26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Axel

" X avier?"

It was the first word that came out of my mouth, and I wasn't sure whether to be worried or relieved when he didn't answer me right away. I was pretty sure he'd gotten away, that I'd kept him safe.

But there was no way for me to know. They might have found him. They might have found him, and I couldn't do anything about it.

"Ah, you're awake."

My eyes turned to the doorway of a very blank, very dark room. The man who stood there looked familiar—I'd seen his picture on the flash drive.

Nathaniel West. Tall and slender, with dark hair and dark eyes. He was older, but he didn't look weak.

In fact, he was looking at me like a shark circling its prey.

The expression made me clench my jaw.

"So… Xavier Benham, hm?" Just hearing his name come from the stranger's tongue was enough to make my gut twist, make my body burn. "Tell me, is he the only personality residing within the body? Or do we still have access to Marshall Lister as well? I knew Dr. Northman had employed one of our potential subjects, but I never thought he'd become such a vital asset."

If I told him it was just Xavier, that would make him disposable, wouldn't it?

If I told him Marshall was there, they'd keep going after him.

The only right answer was no answer. I stared at him with a passive expression and kept my lips pressed together.

The curve of his smile told me that he wasn't surprised, but the way he looked me up and down let me know he was delighted .

That never bode well. There were people who tortured information out of you because they had to, and people who enjoyed what they were doing. I had a feeling I was being subjected to the latter.

"You realize what we're doing here is a scientific miracle, don't you? The capability of waking latent personalities within a human? We could bring back brilliance from prior lives, the most talented, critical minds."

Was he trying to use logic on me? I knew what they were doing. Even though I wasn't one of the most talented, critical minds , it didn't take a genius to realize he was going to use this power the same way every other rich asshole used power.

To get richer.

It wasn't about helping anyone.

I stared blankly at him, and hoped he'd get the message that talking wasn't going to do him a damn bit of good. If he was going to torture me, I'd honestly rather he just get on with it.

Unless talking was part of the torture.

"We could change everything. We could change the entire world. The only problem is…" That charming smile dropped. "We've had two of our facilities burned to the ground, and the head of our location where your Xavier came from developed a new strand of our serum without passing it through us first, based on some drug a college student took. Imagine our shock when we realized it wasn't backed up to the servers. Dr. Northman was trying to go rogue with our little experiment—the only thing he managed to do was lose information on how to synthesize an even more potent version of our drug and his new strand in the process. All because he was arrogant and underestimated his test subjects."

It took me a second to realize he wasn't dumping all of this information out of some need to confess his frustrations. He was watching me carefully, waiting to see if I would react. I vaguely recognized the name Northman, and I knew they'd developed multiple variants of the drug that brought Xavier back to me, but I kept my face straight.

"All of that information is now trapped in Marshall Lister's mind. He was the genius that helped Northman synthesize everything. And records indicate that someone with his passcode downloaded and deleted information the day the facility burned. Now, Mr. Fetterman, tell me, wouldn't you go to any lengths to get back what was stolen from you?"

That finally caught my attention. I met his dark gaze and tilted my head.

I would. I would go to any lengths necessary to make sure Xavier was safe.

"I see. Well then, we'll have to see if we can change your mind." Nathaniel stood and raised two fingers—when a man came through the door, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

I could recognize muscle when I saw it, and when he stepped forward and his fist connected with my jaw, I closed my eyes.

I could do this.

For Xavier, I could do anything.

Anything was apparently thirty minutes of getting the shit beat out of me in between Nathaniel West asking more questions. My only consolation was that he was either bad at his job, or he'd been told to take it easy on me. I ached—I was pretty sure I'd be black and blue in more than a few places—but I wasn't so broken that I couldn't move around. And the restraints holding me in the chair clicked open once I was alone in the room so I could do just that.

I groaned, trying to stretch and see exactly how hurt I was. I was getting too fucking old for this shit.

It had been a long time since I'd taken a beating, if I was being honest. The last person who'd gotten the upper hand with me was…

Well, it was Kade Neil.

With another low grunt, I sighed and looked around. The room I was in was blank—there was just the chair, and it was bolted to the ground. So this wasn't exactly a holding cell as much as an interrogation chamber.

It made me wonder what they needed a place like this for, unless they were using their knowledge to bring people back just for questioning. It was diabolical, all the uses they could find for their little drug. From the way Seth spoke and the information on Xavier's flash drive, they'd just planned on bringing back killers and turning them into weapons.

It was arrogant to think they'd be able to control every person they brought back, and downright suicidal to bring back someone like Kade and assume they'd have any say in what he did or didn't do.

Well, I had serious doubts I was going to get any answers from the people who worked here, especially when they were focused on getting answers out of me . The likelihood of someone else with a conscience like Marshall Lister was slim to none.

There was something entirely too villain-esque about a building that was underground—the people who worked here had to know that they were doing something nefarious.

I'd examined every corner of the room by the time the door opened again, and I had my back to the wall when Nathaniel West and a new man stepped through the door. This one was dressed in a suit, and his brown hair was pulled back in a perfect tail. There was something about the cold expression in his pale green eyes that told me he was more dangerous than the asshole I'd had a run in with earlier. He'd just wanted to hit me—the man standing beside Nathaniel West radiated the same kind of danger as so many of my clients.

It made me wonder if he was part of the experiments.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Fetterman. How are we feeling?"

Did rolling my eyes count as communicating? The best I could do was cross my arms over my chest and try to make sure that I didn't lunge at the asshole. The last thing I needed was to set off his new guard dog. The man was willowy, but tall. Even his stance looked almost… elegant.

