Leticia (36 page)

“
Oh shut up.
Come on, this b
lood must come from somewhere.”

I started to walk away and
he
moved away from the locker
;
I heard the door moan a little as it fell open
and
turned around just in time to see a body start to fall out. I quickly grabbed Jackson’s arm and pulled him away.

“Jesus
,
”
he
frowned; glaring at the partly decomposed body now lay in front of him.

“Oh my god, that’s... that’s Charles... Charles Mansbridge
.
”

“One of the scientists?”

“Yeah
.
”

“Go
d
he stinks, oh my god, that’s disgusting
.
”

“Try having a heightened sense of smell
,
” I nearly gagged, covering my nose quickly. “I need to get out of this room.”

I practically ran out and back into the main lab. I had to open one of t
he windows and stand next to it
taking deep breaths to try and stop myself vomiting.
I expected to see Jackson appear beside me but he hadn’t come out of the room yet. What was he doing? Why the hell would he want to stay in there any longer than necessary? Once the nauseous feeling had subsided I turned to face the room again, I was just about to shout him when he walked out.

“
W
hat were you doing?” I asked
.

“
S
eeing if I could work out what killed him
.
”

“And?”

“
H
e’s been shot, once in the chest and then again in the head
.
”

“
Jesus.
”

“Seems Luke doesn’t mind being a murdering
bastard these days
. He’ll do whatever it
takes
to get his grubby little operation up and running.”

“God he was
never
this sort of person.
The
Luke I knew... he couldn’t have done this.”

“People change when money is involved. Greed takes over and people stop seeing thing
s
as they once
did
.”

I shook my head in disgust. “It just goes to show... no matter how well you think you know a person... you never really do.”

“You know
me
.”

“Do I?”

“What you see is what you get
.
Well... it is now
,
” He smiled
.
“Anyway, I don’t think we’re going to find anything here, shall we leave?”

“There’s a couple of office’s towards the end of the hall, I think we should check those out first, if there’s nothing there, then we’ll go.”

“
OK
,
” he said taking my hand
.

The first room we walked in was in a real mess. The
chairs were
broken, papers were scattered everywhere,
and the
blinds were half hanging off. There was broken glass, which I think must have once been a whiskey tumbler, next to the desk. One of the
bookshelves
was broken, and the books were in a heap on the floor just below it.

“Either someone has a bad temper and trashed the place, or there’s been a fight in here
,
” Jackson commented, walking over to the desk. “I personally vote fight.”

“Why?”

“There’s blood on the edge of this desk. I noticed that... what’s his name
?
Charles, he had
a
gash on his forehead
an
inch or so away from where the bullet entered
. Looks to me like the fight started here, and ended in that other room.”

“If that was
his
fate, I wonder what happened to Roger Mayfair. God I hope he got away, I hope he’s
OK
.”

“Well if we don’t find parts of him here, I would think the better of it.”

After a bit of rummag
ing
in there and finding nothing, we moved on to
the
second office. This one was in perfect condition. There seemed to be a place for everything, and everything
was in
its place. Jackson went through the draw
er
s
while
I looked th
r
ough some of
the
paperwork, but again we found nothing. Not even a note about what they
were
researching.

“You know, something’s off
,
” Jackson pointed out, slamming the bottom draw of the computer desk shut. “I mean, all the research they were
doing
in here, and yet... where is it? There’s been nothing written down, no print outs of anything... nothing to show anything actually took place here other than murder.”

“
Maybe
Luke took it with him
,
” I suggested
.

“It’s possible, but surely there would be at least a
trace
of s
omething
here.”

“
You
would think...”

I was interrupted by what sound
ed
like a loud tapping. Jackson glared at me,
while
once again getting his gun in his hand.
We heard it again, only this time it was followed by a scratching noise.

“It’s coming
from in there.” I whispered, pointing to the door behind where the desk was.

“
W
hat is
it?
”

“
A
nother little room
.
”

I remembered Luke telling me how fascinated the scientists were, and how sometimes they would spend most of the night at the lab. In the end, they used a little room next to one of the offices to take a nap. I was sure that was the room. I was going to walk over, but Jackson stopped me.

“
Get
behind me, if
it’s
him and he
shoots
... if the bullet is silver he could kill you
,
” he said in a low gravely concerned voice. “Silver doesn’t
affect
me
.”

