18

18

I was paired with Edan the next day. Maddie dropped us off at a Starbucks, where we ordered coffees and food and took a seat at the window so we could watch the building across the street. It was a tall structure that housed some kind of research lab. It was probably too centrally located to have scrabs anywhere nearby, but we were checking everything.

I glanced at Edan, who had his eyes on his phone. Maybe Hannah was texting him again. She seemed to be doing that a lot. Would Edan even tell me if they were dating? I felt like he would.

My phone rang, and I looked down to see Laurence’s name.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” I said to Edan, scooping up my phone and walking quickly outside. I swiped to answer the call.

“Hey, Laurence.”

“Hey. I saw I missed a call from you earlier.”

“Yeah.” I blew out a nervous breath. I’d tried calling him before we left the hotel this morning, and now I’d lost my nerve.

“How’s New York?” he asked, after a brief silence.

“Uh, it was good. But I’m actually not in New York anymore.”

“Where are you?”

“Lubbock.”

There was a brief pause. “Why in the world are you in Lubbock?”

“It’s a scrab thing. Kind of hard to explain. But we’re going to be here for about a week.”

“Oh. OK.”

It was quiet for another moment.

“Everything OK?” he asked.

“Yes. I mean . . . yes. We’re tracking MDG and trying to figure out some stuff . . . Are you working a lot right now?”

“Am I . . .” He sounded puzzled. “I just finished a job. Still looking for the next one. Why?”

“I just, uh . . . You can say no.”

“What?”

“You can say no. I mean, I won’t be insulted if you say no.”

“You haven’t told me what you want.”

“Right.” I paused.

“Clara, do you need something? Do you need money? I’m happy to send you some, just give me your bank—”

“No,” I interrupted. “I don’t need money. I mean, thank you, but I’m fine on money.”

“Then . . . ?”

“After Lubbock, the whole team is going to Dallas. To this conference thing. We’ll be there a few days, at least. And I was wondering . . . if you had time and you wanted to, you know, meet up, I wouldn’t mind. I mean, I would like to see you. If you wanted.”

“I would like that.” He actually sounded like he would.

“Oh. OK. Good. Um, I can text you?”

“Sure,” Laurence said.

“OK. I’ll do that, then. Bye, Laurence.”

“Bye, Clara.” I ended the call and walked back inside. Edan looked at me curiously.

“Laurence,” I said, sliding back into my seat.

“Are you guys going to meet up in Dallas?”

“Yeah.” I paused, staring out the window at a guy standing at the corner, waiting for the bus. “I really don’t appreciate those assholes choosing Dallas for their conference.”

He let out a short, startled laugh. “What? You said it was no big deal.”

“I know, but I lied. It sucks, and I don’t want to go back, but I have to, so I’m just lying to everyone to try and make myself feel better.” I sighed, leaning forward to rest my head on one hand. “And Maddie and I had a fight.”

“I thought things seemed weird between you guys. What happened?”

“I got mad because she won’t ever listen to me about the teams or Germany or anything I have to say about the future of the whole St. John operation.”

He cocked an eyebrow.

“What does that look mean?”

“It’s just, if you’re looking for someone to tell you that you’re totally right, you’ve come to the right person. I was wondering when you were going to get mad about that.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. She dismisses it every time you bring it up. I don’t think she means to, it’s just kind of her personality. Full steam ahead.”

“Full steam ahead is going to get us all killed.”

“I agree.”

“You do?”

His lips quirked up. “Of course. We’ve both been doing this for months; we know our stuff. But I’m really not the right person to ask if you’re looking for, like, an objective opinion.” His cheeks reddened, and he looked out the window.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m always inclined to be on your side.” He glanced at me briefly with a smile, and then returned his attention to the lab across the street.

I felt my cheeks heat as well. “Thank you.” There was a short, awkward pause.

“What did you want to tell her?” he asked. “About the teams. I know you think we’re not ready for Germany, and you’re definitely right about that. What else?”

“We need to overhaul our training program, for sure. Recruits need more time and training before being sent out to battle scrabs. I’ve been working on some ideas with Patrick and Noah.”

“Our training strategy could definitely use some work.”

“And I think there should be other options for people besides fighting. There are a lot of people who want to help but aren’t equipped to fight scrabs. I saw a note from Grayson about noncombat teams on an exit interview, and it got me thinking. Did he ever talk to you about that?”

Edan shook his head.

“We’ve lost a lot of recruits who never should have been out there to begin with, honestly. And I feel like, with Maddie’s resources, we could focus on other things as well. Like rebuilding homes and businesses. Pair people like us—recruits who can fight—with rebuilding teams. Our recruit numbers would skyrocket if we had a nonfighting option. Investors might be more interested too.”

