Sneak Peek of Beyond the Burning Moon

I know there’s some skepticism that I’ll ever get around to the followup to Beyond the Darkening. To demonstrate that I am, in fact, working on Beyond the Burning Moon, here’s a peek at the first chapter.

DISCLAIMER: This is a work in progress, not the final draft, so just grit your teeth and persevere through the rough spots, which I’m well aware are numerous. This is what happens when the first draft is a disaster and every revision pass a nightmare that never ends…

Chapter 1

“Detonation of an improvised explosive device near a bank of gas pumps resulted in a column of flame and smoke that could be seen for miles. Authorities estimate dozens of casualties, although recovering and identifying the remains will be a challenge.”

The blonde clutching the microphone stood out like a sunbeam against the charred, smoking remains of the building behind her. Her smile exposed an abundance of savage-looking teeth, the better to feast at the buffet of suffering from which news programs derived sustenance. “The truck stop was a known hangout for ex-convicts and bikers. Gang rivalry is the suspected motive behind the bombing.”

The reporter relinquished the spotlight to her counterpart in the studio, who transitioned to sports by attributing one team’s recent winning streak to their offense being on fire.

The television mounted above the mantel went dark. Dan dropped the remote control and wiped the hand that had held it on his jeans as if it carried the disease that reduced the dead to a quip to bridge segments.

The lies came as no surprise, though he had expected them to be recited by a mouthpiece of the organization disseminating them. Only amateurs believed covering up mass murder called for discretion. The SPH had been killing long enough to know manipulating public perception was more efficient than attempting to keep their activities secret. They had well-groomed, attractive, earnest spokespeople available at any hour to address the media and reassure the human population that the Society for the Preservation of Humanity was ever vigilant, protecting good Americans from the nonhuman scourge—no matter how many people they had to kill to do it.

Neglecting an opportunity to remind the public this is what happens when humans fraternize with monsters was no oversight. With any evidence of SPH presence at the scene destroyed by the blast and blame diverted to a convenient societal menace, it should have gone on record internally as an unfortunate miscalculation with no need for disciplinary action.

The two survivors who knew the truth escalated the incident to a critical error not even the cleanup crew wanted to be associated with.

Amanda stared at the blank screen, its emptiness reflected in her eyes. She sat with her bare feet tucked beneath her, hair pulled back in a ponytail and face scrubbed clean. She looked like a teenager, one newly robbed of the childish fantasy that good guys prevailed and villains faced justice. “They murdered those people, and they’ll get away with it.”

Dan felt obligated as her older brother to say something comforting, but he doubted they’ve gotten away with worse would do the trick. Fortunately for both of them, she knew better than to look to him for comfort.

For the better part of two decades, that job had fallen to Nate Hilliard. He stood behind the sofa, clothes sagging on his starved frame and a black patch covering his butchered left eye. His hands rested on Amanda’s shoulders, thumbs massaging the rigid muscles straining her neck. “Again, I offer you the three most important words a man can say to a woman: I was wrong.”

“I wanted you to be right.” Her hands squeezed into impotent fists in her lap. “They helped us, and we got them killed. If I hadn’t stopped there—”

“Better them than you.” Leo Hilliard stuck to the far wall like a shadow. “If you hadn’t made that phone call, you two would be the unidentifiable remains, and it wouldn’t be anything as humane as an explosion that finished you off.”

Amanda shuddered, and Nate glared at his brother for upsetting her further. “We’re plenty happy to be alive. We’d be happier if our survival hadn’t come at the expense of others.” He brushed his fingers across her forehead, his sleight of hand erasing the lines of worry etched there.

She unknotted one fist to link her fingers with his.

Dan bit down on the urge to tell them to get a room. There was nothing sexual in the way they touched each other, but the intimacy couldn’t have been more obvious if they were naked and was nearly as awkward to witness. Even battered and hunted, the idiots carried on as if they were going to live happily ever after because they were in love.

