Diana Rowland - How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back

“You gonna be okay?”

“Sure. Old shit. New twist.” But she let out a long sigh. “We used to be so close. I played games with my grandfather that turned into real work. Andrew was the so-called responsible one, focused on boring stuff.”

“Boring to you,” I put in. “I get the feeling he really likes it.”

A grimace flashed over her face. “Yeah, he does. Now,” she added. “We were groomed for our talents—and our roles—when we were kids. I was lucky and loved mine. He learned to love his.” She bit her lip. “I never thought I’d abandoned him, but I guess in a way I did.”

“You can’t beat yourself up over it,” I said. “He’s a grown man who makes his own choices.”

“Andrew is Andrew. I’m used to it.” A determined expression settled across her face, though I now suspected that Tough Determination was as much of a fake front as Andrew’s Cool and Unruffled Businessman. “Once we get Marcus and Kyle back I’ll have room to rant about my brother’s priorities,” she continued.

“Right.” I gave her a quick hug. “Gotta go check in with Pierce on the plan.” I started to turn away then paused. “You have any tweezers?”

She gave me a baffled look, but dug a pair out of her bag and handed them over.

“Thanks. I’ll bring them back before we leave.” I didn’t know the plan yet, but I knew that part of it depended on Pierce passing himself off as the real Pierce Gentry.

I found Pierce in the garage. The SUV was gone, and in its place was a white cargo van. He closed the van’s back doors and looked over at me.

“Angel? Is something wrong?”

Grinning, I waggled the tweezers at him. “Let’s go, dude. We got some eyebrows to tame.”

This is what my life has become. Stuffed into the bottom of a garbage bin.

It was a clean one, at least, and pretty darn roomy, for a garbage bin. Pierce and Brian had muttered stuff about specs and load capacity and two cubic yards, blah blah. About three feet deep with a footprint a smidge smaller than a hospital bed, it was basically a big ass blue industrial plastic mini-dumpster on wheels.

I’d been curled up inside of it for the last few minutes, or ever since we crossed the river heading into midtown Manhattan toward Saberton’s headquarters. The not-bad part was Brian curled up inside it as well. Spooning me, in fact, which I couldn’t help enjoying on a primitive physical level even though I considered Brian to be in the special category reserved for Best Friends and Big Brothers.

In turn, I spooned a blanket-covered selection of tools we figured might come in handy, and, for a slightly lumpy pillow, I had an insulated lunch box containing a few baggies of diced brains, since we were down to only three packets remaining from the lab. Maybe it’s a good thing Philip had to stay behind with Dr. Nikas, I mused. Philip was a pretty big guy, and I had a hard time imagining him and Brian cuddled up in the dumpster.

“Entering the garage now, folks,” Pierce said, interrupting my mental wanderings, which was probably a damn good thing considering the direction they were headed. I felt the van turn, and then some bumps, followed by a sense of going down a slight incline. “We have our plan, but everyone needs to keep their senses sharp,” he continued. “Anything could change at any time.”

The van backed up, stopped, and the engine died. Brian shifted positions behind me slightly, and I bit down on an insane need to giggle.

“What’s wrong?” Brian whispered.

“You’re poking me in the butt!”

He made a strangled sound, and I couldn’t tell if it was laughter or exasperation. Possibly both. “It’s my gun. Sorry.”

I clamped both hands over my mouth and shook with laughter.

“Not that kind of gun, you dork!”

The back doors of the van opened, and I quickly got myself under control.

“I’ll take care of this myself, sir.” That was Pierce’s voice. We were inside Saberton walls, which meant we were probably under surveillance already.

“Thank you, Gentry,” Andrew replied. He sounded tired and stressed but holding it together.

“Can’t let anything happen to the goods,” Pierce said, surprising me with a sharp yank on the bin. For an instant I thought we were going to tumble out of the back of the van and onto the ground, but instead I felt only a rough bump.

The loading dock , I realized as I did my best to relax again.

“Close your eyes and go limp,” Brian said very softly in my ear. “Someone could open the bin to check at any time.”

Right. Play tranqed. I obediently closed my eyes and went as limp as possible. It helped that Brian had moved the gun.

I heard a jingle of keys followed by a beep and a door opening. Andrew using his fob to activate the latch, I decided.

The cart moved through the door. “Morning, Ferguson,” Andrew said after a moment, as if he’d simply been out for a stroll—plausible since we figured that only Nicole and her Special Security Team would know Andrew was missing. After all, the bastards didn’t want cops snooping around.

“Morning, Mr. Saber.”

Another set of doors, a long roll, then the beep and ding of an elevator. Bump-bump going in, then silence while the car descended. According to Andrew, they’d converted old maintenance offices into a temporary holding area. Nothing fancy, but serviceable—a secure door to a corridor with a half dozen rooms, and a closed camera system to monitor a few makeshift cells.

“I’ll take care of the retina scan, Gentry,” Andrew said as the elevator doors opened.

“Yes, sir.”

I kept my eyes closed, barely daring to breathe as the cart moved. Things beeped, and a heavy door swung open with a slow metallic creak. I heard a scrape of metal on plastic, then a pop that was Pierce jamming the latch to make sure we couldn’t be locked in, and I only knew that because he’d told me he was going to do so.

A couple of seconds later we passed through. The air smelled different in here, antiseptic and rotten, along with something else that made my hair stand on end.

“Mr. Saber! Gentry!” A scrape of boot on linoleum was most likely a guard near the door. “I didn’t know you’d returned.”

“Now you know,” Pierce replied, tone hard and clipped. “Has the older Ivanov specimen been recaptured?”

“Not yet,” the guard replied. “No fucking leads either.”

“Are Marcus Ivanov and,” disgust filled Pierce’s voice, “ Griffin secure?”

“Locked down tight.” The guard gave a sharp and nasty laugh. “Griffin’s been getting a lesson in loyalty. Ms. Saber’s orders. And, with the Dallas lab tech here, it’s been pretty entertaining.”

Brian tensed behind me while I trembled. Holy shit, did I ever want to leap out of the bin and tear off the ugly smile I heard in this guard’s voice.

“I have two more,” Pierce said with a note of triumph. I forced myself limp again as he pulled the hinged bin lid up and let it fall open with a loud plastic clatter. “Crawford and Archer. But we have a change of plans. We’re moving them all out of here. With Pietro Ivanov on the loose, and no clue how he got out, we can’t risk him returning to free Griffin and his nephew. Mr. Saber, you can arrange the plane to Dallas?”

Andrew cleared his throat. “Yes. Of course.”

“Thank you, sir,” Pierce said and pushed the cart farther along. “I’ll check the condition of the specimens and prepare them to move.”

“After yesterday’s bullshit in the conference room, this one got his arms broken and no brains,” a different guard said as the cart came to a stop. I carefully opened my eyes a thin crack and peered through my lashes, relieved that it was enough to allow me to see nearby people over the lip of the dumpster. A brawny, bald guard stood in front of Pierce. “He’s chained up now, and a rotting mess,” he added without a trace of compassion in his voice as he nodded toward the door beside him. “Griffin’s another story.” His smile widened, cruel and vicious. “The tech tested some new shit on him that supposedly keeps them aware and slows the rot when they get injured and hungry. It worked like a fucking charm.”