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“I’ll have a Caesar salad please,” Isaac says, flashing her an award-winning smile that almost has her gasping, but he seems oblivious as she stares.
“I want something meaty, hard, and wet,” Jonas purrs, looking me over.
“He’ll have the chipolatas,” I retort, making Louis laugh.
“I will have the pasta, please,” he interjects, “and Nico will have the steak.” With that, the woman hurries off to put in the order, and I lean back, crossing my arms.
“Tell me everything,” I demand, not giving them any leeway.
“So needy,” Jonas teases, leaning over to touch my arm. I grab his hand, twist, and slam his face into the table before letting go and sitting back again like nothing happened.
“Touch me and die,” I warn.
Jonas groans but sits back. “Touché.”
“Enough,” Louis snaps and then looks at me. “I apologise for his behaviour. Like you, we spent a long time locked away. It makes our . . . people skills rusty.”
Isaac grins. “Speak for yourself.”
“You didn’t track me down to reminisce about my dear old daddy and his favourite torture techniques, did you?” I question, ignoring the banter. I’m unsure how to react. I’m not used to having someone look at me and know my past. I feel unbalanced and unsure, like a wild animal backed into a corner, so I lash out with the only thing I can—words.
“No, Nova, we didn’t,” Louis replies. My coffee arrives, and he waits for her to leave before leaning in and dropping his voice.
Paranoid much? I listen carefully anyway. If what he said is true, and they are all like me, then I have questions. I thought I was the only one.
For some reason, the fact that I’m not helps, even though I know just what that means for their pasts and what happened to them. Besides the flirtatious idiot and the silent, angry-looking Nico, they seem pretty well adjusted. So, what happened to them, and why have they suddenly tracked me down if they knew about me before?
“You must have a million questions.”
No shit.
“First, what I said is true, and if you agree to help, we will answer any questions you have about our pasts, what happened, and who we are. For now, I will give you a quick rundown. Your father is dead—”
“Stop fucking calling him that.”
He looks confused, but Nico leans in. “She means Father.” His voice is dark, low, and raspy, and I jerk my eyes to his. He stares back before I incline my head.
“I do. That monster was nothing but a jailor to me, but you know that.”
“Very well. Dr. Davis is dead, but his research is still out there, and as we have discovered, it is still being used.”
“Impossible,” I snap.
“I’m afraid not. It seems he had a partner,” Jonas mutters angrily, the flirtatious idiot nowhere to be seen, and in his eyes, I see such anger, such hate, that even I look away.
“And that partner is continuing with the work. We were locked up all around the world in different countries, always alone, but it appears there are more. These are not focused on children, but on grown men. In particular, soldiers. You see, Nova, he took the . . . research he did on us and proposed that if reduced to a serum and training, not only could it make the perfect soldier, but a super soldier. The child experiments were deemed a failure—too risky and too challenging on a young mind—but on a highly trained individual? It works. It makes them everything he wanted them to be, and he was doing just that. We need to find these facilities and stop what is happening before it’s too late.”
Blowing out a breath, I think over his words as the food arrives. “Why me?”
“You knew him better than anyone. You were his favourite, Nova, and the only successful experiment on children. We were all deemed failures and supposed to be terminated. He might have been a monster, but it seems he couldn’t bring himself to kill children, so he kept us instead and raised us under lock and key. I escaped and hunted down other children. These are the only ones who are still alive. His partner does not have the same qualms about killing innocents. So, Nova, you ask why you? We can’t do this without you. We need your insight, your training, and your mind to end this. We must go to the beginning, to the very first lab and experiment—your old house. We cannot get in, but you can.”
“Fuck,” I snarl as I grip my mug. “I vowed not to go back there,” I admit as images of the horrors I endured there flash in my mind. I raise my gaze, allowing them to see the haunted shadows in my eyes. “If I do this, it will truly end?”
He nods. “We have to, you know that. No one should suffer like we did. He’s dead, and it’s time his research was too.”
“So, it’s this ragtag bunch of lost, abused kids to the rescue?” I scoff.
“We have some help,” Isaac says with a grin and nods at my food. “You should eat.” I sense his worry, so I grab the burger, take a huge mouthful, and start to chew with my mouth open to make a point. For some reason, it makes Nico’s lips twitch, and I am entranced by the movement, but when I meet his eyes, they are empty again.