They’d conveniently forgotten the damage they inflicted upon each other the last time they were in love.

Dan had figured out love long ago. It was a biologically imperative chemical condition engineered to make people forget lessons learned and forsake common sense long enough to procreate. He was restless with the need to be elsewhere before biology remembered these two weren’t a breeding pair and pulled the plug on their endorphin bath for the second time.

He doubted leaving would be as easy as walking out the door. He hadn’t been brought to Bedeville as part of some new witness protection program Leo decided to initiate after a lifetime of writing off civilian casualties as nothing but a waste of rations. He’d known Nate would be coming home in bad shape after weeks in the enemy’s care, and Dan happened to be the nearest doctor experienced with both vampires and torture victims. If he’d been less useful, he would have been left to fend for himself after Amanda’s call linked her to him.

Nate would heal—to the extent healing was possible—without his help, so there was no longer any reason to detain him. If only Leo would see it that way. He needed to be elsewhere, and not just to avoid the inevitable decay of love.

If SPH goons had come for him and found Rowan, the consequences would be devastating. If she’d escaped, they might be worse.

She wasn’t the sort of woman who showed up at a man’s door with a box of chains and inquired about the soundproofing of his cellar for the fun of it. She’d felt such extreme measures necessary, and he hadn’t asked questions.

Shackling her made him feel like a monster. It was far from the worst thing he’d done to her but symbolic of every offense—stealing her freedom, leaving her helpless. She had access to food, water, and a bathroom, but what if there was an intruder? A fire? What if she needed more from him than a cellar for whatever had driven her home this time?

He rose from the chair. His gaze clashed with the elder Hilliard brother’s. If Leo meant for him to stay, the objection would be brief and to the point, like a bullet to the kneecap.

His preoccupation with that possibility left him wide open when Amanda seized his hand. “Thank you, Dan.”

He stared at the pale fingers pressed against his skin. The bullet would have been preferable. He peeled his dry tongue from the roof of his mouth. “For what?”

She cut short a laugh, as if he’d made a hilarious but inappropriate joke. “For being here. For treating Nate. For calling the cavalry when you knew I was in trouble.”

Her misplaced gratitude abraded the pathetic sliver of conscience he still possessed. His reaction upon hearing her voice on his answering machine had been Dammit, don’t get me involved. Strangers had risked—and ultimately lost—their lives to help her elude death, while her own brother had to be shamed into picking up the phone on her behalf.

If he were a good brother, he’d tell her to be smarter in choosing those she relied on, using himself as an example of the sort of selfish prick she should avoid. He refrained from destroying another of her idealistic delusions because he was selfish. He already shouldered all the guilt he could bear. One wounded look from those big, dark eyes might be the added burden that broke him. “Let’s not make a habit of it, okay?”

She released his hand before he had to jerk it loose. “That’ll depend on whether I can find another way to get you here. I’ve missed you.”

He put the coffee table between them before she decided a hug was in order. “I’ll call.”

Nate’s good eye bored into him. “You’d better.”

The vampire wouldn’t miss him if he vanished permanently, but because a word now and then would give Amanda peace of mind, he would hunt Dan down and make him dial at gunpoint if necessary.

Leo skirted the room’s perimeter, the wall guarding his flank. “I’ll walk you out.”

Dan doubted he meant to see him off with a wave. “I can throw myself out of town, thanks.”

“You’ll have to collect your dog before you leave.”

Dan’s breath hardened like concrete in his chest, heavy and difficult to move. “You brought her here?”

“I’m not so heartless I’d leave an animal unattended in its master’s absence.”

Amanda smiled for the first time since he’d arrived. “You have a dog? What kind is it?”

“Mongrel,” Leo answered. “Vicious little bitch. Wouldn’t surprise me if it had to be put down sometime soon.”

The thinly disguised threat ignited Dan’s anger, scorching through the blockage in his lungs. “We had a deal.”

