Kinsey woke up to a blinding white light piercing through her eyelids. Moaning, she tried to cover her eyes with her hand--but she couldn't. Her wrists were tied down to the side of the bed she lay on. That was enough to panic her and let her forget all about the harsh light.
Eyes wide, she peered around the operating room. It was so bright, she could barely see--aside from all the silver operating utensils on a tray only a few feet away from her. That wasn't even the most alarming thing. Not only was she tied down, there was an IV running into the crook of her elbow with a dark red, almost black, liquid pumping into her.
She opened her mouth to scream, but suddenly Victor came out of the dark corner of the room, which Kinsey hadn't been aware of before, assuming the light reached the far corners of the room; it apparently didn't and she was, in fact, only in a small pool of light in the center.
Victor brushed her hair out of her eyes, haggard and concerned. "You're all right, Kinsey."
"Am I? What happened?" She felt strange, hyper aware of her body, of his touch, of the fluid entering her body via the IV, but of nothing else. Honestly, there could be a monster hidden somewhere in the shadows and she wouldn't know it.
"You were attacked by a bear shifter," Victor replied, stroking her hair. It was wet and sticky, but he didn't seem to care, even when his palm came away stained with blood. "You suffered a broken arm and deep lacerations here."
He removed his hand from her face and traced her ribs. That's when she realised she wasn't wearing a shirt. Her restraints clashed against the metal frame of the bed when she tried to cover up.
Victor caught her movements and immediately began to unbuckle the restraints.
"Why am I tied up?" She rubbed her wrists once they were free. They were surprisingly sore; she didn't think she had struggled against the restraints that hard.
"We weren't sure how you would react to the Serum. . ." Victor's gaze went down to her raw wrists. "And you had a particularly harsh reaction. I've actually never seen anything like that before. We thought you were going to Turn." His eyes met hers, quizzical and curious; she felt like a lab rat who didn't perform as expected. It made her skin crawl.
"Who's we? Where am I, Victor? What the hell do you mean, Turn?"
"Hey, now, don't start getting hysterical on me, Kinsey. You're doing well. Really, well."
What did he expect? Her memories were coming back. That bear had been big and majorly pissed at her. His giant claws. She remembered all the blood--her blood-- warm and sticky in a puddle beneath her. To only wake up in a room that looked too much like a laboratory. . .
It was a lot.
Victor cupped her cheeks, holding her, forcing her to look at him. "You're okay, Kinsey. I'm here."
She didn't want him to be here. She wanted Damon. He was the only one who truly made her feel safe.
"Here, let me take this out--it doesn't look like you need it anymore--then we can go for a walk and talk. Sound good?"
His tone was coaxing, gentle, but firm. She didn't have a choice. Victor had decided what was going to happen.
Just as well it was what she wanted.
He relieved her arm of the IV, not bothering to reach for a bandage to stop the bleeding--because the wound closed immediately.
Kinsey's eyes bugged. Damon had healed her wounds before, but they had only been bruises. Watching the small hole zip shut. . . it made her feel woozy.
"How. . .?"
She looked at her wrists. They were blemishless now, when only moments ago they had been rubbed raw.
Victor placed the half-empty bag down on the table gently, as if it was a newborn baby. "It doesn't have an official name. We're currently calling it Serum Four. It has remarkable healing properties. You would have died without it."
She brushed her fingers over the five faint lines across her abdomen from the right side of her ribs. The scars were hardly noticeable, unless one held a light up to them; she was surprised she could see them at all, but it seemed this serum had done more than healed her. She saw blemishes on her body she had never seen before, faint freckles that dusted trails over her skin. The harsh light above her still hurt her eyes, but when she looked at Victor, it didn't bother him.
The Serum had changed her.
"What exactly is in Serum Four?" she asked, afraid of the answer.
"I can't get into what exactly is in it; the main ingredient is shifter blood. Come with me."
She was about to follow, needing to know more about this Serum and how they got their hands on shifter blood, then she remembered her half-naked state. Damon might have made her more confident in her self-image, but not enough to roam the halls of a hospital topless. "Um. . ."
