Page 15

Chapter Twelve

Salt In The Wound

Chase

The music follows us to the beach like a fever.

Cordelia spins around, her white dress clinging to her thighs as she stretches her arms pretending to spin.

She looks so carefree, so happy, and such a rare thing. I look over at Tate, who is shirtless, the ink on his chest in full display, the angel wings on his lower abs a tease for me, bandana gone, and onyx tendrils fall in his face as he watches Cordelia–studying her like some volatile compound.

And me? I’m somewhere between high off DUST and her laughter.

God… I missed her. Us. This.

Which makes this deception all but worth it. We are broken for so long, just fragments of something brilliant. But the undeniable truth is that we belong together, and one way or another, I’ll make it our reality.

From the sand, I watch as Cordelia moves into the water, her body tensing as the water reaches her. Tate moves in like a moth to the flame–and the sight causes a smile to curve on my lips just as a strange sound catches my attention.

Click.

Click.

“Hey did you guys hear that?” I ask, beginning to close the distance between us, the sand slipping between my toes. Where are my shoes?

Tic. Tic. Tic.

What the actual fuck?

I hear something move behind me, but when I turn around, there’s nothing there. For a moment, I stay behind–debating if I should tell them the truth.

Will they understand what will happen. What I let happen…

Will there be an us at the end of all this?

My breath catches, my heart sputters…

Letting my thoughts roam freely, I watch them make out beneath the moon, Tate’s hands cupping her plump ass as his mouth devours her.

A beautiful sight. Closing my eyes, I open my arms and feel as the summer night wind dances around me.

Two weeks ago…

Luxor Labs Elias groans behind me as his hands run down my spine.

His dick pulses one final time before ropes of warm sperm fill me.

I look down at the computer monitor, pretending not to understand–but thanks to Cordelia and Tate, I know more than enough to know whatever is happening is not only top secret but also a controlled experiment.

Pressing my ass further into him, I ask. “What’s project Queen B?”

He stills inside me, his dick already softening.

“Why do you ask?”

I look over my shoulder, feigning that surprised and mischievous look that drives him wild as I point at the screen.

“I’m kind of bent over your desk and that email popped up.” I didn’t tell him that it was also an email with their professor’s name on it.

But I’m curious.

Elias lets out a shaky breath as he cleans up and tucks himself in. I do the same, waiting for his response.

“I’m not supposed to be telling you any of this,” he begins as he walks over to his cabinet and pours a small drink of scotch.

Swirling the ember drink, he continues, “That professor proposed something unlike anything we could have ever imagined, a queen for a hive. Something never done but something that can change our military. Society.”

My eyes widen–where is he going with all of this? Do they know?

“He called it Queen B with two of his students. He realizes that what we needed to use the cordyceps for was to make it belong. What if I could give it a queen? A beautiful, little mutation that doesn’t consume the host but connects them?”

My heart skips a beat as I buckle up my pants, watching as he moves towards the screen. After a few clicks, a video pops up on the screen.

“What is this?”

I look at the man, his mouth hanging wide open while orange-like filaments sprout from his mouth.

Click.

Click.

Click.

The sound pulls me from my thoughts. Opening my eyes, I look out in the distance, and notice a shadow closing in.

“Guys.”I call out, my voice is too casual due to the drug coursing through my body.

Cordelia tries to move closer, but Tate stops her and places his body before hers. The man’s mouth hangs open, head tilted to the side, his joints making that awful sound as if they are clattering.

Bones against bones.

Tic.

Tic.

Tic.

Tate moves closer as he observes the man falling to his knees before us, his hands cupping his ears as blood runs down the length of his neck. He begins to laugh–no sobs.

“He looks like he works here,” I say, pointing out the uniform of the grounds worker on the island, but then the man groans and wails.

Something so dreadful… It all happens so fast. Cordelia tenses, and her blue eyes go wide before she screams as the moonlight illuminates his features.

His jaw unhinges with a sickening crack that is quickly replaced by wet choking sounds. Bright orange fungal stalks–spiked and segments–force themselves through the soft tissue of his throat and up into his mouth, rupturing the skin.

Blood and mucus cover the stalks.

Running a hand over my face, I look over at Tate who looks like he’s losing his goddamn mind before Cordelia screams again, and the man charges at me. Us.

I don’t know how, but his body moves with quickness–his joints clicking and clacking with each movement.

“What the fuck?” I snarl as I wrestle with the man to keep him from getting to Cordelia–who’s frozen behind Tate.

Fuck! He’s strong !

“Tate, a little help?” I ask through gritted teeth, pain searing through my skin as his teeth connect with my flesh.

“Ahh, what the fuck! He just bit me.”

Tate grabs the man’s neck and flings him onto the sandy beach. Suddenly a bunch of flashlights head our way; one too many to be anything more than a controlled experiment. Guilt claws at my heart, sinking my stomach and threatening to spill the contents of it all over the sand.

I fall to the sand, carefully hiding the bite. My arm throbs. I press it tighter to my side, slipping into the shadows of Tate’s frame.

No one saw. Not even her.

“Get down,” a woman shouts as she discharges her stun gun. The guards close in as the man continues to thrash from the cables that shocked him.

“What was that?” Tate demands as he closes the distance, but my hand goes up to grab his shorts.

Shaking my head, I say, “He was clearly high.”

“High? Chase, high?” he’s fucking is losing it.

“I’m fucking high but–” Tate turns to look at the man, but the guards have him surrounded so we can’t see his face. However Tate tries.

“Back up,” the guard snaps, making Tate stop and glare at him then back at me. But the guilt has me looking away, the ache in my arm becoming more painful by the minute.

“You guys need to head back to your villas. We’ve got him now, another worker doing drugs,” the woman guard says with a welcoming smile. Tate offers me his hand, and I take it. Helping me back to my feet, we remain there for a moment before they finally force us to leave.

“What the fuck is happening?” Tate says as he carries Cordelia in his arms. She’s quiet so I know she’s thinking. Has she figured it out?

Tate is close….

But now, I need to speak up before they die too.