“I’ll honor my end of it as long as you two hold up yours.” Leo reached to open the door, exposing the gun holstered under his arm. “I’m only reminding you of the consequences when you lose your grip on her leash.”

As if Dan would forget the bargain made to ensure her wellbeing made such prominent mention of her death. “You unleashed her this time. She can’t be held accountable for anything she’s done here.”

Leo smiled, a rare and chilling expression. “Who’s going to stop me from settling her account?”

Amanda looked to Nate. “Do something.”

He held up his hands. “Oh, no. My brother may have the obvious combat advantage, but yours is the Butcher of Bedeville, subject of stories told to naughty children to terrify them into good behavior. I’m not getting between them and finding out the hard way he really can slay a vampire with nothing but a ballpoint pen and pocket lint.”

Her brows pinched together. “How can you call him a butcher after all the times he’s patched you up?”

Dan gave a terse shake of his head. Nate’s mouth snapped shut.

Leo was too accustomed to being the bearer of bad news to hesitate to assume the responsibility. “Not too long ago, your brother would have been the one harvesting parts from Nate.”

Dan couldn’t look at Amanda, didn’t want to see the horror on her face or stick around to attempt to excuse the inexcusable. He walked past Leo with a muttered, “Go to hell.”

“Save me a seat on the ferry.”

The slow elevator spoiled his exit by waiting for Leo to catch up before opening its doors. He stepped in without breaking stride. “She’s more useful at this stage if she knows the full scope of the operation.”

Always the operation, no matter who got hurt. “You think that was the best way to inform her?”

“I don’t have time to be sensitive to everybody’s feelings. If you want bad news served with a side of warm cookies and hugs, go kill for Betty Crocker.” Leo jabbed the button for the lobby. “What the hell do you think she’s been doing for the past six years, fetching coffee for SPH suits?”

He hadn’t thought about it. He hadn’t thought about her. He’d trusted someone better qualified for the job to look out for her while immersed in his own problems. “Jesus, Leo, what did you make her do?”

“I made her choose whether to mope or do something constructive with her life. How much she could stomach was up to her.”

Even Amanda had been corrupted.

No, the SPH didn’t corrupt. Like Leo, they didn’t make their recruits do anything. They merely gave permission to be as much of a monster as one wanted to be, citing it as the only way to compete against the abominations they sought to destroy.

Once freed, a monster could stomach just about anything in the name of righteousness.

His monster, for example, cared less about what his sister had done and what had been done to her than about Leo’s failure to live up to expectations. If he’d left Amanda, whom he viewed as sort of a family pet, to fend for herself in the midst of zealots and murderers, he wasn’t likely to do a damn thing for Rowan, no matter what he’d promised.

Strained silence accompanied them as they exited the lobby. Dawn was a thin gray smudge on the eastern horizon. They walked toward the municipal complex at the heart of the compound, a tower of white stone and mirrored glass. During the day, when most of Bedeville’s population wasn’t in a position to see it, it was a sterile box. By night, lit from every angle, it glittered like an ice spire.

Leo navigated the security measures denying unauthorized personnel access to the subterranean levels of the building. A frenzied burst of activity accompanied him into every room he passed through.

Dan stepped out of the path of a woman scurrying past with her head down. “Congratulations. They’re more afraid of you than of your father.”

“They’re afraid of being caught in the middle when he deigns to return and attempts to reclaim his throne.”

He couldn’t imagine Leo fighting for the job. “I thought you’d be glad to get back to your troops. You never wanted to be in charge of the bureaucracy.”

“I still don’t, but I’ll be damned if I’m handing it back to the bastard who dumped it on me. He’d be doing everyone a favor if he stayed gone.”

They took an elevator down several floors to the containment level, which served as jail, psychiatric ward, and quarantine for ailments the hospital didn’t want within a two-block radius of other patients. Instead of bars, wire-reinforced glass formed the front of the cells. Each cell contained a cot, sink, and toilet and no evidence of other amenities. Of the six cells in the block they entered, only one was occupied.

