All Things Wicked (23 page)

Chapter Twenty

T
he tall man spun as Tobias led them into a different room. His cheek blazed cherry red, jaw ticking.

His eyes met Caleb’s across the room. Narrowed, and flicked back to the petite woman standing in front of him. Her hand lowered, fingers flexing.

“Your failure put everything at risk,” she said tightly.

Behind him, Juliet gasped.

He couldn’t blame her. The lab—he couldn’t call it anything else—wasn’t any better lit than the other rooms, with sheets of dust inches thick on every surface. Every three feet, empty holding tanks squatted amid a tangled sea of tubes and wires. Computers mounted to the north wall showed nothing but black screens and grime.

A wide, blank panel of glass segmented this chamber from whatever lay beyond the black interior.

“What was I supposed to do?” the man called Wells was saying, hands tight at his sides. “I don’t know if you realize, but ghosts aren’t my forte.”

“It remains to be seen what is,” the woman said thinly, and turned.

Juliet froze, so sudden that Tobias slammed a hand into the small of her back. “Move—”

Patience, what little he had left, snapped. “Hands off,” Caleb snarled, rounding on him with murder pounding in his head. His heels dug into the floor, muscles flexed, ready to jump; screw the gun. The pain, the blood.

“Caleb.” Juliet’s voice was too breathy. Too calm.

He froze. Slowly, hands very cautiously raised, he turned away from Tobias’s smirk and met Wells’s flat stare over Juliet’s head.

It dropped to the knife in his bloodstained hand. To the edge pressed tightly to her throat.

“Now, then,” said the woman, stepping out from behind the man’s rangy back. Juliet stared at Caleb, her mouth pinched.

Her gaze intent.

“Welcome back, Miss Carpenter,” the woman said. She smoothed back her gleaming brown hair, her gnarled hands steady. As if conscious of his scrutiny, she adjusted her frameless spectacles and shot him a narrow, considering stare.

He met it. Matched it. Right up until Tobias stepped around him, his shoulder clipping Caleb’s brutally hard.

Caleb staggered, cursing.

“Mr. Nelson, please,” the woman said primly. “A little professional courtesy, if you will. Now, allow me to get to the point.”

“Who are you?” Juliet blurted, one hand locked around Wells’s wrist at her throat. “Why do I recognize you? Where is this place?”

Caleb righted himself, holding his shoulder. “
What
,” he amended, “is this place?”

The woman’s thin lips curved into a humorless smile. “You recognize me? Interesting. As I recall, you were little more than an infant.”

Juliet blanched.

“My name is Nadia Parrish,” the woman continued. “Mrs. Parrish, if you please. Let her go, Mr. Wells.”

“Are you sure?”

Mrs. Parrish leveled the kind of glare that made ice look like hot sand on a summer day. “Do as I say.”

For a long moment, Wells stared at her. Then, abruptly, he let Juliet go, shoving her hard enough that Caleb lunged to catch her as she cried out.

He pulled her hard against his chest. “Be still,” he murmured.
Don’t do anything stupid
.

Her shoulders straightened. Deliberately, she pushed out of his arms. “You didn’t clear up anything,” she said. “Why am I here?”

Mrs. Parrish watched it all with avid interest. At the question, her eyes narrowed. “Because you belong to me.” Juliet’s head snapped back as if she’d been slapped, and he braced himself in anticipation before she did something stupid. “Mr. Nelson, retrieve the girl. Mr. Wells, if you will.”

The tall, rangy man hesitated. Then, expression grim, he strode toward Caleb, unhooking a pair of cuffs from his belt.

Mrs. Parrish folded her arms.

Caleb’s fists clenched.

“I suggest you remember that you are only alive by my word,” Mrs. Parrish added.

Wells stared at him.

“Caleb,” Juliet murmured.

Hell and fuck. Caleb offered his hands, wrists together.

The man’s lips twitched. “Nice try,” he said, and spun a finger. Gritting his teeth, Caleb turned, biting back a curse as Wells wrenched his hands behind his back.

The cuffs locked around his wrists, cold and solid.

“Now, as to your questions,” Mrs. Parrish said. She crossed to a small bank of storage units, cracking open a panel. “This was, many years ago, my place of employment. GeneCorp, the foundation of the future.”

Juliet watched her, her jaw tight.

Caleb bared his teeth at Wells. “Pray to God one of you kills me,” he growled under his breath.

The man smiled, turned, and walked back toward the door. He leaned by the frame, shoulder braced, one hand splayed over the bloodstain at his side.

