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“You can’t keep using it,” Hoyt said. “Look what it’s done to Rourke. Hell, the others were just as bad, he’s just the most unstable. There’s something wrong with the formula, Chad. You know it. Tell the Board -”
“Tell the Board what? That the thirty million they’ve invested in this little project was for nothing?” Chad said. “That, sure we can enhance shifters, but it makes them lose their fucking minds? If I go to the Board and tell them it’s not working, do you know what will happen? They’ll fucking clean all of us and start the fuck again. Do you understand, Hoyt? All of us are fucking dead if we can’t make this work. So, tell me again that I should go to the Board and admit the serum isn’t perfect.”
Hoyt swallowed hard before scrubbing his hand across his face. “So, the alternative is to have insane shifters with super strength on the payroll?”
“We’ll fix it,” Chad said. “But first, we need the formula.”
“You send anyone to Rourke, and he’ll kill them,” Hoyt said. “You know that.”
“Yeah.” Chad took out a bottle of aspirin and chewed four of them. “Send eight. Tell them to stay off of Rourke’s radar. Tomorrow night, assuming they don’t move her out of the lion shifter’s house, our guys will clean any security and this Masters guy. Once they have the formula from Eleanor, they’ll kill her and torch the house. It’ll be quick and quiet.”
“And if Rourke tries again before tomorrow night?” Hoyt said.
“He won’t. He was badly injured. Even with the serum, it’ll take him a couple of days to heal.”
“You sure?”
Chad opened the bottom drawer and grabbed the bottle of bourbon. “No, I’m not fucking sure.” He poured himself a shot and swallowed, the taste chasing away the chalkiness of the aspirin that lingered in his mouth. “But we’ll have to hope I’m right.”
* * *
“You sure you want to do this?” Wes said.
Eleanor nodded. “We have to. It could tell us what the hell that formula is on the flash drive, right?”
“Or it could be a homemade porn video,” Wes said.
Despite her trepidation, Eleanor laughed. “Thanks for reminding me of that. If we hear any bow-chicka-bow-wow music, we immediately burn the video, deal?”
He grinned and kissed her forehead. “Deal.”
She watched, tapping her fingers in a nervous rhythm against the couch arm, as Wes loaded the cassette into Boone’s grandmother’s camcorder. He’d hooked up the camcorder to his television, and she stared at the TV screen and held her breath when he hit play on the camcorder.
She didn’t release it until her father appeared, dishevelled and sweaty but fully dressed, thank God.
“Eleanor, I need you to do something for me.” Her father stared directly into the camera before mopping at his forehead with a checkered handkerchief.
The sight of his handkerchief brought on a pang of loss so deep, it felt like she’d been cut straight to the bone. She clutched at the couch arm as all the air disappeared from the room and the TV first wavered and then blurred.
“Eleanor!” Wes’s voice came from a distance, and she clung to his arm when he wrapped it around her waist. “Take a breath, Eleanor.”
“No air,” she gasped out.
“There is.” His voice was calm but firm. “Take a breath, Butterfly.”
She breathed in, shocked when her burning lungs inflated with air. She let it out in a hard rush as Wes rubbed her back. “Good, take another one.”
She took another and then another and then another, clinging tightly to Wes’s arm until the world stopped being so weirdly blurry.
“You okay?” Wes cupped her face, his thumb rubbing her cheekbone, his fingers kneading the back of her neck.
“Yes, I… his handkerchief… it just brought on a lot of memories. He always had one in his pocket, and they were always checkered and…”
She paused, sucked in another breath, centred herself. “Sorry. I sound stupid.”
“No, you don’t,” Wes said. “Memories are powerful.” He pressed a kiss against her mouth. “Maybe we should do this later.”
“No, I’m good now. Let’s keep watching,” Eleanor said.