Rowan sat on the cot, back wedged into the angle where the walls met. Her head rested on her upraised knees. Her hands were hidden behind her, presumably bound, as were her bare feet. She wore the same T-shirt and jeans as the last time he saw her.

The blood stains were new.

A muscle in his jaw tightened. “Who hurt her?”

“No one. Dumb rookie misjudged the flexibility of her neck and lost a chunk of his arm. He’ll be more careful where he puts his hands on strange women in the future.”

Dan had no sympathy for the wounded vampire, who’d gotten off lightly. Rowan could have taken off his arm without much more effort on her part, but a demonstration like that would reveal more about her identity than was prudent while bound and outnumbered by vampires. “You didn’t tell them what she is.”

“She smells like wolf at the moment, so they assume that’s what she is. I’m disappointed they’re willing to settle for the obvious, but educating them in the error of their ways would only cause problems. God forbid any harm should come to your precious monster.”

Rowan wasn’t a monster, just a young woman forced to accept gifts no sane person would ever want, better able to resist the temptation to use them than the bastards who had bestowed them upon her.

She raised her head. Dark hair hung over her face like a tattered veil through which her mismatched eyes beamed with hate. She lifted her blood-streaked chin and spat.

A gray blob struck the glass at the height of Leo’s nose and slid down a few inches before dropping to the floor. Dan stared at it for several seconds before identifying it as a chunk of raw meat, sucked clean of blood.

“They should have known she had vampire in her when a mouthful of one didn’t make her puke. Pity I can’t train the stupid out of them. ” Leo pressed a button on he wall. Two men in black uniforms responded to his summons. “Doctor Tessler is leaving. Take his baggage to his car.”

One of the officers glanced at the streak on the glass, following its path to the fleshy lump on the floor.

“I had a word with her,” Leo assured them. “She’s going to be polite this time, or I’ll muzzle her myself. Meet me in the garage.”

Dan saw no need to manhandle her again. “Let her walk out.”

Leo clapped a hand on his shoulder and propelled him out the door without seeming to notice his resistance. “That thing is not running around loose in my town.”

The elevator carried them up to parking level. Their footsteps echoed in the concrete cavern as they made their way toward a nondescript white delivery van idling by a pair of doors marked STAY CLEAR.

The doors flew open. Four men emerged bearing a blanket-wrapped bundle that thrashed like a crocodile but had a more colorful vocabulary.

“It takes four vampires to restrain her, but you think you’re safe with that.”

“Yes.” His glare bounced off Leo’s impervious hide. “Because I’d have let her walk.”

The men heaved Rowan into the back of the van and slammed the doors.

Leo told them, “If she shows her face in this town again, I’ll deal with her, since handling one woman is obviously beyond your capabilities. Get back to your desks, where it’s safe.” After they trudged back through the doors, he gestured to the driver’s seat. “Keys are in the ignition. Maybe you’ll get lucky and slip through the net unscathed.”

Not likely. Helping Amanda had brought Dan back to the attention of the SPH after years of neglect, and there had never been a worse time to be the object of their displeasure. They would need to make an example of someone to atone for their failure at the truck stop.

They had turned a corner by taking their secret war public. Most of the public would never know, courtesy of the coverup, but getting away with their crimes made murderers bold. The attacks would escalate. How bad it got would depend how long one survived to watch. The first to die might be the lucky ones.

Leo raked him with a look. The terse set of his mouth suggested he wasn’t impressed by what he saw. “Are you ready?”

Ready to run, hide, lie, kill, and whatever else it took to survive? He’d been doing that for years. He wasn’t just ready. He was good at it.

That didn’t mean he looked forward to what awaited him out there—or what awaited him inside when it was over. Most of the time, the hardest part of staying alive was living with himself.

