Ripped Open (The Infected: Ripped to Shreds Book 2) Read online

  “Good. Set that up then. You get five people on your crew. If you want in, get with Lobo.”

  The last words were spoken to the whole room, and even if it was for people to step forward, the lobster looking guy stood up, and waved at several people, suggesting that they get in on things.

  “Tobin should go, since people will recognize him. Then… Can we take people from Team One too?” That got a slightly scandalized bit of glaring at the man, but Turner nodded.

  “It’s your job. You can put it together the way you want.”

  “All right. I want Prime with us too. Dave, and… Peggy.” The man paused, which got a lot of the others to go still. That was, when Cin read all about it, because the woman was a convicted murderer. She also had a big mouth, as in she looked like an alligator, if skin colored, which meant that people would recognize her in public.

  Which was Lobo’s point. It had happened nearly fourteen years before if not a bit more, and the woman was still sort of treated like a prisoner, if one allowed free run of the base.

  To everyone’s surprise, Ms. Turner just stared at him for a moment, and then nodded.

  “You heard him. Scott, Lobo is in charge, I take it that you’re taking him to use as a shield?” She was looking at the violet colored man again, his hard shell flat and slightly dusty looking.

  “That’s what I was thinking. How else can I keep all the groupies off of me?”

  The man was funny looking, but sounded normal enough. That probably meant he didn’t get a date ever, making his point of using Scott, which was Prime’s normal name, like that probably had other factors in mind.

  For a moment she read up on the idea, only to not really need to. It was all about the desire to protect the others from the public, if it came up. Especially Peggy. That was mainly due to the idea that the woman was both sweet, and willing to talk to him on a regular basis. Even on Team Two, there were cliques, and a lot of the ladies actually made a point of ignoring the funnier looking men.

  So they were being shut out of the special treat.

  That was a thing that Cindy could understand. She also knew that she wasn’t going to be allowed to go with them, and that it wasn’t about her being a prisoner this time. Functionally she wasn’t, now. Her problem needed to be checked out, and they were going to make sure she was watched pretty closely for a while, in case of relapse, but after that, she could get free. Most likely.

  The reason that she might not be allowed that freedom wasn’t about her past. It was about the night before. Where, at least it seemed, she’d cracked open a terror ring all by herself, and stopped an attack. That kind of thing made her valuable. Too much so to kill, but also too much to easily lose to the Vancouver Public Library system. At least Marcia was thinking that on some level.

  The words scrolled above her head as Cindy let a breath out. On the good side, the new rules meant that they couldn’t force her to stay. Not if she didn’t want to. Either she was a good enough risk to rehabilitate, which meant free if she could be, or she wasn’t enough of one to risk saving. That particular ship had sailed, as long as she didn’t mess up.

  All she had to manage now was about a year’s worth of good, lawful, behavior, and she could go anywhere in the world she wanted to. Free and clear, except for the fact that she was going to be watched for the rest of her life. Regardless of anything else. Once a serial murderer…

  Well, asking for more than that was probably not going to happen. Not in her lifetime. That was a thing she sort of understood. If you had a wild animal that couldn’t be controlled, you didn’t put it in the open yard or let it run the streets. You put it to sleep.

  That had been avoided for her, thanks to the kindness of others. They’d changed her into something new though, an unknown. That meant no one would ever be willing to risk letting her be truly free. It would be a bigger deal, but like Bridget had pointed out to her, the IPB was a lot better now than even a few years before. They didn’t even have cameras in the bathrooms anymore.

  Smiling to herself, she checked on that. The go-to person for that one would be the Director herself of course. It was strange, but to the best of her knowledge they really weren’t being that invasive any longer. She sort of wanted to, given that some of their people had been plotting against them. Like Sinclair and the healer. Whatshername.

  That reminded her that there was still work to be done on that issue. Not that anyone left there was going to move against them any time soon. She’d checked them all, and so had Christian, from what Cin had been told.

  She even had orders to torture the two girls. Sinclair, the teleporter, and Phoebe, the foul mouthed healer. There had been no particular order to find them, however. A vague feeling that it would be nice, but other people were working on that one. In fact, the lead on it for the Agent’s side of things was Lancaster. Her secret boyfriend.

  Cin had to smile at that idea, since the man planned to kill her if they met up and it wasn’t arranged beforehand. Then, he probably wasn’t certain that she didn’t want to kill him soon. She didn’t, but she recalled what it was like. She’d really wanted to at the time however. Just stab him in the throat. Maybe several times.

  Now, the very idea was leaving her cold. There was no hope left. No familiar tingle between her legs just imagining what it would be like. Nothing.

  Still, there were those girls, and if they had betrayed them, or could be made to look like they had, she could kill them. That had been ordered even. Even torture was part of that plan, and it hadn’t even come from her at all.

  It was a good enough reason for her to leave the party, at least to her mind. After all, the young ladies, if they hadn’t been taken over, kidnapped, or simply run off in order to get laid and drink without being watched, were in trouble. If they had left for any of those other reasons, well, then she probably needed to look into that as well. It didn’t seem very likely. All the indications were that the girls had been turned, and then, realizing that going rogue would have them killed, or at least in prison, they’d taken off without anyone realizing it, over the Thanksgiving holiday.

