Patrick said. He and Joe already had plates and were seated at the table, and Joe was halfway through what looked like some kind of stew. Bryn plated her steak and carried it over to sit next to them. “We have a day, maybe, but the people behind the Fountain Group’s research, whoever they are, however they intend to use all this sick technology. . . they clearly have more money than Gates. They’ll find us, and as good as this place is, it has vulnerabilities—principally, it’s a bunker, which means limited ways in and out. They can, and will, find a way to dig us out, and we’ll have a hard time slipping by them once they settle in. So here’s my thought: we let them lay siege, but some of us go on now and take the fight directly to their doorstep. We can’t win this by fighting a defensive war. ”
“How exactly can we do that, when we have no idea where their doorstep might be?” Annie asked, as she put her food on the table and sat down beside Joe. “Other than Pharmadene, I mean. I’d rather not take the fight to them there again, please. ”
“The FBI will take good care of Pharmadene; trust me, they’re probably not too happy that their people got subverted in the first place,” Bryn said. “But we do know something. We know who owned the old folks’ home that was our first introduction to the nanite harvesting. ”
“The Fountain Group,” Patrick said. “Liam’s doing the research. Well, he was before we had to break off and run, but I suppose membership in this fortress comes with Wi-Fi access. ”
