Page 71 of PSYCHOlogical

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Val

With the morning newspaper clutched in one hand, I pounded frantically on the bathroom door with my other. “Vincent! You need to see this!”

If the morning news wasn’t enough to persuade him that we weren’t going to be safe for a long, long time, I had no idea what it was going to take to convince him. We needed to act quickly. I held proof of what would happen if we chose not to.

I quickly reread the newspaper article.

QUANTICO LIEUTENANT COLONEL MURDERED

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, Virginia, November 17 (AP) – A Marine Corps Base Quantico officer was murdered in what investigators believe began as a robbery.

According to Captain Marcus Task with Prince William County Sheriff’s Office, details are sketchy regarding the murder of Lieutenant Colonel Randall W. Martin, which is believed to have happened in the marine officer’s home Friday evening.

This is the second non-combat related marine stationed at Quantico’s base to have lost his life in the last week. According to Captain Task, the deaths are not believed to be linked.

Captain Task asks that anyone who may have seen suspicious activity in the 2400 block of Five Fathom Circle in Woodbridge, Virginia on Friday evening to contact the Sheriff’s office.

As of this writing, Marine Corps Base Quantico has no comment regarding either of the deaths.

The bathroom door swung open. With his nether region wrapped in a towel, Vincent stood in the doorway, naked from the waist up.

I tore my gaze from his chiseled wet torso and looked him in the eyes. “Martin was…Somebody...” I cleared my mind of its poorly-timed inappropriate thoughts. “Martin’s dead.”

“What happened?” he asked, no differently than if I had spilled a cup of coffee on the kitchen floor.

“He was murdered.” I handed him the newspaper. “Here.”

While he read the article, I dropped my line of sight to a four-inch scar just above his waist. The jagged wound looked to have been poorly cared for. I wondered if it was combat related.

He lowered the paper to his side. “Holy shit.”

I looked up. “What are we going to do?”

He cinched his towel a little tighter with his free hand. There were many things I should have been contemplating, none of which was dropping his towel to the floor and finding out what additional super-strengths he had. Nevertheless, I couldn’t seem to rip my mind away from thoughts of doing so.

“Now that Martin’s gone.” He handed me the newspaper. “All we’ll need to do is get rid of the new guy. He’s a civilian from the D.C. office. If I clean his hotel room of anything Quantico related, they’ll never link him to the other murders.”

“What about Taggert, Payne, and Wilson?” I asked.

“They’re not a risk.”

“According to you,” I said. “I’m of the opinion that we can’t trust—”

His eyes narrowed. “They’re. Not. A. Risk.”

I exhaled a long, disagreeing breath. “Okay.”

“I’m going to get dressed.” He turned toward his closet. “We’ll eat breakfast and discuss it further.”

I noticed a series of scars on the back of his right bicep, all of which appeared to be puncture wounds. The skin surrounding them was distorted, like the muscle tissue beneath was damaged. I realized as he walked away that although he shared his emotional scars from the last three years with me, I knew very little of his time at war.

It was possible that the three remaining marines in New Dawn’s program, like Shephard, had been in combat with Vincent. If they had, his devotion to them may be stronger than his desire to free himself of New Dawn’s grasp.

I hoped that wasn’t the case. I prayed that he’d be able to cast his allegiance to them aside and do what he must. I was convinced eliminating everyone in New Dawn’s program was the only way we were going to survive.

I meandered into the kitchen and tossed the newspaper onto the countertop. It slid to a stop beside one of the home’s many security monitors. The screen flashed from one zone to the next, providing five-second-long reminders that as long as New Dawn was out there, our lives were at risk.

I flopped into a chair at the kitchen table. A long sigh escaped me. I desperately wanted to be done with “justified” killing, lies, manipulation, secrets, and murder.

Other than what was necessary for us to stand as the victor, of course.