Victor seemed to suddenly remember her clothing situation; his eyes snapped down to her lacy black bra.
She folded her arms over her chest. One: he was her brother-in-law and should not be looking at her like he could eat her for dinner. Two: ew. The city may have voted him the sexiest man alive, and maybe she should have been a little flattered he found her attractive, especially compared to Carrisa, but her body broke out into a cold sweat instead. Her heart thumped in her chest like a wild animal trying to free itself of her ribcage.
It was strange. She'd never felt that kind of aversion to anyone before, particularly Victor.
It must be the Serum. It's still coursing through you. It's messing with your body.
Victor shucked out of his jacket and hung it on her shoulders, zipping it up to her chin. She inhaled once and gagged. For some reason, the scent of him made her stomach roil. She'd never even been able to smell Victor before--now she wished she couldn't. Not that his cologne was ghastly, and, in fact, in any other circumstance she would have liked the subtle muskiness. But not tonight. Not with the Serum messing with her.
She followed Victor out of the room into a wide corridor. It was illuminated by a series of tube lights hanging on the ceiling, not from the windows running along the walls. They peered into rooms, most of them dark, impossible to see into, but the one she could see in stopped her in her tracks.
There was a young woman in the room, chained to the far wall. She barely had any give on the chains to use the sorry excuse of a toilet in the corner. She wore a surgical gown, hardly thick enough to keep the chill off her back as she huddled her knees to her chest.
What stood out the most to her, though, was the white hair, oh-so similar to Cody's. She couldn't be. . .
What had Cody called her?
"Cera?"
The young woman looked up at her, eyes as blue and bright as her brother's.
"What was that?" Victor had gone on ahead, not noticing she had stopped to look at the chained up woman. He came back to her side, watching Cera dispassionately. "This is subject one sixty-two, our newest arrival. Well, second newest. Thanks to you, we have another one."
Who was the man in front of her? It couldn't be Victor. He was a kind, charming man, one who dedicated his life to making the world a better place. He made the Bane Corporation to heal people, for fuck's sake!
Not to capture people and use their blood--and who knew what else--to. . . what? What was he doing with all the research taking place down here?
She shuddered, terrified of the man before her.
"Come on." Victor took her arm, pulling her further down the corridor. More rooms were lit up, revealing more people chained up like. . . animals. They were in far worse condition than Cera, bruised and bloodied. One man had an arm missing, long since healed, but the lacerations on his bare chest were fresh.
Up ahead, a man screamed; it was muffled, probably coming from one of the rooms they approached.
Victor stopped by a door accompanied by Echo standing guard outside. Echo nodded sharply to him then turned his eyes straight ahead for the wall opposite him. Deeply unsettled by this house of horrors she had found herself in, Kinsey followed Victor's gaze through the window.
Krous was tied to the wall; the chains were tight, not giving him any leeway to buckle when the person inside the cell with him poked him with the cattle prod.
Kinsey held her hands to her mouth, fighting every instinct she had to run as far away from this place as possible. She couldn't run. Even if she did somehow managed to escape Echo, who would undoubtedly chase her, how could she leave all of this behind, knowing what was going on down here? She needed to tell someone. The police, the papers. Anyone who would listen.
The interrogator retracted the cattle prod and peered over her shoulder to Victor. "He won't tell me anything, sir."
Krous looked worse than some of the others down here. His head sagged, blood dripping from his nose and mouth. His chest, taking in haggard breaths, trembling, and was laced with deep cuts.
Her heart broke.
She knew he was the bear who had attacked and almost killed her, but she wouldn't wish this kind of treatment on anyone.
"Perhaps another method?" Victor suggested casually. He might as well be ordering lunch. "The liquid nitrogen has been effective in the past."
Liquid nitrogen?
Krous pulled his head up enough to look at them, see if they were serious.
The interrogator left her post and went down to the end of the corridor for the closet. She came out with a small canister with WHIMIS warning labels all over it.
Kinsey's stomach churned. She hoped for Krous's sake they weren't going to do what she thought they were.
