His nervous smile did little to comfort her.
“I don’t like to speak in odds.” He drew up the next treatment. “Every patient is different.”
He positioned the needle in her IV line and she lifted her hand. “Wait,” she said, before he pressed the plunger. “What if I changed my mind?” She’d rather not prolong her or Zach’s suffering if death was inevitable.
Nixon held off. “I won’t force you, but if we deescalated care, there is no reason to keep you here. We’ve made an exchange of sorts.”
Read as Zach would be out of a job. “
The higher dose should prolong your improvement. If we get you well enough, you might be able to continue treatment at home.”
Home.
Nothing sounded better than that.
“It’s your call, Allison.” He started to withdraw the needle.
“Can I talk to Zach about this first?” she asked.
Nixon shook his head. “I’m afraid, in your condition, there just isn’t time.”
* * * * *
The stench of decomposition in the toothless, infected man’s cell burned Ben’s nose, even through the paper surgical mask.
Nixon was going to be furious.
“Why didn’t anyone call me sooner?” Ben injected the Id with a tranquilizer rather than restrain him. Dark blood dripped from its ears, nose, mouth, and rectum and pooled around him in what looked like a puddle of crimson corn syrup.
“We didn’t notice something was wrong.” Clarence stood in the doorway with his uniform shirt pulled halfway up his face.
“
This
didn’t look wrong to you?” Ben shook his hands at the decomposing body. His breathing grew short and he felt lightheaded as if about to hyperventilate.
This was all Nixon’s fault.
He lost his temper. Ben wondered if he tried hard enough to prevent the dental extraction.
It really didn’t matter.
“It did, I mean…” Clarence stammered.
Friggin’ useless.
Nixon interrupted. “You’ve done enough talking for one day, Clarence.” His eyes narrowed and his expression was stern.
Ben closed his eyes for a brief moment, transported back to the day Mitch was turned. There was a reason Nixon asked for Clarence to assist rather than Reid. Ben rubbed his shaking hand across his forehead and sighed.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said to Nixon. “He called too late.”
Nixon bent down next to the infected man. “I didn’t realize he would starve so fast.” He peeled back his lips with a tongue depressor. “He won’t make another trip to the O.R. and we can’t bring the equipment to him.” Nixon turned to Clarence and knitted his brows together. “Do you have children, Clarence?”
Oh, no.
It didn’t take long for Ben to assemble the pieces. The now toothless, infected man was father to most of the hybrids. Nixon was scouting for a replacement.
Clarence’s confusion was obvious. “Yes, sir. Four,” he answered.
Ben’s stomach fluttered, his nervousness causing him to shake. He clasped his hands together to keep Nixon from seeing.
“Four children. That’s a large family.” Nixon smirked at Ben.
Ben took a deep breath, the mounting pressure of the situation almost breaking him
.
How can you let Nixon do this to another family?
He briefly debated stepping in.
What if it’s him or you?
Nixon drew up a syringe of infected blood and a twisted grin spread across his face. “Ben, will you get me a couple of empty vials from the lab please?”
What if he said no?
Ben tried to hide his hesitation, but could tell Clarence had noticed.
“Ben, the vials,
please
.” Nixon’s tone was impatient.
Clarence’s bulging eyes opened wider and he moved toward the door. “I can get them if you tell me what they look like and where to find them.”
He’ll never let you leave.
Ben backed into the hallway, his eyes fixed on the syringe in Nixon’s hand.
Nixon gestured toward the infected man’s head. “No, no. I need you here. Hook that loop around his neck, would you?”
“I think maybe we should call Reid. He knows how to handle these things,” Clarence said.
“There isn’t anything to handle. Look, he’s barely moving. Do you think I’d be in here if he was a threat?” Nixon tugged the pole from Clarence’s hands. He slipped the loop around Toothless’s neck and scowled. “Pick up the pole.” He locked his eyes on Clarence’s. Reluctantly, Clarence stepped forward. “Tighten this down and hold onto him.” Clarence took another step. “I’m going to need you much closer than that.”
