Remember Jamie Baker (Jamie Baker #3)(97)
His frown was replaced with a proud smile. He sat up straighter in his chair and puffed up his chest a little. It took everything in me not to roll my eyes.
“You’re my only option, and I’m that desperate to get my memories back. As much as I wanted to work with the ACEs to take you down, I knew if I did, you wouldn’t give me what I want. What I need. Sadly, my selfishness won out over the good of humanity this time, and now here I am. Major Wilks couldn’t stop me from leaving, and trust me, he was raging mad.”
Donovan chuckled. “I believe it.”
I yawned. It was unavoidable. The fire had warmed me, the tea had relaxed me, and I’d just run from Colorado, to Florida, to California, to the North freaking Pole after being in a fight with a superthug. I was exhausted. Not to mention sore, with a pounding headache.
“It’s late.” Donovan rose to his feet. “I can show you to a room if you’d like, or am I correct in assuming you’d prefer to begin the process of retrieving your memories right away? We will need to first do some preliminary testing to see how much of an effect the serum Chen gave you had and make sure it didn’t cause any unexpected side effects. After that, if everything looks good, we can give you more serum, and you can get a good night’s rest while it works its magic. You’ll be a new woman by morning.”
And there were the warning bells I’d been waiting for since I’d arrived. I shot him a sharp glance. “Just like that? You’re just going to start the process of healing me? No making me wait, trying to negotiate for something in return, making me do a bunch of Jamie’s-a-super-freak tests first?”
Donovan chewed on my suspicion for a moment. The wheels in his mind spun as he tried to decide how to handle me. I was dangerous, volatile, and unpredictable, after all. Was that not the report he fed his superthugs?
The longer he waited to give me an answer, the more I was certain he was trying to spin a story I would accept. “Don’t do that,” I warned him. “Don’t feed me a bunch of bull. As much as I love a great pastry, I don’t like things sugarcoated. I was straight up with you. I don’t like you, and I don’t trust you. You have something I need, and that’s the only reason I’m not roasting you right now.”
When his eyes flashed with anger, I huffed and climbed to my feet. “Oh, don’t act all offended. You don’t like or trust me, either. You don’t even see me as a person. I’m a test subject to you. You’re only playing my game right now because I’m too powerful. You can’t control me. I’m well aware this is going to cost me, so at least have the decency to drop the act and be honest.”
Donovan’s face fell flat. “Very well. If you insist on bleeding the civility out of everything.”
“There’s civility in stealing people and caging them up like animals for human testing?”
Donovan flushed an angry red and gripped the top of his cane so hard I half expected him to try and whack me with it. “You are missing the point entirely.”
He didn’t wait for an answer before storming across the room to a set of double doors. He pressed his thumb to a scanner that unlocked the doors and held one open for me, glaring as he ushered me into a new hallway.
“Everything I do is for the greater good. My advancements in the medical field are revolutionary, life changing.”
When we reached the end of the hall, he held another door open for me. The room behind it was much more like a hospital room. My stomach flipped, but I squared my shoulders and marched inside.
Dr. Chen was there, already prepped for whatever they were about to do. I guess he’d gotten the memo that I’d be coming. When he handed me a hospital gown and pointed out a small bathroom to change in, I sighed. Someone, someday, was going to have to explain the point of those things to me.
Both men tried to make small talk with me while they checked my vitals, examined my head—I did have a minor concussion—and looked at whatever else they needed to until they were satisfied that I was ready for another dose of their miracle serum. Basically it was a very long-winded super villain spiel about how the sacrifices of their subjects were for the greater good and that together they were going to make the world a better place and blah, blah, blah…
I wasn’t interested, but they didn’t need my attention to keep themselves talking. They were happy patting each other on the back. I’ll spare you the details, because listening to them was more torturous than the medical testing, but basically it boiled down to a lot of “We’re so brilliant, we know everything, we’re going to change the world, and people will worship us as Gods among men…”
When I got to a point where either they shut up or I zapped them unconscious, I interrupted their gloating. “Okay, great, you’re both a couple of modern-day Hitlers. Congratulations to you both.” They frowned at my comparison. (Though, it was a completely fair one.) “Where do I fit into all these evil world-changing plans? Why do you need me so badly?”
Both men blinked at me, as if the answer should be obvious. “My dear,” Donovan said, as Dr. Chen approached me a gigantic syringe, “you weren’t just born the way you are; you were created. If it could happen to you, it could happen to anyone. If we could unlock your secret, we could duplicate it. We could create more like you. Gain your powers for ourselves.”
That was a frightening thought.