Page 2 of Beautiful Chaos
“I’d rather forget him if it’s all the same to you,” he says, proud of how steady his voice sounds.
“Is this one of his operations?” Thane asks.
“Used to be.” Anders’ usually cheerful voice is far too serious. “The eugenics overlord I gutted earlier took over. Continued funding…whatever the fuck this is.”
So much for the box.
Ronan takes in their surroundings as Omar leads Anders down a series of hallways. “What the fuck was Blake doing with a genetics lab?”
Omar looks back with a grimace. “Nothing good.”
Anders and Omar pass a room that looks all too familiar.
Ro feels sick to his stomach. The sterile white walls on the screen are nothing like the sterile carpeted nightmare he escaped five years ago, but their purpose is the same. The fear is the same.
“Did you just pass a fucking nursery?” Thane asks, squeezing Ro’s hand.
“Empty. But yes.”
Omar and Anders turn a final corner, and Anders curses. Ronan puts his hand over his mouth.
Omar mentioned a little boy, but that didn’t prepare Ronan for the image being beamed in on his screen. The boy is maybe their son Oakley’s age, but half his size. The kid’s only clothing is a pair of filthy underwear, and he’s covered in dirt and angry-looking cuts to his chest and thighs. His hair is sandy blond and his eyes are an unreal silver-blue.
More disturbingly, fresh blood runs from the kid’s mouth to his chest. He’s holding a half-eaten dead animal.
“Is that…? Oh God.” Ronan turns away, barely keeping down the contents of his stomach.
The kid’s eyes swirl black.
Everyone on the line stops breathing.
Did that really just happen?
“That’s… new.” Omar’s voice is shaking.
“BEC,” Anders whispers furiously. “He’s a fucking BEC.Get Edison on the line!”
The boy hisses at the two operatives.
Omar somehow quells his reaction. He speaks in soothing tones, pulling a piece of hard candy from his tactical vest, distracting the kid while Anders palms his rapid injector. As soon as the kid reaches out for the candy, Anders jabs the kid in the arm.
The kid passes out, mid-scream. Anders catches him before he falls and carries him out, walking quickly past that horror show of a nursery.
Jake’s voice comes over the comms. “We need to go through the servers, but from what we can glean on-site, Silas Blake had been trying to produce genetically modified children before Ronan took him out.”
Ronan’s breath hitches.Took him out.
The wet crunch of breaking Silas Blake’s nose withthe cuffs, the satisfying give of his teeth, the bulging, bloodshot eyes staring back at him from the mirror as he choked the life out of him. The pool of blood spreading on the carpet, right in the middle of all those empty cribs.
A nightmare Ronan hoped he’d be able to put away forever. One day.
Anders looks down, his camera capturing the small boy. “Jesus.”
“There’s an entire cabinet in here full of birth and death certificates,” says another operative in the distance.
“Bringeverything,” Jake orders, switching the call to his camera. He takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly before addressing Ronan and Thane. “What, if anything, can you two add to what we’re seeing here? Ro, I’m sorry to bring you in, but you spent the most time in one of Blake’s spaces.”
Jake understands PTSD more than almost anyone. The others might be able to ignore their psychiatric damage, but, like Ronan, Jake never had the option of ignoring its effects on him.
