Dr. Gray paced the floor of his new, hastily set-up office. His phone was pressed against his ear. Dr. Wilde wasn’t tied up anymore—he’d been taken to the lab across the hall to work. But Dr. Goldstein still was, lying on a sofa at the back of the room and trying to regain his strength. A soldier was guarding him and roughly helping him sip from a cup of broth.
“We’re staying here,” Dr. Gray said into the phone. He paused for a long moment, listening. Then, “No. I understand the concerns about the compromised warehouse, Prowl, but think it through. They’ll assume we’ve gone far away—why wouldn’t we? And while they go in search of us elsewhere or even back to Chicago, we won’t waste another minute packing up and moving the operation again. We’ll be right under their noses in this half-dead town and they’ll never know. It’s— What’s that?” He listened again.
On the couch Jack Goldstein showed no signs that he could hear Dr. Gray. He finished the broth and turned away from the soldier, then closed his eyes.
“And you’re sure no one saw you leave?” Dr. Gray asked. “Has there been any sign of police? Anything?” He waited a beat, then said, “Good. Maybe the other little brats were smart enough not to tell their parents after all. It’s too bad they’ve got the prototypes, but we don’t need them anymore now that we’ve got Charles.” He glanced at Dr. Goldstein lying motionless. “And Jack ought to be up and around in a day or so. Then we can finally put this plan in motion. I’ve waited so long for this.”
There was yearning in his voice, which was all the more unsettling to Jack. But he’d heard plenty of it in his time as Gray’s prisoner.
There was another length of silence, and then Dr. Gray stopped pacing in front of his desk. “Yes, all right. The abandoned bank building in the business park. All the way at the top. See you soon.”
The scientist hung up his phone and went to the window that overlooked the most dismal part of Navarro Junction, with the faint outline of Phoenix in the valley beyond. He hoped his instincts were right. It had been twenty-four hours since the children had escaped. If the police hadn’t come to the warehouse by now, they weren’t going to. Nobody had reported them—the Wildes were playing by his rules. No one would find them here. He’d bet his life’s work on it.
On the sofa Jack remained still as a stone. His face was expressionless, but his heart was heavy. After weeks of torture, being dragged across the country, starved, and beaten for not helping Victor, Dr. Goldstein could hardly hang on to his last shreds of hope. Surely Quinn would figure out soon that he hadn’t made it to Peru. She had to.
But when Charles had arrived yesterday as a captive, too, Jack had lost all hope of Gray giving up on his plan—the man was more determined than ever now that he had the kids as leverage. Jack couldn’t possibly refuse to help Gray any longer with young Charlie’s life at stake. There was no more holding out. Victor Gray’s insane revolution was beginning, and Jack, alongside Charles, was forced to help him. It was against everything he stood for.
All he could do was hope that Charles’s wife remembered the plan the three biologists had put in place. That she knew enough to call Quinn. But it had been so long since they’d made those arrangements. Would Mrs. Wilde possibly recall it?
After all the trauma Jack had been through lately, he didn’t expect anything to go his way. His career, maybe even his life, was over. Instead of pulling DNA from fossils in Peru, he’d be creating DNA-altering devices that would change humanity . . . and not for the better.
He stayed still and silent, and hoped for a miracle.
In the lab across the hall Charles stood at a table looking over the instruments as a group of soldiers unpacked them. He wore an expression of complete devastation as he watched them. One of them noticed—a woman whose fingers ended in long sharp claws. She brought a large microscope over to Charles’s station and set it down in front of him. “Let me know what other supplies you need,” she said quietly. “My name is Zed. I’ll be assisting you and Dr. Goldstein.”
Charles barely looked at her. He couldn’t believe he was here or that this was happening to him. Was his family okay? Was Dr. Gray telling the truth about Charlie? What about these soldiers, covered to hide the permanent alterations Dr. Gray had made to their bodies? Had they volunteered for this? It was beyond comprehension.
“Do you know anything about the state . . . of my family? My children?” Charles asked her, desperate for information. Had Diana picked up on his clue to check the safe? It was hardly likely—they must have been in complete shock by the call.
Zed frowned and didn’t answer. She glanced over her shoulder and kept moving as Cyke, the large male soldier who’d guarded them in Gray’s office overnight, brought several boxes of equipment to the station. Charles stared at Cyke’s facial structure, which had clearly been changed more than some of the others. “Did you volunteer for this experiment?” Charles asked him. “How long have you been like this?”
Cyke did a full body shudder and stared at the biologist like he’d said something terribly offensive. “You can unpack these,” he said coldly. He went away, leaving Charles alone.
After a few minutes, with the boxes distributed to the various workstations, most of the soldiers dispersed, leaving Cyke to stand guard at the lab door and Zed unpacking things at the station next to Charles. After a while she carried a box of instruments over to Charles and set it down in front of him, facing away from Cyke. “Your daughter is fine,” she said under her breath.
Charles’s eyes widened, but he said nothing. Zed turned and went away, leaving Charles wondering why the soldier had taken pity on him. But very grateful that she had.