Page 23 of My Perfect One
“I’ve done nothing wrong. We only have a little more of the Taipan venom. I don’t understand why it’s not working.”
“It’s not working because you’re a shitty researcher. I told Pamela you weren’t the right person to be the head of our lab.You need to force the Taipans to shift and get more venom out of them.”
“They haven’t recuperated from the last tests you did on them. If you force them to shift, they really will die this time.”
“Do you think I really care if they die? Get them in here and get them milked. Do your fucking job.”
Listening to Matilda talk to the researcher almost makes me feel bad for them. Almost. This is the researcher that forced us to shift and then milked our venom.
Oliver
Going back towards the apartment we were kept in isn’t easy. All I can think about is my parents and the twins. As we get closer, I start to smell a familiar scent. But it can’t be…
I watch Eros kick open the apartment door and what I see brings me to my knees.
“Mom? Dad? H-how?”
Before I can move, my parents and the twins are holding me. I feel sick that we left them.
“I’m so sorry we left you.” I sob.
“We’re glad you got out. Don’t ever be sorry for saving yourself.” My mom says as she hugs me tighter.
“I hate to do this. But we need to get out of here. You can talk about this outside.” Eros says to us.
My head is swimming as I look at my parents and the twins. I know for a fact none of them had a pulse. We never would’ve left them if we had any idea they were alive.
“We’ll explain everything, I promise.” My mom says as she hugs me again.
“Do you know if there’s any other shifters here?” Giacomo asks.
“No. Not that we’ve seen. It’s just our family.” My dad answers.
We make our way out of the facility, when we get outside and back to the cars, Giacomo gets on the coms to let the others know that we’re out and they need to grab Matilda and Paul.
“We’re listening to Matilda yell at her head researcher.” We hear Ares say on the coms.
“We checked the other two apartments and they’re empty. But we have eyes on Paul and another researcher.” Eros says.
“Grab all of them and bring them out. The loop is going to end soon and I don’t want any of us on their feed. We don’t know if the feed is being sent somewhere else.” Zeus says.
We get the cars ready to secure the ones we’re taking with us. I want to talk to my parents, but I don’t want to do it without Seraphina and Archer.
“Please tell me you’re all okay.” My mom says to me.
“We are. There’s so much to tell you. But I still don’t understand what happened. I checked all of you more than once…We only escaped because we thought they were killing us on purpose.”
My dad holds me tight. “You did the right thing. Where’s Phee and Archer?”
“They’re inside, we each had a section of the facility to take care of. I didn’t want Phee or Archer to have to deal with the memories. So I volunteered to do it. Phee has the research area and Archer has the other side of the facility. There’s two more apartments there.”
“Mom? Dad?” We hear Seraphina say.
I watch my parents and the twins run to her and grab her. I can hear all of them sobbing. Then I see Archer coming out. Before he gets to us, he drops to his knees. I can see the tearsrunning down his face. We all go over to him and our parents hug him too.
I see five people being brought out in handcuffs. One of the women is yelling and screaming at Ares as he pushes her in front of him.
“Let’s get all of you back to the hotel so you can talk.” Enea says to us. “Don’t worry about them. We need to make arrangements to get them back to Lake Renegade.”
