Skin Tight by Ava Gray Read Free Book Online Page B

speak.
    He watched her now on the camera in her room. Her dark hair was lank and tangled, her blue pajamas soiled with sweat and other effluvia. She was a thin, wretched creature, roiling with fear. Her eyes had sunk into the hollows of her head, so when she rocked back into the light, she looked like a monster out of a child’s nightmare.
    Dr. Rowan sighed. It was a shame to waste a subject, but he could see no alternative. Her care had simply proven more expensive than her continued existence was worth, and though he ran this place with a free hand, he still had to justify expenditures to the board.
    They were growing impatient with his process. The idiots didn’t understand the need for him to document his work; the world would one day want to know exactly how he had created a super-race that was faster, smarter, and unspeakably gifted. The board didn’t care about any of that; they just wanted him to produce a cash cow. Gillie certainly qualified. She was paying for the year’s payroll in a single month, and if he could stabilize her condition, she would earn even more.
    He couldn’t have 34-Q draining that profit. Whether he liked it or not, science had become the province of big business. Like anyone else, he had a bottom line to consider.
    Decision made, he flipped off the monitor in his office, turned, and filled a syringe. After capping it and slipping it into the pocket of his lab coat, he went down the hall. Rowan passed nobody in the bone white corridors. It was late; the day crew wouldn’t arrive for hours yet. Just as well, for this work was best done in the dark.
    Dr. Rowan took a stamp out of his pocket. Though he was loath to admit as much, using it gave him a thrill. It was very much like playing God. Deliberately, he pressed the inked side against the first page of 34-Q’s chart. A red mark appeared, encircling the word TERMINATED .
    Using his key, he let himself into the cell. Because she was used to him, she didn’t scream when he approached her. That was more welcome than she offered anyone else who worked down here. But she didn’t stop rocking, either. The sound of grinding teeth came to him over her muffled whimpers. From a distance, the cameras didn’t record the minute signs of her obvious pain. Tenderness overcame him.
    “Shhh,” he whispered. “It’s going to be all right. I’m here to make things right.”
    He could never do that, of course.
    Subject 34-Q gave no sign she understood him. Her face didn’t turn in his direction. Her teeth ground on, as if she wanted to chew through the fabric of her very existence. He couldn’t imagine the depth of her suffering, but it was better that way. A certain amount of human detritus was inevitable when you considered the progress they were making.
    The way she rocked, it took coordination to get the needle into her arm. Within seconds, she slumped sideways, her movement stilled. Though it cost a bit more, he’d argued for the inclusion of a powerful sedative in the cocktail that would stop her heart.
    There was no need to be cruel, after all.
    Dr. Rowan stepped out of the cell and closed the door behind him. His heart felt lighter as he retraced his steps back to his office. Once there, he rang for an orderly, a big guy with a set expression everyone called Simple Silas, although not within his hearing. The first—and last—person unwise enough to use the nickname in front of Silas needed seventeen stitches where his forehead met the wall. Dumb as he looked, he never missed an insult. So perhaps he wasn’t simple after all—merely silent.
    Five minutes passed before Silas turned up, towing a mop bucket behind him. “What’s up, Doc?”
    No matter how many times Rowan told him that wasn’t funny, the man persisted in the greeting. This time, the doctor ignored it, and handed off the clipboard. “I have a cleanup job for you.”
    Silas left the mop bucket beside Rowan’s office door. He knew the procedure well enough. Inside ten