Anarchy Found (SuperAlpha, #1)(47)

“I should arrest you.”

I put my hands out, wrists together. “Go ahead. There’s no evidence, I promise you. There is nothing here but legal research on mice and jellyfish. I have permits and permission. Hell”—I laugh—“I even have government grants funding this shit.”

“Who the f*ck would give grants to a lab in a Batcave?”

“His retrovirus, Molly,” Sheila says, speaking for me. “He can rewrite any program in the world using me as his vector. I’m a delivery mechanism for a global technology revolution. We can reprogram any computer to do our bidding. Governments, private companies, anything.”

“So you stole that grant money. You’re a serial killer and a thief. A crazed liar who wants to end the world? Just what the f*ck are you doing?”

“You forgot monster, devil, and evil. Go ahead, Molls, spit in my face for good measure.”

She recoils, but it’s from the nickname, I just know it. “I want to leave now.”

“Molly—”

But she pushes past me, grabs her jeans from the floor, and starts pulling them on. “No,” she says. “No, no, no. I can’t listen to another word. Just let me go.”

I sigh, looking over at Sheila. But Sheila’s gone. She got what she wanted, I guess. She wants me to be accountable to someone and she got her wish. I pull on my own jeans just as Molly finds her shoes and slips her feet into them.

She walks forward, pushes me hard on the chest to get me out of her way, and bolts past, heading across the cave to the tunnel where she disappears into the darkness.

I follow her, slowly, giving her a little time to calm down.

“Open the f*cking gate, Lincoln,” she yells, and once I turn the corner, the breaking dawn outlines her shape against the rusted bars of the gate that stands between her and freedom.

I walk up to her. She looks scared, and confused, and tired. “Molly, please—”

“Open the gate.”

I have nothing left. Nothing to say. No more ways to justify anything I’ve done. I only have one excuse and it’s not good enough for Molly. Sheila was right. All this shit has finally caught up with me and it’s gonna cost me everything. Again.

“Open the gate, Sheila,” I call out to the air. Seconds later the rusty bars begin to lift up. Molly doesn’t even wait for it, she drops to her knees and crawls under, heading for her bike.

I follow her out and watch helplessly as she grabs her helmet and shoves it on her head, then straddles the bike and kickstarts the engine. It roars to life and I stay quiet. Hoping she’ll say something. Anything.

But she doesn’t. She gives the bike some throttle, whips it around in the dirt, and then speeds off, her front wheel leaving the ground for effect.

She is outta here.

I turn and walk back into the tunnel. “Close it up, Sheila.” And the gate comes back down, whining and creaking the whole way. I make my way back into the cave, pass Sheila standing in the middle, looking like she’s got something to say, and then go into my room and close the door.

I feel like a kid again.

No. I never got sent to my room by my mom as a kid. I don’t even remember my mom. And my dad never paid much attention to me. He was always down here, I guess.

No.

It doesn’t remind me of being a kid. It reminds me of being Alpha.

Molly wants him, but only the parts she loves. Because if she thinks the killer in the cave is worse than the Alpha from her dreams, she’s lost more than her memory. She’s lost her sanity.

I sit down at my computer and type in my password, then bring up my scorecard. I started with so many names. But I’m down to the last few now.

Three more targets and I can be finished. Three more days of killing and I can be done with this life.

After that, I’m not sure there’s anything left for me. After that it’s just a big black hole. After that I might think about using the protocol on myself.

After that it might be the end.





Chapter Thirty - Molly




I have to stop the bike on the side of the mountain. I can see all thirteen cathedrals of the city staring back at me as I lean over a silver guardrail and hurl over the side of a cliff. I can’t stop thinking of the images on that wall.

He’s sick.

Sick. Sick. Sick. I cannot say it enough, that’s how sick he is. I have spent the last few years committed to protecting people from harm. I joined this department to help the innocent and the underrepresented. The forgotten and the disregarded. To get to the bottom of crimes that no one cares about. And now I’m in bed with a person who spits on everything I believe in. A person who takes the law into his own hands and uses science—the pursuit of knowledge, for f*ck’s sake—to kill people in the name of vigilante justice.

I know why he uses that anarchy symbol now. Because he is the antithesis of everything society represents. Authority, safety, and the rule of order mean nothing to Lincoln Wade. He is right. He is what they made him. He is evil, he is wicked, and he is insane.

I try to throw up again, but my stomach is empty. And I never got to pee, and right now, I might piss myself if I can’t get it all under control. So I drop to my knees, still holding the guardrail, and bow my head into the cold metal. The wind is strong up here, and I’m shaking from the cold. I left my jacket and my backpack. And now I’ll probably have to break into my own house because I don’t have my keys.