“
B
ut
...”

“No
buts
, I’ve seen you get shot before, I can’t watch that again. Especially not now.”

He didn't wait for me to
respond;
he walked quickly over to the door and kicked it open with such force that the door actually flew off its hinges. It took me by surprise, I’d forgotten how strong shifters were.
I ran over after him, he stood there
as
still as a statue, I looked past him and into the room.
There was
an
old hospital bed in there now; it looked like it had come from the psych ward. It
even
had
the
leather restraints
.
Someone was
lying
on the bed,
I felt sick again
and started shaking.

“Luke!”

I ran over to him, his hands and feet were bound by the restraints and he had three thick leather straps over his knees, stomach and chest, securing him. He was as white as a ghost and looked a quarter
of
the weight he was the last time I saw
him;
he was now just skin and bone. There were bruises all over him and dried blood around his nose, mouth, wrists and ankles. It seemed he had been struggling to get off the bed, trying so hard that the leather from the restraints
had
cut deep into his skin. His clothes were filthy, torn,
blood stained
, and he had no shoes or socks on.

“Is he alive?” Jackson asked, standing behind me.

“I don’t know
.
”

I
started
to feel for his pulse. As soon as my fingers made contact with his skin his eyes flew open. It frightened
me;
I nearly jumped out of my skin. His breathing became
erratic
.

“Luke
,” I nearly cried, cupping his face
.
“Luke it’s me, it’s Leticia
.
”
He glared at me for a moment, he looked like he was trying to focus on my face.
“Luke can you hear me?”

“Is it... is it
...
really you?” He choked.

“It is
.
”

“You need... to leave, he’ll... be back... soon”

“Tish
,
” Jackson spoke
.
“We need to get him out of here. Now.”

“There’s no
...
time.” Luke told him.

“Yes there is.”

Jackson and I both started unbuckling the restraints as fast as we could. Luke could hardly move, he was so weak he couldn’t carry his own weight.

“
Take
this
,
” Jackson sai
d
passing me his gun.
“Get ready to use them
both
.”

I was about to say I needed my hands free to help, but before I got chance he lifted
Luke over his shoulder.

“We need to move quickly
,
”
He said
.
“
If
anyone comes in, shoot first and ask questions later. I
’ll
make sure Luke
gets
out.”

I nodded and
head
ed
towards
the door, just as we got to the hallway we heard doors opening.

“Leave me here, get out now, both of you,” Luke panicked
.

“No
,
” Jackson told him
.
“Stay quiet
.
”

“We need to go out the way we came in,” I told him. “I’ll climb out and you
can
pass Luke to me
while
you
get out
.
”

“She’s strong
,
” Luke croaked
.
“
She
can do it
.
”

“I know what she is
,
” Jackson confirmed.

Luke didn’t respond.

We reached the storage room and I closed the door behind us as quietly as I could. All the lights in
the
building came on.

“Get out quick,” Jackson ordered.

I didn't argue, as soon as I was outside I reached for Luke. Jackson lowered him as quickly but gently as possible b
efore
climbing out himself.

“
W
e should get him to the car, then come back and kill the bastards
,
” Jackson barked
.

“No, you wouldn’t last two minutes in there
,
” Luke warned
.
“They have so many weapons, chemic
al ones too. Not to mention
all the silver bullets. Leticia
,
let’s just leave, I don’t want them to kill you
.
”

I
nodded
and
then returned him to Jackson. We crept around the sides of the building, ducking under the windows. When we reached the pathway we heard raised voices; they must have
realize
d Luke was missing. We heard things smashing and men’s voices shouting, it sounded like there were quite a lot of them. We also noticed there were several cars now parked up just in front of the wasteland. Needless to say we didn't stick around any longer than necessary; we ran down the road and completely out of sight
as fast as we could. Jackson
laid
Luke across the back seat of the car b
efore
getting us out of there.

Neither of us thought it was good idea to stay at the hotel. It was too close. Jackson went inside to get our things and sort everything out with the receptionist,
while
I called Nancy and Tristan to tell them the short version of what had happened, and that we were coming straight back. Nancy said she would prepare a room for Luke and they would stay up and wait for us. As soon as Jackson returned, we set off.