"Victor. . ."
"This is necessary, Kinsey," he assured her firmly. "I'll show them what will happen to them if they attack one of my own."
Krous cried out, but she couldn't bear to remove her gaze from Victor. She fought the tears, squeezing her fists into tight balls at her sides. She couldn't show fear. No weakness. If Victor doubted her after letting her see all of this, she'd never see the light of day. Probably end up like everyone else down here.
Ice shattered on the floor, sounding much like broken glass. Kinsey refused to look. Krous's screams were too much to bear. She was going to faint.
She wobbled.
Victor caught her around the waist then guided her further up the hallway. "We'll find out why he targeted you, Kinsey," he promised. "In the meantime, I'll take you home. You're still recovering."
They reached an elevator. A familiar elevator. The lights inside were bright compared to the dark corridor. She had to squint for a minute until her eyes adjusted. They weren't in a hospital. They were in the Bane Building.
Her mind reeled on their way up. She didn't want them to interrogate Krous because of her. They wouldn't get anything out of him. He had attacked her because he hated her. Nothing else to it.
She was mildly aware the door had opened and Victor was leading her through the foyer. He was murmuring in her ear. Something about their being nothing to be afraid of. She was safe. He assumed her mental check-out was due to fearing for her safety--not witnessing horrors downstairs.
How fucked up was that?
Her safety was the last thing on her mind. She needed to figure out how she was going to help those people before Victor realised what she was doing and made her disappear too.
She didn't remember getting into Victor's Mercedes, but the next thing she knew, he was pulling to a stop outside of her building.
The rain was back. It soaked through her hair and jacket instantly, slapping her out of her stupor.
"Now," Victor was saying, still calm, as if nothing horrific had happened at all, "I know there was a lot to absorb tonight, Kinsey, but I need to know you understand."
He used her fob--when did he get that?--to let them in the building.
"I don't," she replied numbly. "Why do you have all those people down there?"
"Research," he said simply, calling the elevator. "With everything I've learned from studying shifters over the past fifty years, I've developed countless medicines, weapons, and technology that will benefit humanity long after I'm gone."
"I'm sorry, did you say fifty years?" She knew she should be more concerned by the weapons he had developed--but he didn't look a day over thirty. Did Carissa know how old this guy was??
He tapped her nose on cue with the elevator arriving. "I don't look bad for eighty-two, do I? Do you know why that is? My research has led me this far, but I know there's still so much to uncover, from shifters and fae, witches, vampires. . . the possibilities for humanity are endless, Kinsey. I want you at my side during this journey. Are you with me?"
The elevator couldn't open fast enough; it was starting to feel too small in there. She hurried for Sabrina's apartment. The sooner she got away from Victor the better. He was taking up way too much personal space.
"Does Carissa know about any of this?" She couldn't imagine her sister being all right with anything Victor had been up to.
He gave her a dubious, insulted look. "Of course she does."
Her world spun.
No, no that couldn't be right. Carissa wouldn't. . .
She replayed past conversations with Carissa, remembered how she had talked about shifters, how she dehumanized them. She didn't want to believe her sister could be so callous, but it was right in her face. It had been all along.
Victor stepped towards her; reflexively she backed up--into the door. His scent still made her unexplainably queasy. It was all she could do to not pinch her nose shut.
"Victor, it's getting late-"
She didn't get to finish her sentence. The door opened behind her and she stumbled back into a solid chest. She gasped, hopping back.
"Damon?"
Don't get her wrong, she was glad to see him, especially after the night she had, but it was certainly a surprise to see him here--and he was pissed.
Snarling at Victor, he pulled her close to his side, almost standing in front of her. "Get the fuck away from Kinsey."
Victor's eyes bugged when he took in Damon's tall frame and took a small step back; he was quick to gather his composure, and straightened out his slightly wrinkled shirt, taking on a more authoritative stance. "Damon Hayes. What a surprise. Though, maybe I should have expected to see you. You've been trying to tear down my company for years. It appears you've finally found a way to worm into my ranks." Victor's eyes landed on Kinsey.