It had to hurt. He didn’t betray even a hint of it.

“I am surprised you remember me,” the woman added thoughtfully, withdrawing a small tray from the confines of the small closet, “but the brain is such a fascinating thing, isn’t it? Impressions, translated into hundreds of thousands of signals and chemicals.”

Caleb’s teeth clenched as Tobias shouldered into the room, cradling Jessie’s body in both massive arms. “Don’t you dare—”

Mrs. Parrish flicked him a dismissive smile. “Relax, Mr. Leigh. We are attempting to save her life.” Deftly, she fit a wickedly long syringe into a vial of clear liquid.

Caleb took one step, froze as Tobias met his eyes over Jessie’s inert body.

His grip tightened.

Fists clenching and unclenching behind him, Caleb backed down. Give him time. Give him enough time and he’d have
something
to get them out of here.

Jessie couldn’t die here. Not now.

The two most important women in the world. Holy Christ, why hadn’t he
seen
this?

Because you didn’t want to.

He bit his tongue so hard, blood pooled in his mouth.

“I was Dr. Lauderdale’s lab assistant,” Mrs. Parrish said. “Together, we developed the Salem Project, and together, we changed the face of science forever.” Not a shred of humility colored her statement as she flicked the syringe, then beckoned Tobias over. “Take her into the lab and strap her down. Then Mr. Leigh, if you please.”

With a grunt, the large man threaded his way through the empty tube-covered boxes. Jessie’s face was a pale, sallow blur in the shadows.

Caleb’s gaze flicked to Juliet.

She watched him steadily. Calmly.

But her arms wrapped tightly around her stomach. Fingers clenched. Her light eyes shimmered, so much hurt.

And—
son of a bitch
—apology.

She was sorry? Sorry for what? He thrust out his jaw.

A hand curled around his arm. “Let’s go.”

“I’m not leaving without—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Wells said, pushing him hard enough that he had to walk or fall over. “She’s right behind you.”

“Follow your nice young man, dear,” Mrs. Parrish said as Caleb made his way past the tanks. He turned his head, saw Juliet following behind him. Her shoulders rounded.

“Face forward.” Wells shoved him again, forcing him to pay attention to where he put his feet. Cables snaked across the tile floor, bound in places and tangled in others.

Lights flickered on as he stepped into the second room. The glass wall became a mirror, and he hesitated.

Four metal tables, five feet apart and bolted in place, gleamed as if recently cleaned. Over each one, a large maneuverable light fixture radiated light bright enough to pick out the tiny nicks and scratches on each table.

Jessie had already been laid out on one, her eyelids twitching frantically, breath shallow and fast. Tobias snapped restraints around her ankles and wrists, then jerked a head toward the next table. “Lock and load.”

Caleb staggered as Wells slammed a hand between his shoulder blades. “Lay down.”

He turned.

Juliet’s wide eyes met his. Mrs. Parrish pushed past her, seizing her wrist in one bony hand. With surprising strength, she jerked Juliet past the second table. “Let me be clear,” she said coolly. “The instant one of you acts up, the other one will feel it. Care for a demonstration?”

Juliet sat on the edge of the table.

Caleb followed suit, mind working furiously. Shit. Double shit. He couldn’t do anything without risking either of them. Jessie was still out, Juliet was terrified.

Wells unlocked his cuffs. “Hands at the sides,” he ordered. In the unforgiving operating light, the blood at his shirt looked obscene. He moved stiffly, but it didn’t show in the easy strength with which he maneuvered Caleb’s arms.

The buckles clinked as Wells bolted them in place.

Damn it to hell. Caleb’s hands were tied, metaphorically and otherwise.

Visibly shaking, Juliet kicked her feet onto the table and lay down, face turned resolutely to the ceiling. Her eyes looked sunken. Deeply shadowed. Her chin quivered as Mrs. Parrish locked her neatly into place.

She lasted all of a second. Her restraints rattled. “I can’t do this,” she said suddenly. “I can’t— Please. Don’t do this.”

“Why, Miss Carpenter,” Mrs. Parrish said, brandishing the filled syringe. “I haven’t even
begun
to do
anything
.”

Juliet squeezed her eyes shut, tears tracking silver down her temples.

Caleb jerked at his restraints. Wells’s fingers closed over his wrists, his eyes hard and focused. “Don’t test me,” he said flatly.

Think. He had to think.

