Dark Justice

Chapter 1

One

Jackson Kyle opened his eyes a fraction to study the guards stationed outside his cell deep within the bowels of the headquarters for the Brimfield Ward. The lights in the cell block were dimmed but he could see them clearly. They were both watching him, enhanced vision almost as good as his in this light. Hands close to their holsters, they were ready to shoot him if he made a move they didn’t like. The one on the left shifted his feet, fingers caressing the top of his stun gun, mouth twisted into a grimace as he glared at the prisoner lounging on the cell’s only bunk.

They would be able to see the whites of his eyes shining even though his lids were half closed. That shine allowed him to see in the dark far better than when he’d been a warden, like his guards.

He closed his eyes and listened to them breathe, their respirations shallow as they maintained a vigilant stance. Two hours into their shift they were alert, prepared for anything, but three weeks of guarding him without incident would see them settle into their watch. Soon their breathing would deepen, muscles relax and attention spans waver.

Ears pricked for any change in his surroundings, Jackson caught the murmur of voices from the guardhouse at the end of the corridor. Moments later the door into the cell block opened and his guards were called away.

Visiting time.

The guardhouse door closed and a single set of footsteps made their way toward him. When the footsteps stopped outside his cell, he opened his eyes to look at the woman who had replaced him as Captain of the Brimfield Ward.

Muscles tense, teeth bared, Jackson fought the urge to bound off the bed. The freak inside him wanted to grab Miranda Wilson around the throat and squeeze until she choked out her last breath. His own breathing ragged, the chains around his wrists and ankles jangling with each movement, he pushed down the monster and concentrated on the man he had once been.

He sat up, grimacing, as he held on to his self-control—barely. ‘You need to stop coming down here,’ he said, voice little more than a growl. ‘Please, kill me and be done with it.’

‘How can you ask that of me?’

‘The man you remember doesn’t exist anymore. All that’s left is the freak.’

‘I won’t accept that.’ She shook her head, long black hair momentarily obscuring her face. She brushed it back behind her ears. ‘Zarb is close to finding a cure. You just need to hold on a little longer, give him more time.’

He barked out a harsh laugh. ‘Zarb’s been working on his cure for years, and he’s no closer now than he was when he started.’

No scientist in the five hundred years since the cure for the common cold had gone horribly wrong had come within spitting distance of a cure. Daniel Zarb may have been a genius, but he was fooling himself if he thought he would be the one to finally eradicate the virus that turned people into rage-driven monsters determined to destroy the uninfected.

Jackson rattled his chains. ‘These aren’t going to stop me. I can feel it, eating away inside me. The things I want to do, to you, to every man, woman, and child in this godforsaken town. I will slaughter every single one of them if you don’t stop me.’

His breathing quickened; the mere thought of the c*****e he could inflict with his bare hands excited the freak within. He closed his eyes, snarling, hating himself, hating his inability to control the virus that had turned him into one of the infected he had been trained since birth to kill.

Being a warden, he’d been able to resist the virus longer than the humans his kind had been created to protect. But the longer he sat here, chained to the wall, the stronger its hold on him became. Soon there would be nothing of the man left. He had to make Wilson kill him before then. He couldn’t do it himself, unable to shut off the self-preservation instinct inherent in his freak nature. Wilson didn’t consider him a threat while he was locked up, holding on to the hope he could be cured. It was time to destroy that hope, once and for all.

He opened his eyes and launched off the bed, lunging at the bars, stretching his long arms as far as he could. A low growl ripped from his throat as his chains pulled him up short.

‘I will rip them to shreds, bathe in their blood.’

‘Stop it.’ She backed away from the bars.

Jackson forced himself to keep going. ‘I’ll make sure every citizen of Brimfield knows who to blame for their pain and suffering before I kill them. They’ll go to hell knowing you’re the reason I turned into a freak in the first place—how you kept me alive against Ward law—that you got every one of them killed.’

With visible effort, Wilson met his eyes. ‘A week. Two at the most. That’s all you have to hold on for. Zarb is so close. You will be a warden once more.’

Jackson shook his head. He had to make her understand there was no going back, not for him. ‘Like I said, these won’t hold me for long.’ He held up his manacled hands. ‘When I get out, we’ll see how much pain you can take before you break.’

‘Zarb will cure you, and I will not break,’ she said before striding off.

Jackson listened to the hitch in her breathing as she gained entry to the guardhouse. She was already breaking, cracks working their way through her spirit with each visit, and she wasn’t the only one.

He wouldn’t last another day locked in this cell, let alone two weeks waiting on a cure that might never eventuate. He had to get out of there before the freak inside him broke free and everything that had made him Jackson Kyle died forever.