Midnight’s Master (Midnight #3)(69)
Author: Cynthia Eden

As if he were cleaning himself off.

Asshole.

"Then when you surprised me that day at my office-"

You mean when I caught you with your head between her-

"Your eyes changed. Flashed to black."

Her chest ached worse than her arm and her head. She’d unknowingly revealed too much to him, and so many had paid the price for her mistake.

"At first I thought I’d imagined it."

"But I saw it, too," Michelle piped up with a nod. "And I’d seen it before…"

"Michelle knew what you were."

And she knew exactly what Michelle was, too.

"So I started watching you and you lead me to the others."

Something was squeezing her heart. Too tight. "You didn’t have to kill them."

He blinked and actually looked confused. "Of course, I did. How else could I study them? I had to look inside-"

Oh, God.

"-to see if I could find the source of their power."

Michelle tossed her scalpel back onto the tray. "It’s all genetics. I’ve told you that from the beginning."

"I think there are differences in the brain. There have to be in order to account for the psychic surges in the demon population."

"But genetics are-"

They were arguing like they were in a damn lecture hall. They’d killed, terrorized, all for-"Some kind of sick experiment!"

They shut up, finally, and turned their stares back to her.

Zack nodded. "You do understand."

Hell, no, she didn’t. "You cut them up, sliced them apart to-"

"Ah…now, I had to do a bit of work with my knife, bloody things up, you know-couldn’t have it looking like a professional just went right in and extracted an organ or two.’ Bloody things up.

"If I hadn’t used the knife to hide most of my scalpel incisions, the cops would have known that a…professional was working."

Working? Working! Professional, her ass. Psychotic.

"Your lover will be the perfect specimen," Zack said with a nod. "All his strength…I know I’ll find the secret with him."

Once he cut Niol open.

Not going to happen.

"You don’t know what you’re dealing with. You should get the hell out of here while you can."

"The demon’s not going to hurt me." A twist of his lips. "Come on, you know better."

"I-I’ve seen him kill. He’ll destroy you."

"I’ve seen him kill, too," Michelle said. "For you. "

We started watching.

Zack tapped his chin. "I think the demon will do just about anything for you."

"No, you’re wrong!"

"He won’t leave you here to die. He’ll come for you. Come alone, and when he does…"

Michelle lifted a syringe. "I’ll be ready."

Her eyes narrowed on that syringe. "What is that?" Fear hushed her voice because sure, she knew Niol was kick-ass strong and she’d been trying to scare the psychopaths around her, but …

But they were acting too confident. They knew full well just how dangerous Niol was-that was obvious. They wanted him because he was dangerous.

"You knew that I had a master’s degree in pharmacology, didn’t you, Holly?" Zack took the syringe from Holly. "This is a little brew I’m pretty proud of, I’ve got to say. Sure, it doesn’t work perfectly. I haven’t quite figured out the demon system, but it can knock a demon out in five seconds."

"But sometimes the demons wake up before they’re supposed to," Michelle said. "Like a patient in the middle of an operation when the anesthesia wears off."

They were both insane.

"Sure you don’t want a taste?" Zack brought the needle close to her arm. "You’ll be out so fast-"

And what? Wake up when they were cutting her open? "Keep that thing away from me!" There had to be a way for her to escape.

Why-why couldn’t she have been born with stronger demon powers? She would have loved to be able to toss the freak duo across the room with just a thought.

He leaned toward her. "Are you scared, Holly?"

Hell, yes, but she’d never admit it to him.

An expression of sadness drifted over his face. "I had plans for you, back at the beginning. I was going to spend my life with you-"

"You were screwing her !" Bad enough he was threatening to kill her, now she had to listen to this crap again.

His nostrils flared. "Michelle understood me."

Uh, yeah, that was obvious. Who else would have joined in to help him torture and kill?

Michelle’s fingers curled over his shoulder. "Of course, I do. You just want to make the world a better place."

His shoulders fell and blessedly, that needle dropped away from her arm. "That’s all I want. To rid the Earth of those who don’t belong, the mutations who should never have been born."

So now she was a mutation?

"I’ve got to check outside," Zack murmured, placing the syringe on the instrument tray. "Got to make sure I see the demon coming."

Because if he didn’t, Niol would kill him before Zack ever had a chance to scream.

He turned away, hurrying from the room.

And leaving her with Ms. Cut Happy.

Michelle tilted her head, seeming to listen to Zack’s footsteps as they faded away.

Holly glanced around the room, trying to figure out where she was. The walls were bare, old, yellow. No furniture was in the room.

Another abandoned house? An old office building? Where?

"What can you do?" Michelle asked and Holly’s gaze turned back to her. The woman studied her with narrowed blue eyes. "Can you make fires? Move objects?"

Why did she want to know?

"I don’t think you can," she continued. "You would have tried something by now."

True.

"Carl tried." She lifted her hand and brushed back the long fall of blond hair that partially hid her forehead. The move revealed a slanting red gash. Still healing. "He got me-"

Good for Carl. She was glad he’d gone out fighting. He’d always been a fighter.

"But he couldn’t stop Zack."

Holly swallowed.

"What can you do?" Michelle asked again.

Nothing. But she’d be damned if she admitted her weakness. Instead, Holly narrowed her own eyes and growled, "You really don’t want to find out."

Michelle jerked away, her elbow ramming into the table. "The p-power is wasted on you! You don’t deserve it, just like you didn’t deserve him."

Now that didn’t sound like a woman who thought demons were a terrible mutation who needed to be stopped. Holly’s lips parted. "You don’t want to destroy the demons-you want to find out where their strength comes from!" Because she wanted the same power. Twisted bitch.