Page 72 of Red Rooster

Alexei said, “The basement, of course.”

~*~

A guard stood at the bottom of the stairs in front of the door to the basement.

“Watch,” Alexei said. “Learn.” He smiled and his voice turned sugary and soft. “Let us through,” he said, and the man in uniform tugged the door open and stood aside as they entered.

It was, Lanny had to admit, a handy skill.

And then all such thoughts were swept aside as he got a good look at the open expanse that stretched before them.

White walls, white floors, and table after table. Some that looked normal, more that looked like doctor’s office exam tables, elevated and covered in paper. Some with, he noticed with alarm, gynecological stirrups at the ends.

“What the fuck?” he said to himself.

A boy appeared in front of them, not there one minute, and right in their faces the next. Lanny almost hit him.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said, his voice flat, his hair bright red.

Alexei startled a moment, but recovered admirably. “Sure we are,” he said, smiling at the boy, leaning forward to put his hands on his knees so the two of them were on eye level. “What’s your name? Why don’t you show us around?”

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” the boy repeated, frowning.

“Um…” Lanny started.

Alexei’s smile turned brittle, teeth bared. “Show us around,” he commanded.

The boy tilted his head. “Who are you?”

“Fuck,” Lanny said. “We’re fucked.”

Alexei held up a staying hand. “Hello,” he said, trying again. “We’re looking for a friend of ours. Maybe you’ve seen him. His name is Sasha.”

The boy blinked at him. “Yes,” he said, toneless. Creepy as one of those fucking kids fromThe Shining. “He was a bad wolf.”

“Where is he?” Lanny demanded, half-elbowing Alexei out of the way.

The boy blinked some more. “Gone.”

~*~

Nikita clicked through files in a rush, scanning each only briefly before rejecting it or saving it to the flash drive. Most were useless. But words jumped out at him here and there:wolf,subject,volunteers. This wasn’t just about Sasha, in all likelihood: Trina would want as much information about the Institute’s operation as possible. She had that look on her face, that mulish set to her mouth that reminded him so much of Katya. This place had offended her, and she wanted to pick it apart.

But for him, it wasentirelyabout Sasha.

His heart lurched and skipped, his pulse erratic and loud to his own ears. His palms and the soles of his feet itched with anxiety. Sweat slid in slow beads down his spine, gathered in the dip of his lower back. A panic attack, humans would have called it. That sounded about right.

Every time he blinked, he saw Sasha laid out on a table in a secret lab north of Stalingrad. Saw the delicate blue tracks of veins beneath his skin, the youthful knobbiness of elbows, the finger-wide gaps between ribs. And he saw Philippe’s knife driving into his heart. He replayed the sound, over and over, of the blade pushing through skin, and meat, and ribs, and finding home.

He used to think that being turned was the worst thing that had ever happened to Sasha; a stupid hope that had been dashed the moment he realized he was missing. There were worse things, much worse, and he imagined them all, breathing in short little gasps through his mouth, as he finally abandoned the computer and went to find the others.

He took the long way. Walked through every floor, from one end to the next, nostrils flared, searching… But really he’d known the moment he walked into the lobby that Sasha wasn’t here. He’d never been here. He clung to some sort of feverish hope, though, until he finally reached the basement, waved a security guard aside with a look, and found Lanny and Alexei standing in front of a red-headed little boy looking like a couple of cobras who’d been charmed by a mongoose.

“What are you idiots doing?”

Their gazes darted to him. Alexei seemedfrightened. “I can’t – he won’t listen – there’s no–”

The boy turned his head slowly, his expression one of glazed indifference, reptilian and shiver-inducing.