“I’ll manage. Or I won’t. Either way, it’s not your problem.”

“You could stay. We can always use another doctor.”

It would be easy to hide here, insulated by wall after wall of security, but all Leo’s offers came at a hefty price. “What about Rowan?”

“You know the answer to that.”

The answer hadn’t changed over the years, and it kept him away from this place. If Rowan was going to be hung out to dry, the least he could do was hang beside her. “I can’t be where she’s not welcome.”

Leo shook his head. “If she doesn’t kill you, she’ll get you killed.”

Either would be fair. He owed her a life. “Everybody dies sometime.”

“Idiots die sooner.” Leo handed him a small key. “Don’t stop to turn her loose before you reach the highway. The guys manning the turrets are twitchy and will unload if you deviate from the flight plan.”

Dan dropped the key into his shirt pocket and climbed behind the wheel.

“Call. I have better things to do than track you down because your sister’s hysterical.”

Dan’s fist clenched around the gearshift. His sister made him more nervous than the SPH. “She’ll get over it.”

“Eventually. On the other hand, the whole cycle of crying and whining and irritating me can be circumvented by you being less of an ass and making a sixty-second phone call once in a while, so do that.” Leo slammed the door and walked away.

Dan pulled away from the loading dock and wound through rows of vehicles until he found the exit. The smudge on the horizon had grown to a stripe. As night drew to an end, the number of people on the street thinned. There were plenty of humans in Bedeville, but they operated on vampire time, most of them putting in their nine-to-five on the dark side of the clock.

Several thumps came from the back as Rowan thrashed her way out of the blanket. “Good morning, Doctor Tessler.”

He suspected her sunny tone didn’t precisely reflect her mood. Calling him Doctor Tessler didn’t bode well, either. It had the effect of his mother invoking his full name so there’d be absolutely no confusion at whom her wrath was directed. “Good morning, Rowan.”

“The requisite greetings dispensed with, it is now time for polite chitchat about the weather. Lamentably, that is a subject about which I am ill informed, as I’ve been passing the time recently in a windowless cell. I won’t bore you with the many memories that setting exhumed from the darkest crypt of my mind.”

He hadn’t had time to consider the ramifications of her imprisonment. Nightmares. Flashbacks. She sounded composed enough now, but she’d had little to do for the past two days other than rehearse what she’d say to him. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ve had only vampires with which to converse, and they were disinclined to keep me apprised of current events during my incarceration, so I’m afraid I’ve exhausted my options for light banter. May I have your leave to proceed to a matter of a more pressing nature?”

It was like their first meeting all over again: bondage and the threat of gunfire if she wasn’t on her best behavior. Damn Leo for sending them back to this. “You don’t need my permission to speak.”

“That’s mighty considerate of you, and for that reason, I promise not to gut you, tie you to the bumper by your colon, and drag you the entire length of the nearest interstate if you uncuff me right now.”

He drove past the turret standing sentinel over the road into Bedeville. He could see the highway ahead, a black line on the gray landscape, deserted at this hour. Just a few more minutes, and then he could release her. “The amount of thought you’ve put into what you won’t do to me makes me worry about what you plan to do instead.”

Her breath came hard, out of proportion to the exertion of struggling against her bonds. The next word was a whimper. “Please?”

“Take it easy. Breathe.” If she was coherent enough to issue inventive threats, she was thinking too clearly to act them out. If she succumbed to a panic attack, they were both doomed. Just hang on until we’re out of range of the guns. “It’s not so bad. You came to me wanting to be bound and caged, remember?”

Her feet slammed into the headrest. The metal rods anchoring it to the seat bent. “By someone I trust, not a bunch of bloodsucking assholes!”

If she hadn’t trusted him, she wouldn’t be in this situation. He’d spent most of his thirty-five years doing his damnedest to discourage people from relying on him, so how the hell did he become the go-to guy for distressed damsels in the past week? “I didn’t plan it that way. When half a dozen vampires armed with submachine guns want to take me into custody to protect me from a disgruntled former employer, I usually don’t tell them I’d rather spend a quiet evening at home with the woman chained in my basement.”