Kinsey felt as if someone and taken a hold of her heart and was about to crush it. "What?"
He looked at her, disappointed. "Don't be so naive, Kinsey. The shifters have been out to get us since we opened our doors. They'll do anything to stop us. Did this one tell you differently? Did he tell you he loved you? Did he make you sweet promises of a future together?" He snorted when she was too hurt to speak. "He's a shifter, Kinsey, you have no place in his life, especially an Alpha's. You think his people want you leading them? You don't belong in his world. You belong in mine."
Damon moved in a flash. In the next second, Victor was pinned three feet above the floor and Damon's fangs were barred.
Just as suddenly, Damon dropped him and staggered back, falling to his knees. He held his head in his hands, grunting in pain. Blood dripped out of his nose, mouth, and ears.
"Damon!" She hurried to his side, squeezing his shoulders. He couldn't even open his eyes to look at her.
Sabrina cried in the apartment. "Kalem! What's wrong?" She knelt beside Kalem who had also collapsed, then lifted her gaze to Kinsey for answers. Kinsey didn't know what had happened, but Victor had done it. He stood smug over Damon and spat on the back of his neck.
"Filthy beast. You think you can touch me? You think you can hurt the people I care about? I'll turn you to dust for your sins."
Kinsey moved in front of him; she might as well be looking up at a stranger. She no longer saw the charming man she had known for years, the only one in her family who had faith in her. Instead, she saw a monster, who wore a gruesome mask that promised pain on anyone who dared to stand in his way. "Victor, please. Stop hurting him."
He turned his dark glare on her. "Don't defend him, Kinsey. Whatever he's told you, it's a lie. He never cared about you. You're just a tool to him."
"Stop it!" She'd heard him the first time. Felt the grasp tighten on her heart, felt the crushing weight on her chest.
Victor knelt beside her, brushing her tears away with his thumb. Sympathy warmed his eyes. "I'm sorry. I truly am. If I had known they would stoop this low, I would have had one of my men watch you. Let me make a call and I'll have someone come by to collect them."
Collect and chain up like the rest of the shifters under the Bane Building.
She shook her head. Even if Victor was telling the truth and Damon never truly cared about her, no one deserved to be locked up down there.
Her heart twisted. He manipulated you.
"You need to leave."
He used you.
Frowning, Victor quickly rose to his feet. "Kinsey, he-"
"I know what he is. I can take care of him. Release him and his friend then leave."
He never cared.
He gave Damon one last look over then nodded to her. "Very well. You have my number if you need anything. I will have Barnett draw up a protection detail for you."
"Fine." As long as he left her alone, she'd agree to anything.
You're a means to an end.
He pulled a remote-looking stick out of his pocket and pressed one of two buttons on it. Damon sagged against her, panting desperately to catch his breath. By the time he was strong enough to look for Victor, he was gone. Realizing that, Damon rolled to his knees and pulled her in for a tight hug.
"I was so worried about you, Kins. What happened?"
She squeezed her eyes shut, wanting more than anything to wrap her arms around him, cry, and forget about the night. Forget Victor's words and continue living the lie she had loved so much. But she couldn't forget. His words ate at her until they consumed her and she felt like a fool.
Of course Damon didn't actually care about her. The whole time she'd been wondering how she had gotten so lucky to find a guy like him, someone so caring and considerate. Someone who had made her feel smart and beautiful. Powerful.
He had been perfect. Too perfect.
She wasn't any of those things. He had only said them so she would tell him things about Victor. She had been stupid to believe there was actually someone on this miserable planet who could love her.
"Kinsey?"
Damon brushed fresh tears from her eyes. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop herself from crying. She was hurt and angry. It was too much to lock away and hide.
"Don't touch me." She shoved him back with surprising ease; he stumbled back several feet before catching his footing. "I saved you from Victor, but now I want you to leave. I never want to see your lying face again."
Carissa had used her. Damon had used her. She was tired of being everyone's fiddle. It was time she stood up for herself. Kinsey Ashe would make them regret underestimating her.