  Cindy moved, along with a plate of cookies and some fudge, back to her office, which had a copper name plaque on the door. She’d ordered one for herself right away, so that everyone would get used to the idea that she worked there, even if she’d actually just taken the empty space over, and started working one day.

  Settling in and nibbling a very nice snickerdoodle, she had to focus for a bit, to work out how to find the two in question. The healer would be the more stable one, since the other could leave, up to fifty miles away, in a few seconds. When she got to that part, she’d need to get Brian ready, and drop on the kid before she could get away. Possibly with shooting being involved. Not that she was an expert with a gun. Grabbing a pen, she made a note on that one. Cindy needed to have that kind of skill. At least if she couldn’t figure out how to grow three feet taller and find some decent super powers. Possibly even if she could. Guns were useful, in the right circumstances.

  Finding Phoebe wasn’t that hard, since she just had to locate a person that knew her, or who had met someone that did, and then cross over to her story. Trivia could work for that, possibly even having talked to the woman in person, but she opted for Brian first, and worked from there.

  The girl in question had clearly liked him, even if her first mode had caused her to constantly swear at the man. It was adorable, really. She was too young for Yi, however. Karen was a better choice there. Cindy really could see that. Even if she didn’t love the whole thing.

  Phoebe was alive, according to her story, and honestly had betrayed them. Throwing in with the bad guys, or at least a low level of them. Sinclair had gotten her to do it, and taken her away, making short hops with her teleportation ability, five miles at a time, until they were in an Illinois safe house. At that point…

  Well, things had gone nicely sideways there. Sinclair, the hot blonde girl, had been basically drugged out of her m
ind the whole time they were gone. Separated from her friend, too. The idea, at first, had been to replace them both, but that wasn’t going to work, since they had powers that people would expect them to use. These others had a new tech that allowed them to copy the look and even thoughts of another person, making them almost impossible to locate once replaced. That trick didn’t cover powers however, meaning that the IPB could just test Infected people to make certain they were themselves.

  Apparently the bad guys, who were being very careful with the girls, not giving them any clues at all, had worked that one out even before they had.

  So, while Sinclair was drugged into a zombie like state, and raped several times a day, Phoebe was being used to heal people. Not that they had a constant stream coming in for her to work on, or that they let her look at who she was helping. They blindfolded all interactions, and had told her that if the people weren’t fixed, they’d kill Sinclair. No one abused her however, since she was a halfway decent healer. That was rare and valuable, so the men had been told not to let her be harmed.

  It was a shame, since the girl knew how to kill them, if they tried it. She had to pass some kind of bodily fluid to heal, but if she could do that, it would be more than possible to stop a person’s heart. She could even build in a time delay, if they’d bothered to come to her for blowjobs, or even vaginal sex.

  They kept her in a tiny room, which made most prison cells seem like a wonderful place to hang out, to be honest. It smelled horribly, since sanitation and showering hadn’t been allowed for her. She was given food, and water to drink, but nothing else. Not even a tray, or silverware that could be used to fight with.

  It left Cindy feeling like growling. To get around that sense of futility she took notes as to location, a thing that no one there actually knew, and ate a cookie. There had to be a way to find out where they were. Which, when she checked on things, she knew was true. They were in Illinois still, and in the southern part of the state. Phoebe knew that they hadn’t been moved, being that no one had even tried to knock her out or drug her. It was the location that they were supposed to have gone to in order to give over information, and then help take down the IPB. To their minds it made sense, given that they’d basically been kidnapped.

  It had been work with the IPB, or die at the hands of Impulse at the time. They’d gone along with the better option, until they’d been approached by Agent Burkes. Then, seeing it as their chance to finally get free, they’d made their move. Followed his directions when they were released from the base, and vanished.

  Except that things weren’t nearly as fun as they were supposed to be.

  The thing there was that Sinclair had been told to get them to a specific location, which was about an hour away by car, from where they were. That would put them inside a fifty or sixty miles’ radius of that starting point. A small roadside restaurant. One called Smitty’s.

  Helpfully the place had a website, and there was only one location that went by that name in that part of the country. Also, it looked like they had a really nice breakfast combo platter, if the picture on the web could be trusted. There was a great road network in that area, being built up, but Sinclair, whose story read just fine, up until the drugs had hit her system, remembered that they’d been going fast for a while. That meant a freeway. That changed the circle into a line that they had to be along. It went a bit further than her initial guess, since if they were speeding and had driven for a little over an hour they might be up to eighty miles away, but it was a lot less to actually search.

  The thing there was that neither girl knew if they’d gone right or left. It had been in the back of a limo however, and while the driver had been up front behind black privacy glass, Phoebe had seen him, through the mirror on the side of the car as they got in.

  He was a man, and had a bit of an ethnically Greek look to him. He wasn’t old either, seeming like he was in his mid-to-late-thirties. Cindy had to stare at the image floating in front of her for a while, and there was no handy name tag, but it was something. Possibly.