“I think that’s a great idea.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Grayson was very focused on the fighting aspect, probably because that’s what he was good at. But that doesn’t have to be the only thing we do.”

“I know Maddie will say that there are already charity organizations that do exactly what I’m talking about. But even if there are other charities, most of them don’t have the money and resources that she does. And the name recognition. And teams of people who already have some scrab-fighting training.”

“You should definitely tell her this. It’s a good idea. And you’re right about needing to overhaul our training program, even if she doesn’t want to hear it. I’m sure Patrick and Noah will back you up on that.”

“Thank you,” I said, and I could feel myself blushing again. I hadn’t realized I needed someone to tell me I was right until Edan said it. I didn’t even care if he wasn’t objective. I liked having him on my side.

“Are you going to go to Germany?” I asked. “Even if she doesn’t listen?”

He turned his attention from the window to me, a small smile on his face. “I told you before that I go where you go.”

My breath caught in my throat. It was the first time either of us had talked about that night we spent in his bed, and I suddenly felt off balance. I fumbled for my phone to avoid looking at him, and another heavy silence settled between us.

---

We spent the next two days staring at random buildings around Lubbock, getting nowhere. Dorsey and Patrick got a visit from the police once, who shooed them away from a lab that conducted animal research testing. They got a lot of angry visitors, apparently.

“How far down the list are we?” Noah asked, leaning forward to look at the list over Edan’s shoulder. All of us were in the van after taking a break for lunch.

“Halfway or so,” Edan said.

“That’s just the first list,” Maddie said, looking in the rearview mirror as she pulled out of the parking spot. Our eyes met briefly, and she quickly looked away. We’d been avoiding talking about anything but possible facility locations since our fight. “We put all the most likely stuff on the first list. The labs and research facilities and all that.”

“We’re going to end up lurking outside every building in this town, aren’t we?” Dorsey asked from behind me. “I’m going to get a weird reputation.”

“You already have a weird reputation,” Patrick said. Dorsey whacked his head.

Maddie dropped off Priya and Laila, and then Patrick and Dorsey. She drove for about fifteen minutes toward the edge of town before turning down a street.

“Maddie, there’s nothing out here,” Edan said.

“The building’s right there,” she said, pointing to the nondescript one-story white building at the end of the road. The sign said SUNBURST LABS. It was a biomedical research facility.

“It looks abandoned,” he said.

He was right. The parking lot was completely empty except for some trash and a big lump of something that looked suspiciously like a dead animal. I craned my neck, trying to see.

Beside me, Noah suddenly leaned forward. I drew in a sharp breath.

“That’s a scrab,” Edan said. Noah grabbed his weapons pack.

“What the hell?” Maddie pressed on the gas, and then came to a quick stop next to the scrab. “Clara, hand me—”

I was already holding a sheathed machete out to her. She took it, pulled the cover off, and opened her door. She poked the scrab with it.

“Definitely dead.”

“There’s another one,” Edan said, pointing.

I followed his finger. There was a dead scrab at the entrance of the building, face-down, propping the door open.

“Well, that looks like an invitation to go inside,” Maddie said, hopping out of the van.

“What? Maddie, no,” Noah said. “Shouldn’t we call the cops?”

“Of course. Let’s just go take a peek around inside real quick. The door’s open! It’s not even breaking and entering.”

“Plus, there could be people inside who need our help,” I said, grabbing my own weapons pack from the floor.

Noah still looked skeptical as we all piled out of the van.

“You can stand out here and keep watch if you want,” Maddie said to him. “But I don’t trust the cops. MDG could have been paying off police in this area for years.” She gestured to the scrab on the ground, as if to prove her point.

“No, you’re right,” Noah said with a sigh. “Let’s go.”

We followed Maddie to the entrance, carefully stepping around the dead scrab. We were in a bright, sun-drenched lobby, the tile floor streaked with dirt and grime and some kind of disgusting brown mucus-looking substance. There was an empty security desk at the far end of the room. Just beyond it was a stairwell door.

Maddie tried the handle to the stairwell, and it easily opened. We went down two flights of stairs until we came to another door that had been propped open by a dead scrab. Or a piece of scrab. It was just its severed leg.

“Is it suddenly occurring to anyone else that someone might have left these scrabs here to bait us into coming inside?” Edan said.

“It sure is,” I murmured.

Maddie didn’t acknowledge that she’d heard us. I edged around the scrab leg and through the door.

