Page 56 of Beautiful Prey

I stared at the small black box no bigger than my hand. A portable storage device.

I reached back in and found the USB connector that went with it. The paperwork was missing but there was no doubt in my mind the information was stored on this device.

I checked the safe one last time to make sure that was all, then I closed it. I picked up my phone and saw the man had hung up.

My hands shook as I placed the device in my coat pocket. I turned off the lights and rushed out, feeling like the building was closing in on me, not wanting me to leave with what I took.

I made a beeline out of the place, not even waving to the guard as I sped past.

It was a miracle I didn’t get pulled over on my way back to Bayville. It was getting close to midnight as I pulled into the hotel, but I knew I wasn’t going to sleep, at least not for a while.

Quietly, I slipped into my room, locking the door behind me. Then I took out the storage device and set it by my laptop. I turned the computer on as I threw my coat on the bed.

As the screen loaded, I took the connector and plugged one end into the sleek black device and the other end into my laptop.As the driver loaded in the files, I took out a soda from the mini fridge, feeling shaky but wanting the caffeine to keep me alert.

When it was finished, I sat down and clicked on the drive folder.

Thankfully, the device wasn’t encrypted. Clearly, my father thought the safe was enough to keep it secure. When I opened the drive, dozens of folders appeared.

I scrolled through the folders seeing names. Twenty-two to be exact. And next to some of the names was the word: DECEASED.

Shane DECEASED

Tanya DECEASED

Jordan DECEASED

Maddie DECEASED

Fourteen, I counted. I clicked on Jordan just out of curiosity and found a set of files within his folder. I clicked on one that was named SUBJECT THREE.

A photo popped up. A little boy with messy blond hair and bright blue eyes. Below his photo was his name, date of birth, where he was born, and other notes like how old he was when he died and how he died.

Sweat dotted my brow as I read his file. He was only nine when he died. They claimed the death as failed testing.

The rooms had been enough to tell me what my father’s company had been up to but this solidified it. Just as I feared.

I clicked out of his record and searched the rest of his folder. Video files. Curious, I clicked on one.

A room popped up with the little boy sitting at a table. I recognized it as one of the rooms under the warehouse. Teary-eyed, he tried to muffle his cries. His eyes were bloodshot, face pale.

“Subject Three, July 21st,” said a man behind the camera. “Subject hasn’t stopped crying since we gave him dosageseven. Claimed to have stomach pain and hearing loss in left ear. However, subject’s sense of smell has been heightened considerably, and he has had no inclination to rest in the past twenty-four hours. Heart rate is still stable despite his increased alertness.”

My blood went cold as I heard the man’s voice. A voice I recognized as my uncle’s. Disturbed, I opened Cassidy’s folder. I looked through her records and found she wasn’t deceased but had been “let go” at the age of fourteen. I don’t know why they didn’t keep her. It only stated that her testing was complete and that she was transferred back into the foster care system. I clicked on one of her videos. This time, the classroom popped up. Cassidy, a tall black girl with a sharp expression, gazed at the camera with a look that could kill. Only, one of her eyes was swollen so bad it looked ready to pop out of her skull. Her eyelid drooped enough to keep it in place. Her hair was braided back, her shabby white shirt and pants were rolled up as she clenched a marker in her hand. In the video, she looked to be about eleven.

“Remember, Cassidy, you have thirty seconds to finish the problems,” my uncle said. On the white board behind here were a set of math equations. “Just call out when you’re finished, understand?”

Cassidy turned to the board. The lights then went off. The screen was pitch black for about twenty seconds before she snapped “Done”. The lights turned on and her answers were on the board along with her work.

My uncle came into view and reviewed the problems. “Good work, Cassidy.”

The video cut out and showed her working on a puzzle in the middle of the room. “Subject Eleven’s sight has remained the same for up to twelve hours with no sign of decline. Her accuracy and speed in problem solving have also improved considerably.Only the hallucinations have returned, mainly of voices and acute migraines.”

Cassidy looked at the camera and I could see the hatred clear as day. I clicked out of the video and sat there for a long moment, taking it in.

They were clearly experimenting on some kind of enhancement drugs. But each drug came with a price. The side effects were astoundingly horrible.

Why the fuck would my dad be working on something like this?

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