Clarence looked between Nixon and Ben, his expression all but begging for mercy that Ben had no ability to deliver.
I’m sorry
. Ben looked away. He wasn’t sure why Nixon had condemned Clarence, other than for saying something he shouldn’t have. He picked up on that from Nixon’s comments. Secrecy was the key to personal safety at the center and everyone knew that. Ben held his breath and waited for the inevitable.
“The pole,” Nixon said, annoyed. “You need to hold onto it.”
Clarence picked up the end, cowering like a child from a spanking.
“Sir,” Ben’s voice quivered. “I…”
Nixon flicked his wrist, waving Ben away. “I asked you to go get the vials. Now, go.”
There was no stopping him.
Nixon’s demeanor shifted. A rattlesnake ready to strike. He positioned the syringe for injection, his face expressionless and his hand firm.
Clarence tightened the pole on the infected man’s neck and when he moved one step closer, Nixon plunged the contaminated blood into Clarence’s thigh, infecting him before he could scream.
Ben’s breath caught.
Whatever Clarence did, it most likely wasn’t worth it.
18
.
Scott rocked in the chair in his daughter’s nursery. The sunlight emphasized the dust on the delicate pink crib bumper and the cobwebs in the wooden letters of her name hanging on the wall. He closed his eyes and the image of her cherubic face, blue and expressionless, haunted him.
She had looked so much like Miranda
. A tear fell on the wedding picture he held in his hand and he set it on the side table next to a pair of pink booties.
It wasn’t supposed to end this way.
The ringing phone called him back from his moment of reflection. He darted down the hall, closing the nursery door behind him, and grabbed the cordless from the cradle.
“Hello?”
An elderly woman’s voice came through the line. “May I speak with Scott Penton, please?”
“This is Scott.”
“My name is Iris Hinkle. I’m calling on Miranda’s behalf. She listed you as an emergency contact.”
Emergency.
“Has something happened? Is she all right?” His pulse raced.
“I’m not certain. She hasn’t come home from work and it’s been days. With so many women disappearing, I’m worried.”
Missing women
. How had his research missed that?
Scott steadied the handset between his ear and his shoulder and opened his cell phone. His panic escalated as he texted Miranda while talking. “Are you sure about this? Maybe she just went for a run?” The excuse hardly comforted him.
Iris sighed. “It’s been two days. I thought someone should know and yours is the only number she left me with.”
“Thank you for calling.” Scott clutched his cell, waiting for Miranda’s reply. The digital clock rolled a minute, then two, then five. Why had he let her go?
Why didn’t he follow her?
He had called twice since she left, but assumed their last talk strained their already tense friendship. He blamed their arguing for why she wasn’t calling back.
Now he wasn’t sure. Seven minutes passed and he dialed Miranda’s cell. The call went to voicemail in two rings. “Miranda, please call me back when you get this. Don’t be mad, but Iris called me. She says you haven’t been home in a couple of days. I just want to know you’re all right.”
Two rings meant she had voicemail.
Miranda
never
ignored voicemail.
He went downstairs, slipping from running so fast, and grabbed the handrail to keep from toppling.
Why didn’t she ever listen?
He warned her about the Nixon Center-- the bomb threats and break-ins. He fired up his laptop, located the main number, and dialed the switchboard.
“Nixon Center operator, how may I direct your call?”
His hands trembled. “May I speak with Miranda Penton in Security, please?”
Instrumental music played through the phone and he pulled it away from his ear. The operator returned. “I’m sorry, sir. There is no employee here by that name.”
“She’s only worked there a couple of days. Will you please check again?” The nervous pit grew in his stomach.
“I’ve searched our directory by name and department, sir.
“Are you spelling it correctly? P-e-n-t-o-n. Miranda Penton. Can you page her, please?”
“Sir, I assure you if she is not in the global directory, she is not employed here.”
He almost cried. There was only one thing to do. He hung up the phone to pack.