I stopped. Beside me, Noah sucked in a breath.

It was a huge facility. We were on a walkway, looking down at a lab below. To my left and right were cages. Hundreds of them. They wrapped around to the other side, and when I looked up, I saw another row of them. Another row below us.

They were all empty. There was a dead scrab on the ground outside one of the cages to my left, but other than that, they were all gone. Blood was splattered across them.

I gasped as I spotted the bodies. Five people lay dead on the floor, blood pooling around their bodies. I could see evidence of scrab claw and teeth wounds.

“What the hell?” Maddie breathed.

I leaned over the railing, looking at the scrab cages. These were not the quick, makeshift cages I’d seen in France and the UK. These had sturdy metal bars, and I didn’t see a single one that was broken. Still, something had clearly gone wrong.

“They left all the computers on,” Noah said quietly.

He was right. Laptops were still open, monitors bright with whatever they’d been working on last.

Maddie walked slowly toward the stairs and started down.

“Maddie, are you sure we should go down there?” I called. “There are dead bodies.”

She paused, turning back to look at us. “Does anyone have gloves?”

Noah nodded, reaching into his jacket pockets and producing black gloves. He walked down the steps and handed them to Maddie.

“No one else touch anything,” she said, pulling them on. Noah followed her down to the lower level; Edan and I were close behind.

“The cages were opened,” I said, pointing. There was a bright green light at the front of every one. “The scrabs didn’t escape.”

Edan looked down the rows of cages. “Do you think this place was full?”

“Yes,” Maddie said. She was leaned over a laptop, scrolling through it. “There’s a daily log here. There were five hundred.”

“Shit,” Noah muttered.

“These logs . . .” Maddie frowned. “They go back fifteen years.”

“What were they doing down here fifteen years ago?”

“It seems like . . .” She looked over her shoulder at us with a baffled expression. “They were housing and training scrabs back then too.”

“They couldn’t have been,” Noah said. “The first scrab sighting was, what? Eight years ago?”

“They were down here way before that. There are pictures. And video.” She clicked on something and moved away from the screen. I edged closer.

Two men in lab coats stood on either side of a metal table. A small, hairless animal sat in the middle of it, motionless.

“The last product of R-256 died today, aged three months. Lungs were underdeveloped. Subjects from R-257 and R-259 continue to thrive.”

The video ended. We all stared at the screen.

“MDG created the scrabs,” Noah said, eyes wide.

“Those assholes.” Maddie reached for the laptop. “We’re taking this. We’re showing every—”

“No, no!” Edan rushed forward, pushing her hand away from the laptop. “We can’t take it. If we move it out of here, they can say we tampered with it.”

“He’s right,” I said.

“Take some pictures and videos on your phone,” Noah said. “Then we’ll go outside, call the cops, and call your contact at the FBI. Let them come and collect the evidence. We’ll send our stuff to reporters if we have to.”

“Yeah, OK,” Maddie said, pulling her phone out of her pocket.

I looked up, turning in a circle. “There should be security footage, right? Maybe we can see what they did with those scrabs.”

Edan pointed to the camera in the corner, which was in pieces. “Looks like someone didn’t want anyone to know who took them.”

I sighed.

“Everyone, quiet for a minute. I’m going to record a few of these videos,” Maddie said.

We all waited as she took a few videos and then pictures of the logs.

“There’s more in here, but it’s password protected,” she muttered, squinting at the screen.

“That’s enough,” I said. “We have some proof. The cops can do the rest.”

She wrinkled her nose like she didn’t trust the cops to do anything. I couldn’t say I blamed her, after watching Grayson’s murderer walk free.

We headed back up the stairs and outside. Maddie dialed 911 as I walked around to the side of the building.

I shielded my eyes from the sun, squinting out at the flat earth beyond the building. I didn’t see any scrab holes. Hundreds of scrabs could have fit in those cages, but I didn’t see any evidence of a massive scrab escape.

“No scrab holes!” I called.

“I don’t see any either,” Noah said.

“So, they didn’t just set them free,” Edan said.

“They couldn’t have,” Noah said. “That many scrabs, in an open area like this . . . Most of them would have started tunneling immediately.”

I walked over to the dead scrab in the middle of the parking lot, and kneeled down to look at it. There weren’t any puncture wounds. No sign of how it had died.

“Why leave a dead one out here like this?” I asked.

“Maybe they escaped after everything?” Noah guessed.

“Doesn’t explain why they’re dead.” I stood, glancing over at the other dead scrab in the doorway.

“Someone has those scrabs,” I said. “And they left these out there so someone would find what was inside.”