He also held his hands loose at his side, and I didn't have to look hard to see the outline of a gun holster beneath his well-tailored shirt.

"Listen, I think we got off on the wrong foot. I'm aware that you're a professional. You know how this business works—you've probably seen more of the dangerous side of it than I have." Nathaniel laughed, his lips turning up in a charming smile, like we were just old friends having a casual conversation. "I thought maybe we could try a different approach. Come on, Axel, what do you say? I can promise you it's better to work with me than against me. For everyone involved."

He didn't have to say Xavier's name for me to know that he was talking about him, but I wasn't stupid enough to believe that he was going to let him get out of this unscathed, no matter what I said or did. The fact of the matter was, they wanted the information in his head—information that was no longer there.

As sure as Seth was that they wouldn't be able to bring Marshall back, I wasn't going to risk them trying and failing and fucking up everything.

My continued silence made the charming smile on Nathaniel's face twitch into something ugly for a brief moment before he firmly plastered it back into place.

"I wonder, perhaps, if we could change your mind if we showed you more of what we do. This is truly a unique opportunity. I'm sure you realized that when you saw Xavier Benham walking and talking again." Nathaniel sounded so sure of himself, so entranced in his own bullshit that he didn't realize any normal person would be horrified by what was happening.

Yes, getting Xavier back was the best thing that had happened to me, but I wasn't exactly a normal person. If I looked at it objectively, if I cared about anything other than his green eyes looking back at me, I might have been horrified that Marshall Lister was just snuffed from existence.

I'm sure if Marshall had anyone who cared about him, they would be horrified.

Still… if he was talking about taking me on a tour of the building, I could definitely use that to my advantage. I knew Xavier was going to try to save me, but if I could get out of here before he put himself in danger?

If I could get back to him, I'd drain every account that I had and we could just… disappear somewhere together. I'd buy us new identities, new lives. If he wanted to pick back up his work as an assassin, he could do it in another country under a new name.

The two men in front of me waited silently until I finally uncrossed my arms and gave a brief nod. "Fine."

I hated even giving him that much, because I could see the victory burst through Nathaniel's eyes the second I spoke. Surely he understood that I wasn't doing it because I was giving in?

Or maybe he really was that arrogant. Who knew?

"Perfect. Of course, I brought along a little insurance—I'm not fool enough to think that you might not try something if you're given the opportunity. Otto here is a product of our hard work, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir." The man's voice was soft, lyrical even. He sounded calm and in control of himself, and I couldn't read behind the mask he had in place to know if he really meant the respect in his voice, or if it was there because it was just another paycheck.

"He's one of the first people we brought back here at this facility, and he's been more than happy to cooperate with us in exchange for the opportunities that we can provide him with. You see, his death was far uglier than most of the people we've acquired. We can offer the unique chance for him to bring back men and women long dead to exact his revenge."

Beside him, Otto's expression remained passive. I had no idea how he could just sit there while his boss was talking about him like he was so much meat, a bug beneath a magnifying glass… but he did.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"To help you understand what an amazing organization we have. Come, I'll show you around the lab."

The command came like he was talking to a pet, and I was tempted to tell him to fuck off. If it wasn't so important that I at least try to figure out the layout of the building a little better than I had before, I would have.

I pushed myself away from the wall. It wasn't Nathaniel I watched as I moved toward them though, it was Otto. His loose posture didn't fool me.

I wasn't going to make the mistake of turning my back on him.

"Why don't we start with the holding cell for Otto's playmates?" We veered from my room and made our way left. It was hard to ignore the urge to turn and run, but I had a feeling they wouldn't be letting me roam so freely if it was that easy.

Either that, or they wanted me to leave so they could follow me back to Xavier. I couldn't do a damn thing but play along until I got more information.

"You see, Otto was brought up in an abusive home, and when he tried to go rogue, he was captured by that same family. They kept him alive for years, torturing him, making him pay for his disloyalty. Now look at them." In the room, there were three men. One of them looked like he was barely hanging on to life, and the other was strapped to the wall with a furious expression on his face.

The third couldn't have been more than nineteen, and he was curled in on himself with his head buried against his knees.

"You can see them in different stages. Marco is on his way out, and we just brought Warren into awareness. And then there's Nicholas." Nathaniel jerked his head to the boy in the corner. "Though he still goes by London at the moment. It's a perfect opportunity to test how prior trauma translates to old personalities coming back, don't you think?"

I frowned. "He's not… a killer right now?"

"Oh, no. He's perfectly innocent. I think he was a dancer before we brought him in. He has had to watch Otto torture his cellmates, but…" Nathaniel shrugged with indifference, like what he was saying wasn't completely monstrous.

Did he really think this was going to convince me to play along with his little game? If anything, I wanted to burn this whole place to the ground—I wasn't a psychopath. I was just a man who was good at my job, and a man who wanted to get back to the person he loved.

"Hm, not impressive enough? Well… let's move along then, shall we?"

Otto stayed in place. His eyes weren't on the man chained to the wall—they were all for the boy in the corner. The hard line of his mouth twitched, but he wiped the expression away and turned to follow Nathaniel as he kept walking.

"We also have a set of twins prepped and getting their injections as we speak, if you want to watch the process."

"Twins?" What the fuck was he on about?

"Two bodies that were supposed to be one. What do you think will happen to the soul that was meant to be reborn?"

Nathaniel West sounded absolutely enthralled with the idea of it, and I realized he wasn't doing this to convince me to join his side. He wasn't even doing this as a way to get information out of me.

He was showing me his experiments because he wanted to show off . He was doing it because he was an egomaniac getting to perform for an audience.

He wanted me to be impressed.