Page 36 of Taken By the Convicts
“Four days later, I found out they’d used my drug on people in the med-center.”
Ivan closed his eyes, remembering the screams, the pain wracking his body. When he opened his eyes, tears were streaming down Melina’s face.
“I couldn’t believe what they were doing, using soldiers that had been wounded in battle as lab rats. The men had minor wounds. The type they expected my drug to help the body regenerate faster. Skin, bone, one man with a missing arm.”
Betrell. He’d been disarming a bomb without proper gear. Like all of Ivan’s men, Betrell had sacrificed for his squad.
“I was shocked, horrified when I saw the condition of the men, the pain twisting their bodies, their screaming. That’s when I found out my peers had started the trial three days before. They refused to do anything I asked, from giving the patients pain inhibitors to allowing me to examine them. I could only observe from a window, but already I saw symptoms of what I’d seen in the lab rats. I went to my manager. He told me I was off the project and prohibited from talking to anyone about it. It was confidential.”
“You talked, didn’t you?”
“I contacted a competitor. Grayling Corporation. Figured they’d listen because they had nothing to fear by speaking out against The Company. It caused some problems for The Company for a few weeks, and then all mention of the incident disappeared completely. Articles that had been written about it disappeared from the archives even.”
Fuck. They’d buried everything, and she’d been the last piece. “It took them two years to discover it was you and lower you to Level 5,” he guessed.
“Oh, no, they knew within a week. One of the doctors at Grayling tried to blackmail me. I didn’t have the funds to pay.”
“Where did they send you before Veenith? Narkos or Kyth?” Both prison planets were designated for Level 4s, but always had a few Level 5s, usually the non-violent criminals. That’s why it was rare for a woman, even a Level 5, to end up on Veenith.
“I’ve only been here a month. No other prison planet before Veenith. I was on house arrest.” She shivered. “I’d rather not talk about that part.”
She stopped talking until he stroked her cheek. Dark eyes lifted and looked at him with a sadness that shook him.
“I didn’t know how to get away,” she began as she wiped her tears away. “Everything I tried backfired. The Company. . . They have too many ways of w-watching me. I tried to stop them, but I wasn’t smart or clever enough. That drug should never have been given to those men. . . to you. I should have fought harder to stop them or found a better way to expose them. Something to keep it from happening again. All those lives lost. . . for nothing. I’m so sorry!”
Two years on house arrest as a Level 5? That made no sense, but he believed her. Crying, she covered her face with her hands as her entire body shook.
Ivan struggled with his own anger as he pulled her in tight against him. Melina had done nothing wrong. The Company had used her as much as it had used him and his men. She’d tried to stop The Company, and they’d punished her. Even if he never found out why she hadn’t been sent to Veenith immediately upon being lowered to a 5, it didn’t matter. She was here now, and her heart was in the right place.
Melina sagged against him. She was physically and emotionally drained. He stroked her hair and caressed her back, trying to soothe her. Then he kissed the top of her head.
She lifted tear-filled eyes to him. “What was that for?”
“You needed it.”
“Please don’t hurt me.”
“Did that hurt?” he asked, raising a brow as he lightened his voice.
“No, but you said you would.”
“I was angry at you for a very long time, but I didn’t have all the facts. I’m the one who’s sorry.”
Her eyes widened, her confusion clear. “But why did you kiss my head?”
“Just accept it, Melina.”
“The kiss, or what I did to you?”
“The kiss. And you didn’t do anything to me or my men. That was The Company.”
She fell quiet, and her brows pinched together. He wished he knew what she was thinking at that moment. “I was wrong about you,” he said as he brushed the hair off her face.
“Then you won’t punish me?”
The anger returned, this time at himself, for how he’d treated her, what he’d thought of her. No wonder she was having trouble taking him at his word; he’d made her suffer.
“Can you forget everything I said to you from the start? I let my anger take over. I promise I’ll never do that again.”
