Page 78 of Dangerous Deviance
The phone clicked off. I rested my head against the wall, trying to figure out how the hell we were going to get out of this one. A creak in the walls signaled movement. I turned. An oversized t-shirt hung on Ellie’s shoulders, covering her ass. Fuck me. If we weren’t in such messed up circumstances, I would’ve scooped her up and locked her in my bedroom, not letting her come out until we were both deeply satisfied.
Instead, I leaned against the wall.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
I could have said it was work, and that could have been close enough to the truth. But I knew she needed to know.
“The Skyline Shift,” I said. “There are more women. Maybe a hundred or more.”
Ellie’s smile disappeared. “Damn it,” she muttered.
Neither of us knew what to say. How would we save that many? And hell, how could we fight all of them, without killing them?
Axe and Derek likely didn’t care about what happened to these women. And to be honest, part of me did, and part of me didn’t. I only cared because of Ellie. Because those women were like her, and I hated knowing what Ellie had gone through.
I turned back toward the bedroom and Ellie followed me in, pausing at the bed. But I went to the bathroom and started the shower.
“Where are you going now?” she asked.
“We’ve got to go there, right? Figure it out ourselves,” I said. “Get dressed.”
About an hour later, we were on the road, heading to Brackston. Axe came with us. The sun was rising, covering the road in a soft glow. I drove, Ellie in the seat beside me. Axe was in the backseat, watching her closely. I knew trusting her might be the last mistake I made. If her stories about her training were right, it didn’t matter if she died, or when she was able to kill me. Here, later, or anywhere. As long as I died.
Perhaps it was a death wish, knowing that whatever the hell we were, it wasn’t going to last.
Three hours later, we drove past the main entrance of the camp, the dome buildings visible through the gate. According to Ethan’s directions, parking a few miles down and trekking through the trees was our best bet to observe without being seen. We went a few hundred yards into the woods, then went in the direction of the camp, following Axe’s lead.
The trees spread like fingers, revealing flashes of white-domed buildings. Women were ushered between the buildings, some in single file lines, their heads turned down, and others alone. Naked or in white uniforms. Every few feet, a man dressed in white had his arms crossed, his finger in his holster, as he watched the women walk, keeping them in line.
“That’s him,” Ellie whispered. “Dr. Bates.”
She pointed to a man looking down at his clipboard. He flicked a lock of hair out of his eyes. A mix of brown, gray, and white curls. He was shorter than I expected but more athletic than I had anticipated too. He knocked on a door to one of the dome buildings, then smiled when a naked woman came out, his eyes never falling to her breasts as if her nudity was completely normal. They were simply specimens.
From afar, we could see through one of the glass walls. A woman had her hands in front of her as she stuck out her ass, her legs spread apart. A stocky man dressed in a tight white shirt and pants raised a bullwhip in the air, then brought it down on her back, lighting a dark red streak across it. Her body shuddered, but then she stiffened, trying to stay still.
A flash of red on her neck—those marks, the Ms.
I scanned the rest of the perimeter: all of the women had that same tattoo, the same one Ellie and the other women had on their necks. It must have been a branding, to mark them as the property of the program. Of Miles Muro himself.
Axe went forward, towards the back of one of the buildings.
“The hell is he doing?” Ellie whispered.
“Axe?” I asked. But Axe kept going, keeping his head high as he walked straight into the building. Ellie bit her nails, and I held my breath. When he returned, he walked back into the woods, as if he had always belonged there.
“Let’s go,” he said, going past us. “They’ll realize we’re here soon.”
So he had stolen something, then. “What did you take?” I asked.
“A flash drive.”
We followed him back to the car. This was closer to Axe’s usual line of work; he knew what he was doing. The camp seemed to continue on as usual, despite our likely known intrusion, probably for the students’ benefit, so that their training would not be disrupted. We hiked quietly, going at an average pace, but when Axe started going faster, we did too.
On the return home, Axe drove. He handed me the flash drive, and I flipped it over, looking at it in my palm. The same red logo. No matter what happened in the coming days, even with lasers and cover-up tattoos, Ellie would always wear that mark. Nothing could change what she had been through. I pocketed the flash drive.
We stopped at the Adler House. Though I knew that if Ellie could handle being me and Axe for that long without trying anything, that it was very unlikely she would attack Gerard, we didn’t go in. But when Axe gestured for me to step out of the car, I left her inside. We stepped away from her, and Axe kept his voice lowered.
“At the very least, she should be restrained,” Axe said. I grit my teeth.
