Page 35 of Taken By the Convicts
He gritted his teeth. “My men were crying out in pain, and you stood there, watching through an observation window, doing nothing to help. Not even an apology or a lie telling us it would end, something to comfort the dying.”
She bit her lip. “I developed the drug,” she confessed as she tried to push away from him. He clamped his hands around her, caging her against him.
He should let her go. She didn’t want to be near him, and he shouldn’t have any feelings for her. But he did, damn it!
“Twenty died,” he said, reminding himself as much as her. “Samson, Trelif, Greggs, Parker, MacKinnon, Coffey, Dennis, Kallan—”
“Wilson, Berkow, Von Graff, Helix, Yellis, Oliver, Peltz, Donelli, Karif, Betrell, Johnson, Ridge,” she recited the names, not missing a single one.
He remained silent, amazed that she’d memorized their names, that they’d been more than numbers to her.
She pulled against his hold again. This time, he let her go. She sat on the bed, leaning against the wall, her face streaked with tears. “I never wanted anyone to die.”
That helped. Somewhat. But still, it didn’t bring back the dead or lessen the pain he and the three other survivors struggled with. No, make that two. Parker couldn’t deal with the pain. He’d killed himself a month after they arrived on Veenith.
With the back of her hand, Melina wiped away her tears. “I made critical miscalculations with a key ingredient in XRGN-723. I never should have accepted the project. Never should have left home to pursue my passion.”
Was that it, then? All those dead because she’d been eager to prove herself and had miscalculated?
No, it didn’t matter what her intent was. She had knowinglyexperimentedon his men. “You worked on living people. Men with lives. Some with families, but all of them had a future. They were in that med-center to be healed, saved, not used as lab rats.”
She couldn’t contain the tears. “I’m so sorry, Ivan. If I’d known, if I’d been smart enough to see what would happen, I would have done things differently.” She thrust her face into her hands. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”
His stomach twisted. She’d never meant to harm anyone. He pulled her into his chest again as she sobbed. Her body shook in his arms.
“The heating in the lab went out,” she said between sobs. “I knew there was a problem with the heating, but I was late returning to check on the rats. They were all dead. My superiors weren’t going to believe the results, not when I’d let the heating fail.”
He cupped her face and waited for her eyes to open. Tear-filled eyes lowered. “What are you talking about?” he asked.
“I scrambled to restart the experiment with new lab rats, but The Company found out.”
“Found out what?”
She shook her head, no longer willing to say more.
He gripped her by her chin. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“The Company ordered me to advance the testing. The drug was designed to speed up cell regeneration. The initial trials had shown positive results with the regeneration of rats tails in eighty percent of my test subjects, more than enough to justify the next trial.”
Her tears flowed more freely now. “I told them I needed time to study the side effects. The drug held promise, but I was months from moving to the next stage in the testing. They told me to formulate for monkeys next. I refused, told them that wasn’t protocol. I’d seen the rats grow new tails, but I’d seen side effects that needed to be documented and studied. A few of the rats had shown evidence of nerve damage. Limbs shaking uncontrollably, paralysis on one side, even breathing issues. I needed to redo the trial with lab rats. I had to recreate and document what I’d seen, so they’d believe me. The Company lowered me to Level 3.”
“For following protocol?”
She nodded.
“So you stopped and did what they said at that point?”
“I. . . I was afraid.”
Of course, she was afraid. If they lowered her to Level 4, they’d send her to a prison planet, such as Kyth or Narkos. Neither was suitable for women. Like Veenith.
He wiped her tears away with his thumb. She hadn’t told him everything. She had said Level 3, not 5. Veenith was purely for Level 5s.
“Continue, Melina. I need to hear all of it. Like how you then got lowered to Level 5, or was that for something else?”
She inhaled a deep breath and slowly released it. “I formulated for monkeys while also restarting my trials on the lab rats, without approval. Technically, I was wasting resources, but I hoped I could justify it in time. My manager found out and took the drug from me, assigned it to another doctor for the next trial. I went home. My p-punishment at home lasted longer than expected. When I returned to the lab, my manager reassigned me to another project. I figured I could juggle the two projects, come in early and leave late, despite the consequences at home. I’d figure it out somehow. I mean, I had to do what my manager ordered, but I couldn’t ignore my initial findings with the lab rats.”
Her lower lip trembled, and he felt the need to touch her, but he needed to hear this, all of this, and not distract or scare her into clamming up.