“They didn’t protect you for long.” Her head appeared in the rearview mirror as she maneuvered herself upright. “Are all the bad guys dead already?”

Leo had the resources and the willingness to wipe out the SPH in two days, but mass murder would be a public relations nightmare for nonhumans everywhere. The bad guys remained in fine health, considerably less concerned about a loss of public opinion if an ex-mad scientist and the experiment he helped create met a violent end. “Vampire philanthropy has a short shelf life. It expires about the time they’ve gotten what they want from you.”

“How’s your friend?” Their gazes met in the rearview mirror, and she shrugged. “Nobody talking to me doesn’t mean I didn’t hear anything.”

“He’ll live.” A better prognosis than most who ended up in SPH custody, but Nate would never be the same. The loss of an eye was far from the worst of the damage done.

He looked away from Rowan’s mismatched eyes. The left was green, close enough in hue to the one Nate lost to make his stomach knot. She’d received the implant long before Nate’s eye was taken from him, but it had come from someone—someone probably not fortunate enough to escape from imprisonment, torture, and death.

His hands dropped to the bottom curve of the steering wheel, out of his line of vision. Blood washed away, but the stains it left on the conscience were indelible and haunting.

The van coasted to a stop at the intersection. The sign on the far side of the highway was marked with a double-tipped arrow and pocked with bullet holes. Since it was unlikely any outsider would be allowed to loiter long enough to use the sign for target practice, it appeared the highway wasn’t out of range of the turrets.

He reached for the key in his pocket. “I’ll take the cuffs off, but it’s not safe to get out here.”

Movement to the south caught his eye. The early morning sun glinted off a windshield a mile or more distant, but closing fast—some wahoo who thought an empty road was an invitation to see how far down the gas pedal could go. Rather than be part of the collision in that guy’s future, Dan elected to let him pass while he unlocked Rowan.

The distant vehicle dropped into a dip in the road, exposing another close behind it, matching the excessive pace of the first. That dropped, too, revealing a third, then a fourth.

Rowan leaned over the seat to get a better look. “Lots of people in a hurry to get to work this morning?”

“Doubt it.”

Their options were limited. Backtracking to Bedeville would constitute deviation from the flight plan and result in them getting shot full of holes, but he couldn’t picture trying to outrun pursuers in an old delivery van having a more favorable outcome.

The longer he sat around trying to picture it, the less favorable it became. He stomped on the gas and jerked the steering wheel to the right. The tires squealed, and the van lurched into the northbound lane.

Rowan fell behind the seat but scrambled back up. “You drive like an old lady. We’re going to get caught. I’d like to be uncuffed before then, please.”

A glance at the mirror showed their small lead being devoured. “It would be an extraordinarily bad idea to stop.”

“No worse than getting run off the road and captured, pre-trussed for their convenience.”

For her to have any chance of saving herself, she had to be free. “Give me your hands.”

She turned her back to him and hooked her linked wrists over the seat. Her new position gave her a view out the rear window. “Oh, shit.”

The convoy of black SUVs behind them was not an uncommon sight on the American road, but so many in tight formation may as well have had Bad Guys, Inc. emblazoned across the hoods.

He retrieved the key from his pocket and took his eyes off the road to insert it into the lock. Reflex compensated for his inattention by easing his foot off the gas pedal.

The lead SUV closed the gap and rammed the van from behind.

The van jumped forward. Rowan flew backward. The key tore from Dan’s fingers and pinged against the roof.

He smashed the gas pedal into the floorboard and grabbed the wheel with both hands to straighten the van’s course. “Are you hurt?”

“I don’t hurt.”

