Page 52 of Dying to Meet You

Is this about our blood and the isolated gene found within it, the supercell cluster? Lassiter, Wells and Hutton discovered a component in both Eden and my blood which could cure a multitude of diseases, because it will stop mutations and unnatural cell degeneration. That discovery resulted in the sprawling research laboratory on the Camp Carroll property.

Whatever the purpose, I know I’m meant to figure out where Weston is. It’s a puzzle to crack.

A thirty-nine-minute blackout of recording;

The Starlit Fleet rental matching FBI agents in the New York area seen minutes prior;

The ninja talk;

Dying to Meet You;

Mention of the true Realists;

The note to Eden mentioning “why you must die”;

The killings of people associated with either the Bradford or Lassiter families;

Lawrence Hutton…

Contributor to my genetics, but certainly no father. He had strange proclivities like germophobia, physical fitness in preparation for doomsday, the ability to look at people like material, and a fascination with riddles, hidden meanings…games.

Nature versus nurture…I will never again look at another human being as little more than a tool to use. Eden and the kids changed that. The other traits I come by naturally, it seems. It also means Number One’s contribution has left me with the ability to be a monster.

Not one person standing between Weston and me is going to walk away; they were dead the moment Wes was taken.

There has been no movement in the parking ramp, or this abandoned area of the property. The wellness center rests on a hill beyond a grove of trees to the south, not visible from anywhere but the top floor of the research labs. I don’t need to look at it to know at least one person was planted there by either The Realists or the FBI shadow group to track Eden and leave threats.

It always comes back to Camp Carroll.

I was always supposed to die here.

Avoiding it has caused a ripple effect that won’t stop unless I put an end to it.

Before it gets dark outside, I slip from my hiding place in the parking ramp, dressed all in black with my hoodie up. Weston would say I’m a ninja moving in the shadows through the trees, lightly stepping to make as little noise as possible. My destination is the last place I want to return, but after showing Eden the spot, I need to leave her a way out.

So, in the event I can’t help her she can still survive this. Bringing along the weapons from a safe I keep in my office, I shut out the memories plaguing my mind.

At the tree with the nailed-on skull, I place a fully loaded handgun, resting it against the bark behind the dirt-marred bone. Sticking out of the jaws is an envelope containing all the words I may never get to say to Eden again. Telling her I’d suffer every second of pain again to love her. That no matter what happens to me, it was worth it. The kids were worth it.

Then I do what everything in me screams against with every step I take. I go inside the shack. I order myself not to notice the devices used to “strengthen” me, the gruesome photos meant to mentally steel me but fueled my nightmares instead, or the stains of blood splatter on the walls. I place a handgun in one corner, then drop a pocketknife on the metal folding chair that’s fashioned with both ankle and wrist straps and is bolted to the floorboards.

I take one last look at the decaying walls and the nature eating away at this space before I slink into the dusk, lightly stepping to return to my hideout.

As I approach the parking ramp, I catch sight of an object in one of the glass windows from the labs in the building. The light catches it, making it glint. It moves away and back. There’s someone inside the labs.

Game on. I’m getting closer Wes…I’m coming.

The state police had searched the abandoned labs. It was one of many locations we floated by the investigators as a place the Realists might choose to use. But deep down, I thought Weston would be at a member’s home. If he’s here, it’s even clearer they are using him as bait.

I didn’t come directly here when I left home. My first stop was to Starlit Fleet, where I managed to get further than a badge did. I was given a contact name. It was a made-up name, which we already knew, but they also managed to comb through payments pinpointing where it was made from. While officers waited for a search warrant to learn the same information, I located the company using my hacking abilities: a shell company set up only days prior connected to a bank in Bermuda. The name on the account is Michael Wells. Another nod to the Realists since it can’t be him.

Once I hit a wall, I came here to Camp Carroll…or, as it is now called, the Horizon Wellness Center property. Signs the abandoned lab had been searched remain from tire tracks and doors left open inside. I know all the hiding spaces and hidden rooms, and there are no signs of Weston. No signs anyone else has been here.

Each place is left unoccupied but still standing: the lab building, the house towards the lake, the guard shacks, and the housing block. I searched it all. But they had been searched already by the FBI and local law enforcement.

I continued to search every couple of hours, knowing they would arrive eventually.

Bolting through doors and up the stairs to the third floor, I don’t slow until I’m steps from the lab I’d seen movement in. The entire corridor on this level is floor-to-ceiling glazed glass. Much of it is visible, except that southwest corner. My body stills outside the open doorway, sudden movement alerting me to a person lunging at me.

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