14
Layne
Lights flash in my face as I come to. My head throbs and my chest feels achy, tight, but I’m not dead. So they didn’t hit me with a real bullet. A tranq gun. Maybe they were expecting Sam.
“Ahh, you’re awake.” A familiar voice, blurry face. Smyth.
Revulsion hits me as it always did. Even when I didn’t know about the atrocities he was committing, I hated his leering mug. Guess my instincts were right about him all along.
I take no satisfaction in this.
“Where am I?” I groan, working my jaw. My mouth feels cottony.
“You don’t recognize it?” He peers around the room. “Of course you wouldn’t. You’ve never been to the base of the Alpha Project.”
The white walls, silver equipment, beeping computers—I’m in a lab. I come awake fast.
“One of the bases,” Smyth corrects himself. “Th
