Athena Force 9: Payback by Harper Allen

Author:Harper Allen [Allen, Harper]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
Publisher: Silhouette Bombshell
Published: 2005-03-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Status: nine days and counting

Time: 0159 hours

Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, even to the passage of the bullet through her body, Dawn thought dazedly. She could feel it continue on its way, knew it had missed her spine by a hairbreadth, felt it punch through her back. Then it was out of her but still moving. Two wings of velvet briefly enveloped her and fell away—Sir William’s heavy draperies, she guessed, billowing out at the sides in reaction to the force of the projectile that had slammed through the center of them. At the same time she heard the icy sound of glass shattering as the window she hadn’t been able to open earlier was blown out. She looked down at herself. She could see perfectly now, she realized, which meant that the light-stick had finally sputtered and died, giving her this final split second of darkness.

This is the experiment Aldrich always wanted to conduct, the one experiment Uncle Lee threatened to kill him over if he ever tried to carry it out on me, she thought, seeing the dark stain spreading rapidly across her shredded sweater and the thick globules dropping to the floor, some of them spattering the edges of the sheaf of papers that had fallen from the waistband of her pants when she’d been shot. Peters wanted to know if I could survive a bullet to the heart. In a moment I’ll have the answer to his question.

“Dammit, man, it didn’t have to end this way!” Asher’s expression was appalled, his tone stricken. “What the hell were you thinking, going for my gun when I told you—”

She could feel it deep inside her. The process had already begun, her tissues beginning to knit themselves perfectly together again. The answer to Aldrich Peters’s question was yes. Lab 33’s lab rat could survive a shot to the heart. But could Lab 33’s lab rat escape the trap she was in…the trap that was about to spring shut right about—

Now! Dawn ordered herself sharply.

Even as she wrenched off the goggles and threw herself backward, time began speeding up again, fast-forwarding so rapidly that everything seemed to occur at once. The study was suddenly flooded with light. She had a freeze-frame’s glimpse of Asher’s drawn features, thought she saw a flicker of shock pass over them, and then she was falling through the cool night air, her arms outstretched and her body limp. She hit the ground with a jarring thud, but knew immediately that her lack of rigidity had saved her from any broken bones.

She’d taken the fast way down, she thought grimly. Mr. SAS was going to have to take the stairs. Her contingency plan could still be put into operation…if her mobility returned in time.

It was a pretty big if. She heard shouts, then the Klaxon-like bursts of an alarm. The military contingent of the facility had obviously gone to code red at the sound of a gunshot and any minute now they would be converging on this area.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.