  After all, the bad guys wouldn’t have picked the two up in the limo they just had sitting around, since that would be too easy to track. No, they’d use a rental. At that point the kids had figured they were going to their friends, and being given special treatment. There was no danger to them in it, and if they’d been with the IPB still at that point and arrested the driver, all they’d get would be whatever paperwork that the limo place had in their files.

  The big difference there was that the man that drove them in would be able to get them way closer to the final location that the girls had been dropped off at. They’d walked from the last place, but that had only taken ten minutes or so, and while a bit wild looking, the place they’d been taken had been paved and not near any buildings that could be seen from the road.

  The rest of what was needed meant that she had to wait a day, no doubt. After all, it was Christmas, and the drivers would either be out, working, or at home with their families. There were only five locations in the area that did that kind of work however, and she got the numbers, so she could call the next day and see if anyone had a driver that matched the basic description of the man that had taken the girls in.

  Waiting meant that Sinclair was going to get her Christmas raping, no doubt, but that was on her. Really, the whole thing was. Phoebe had gone with her buddy, but the attractive blonde had been the one that believed what they were getting at the IPB truly wasn’t enough. Worse, they didn’t even just run. They could have, at any time. One of them could freaking teleport, for goodness sake.

  Though, now that she thought about it, there had to be a reason why Brian hadn’t gone to get them yet. Yes, his power drove him toward people that were about to die, not rape victims, or people held against their will. That didn’t mean that he couldn’t locate them, knowing who they were. He should be able to, at any rate.

  When she checked, she found that his own power was preventing that from happening. There was no reason given for the lack of action. Not at first. The thing there was that Brian didn’t really control his power totally. His subconscious mind did, and as nice as the man was, his inside self was as cold as ice. The timing wasn’t right to rescue the girls, so Brian wasn’t even being allowed to think about just going to where they were to retrieve or kill them.

  No one had mentioned it to him either.

  Not even Lancaster, who was the one that was in charge of the search for the girls. It was actually being taken seriously, but Cindy had been kept away from the whole thing, given the fact that, until about a week before or so, she really would have tried to kill the man if she could have gotten to him.

  Part of her wanted to claim it was silly. It wasn’t.

  Still, now they should be able to work together. Over the phone if nothing else. That was probably about the right speed for the time being. She wouldn’t have trusted her life to a killer like her. Not that Lancaster was clean that way. The difference was that he didn’t kill without a reason. Normally one that the state would sanction. A few times it had been a bit less kosher than that, but no one was going to complain about it. No one living.

  At a bit before seven, Brian and Karen came into the head office, looking for her, of all things.

  “Dinner time!” Yi smiled at her, tucking his head into the office. It had been Karen that had told him they needed to go and check on her, thinking that she might be sad, not knowing anyone really, there at the IPB.

  She even gave Cin a sympathetic look, her made up face looking tired still. Then, she hadn’t really gotten any sleep the night before. It was all coffee and willpower holding her up at the moment.

  “We thought you might need an invitation? Not that you really do…” The woman actually meant it. It even showed in the words over her head. That was all about her first mode though, not some hidden love for Cindy.

  Then, that’s what having a mode meant. You didn’t get a choice about what you felt, most of the time. It wa
s all put through that one thing. Always.

  She nodded.

  “Be right there. I was just…” Cindy stopped, and looked at Brian, then shrugged. “I found Sinclair and Phoebe? I’m working down their location now, but won’t be able to do anything more until the morning. They’re being kept captive. Not that they didn’t betray us first. They just didn’t get in with a good crowd.”

  She didn’t mention the rest of it. These people weren’t going to take that news well. Brian would probably force himself to leave right then, to start searching, but that wasn’t the best use of their time. The raw fact was that they needed to wait. That was going to be hard, for some people. For instance, the floating words on the screen over his head told the tale of Brian starting down that road already. So she lied to him.

  “They’ll be fine for a few days, I think. They have food and water. Phoebe isn’t even being drugged, since she’s being put to work healing for them. Sinclair is drugged, but it’s not really hurting her. It’s just enough to block her powers. They’re even getting a turkey dinner tonight. Not as good as what we’re getting, but they have stuffing and real mashed potatoes. I don’t know what’s for dessert, but they normally get that too, so it should be fine.” She sounded like she meant it, and that it was simply a fact.

  Like she intended it too.

  It was just the right level to fool Brian, though Karen was going to keep worrying about them, and couldn’t help it. As they walked out of the head office building, the redhead took a deep breath.

  “That must be horrible. Being taken like that. I know you said they went in on their own, but then to be betrayed. They must be beside themselves. Away from their families and friends here.”

  Brian nodded, and Cindy shrugged.

  “They really aren’t your friends. To them they were being held against their will. Their lives were at risk if they ran. So when they saw an out, they went for it. That’s really all it was. They were prisoners here and did what they felt they needed to, in order to get by. True, they did think of some of the others here as also being in the same boat, but not all of you. I wouldn’t feel too bad about that part. Don’t worry, they’re fine for now, where they are. We just need to pick them up and break open the group that took them. That’s the important part here.” That and, if allowed, torturing both of the girls until they died.