Today I'm so excited to be posting an excerpt from one of my most anticipated books of 2016, which is available today! Dark Territory is the second book in the Signy Shepherd series. The first book Blown Red was released last year, and is a must-read if you like thrilling, fast-paced books. You can read my review of Blown Red here.
Excerpt:
Lizzy Stone hurried down the deserted corridor, its concrete walls
plastered with fluorescent biohazard warnings. Clutched under one arm
like an overinflated football, Ethan screamed bloody murder, his
furious cries echoing through the underground maze. Clamping a hand
over the baby’s mouth, Lizzy darted a quick look over her shoulder.
She skittered to a halt in front of a heavy steel door. Ignoring the
Do Not Enter sign, she swiped the access card she’d stolen and
shouldered the door open. Flipping on the lights, she whirled round,
slammed the door shut, and then clicked home the deadbolt. Only then
did she lean against the wall and close her eyes.
She breathed in the familiar mix of pine disinfectant and chlorine
bleach, and it was a minute or two before she noticed the baby’s
squirms grow weaker. She glanced down. His nose clogged, he was
struggling to breathe. She whipped her hand away from his mouth, and
after a couple of sputtered cries, he let loose again, every muscle
in his body quivering with rage.
Swinging him up onto her hip, she patted his back while completing a
quick survey of the room. She was surprised to see that nothing much
had changed in the laboratory since she’d last been allowed down
here. On one wall, a gleaming stainless steel lab bench held an array
of scientific equipment, autoclaves, a centrifuge, flasks, and test
tubes.
Tears pricked behind her eyes when she saw that the caricature she’d
had made for Solomon at the New York State Fair still occupied its
place of honour on the centre of the bench. The artist had drawn him
hunched over a microscope, a white lab coat hanging around his knees,
his hair wild, à la Einstein. Surrounding him, a ring of smiling
children held up Thank You signs in a variety of languages.
Turning her back on the drawing, she examined the class II safety
cabinet that dominated the opposite wall. With its separate
environmental controls it served to keep the operator safe from both
biological and chemical agents.
“No,” she cried, prying the baby’s grasping fingers from her
long brown hair. She held his writhing, sweat-slick body out in front
of her, his tiny feet windmilling. She grimaced as his screams rose
in an almost unbearable crescendo.
Striding over to the safety cabinet, she bent forward and peered
inside. The empty interior was sparkling clean. Using her hip, she
opened the glass shield and set the baby inside.
His shrieks abruptly halted as he stared open-mouthed at this novel
environment.
Her shoulders relaxed a fraction of an inch. She’d suspected a
stint in Daddy’s sanctum sanctorum might do the trick. As if he
were reading her mind, the baby burst out into a babble of infant
chatter.
Lizzy slid the door shut, then glanced at the temperature gauge. If
she cranked the dial even a little, the temperature inside the
cabinet would climb to unbearable levels. Like a dog left in a car on
a sweltering summer day, he’d be cooked within minutes.
Shaking her head, she stepped over to a refrigerator-sized incubator.
A quick check of the gauges showed that the temperature, humidity,
oxygen, and carbon dioxide were ticking along at optimum levels.
Peeking through a small window on the door, she could see tightly
packed culture dishes. Each dish had a white screw top at one end and
a thin layer of pink nutrient medium lining the bottom. Not bothering
to don a mask, she reached in and extracted one of the plastic
containers.
She peered closely at the contents, noting with satisfaction the
fuzzy dark spots that marred the clean surface of the medium.
Carrying the culture dish over to a deep metal sink, she twisted off
the white cap. Bringing the mouth of the dish under the tap, she
turned on the hot water. The little container filled almost
immediately, and she watched as grainy splotches of cell tissue broke
free of their life-giving moorings, floated to the surface, and rode
a torrent of water out into the sink.
She repeated the process until every scrap of her husband’s work
met an unceremonious end in the sewer tank deep underground.
Tossing the last culture dish into the garbage, she stepped over to a
large metal desk that held the computer in which Solomon recorded his
data. She turned it on, and scrolled through the contents. She
dragged the cursor past scores of files containing years of raw data
and statistical analyzes, as well as a series of scientific articles
Solomon was poised to send to peer-reviewed journals.
She paid no attention to the research files. She wanted the videos,
and there they were. Hundreds of them. She chose one at random, her
lips twisting with disgust as the familiar images flickered to life.
Shuddering, Lizzy grabbed a USB key from the desk drawer and copied
the file onto the key, slipping it in her pocket as soon as the
transfer was complete. Then she spun the computer tower, opened the
back, and slid out the hard drive. Glancing around the lab, she found
what she was looking for over by the door. Dropping the hard drive
onto the concrete floor, she picked up a heavy metal doorstop and
used it to crack open the drive.
Tossing the battered casing in the sink, she found a flask of
hydrochloric acid in a glass-fronted cupboard. She poured the entire
bottle over the hard drive, watching as the delicate inner workings
dissolved into a smoking lump of twisted metal.
Certain that Solomon’s work had been obliterated, she returned her
focus to the baby’s miniature prison. He’d managed to roll over
onto his side, his fuzz of blond hair dark with sweat. Her hand
hovered over the temperature dial. With what his father had planned
for him, the poor little thing would be better off if she simply
cranked the knob.
The baby stared back at her with his sparkling blue eyes.
“Just like going to sleep,” she whispered through the glass.
Ethan grinned, then plugged a thumb into his mouth.
Lizzy shook her head. “Come here, little monkey,” she said,
sliding open the door and lifting him free of the stuffy cabinet. The
baby wrapped his arms around her neck and she pressed his impossibly
soft cheek to hers.
She was turning to leave when she caught sight of a black marker.
Ripping the cap off with her teeth, she walked over to the wall and
scrawled the word Murderer in ten-inch-high letters.
Back in the hallway, she spotted a trail of evenly spaced marks
marring the concrete floor. Inspecting the bottom of her feet, she
found the offending stain on the sole of her right foot. She
discounted the idea of returning with a bucket and mop. She’d be
long gone by the time he discovered the bloody footprints.
Wiping away an errant tear, she choked back a hysterical giggle. By
then, a little extra cleanup would be the least of his problems.
____________________
If you think that excerpt is awesome, wait until you read the rest of the book! Come back tomorrow to check out my thoughts (spoiler alert: I loved it). Dark Territory is available today!
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