Page 4 of Hollow State

He let out a long, shaky breath and turned his headlights back on. He eased out of the garage, taking a different street entirely, and finally aimed the nose of the car north, toward the mountains and the lake.

The silence of the car pressed in on him, thick and horrifying.

He’d given his life to Hyperion. He’d let his marriage fall apart without a second thought. And he’d stood by and watched as Gideon—brilliant, loyal, stubborn Gideon—was marched out the door.

He’d betrayed his friend.

The dashboard lights cast a grim glow as Darwin pushed the car faster up the dark highway. He should have listened to Gideon from the start.

Well, Darwin thought, staring down the dark, rain-slicked road ahead. I’m listening now.

CHAPTER ONE

FIVE MONTHS LATER…

There were two places Darwin Oswald felt at home. In an exam room with a patient and in a lab with any member of his staff. He’d muddled through executive meetings at Hyperion because he had to. He’d survived the social dinners and parties that Finch forced him to go to with contractors, other corporations, pharmaceutical reps, and government officials since it was required for funding—hoops he’d had to jump through to keep his division alive.

At Hyperion, Darwin's team had been incredible. They’d been efficient, and many were the best in his field. And while most were hand-picked by Darwin, he didn't have a deep, personal connection to them. It had been all about the work. Except for Gideon Rhodes, the man Darwin had requested to help build the telemetry system. Gideon hadn’t even been in Darwin's department, and the friendship had been a surprise to both men.

Darwin stole a glance at Wynn, who stood next to Brea Taylor, and his pulse quickened. It wasn't a lot. Just a blip as if he’d started walking a little faster. Wynn always had that effect on him. She was stunning in an understated way with her long dark hair, always pulled back in some kind of braid or ponytail. She never wore makeup, and she didn't need it. Her eyes were crystal blue, like the ocean.

But her mind and personality had caught Darwin's attention from the moment they met. She was a brilliant medic. She was kind. Empathetic. She had a way with patients, and it showed with how she treated Brea, the sister of a local RCMP officer, Quinn Taylor.

Quinn had known Scout, one of Wynn's teammates, back in high school. They’d just reconnected when Wynn's team had been ambushed, and everyone had to go underground, leaving poor Quinn to believe Scout had been killed.

So much had changed, and yet, they were still no closer to bringing down Finch.

Wynn had her fingers on Brea's wrist while Brea blew out hard through a spirometer that measured lung capacity and airflow. A standard test that Darwin used on patients who’d been given VKR-1, KTH-1, and AXS-1. While it was standard protocol in those cases, there was nothing about Brea, or what she'd been through, that followed any documented procedures.

But this wasn't Darwin's first rodeo, and Brea was a healthy young woman who’d defied the odds.

Darwin tried not to smile. Wynn was a natural medic. She would've made a great doctor. But what she did in the field, during combat in some highly questionable conditions, was exactly what the military needed to save the very people who protected the freedoms of their country. And Wynn didn't just assist him in the medical bay. She gave him the tools he needed to survive a few stories below ground when he often wanted to wave the white flag and give up.

She helped him forget that he lived in a bunker. That he was a wanted fugitive. And that it wasn't just Finch who was after him, but the police and the Canadian government, too.

"Looking great, Brea," Wynn said. She had a unique tone. It wasn't full of sunshine and happiness, like her teammate, Zadie Noor, who walked through life with a bounce in her step and lived as if her glass were overflowing. Wynn had a more serious timbre, but it had a positive inflection. A soothing vibration. It was always even. Not once had he ever heard her raise her voice. Not even when she vehemently disagreed.

In Darwin’s eyes, Wynn was just perfect.

"Other than freaked out about all this, I feel good." Brea handed the device to Wynn. "I'm also happy to see my brother and Scout reunited. He's always had a special place for her in his heart. Even back in high school. But when they reconnected and then she disappeared, he was a different man."

"Scout wasn't much better," Wynn said. "Quinn's one of the good ones, and he has a softening effect on Scout. We all enjoy his company around here."

Darwin shifted his gaze and compared the number on the screen to the label on the printout in his hand. It pained him that Emma Pryce had treated Brea, and all the others, as a number. No name. No date of birth. No medical history beyond the fragments Emma had considered relevant to her experiment.

She’d categorized each person by height, weight, resting heart rate, oxygen saturation, performance scores, and an assigned number. He had to wonder if Emma had even known her test subjects' names. He hated that more than he could explain.

He clicked into the next column of decrypted data that Zadie had been able to extract from the hard drive the team had found while Wynn took Brea's blood pressure. The latest reading appeared on the monitor beside the examination table.

Normal.

Nearly everything they had tested had come back within normal ranges. Liver function. Kidney function. Cardiac enzymes. Oxygen saturation. Cortisol. Electrolytes. The inflammatory markers were slightly elevated, but not enough to concern him and nowhere near the levels he would have expected after prolonged exposure to a compound related to TITAN.

Darwin had given her a small dose of KTH-1 shortly after the team brought her into the bunker. Just enough to help clear any active metabolites that might still have been circulating through her system, but not the complete protocol since the idea behind TITAN was that the body wouldn't need it.

However, that hadn't been the case during his research. TITAN had been a failure. So, to be safe, he needed to make sure Brea was clear of any possible toxins. He hadn’t known exactly what Emma had administered through the patch, or how much remained in Brea’s body.

Giving her too much could have created another problem.