Mrs. Parrish circled the tables, her shoes squeaking faintly. She smiled, a thin little thing, as she paused by Jessie. Leaning over, she peeled open one of Jessie’s eyes. Checked her pulse.

Drew two fingers across her chest, as if measuring a line. “Here,” she murmured. “Mr. Nelson.”

Blank-faced and silent, Tobias peeled Jessie’s T-shirt up to her chin, exposing her plain cotton bra.

Caleb lurched. “Don’t you touch her!” It echoed viciously, but Wells slammed his hands back against the table edge. Held him as Mrs. Parrish raised the syringe in one steady hand.

The needle winked, arcing through the air. It pierced Jessie’s flesh with a sick, sharp pop of sound, sank through her breast bone like it was nothing.

Caleb twisted, wrenching his body hard enough that the restraints creaked. He reeled as Wells slammed a fist into his temple, curving his arm over Caleb’s head and forcing him to lie still as the room spun.

Jessie bowed against the restraints, screaming. It cut off quickly, becoming gasps as Mrs. Parrish wrenched the syringe out. Tobias held her shoulders to the table while the woman examined her.

Caleb bared his teeth. “Jessie!”

“I’m fine!” she gasped. “I’m fine, stop fighting—Jesus, Christ.” Too shrill, but alive. Panting.

Less scared, he thought, than she should be. He closed his eyes, all at once giving up the fight. Wells cautiously let him go.

Juliet sobbed, and Caleb turned his head to see her shaking from head to toe. “Jules.”

“They’re everywhere,” she gasped. “Needles and tubes and the beeping—”

“Adrenaline should be enough to keep her lucid,” Mrs. Parrish said thoughtfully. “For the moment. Gentlemen, collect the samples.”

“Jules!” Caleb repeated insistently.

She turned her head, eyes opening. They glittered. Raw fear filled them. Spilled over in helpless tears. “They’re all screaming for me,” she whispered. “Begging me to help them— Oh, God, I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can,” he replied, then cursed as Wells grabbed his arm just over the elbow. A needle slid into his vein, a jabbing pain that only fed his anger. Between his teeth, he said roughly, “Hang in there a while longer, little rose. For me.”

Wells withdrew the needle, his features impassive.

Juliet’s lips curved into a faint smile, so sad—so fucking brave—that Caleb wanted to . . . to . . .
Damn it
, help her. Heal her.

Make it all go away.

Do something.

Wells unhooked the vial and dropped it into a case. Withdrawing another syringe, he moved to Juliet’s side.

Caleb locked gazes with her. Held it.

I love you.

He always had. “Stay strong,” he said firmly. “You
can
do this.”

Her eyelids flinched as the needle slid beneath her skin. Wells worked quickly, withdrawing a vial full of blood, bracing his thumb against the small puncture. He didn’t look at her.

Shaking, Juliet closed her eyes, her skin ashen.

Caleb glanced to his other side, watched as Mrs. Parrish dropped a third vial into a small case. Jessie said nothing, her mouth a thin line, her fists clenched in the restraints.

“Stay comfy,” Mrs. Parrish said, and beckoned the men out of the room.

Wells met his gaze as he passed. He held the door for the others, hesitated. Then, his lips quirking at one corner, he eased the door shut.

Caleb’s head dropped to the table. The thunk of bone and metal echoed.

Now what? Would they have to wait?

Wait for death, more likely.

To his left, Jessie stirred. “I can think of worse ways to wake up,” she said, her voice hoarse. “But not many. Jesus Christ. Juliet? Honey?”

Caleb shook his head as Juliet whimpered wordlessly. “She’s terrified,” he said. “She’s been having . . .” What? “Visions or something.”

“Damn it.” Her honey brown eyes hazy, Jessie twisted her shoulders, attempting to get a bead on the room. “We’re not totally helpless here. I got a pretty good view of this place while I was out. Cale, listen to me,” she continued urgently. “I saw everything that happened—”

His mouth twisted. “Silas—”

“
Not now
.” Jessie sucked in a deep breath, her eyes squeezing shut. “I don’t know how long that shot of adrenaline will keep me up, so pay attention. We need out of here. They’re testing our blood for something.”

Caleb tugged at one wrist. “Yeah, but how—” The strap stretched. He froze.

Jessie did, too, turning her head to stare at his wrist. “Did that . . . ?”

Caleb twisted, clenched his fists and rotated it. It gave. Only slightly, but enough. “Well, son of a bitch.”

Jessie stiffened. “Be still.”