* * * * *
An air of resignation polluted the ward. The women were convinced that if they followed along with Nixon’s plan, whatever it was, they would be released. Annie not coming back from the delivery room bolstered that.
“He’s going to let her go home to her family,” Penny suggested.
Miranda knew better. “How could he let someone go after this? You’re kidding me, right? We can get out of here if we work together.” The restraints magnified her panic.
Carlene shook her head. “Honey, some of us tried.”
Terror knotted her insides. She couldn’t go through another failed pregnancy and that seemed to be what Nixon was bent on. He alluded to an unfulfilled purpose and she was desperate to escape before it came to fruition. “Then we have to try harder.”
“Those who tried never came back.”
“
Annie
didn’t come back.”
The ward door opened and Nixon stepped inside, wheeling a cart of supplies. Ben, his intern, walked in behind him. The room fell silent and Miranda noted a look of panic on Penny’s face.
Nixon rolled his eyes. “I hate to interrupt the rally, Miranda, but I believe you’ll find our security measures are bar none.”
Shit! He heard everything.
“No apologies necessary. I understand your situation, but you have to understand mine. I’ve done right by these women, as right as I can under the circumstances, which I’m afraid are born out of necessity. I can’t have you interfering with that, stirring up trouble. It’s not good for the mothers or the babies.”
“What did you do with Annie?” she asked.
Penny’s blue eyes went wide and her jaw dropped.
Nixon unsheathed a needleless syringe with a long tube attached to the end of it. “Ben, can you please tighten Ms. Penton’s wrist restraints and attach the stirrups to her bed?”
Ben nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Miranda noted a hint of fear in Ben’s eyes, like he would have done anything Nixon asked.
Please, no. Not this.
She started to cry. “Please,” she said. “Don’t do this.” Ben loosened her ankle restraint and fastened her legs to the stirrups. “No, please. Stop this.” She tried to kick, but the leather strap was so tight it felt she’d dislocate her ankle.
There’s no getting out of this.
She knew what they meant to do.
Oh, God. No. Not that.
She couldn’t lose another child, no matter how it was conceived.
Nixon drew the blue and white curtain around them and spread her knees further apart.
“Please, there’s been a mistake.”
He smiled. “Just relax, Miranda.”
Ben peeled back Miranda’s sheet, exposing her for Nixon. He held her legs harder the more she tried to close them.
Nixon’s gloved hand probed at her flesh.
Stop. Please. Don’t do this. It’s a mistake.
“I can’t have children.”
Nixon slid the instrument inside of her. “We’ll see about that.” He set the syringe on the cart, the tube smeared with a milky fluid. “Ben, please take Miranda to a private room where she can’t cause any more problems.”
19
.
Scott drove straight through to Strandville, his GPS leading him to the Nixon Center’s front door. He stowed his pistol case under the passenger’s seat and tried to convince himself he was being paranoid bringing it at all. He called Miranda’s cell a dozen times on the trip, and still, she hadn’t answered.
He locked the truck, went into the lobby, and followed the signs to the Security Office where he checked in at the desk. A small man with dark glasses and a nametag that read Brian Foster greeted him.
“I’m looking for an employee,” Scott said. “Her name is Miranda Penton.” He clenched his fists to keep his hands from shaking.
“She works where?” Foster bit his lower lip and kept his eyes downcast.
“Security. She works in
this
department.” Scott slammed his palm down on the counter and Foster jumped.
“I’m sorry, we don’t employ female guards.”
His expression said otherwise.
Scott leaned forward, regretting not coming in armed. “I
know
she’s here. Goddamnit, what’s with you people? Check. Would you at least check?”
“Why don’t you take a seat?” Foster went into the private back room.
Minutes passed without Foster’s return and Scott began to pace.
He dialed Miranda’s cell one last time before the Security Office door opened.
Finally.
A physician and a tattooed guard appeared in the doorway.
Dr. Howard Nixon.
Nixon called over the counter. “Brian, would you mind doing a quick security check, please?”
Foster came out of the small back room and glanced at Scott, warning him, before exiting the office and closing the door behind him.