Bone Music (Burning Girl #1)(53)

If only I could read minds, Cole thinks, but even if I could, I’d still have trouble reading his. So many distractions. So many memories.

Is he lying about making adjustments to the drug post–Project Bluebird?

Maybe. Is he really capable of testing the same drug that had caused three subjects to go lycan on another human being without making at least some small adjustments to the formula? If the answer’s no, then there’s still some vestige of the man Cole gave his body to so recklessly and frequently.

If the answer’s yes, then he’s a straight-up monster and Cole should have him shot down where he stands.

Yeah, but Zypraxon, though. If it’s working now . . .

“I don’t trust you,” is all Cole can manage.

“On this particular matter, you should. I never would have asked for this meeting if I didn’t have something to hold over you, and you know it.”

“When did you adjust the formula?”

“After I left.”

“And after you killed your first woman?”

Dylan just stares at him.

“You didn’t make any adjustments before you tested it on Charlotte Rowe?”

“Like I said, I had a different theory.”

“You were counting on her to have a different brain?”

Dylan just stares at him.

Shoot him, Cole thinks. Shoot him right now. Anyone who could give that pill to an unsuspecting person after watching someone tear themselves apart—

“It works, Cole,” Dylan whispers, as if he can read Cole’s thoughts. “I was right. It works. And whether you can admit or not, you want to know why. You have to know. We both do.”

After a deep but quiet breath, Dylan continues. “No amount of social progress will ever change the average difference in physical strength between the genders. It must be leveled with biochemistry. And until it is, the most persistent and insidious crimes in our society will continue day in and day out, across the globe.”

“And your mother will still be dead,” Cole says.

“Yes, and cheap pop psychology will still be incapable of distracting me from my goals.”

“We’re in agreement there.”

“Activate The Consortium, Cole. Enlist their surveillance technologies. Hell, they could use it as a chance to test something new of theirs. But if you tell them the truth, if you tell them everything I’ve told you and you show them the video, they’ll see the potential. They’ll see we can’t miss a minute of this. This is everything we’ve been working toward.”

Is this all aging is? Cole wonders. The discovery that a lapse in judgment like the one he showed with Dylan could have a lasting ripple effect?

Or is he just blaming Dylan for the fact there’s a part of him that doesn’t want to give up on Project Bluebird, either?

These are private thoughts. Not to be even mulled over in Dylan’s presence. God knows, the man’s smart enough to detect them and use them to his advantage, no matter how silent Cole remains.

Cole starts to leave.

“My guess is she’s in a town called Altamira,” Dylan says, “just south of Big Sur, west of the 101 freeway in the adjacent valley.”

This news stops Cole in his tracks, which he’s pretty sure was Dylan’s intention. “So you don’t need us to find her.”

“She’ll use Zypraxon again. Mark my words. And when she does, that’s when we convince her to come in for testing, and that’s when you get those vials of paradrenaline you’ve always been after.”

“And if I just bring her in now and get whatever I want from her?”

“You won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not me.”

“Is that a compliment or an insult?”

“She’s had one successful run. On the third or fourth, she could go lycan, just like the others. There’s no telling. Better to hang back and see how she performs. See if she’s worth tipping your hand to. Because if she’s not and you bring her in and reveal everything we’ve done, there’s only one way to be rid of her, and you’re not very good at letting people die.”

“Some people call it murder.”

Dylan doesn’t answer.

Cole can feel surrender in his bones, can feel it relaxing his limbs and his posture, and possibly his face, before he can stop it, which gives him no choice but to continue past Dylan and start for the helicopter. The engine chugs as the rotary blades begin to spin.

“Cole?”

He turns.

“It’s good to be working with you again,” Dylan says.

“Suck my dick,” Cole answers with a smile. “Again.”

Then he heads for the helicopter with Ed on his heels.



They’ve just flown back over the state line into California when Ed lets out a startled grunt. Since they’ve boarded, he’s been listening to his recording of Cole and Dylan’s conversation with noise-canceling headphones.

A few minutes ago, something inspired him to start a web search on his phone, and now he’s eager for Cole to see the results.

Cole takes the phone.

Instantly he recognizes the face that accompanies the article. It’s like seeing an old college classmate, someone who was familiar to him on a daily basis for a short period of his past but has since vanished from his life entirely. This isn’t one of his Stanford classmates, however.