Ava Gray - Skin Tight

Despite that, he couldn’t make himself move away. Sick with despair, he lowered his head onto her chest. She’d be lost in some lovely dream by now.

“Could you untie me? My arms are a bit sore. And I’d like to hold you, unless that’s against the rules.” She sounded quiet, tentative.

He lifted his head, afraid to hope. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

After unknotting the cords, he rubbed her arms to help with the muscle tension. He’d been careful not to bind her in an uncomfortable position, but she had been writhing against her bonds. Mia sighed in pleasurable appreciation, gazing up at him as he knelt.

He had to know. Had to ask. “Who am I?”

Her black eyes were grave. “I don’t know. You were Foster, and now you’re Strong. Brown hair, blue-gray eyes.”

It couldn’t be. Couldn’t.

But it was. She saw him, even now. He could have wept with the puzzling, inexplicable joy of it. He closed his eyes against the impulse. No time for a breakdown. No time. They only had tonight, and he wouldn’t waste it.

“Better?” At her nod, he lay down beside her.

He should probably make some excuse at this point and drive her back to her car, but instead, he would keep her as long as she’d stay. Unwise, certainly, but he was surely due this one shining moment to offset the weight of everything else. If he’d believed in karmic justice, he would have said Mia Sauter was his reward.

“How did you get these, really?” She reached out a tentative hand, and he tensed. He wasn’t used to being touched, but her fingers felt good, even on damaged skin.

“There was an accident.” He hesitated, and then decided to give her more, more than anyone had gotten from him in years. “I drove my car into a wall.”

She froze. “On purpose?”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “Living had become intolerable. But when I failed, I realized I couldn’t die because there was something I had to do first.”

He felt the tension in her body. “Something that drove you to orchestrate Gerard Serrano’s death and then led you to take the names of dead men for your own.”

She was too clever for her own good. He read the calculations in her eyes. If he told her more, she would start to put the pieces together, and he didn’t want her involved. At least no more than she already was. Should the Foundation realize he was right under their noses, they would stop at nothing to eliminate the threat he presented. None of that could be allowed to touch her.

“Yes, and yes. Ask no more, Mia. Think no more on it.”

“I don’t need your secrets. You gave me what I wanted.”

“And that was?”

She smiled. “A night with you.”

Compulsively, he gathered her close. Her hair felt soft as silk where it spilled over his arms. Mia snuggled in, eyes falling closed. He didn’t know how he’d face her at work without wanting this again and again. Somehow he’d find the restraint. Memory would sustain him.

He knew the precise moment she drifted off to sleep. Despite vague foreboding that he’d permitted himself a significant weakness by taking her, he had only one regret-she hadn’t called out his name.

“Søren,” he whispered into her hair, aching with futures lost. “It’s Søren.”

Test results didn’t lie.

Dr. Rowan ran the printouts through the shredder, bagged them, and called Silas to take them to the incinerator. In the usual course of things, he wasn’t so careful. After all, he was in charge down here, and nobody questioned him. But he did report to a board of directors, and he never knew when one of the custodial or maintenance staff might’ve taken a bribe to report on him.

He couldn’t afford to let them know what he was up to, at least not until he succeeded. Years back, he’d gone beyond his original parameters. Oh, Dr. Chapman had been a visionary, seeing boundless human potential within their small minds, but Rowan saw further still. Why settle for one mutation?

His work would put Dr. Chapman’s in the shade. Five hundred years from now, people would talk of his accomplishments with wonder and awe. By the time he was finished, Homo superus would be acknowledged as the greatest scientific discovery since they split the atom. He would need to fudge the research a little, hide the evidence of his failures, but the day would come. He just needed to be patient, methodical, and determined. Though he’d gotten his hands on a number of weak specimens, he couldn’t let their failure deter him from the goal.

He would prefer to conduct his experiments on children, but they were difficult to procure these days. Even third-world orphanages were paying closer attention to their adoptions, and they wanted more than a check. It was damned inconvenient, but he was coping. There was no shortage of drifters and street people; nobody missed them. Nobody wondered what had become of the guy who used to sleep in the alley. Rowan would take the world’s detritus and create lasting greatness.

He took a deep breath, imagining it. His race would be stronger, faster, smarter. They’d possess all kinds of special gifts. Just imagine the good they could do in the world.

For a moment, he indulged himself in the fantasy, and then he got back to work. This crop of subjects showed no signs of responding to the combination of drugs and radiation. He’d thought for sure that was the key to taking their abilities to the next level.

Instead, they were developing lesions, and their psychoses were intensifying, just like the one he’d terminated a few days ago. As he passed her cell, a woman pressed her face up against the glass, whimpering like an animal. He’d have to do something about her.

The board didn’t know about this control group. They thought these cells stood empty while he worked on honing the abilities of the successes they’d collected. And certainly, he devoted some of his time to training when their mental state permitted it, but he needed more to occupy his attention and considerable intellect. If that had been his sole pursuit, he would’ve long ago lost interest in this place.

As he walked, he considered. So the radiation wasn’t working. Neither were the drugs. By the time he reached his lab, inspiration had struck.

Dr. Rowan tapped the intercom. “Silas, are you there?”

“Yeah.”

“Bring T-89 to me in the testing room, but be careful with him. He’s still healing from the last round.”

“Yeah.” Silas never said much, and he seemed thick as a post, but he was obedient. Rowan had seen to that himself.

Rowan liked that in his support staff. In fact, he preferred it. An inquisitive orderly would have proven very inconvenient. While he waited, he adjusted the equipment, making ready for this test. He documented his hypothesis first, outlining what he intended to do and what he expected to result from the procedure.

As Silas brought T-89 into the lab, Rowan saw that the subject looked remarkably good, considering everything he’d been through. His color was fine, eyes focused, and the lesions had already begun to heal. This one might make it, Rowan mused. A thrill ran through him.

You might be the first of your kind. Homo superus.

“Sit him down here.”

The subject was too weak to resist, though the glint in his eyes said he wanted to. Rowan rarely spoke directly to them. Doubtless a psychologist would have had a field day with that, claiming he objectified his test subjects to make it easier to rationalize what he did to them in the name of science. And perhaps that was correct. It wouldn’t stop him, however.

Silas complied, lifting the man bodily and depositing him into what looked like a modified dentist’s chair. Rowan adjusted the lights overhead so as not to cause the subject unnecessary discomfort. He waved the orderly out without thanking him; it was the man’s job to do as he was told, after all.