She had been modified with heightened sensitivity to adrenaline and deactivation of pain receptors in her brain to ensure a little discomfort didn’t inhibit performance of her duty. If she was physically capable of functioning, she would. “Injured, dammit. Are you injured?”

There was a thud, followed by a grunt. “Not yet.”

“Stay down.” If their pursuers started shooting, the metal panels would provide more protection than the windows.

Something small and shiny glanced off the windshield with a plink and landed in his lap.

They key to the handcuffs.

Rowan’s hands gripped the back of the seat. Her wrists were red, the skin abraded and oozing blood. “Let me drive.”

“Again, the problem with stopping.”

“Left foot on the gas, left hand on the wheel, and scoot over. I can slide behind you.” She closed her fingers around his sleeve and tugged. “There’s not much I can do better than you, and I might as well be useless if you don’t let me do them. Move!”

The van made a lousy getaway car, but if anyone could finesse any hidden speed or agility from it, it would be Rowan. He switched feet on the gas and moved his right leg over the hump in the center divider, holding the steering wheel steady with one hand.

She threw her leg over the seat and started to pull her torso over the crooked headrest.

Another SUV had drawn even with them. It slammed into their side and shoved the lighter van to the shoulder of the road. The tail end of the van swung left as the right tires slowed to chew on the softer surface. The SUV behind rammed them at an angle and sent the van into a spin.

Rowan flew over the seat and struck the windshield. The glass became a wall of cracks. Dan lost his grip on the wheel and slid across the seat. His head slammed against the passenger door. She landed on him. He grabbed a fistful of her shirt and braced his foot against the steering column to hold her in place. Another strike would probably snap his leg, but at least it would soften her impact with the dashboard.

The van bounced through a depression in the ground, cutting its momentum so the impact with the trees was jarring but not bone-shattering. The engine rattled and died.

The rearview mirror hung at a twisted angle, showing the caravan of SUVs lining up along the road, forming a blockade.

He hated to move her without knowing the extent of her injuries, but if she couldn’t be moved, she was as good as dead anyway. He shook her shoulder. “Rowan!”

She raised her head. A red and violet bruise bloomed at her left temple. Her dazed eyes sharpened and focused on his face. “You’re bleeding.”

Men emerged from the SUVs. The narrow field of the mirror didn’t let him count how many. Some surveyed the road for witnesses. Some came toward the van.

His head pounded in time with his racing pulse. “You have to run.”

She shook her head. “I can fight them off. I can get us out of here. I can—”

He seized her chin in his hand and squeezed. She didn’t respond to pain, but firm pressure focused her when her thoughts started to scatter. “They’re coming. Get out of here.”

Her expression turned mulish. “I won’t leave you. You’re all I have.”

Maybe without him to return to, she’d learn she could have more. She didn’t need him. She never had. He’d been selfish to let her believe otherwise. “Unless you want to see the inside of the lab again, run and don’t look back.”

Her face slackened with fear at mention of the lab. Her hand brushed his face, then continued past to yank the handle above his head. She shoved, and the door opened with a shriek of warped hinges and crumpling metal.

She stared at the escape route but didn’t move.

He had no right to ask her for anything but knew she didn’t see it that way, so like the manipulative son of a bitch he’d worked so hard to become, he said, “Do this for me, Rowan. Please. Run.”

Without another word of protest, she slithered over him, spilled to the ground, and took off from a sprinter’s crouch.

The trees embraced her. The wilderness took in her children, even the unnatural ones.

At his feet, the driver’s door was wrenched open.

He lifted his head and met the mercenary’s gaze. “Why are you morons letting her get away?”

“The hunter isn’t our objective.”

“She should be. She’s millions of dollars and a decade of SPH research and development.” He eased out of the van and headed toward the nearest SUV, careful movements disguising the extent of his aches and pains. “Let’s go. The sooner you report, the sooner I can lay the blame for her escape on you and whichever short-sighted dumbass is operating independent of the board by interfering with my experiment.”