Prez shook his head. "There was an implosion in the cave that collapsed the tunnel ten days ago. Neither the controller nor the two handlers have been back. So all of us have been without our allotment of drugs since Sunday when we ran out."
"So, three days." He walked away from the table.
He had no idea how many days had passed between when they switched him and when he became coherent in the mountains. It could've been days or months. Once he woke up, it'd taken several days, maybe a week, for the flashes of memories to start torturing him.
He couldn't predict when they'd come or how he'd react. Everything the Alpha Bio Project trained him for was useless during the switch.
"The explosion doesn't make any sense. Why would they destroy everything?" He returned to the table. "Where else would they have the secrecy of training the men? There're tourists running everywhere in Avery Falls. The cave was the one secure location that'd worked for two decades."
"Trip believes the project is recruiting more men and handling the day-to-day training somewhere else. He's afraid those in the organization will build a new group of participants and come after the club."
"To create a war?" He could see where Trip's thoughts led him. "Jesus...that's not what they trained us for."
"Isn't it?" Prez shoved back from the table and stood. "Throughout the years, did you ever think they'd blow up the fucking mountain and leave us high and dry? We're trained killers. It doesn't need to make sense to us. When the time is right, boom, we're killing machines. There's your war."
He always understood the controller would switch him one day. It was something he never feared because he believed it was his purpose in life.
While he had knowledge of what went on during training—the project softened the lingering effects with the drugs they handed out.
He was thankful they'd wiped any memory of living through the brainwashing and physical abuse. If only it were so easy to remove his past again.
He rubbed his hand over his face. He'd take every painful moment since signing up for the project if they'd make him forget his past, again.
"You're all going to remember." He wanted to protect his club from the truth, but all he could do was prepare them for what was to come. "And you're going to wish you were dead. There are going to be men who won't survive. They'll turn on each other. They could attack the town in their rage. Not only will they want to end their life when the pain gets too much, but they'll also believe they're going insane."
"Fuck," muttered Prez.
He looked at Prez, having known him for as many years as he'd participated in the project. There was no right number of warnings to prepare the club for what was to come to each of them.
"We need to do something to retain the brotherhood." Prez rubbed the back of his neck. "We can call a rally—"
"No. That won't work." Keenan inhaled deeply. "If we let them know what they'll experience when they're all together, they'll flee, believing they can outrun the warning. With the organization gone from Avery Falls, nothing will keep them here."
"They took an oath to the brotherhood." Prez pushed the table away from him and stood. "They damn will stay. I'll make them stay."
None of them could stop the switch. They were killers. It was impossible.
Prez wiped his forehead and looked at the palm of his hand. "What the hell is this?"
"Sweat," muttered Keenan. "Get used to it."
The normal reactions people went through when angry, frustrated, or exhausted would soon become stronger in those who were enhanced and no longer taking the drugs given to them by the Alpha Bio Project.
It was a side-effect of the withdrawals. It would take time for Prez and the others to acclimate. Then, they'd start to go back to how they were trained.
"The switch supersedes the brotherhood." He gazed at Prez, feeling the connection that existed between each member wearing the patch. "It'll be life or death, and none of us can protect the other."
Trip had tried to warn them something bad was going to happen. At the time, the other originals had no experience to understand the bigger picture, including himself. Even after going through the switch, he still hadn't figured out how Trip knew what could happen while he continued to take the drugs given to him.
Prez hung his head before raising his gaze to Keenan. "How did you survive alone?"
Tension rolled through his body. Living with the truth was a nightmare. Even when he was busy finding food and wood for a fire, making sure he had clean water, and hiding from a bigger threat, the ramification of the switch remained forefront on his mind.
It consumed him.
It ate away at him like cancer until there was nothing left.
Even more dangerous than being enhanced, accepting his fate, and trained to react to all situations, deep down, he would kill.
He was no longer disconnected from his feelings. The bad he was born with had won.
"I haven't survived. I probably won't," he whispered.
"It's that bad?"
Keenan dipped his chin. Telling Prez more would only make it more difficult for his president.
"We need you to come back to Avery Falls."
"I can't." If he stayed here, he was too close to his MC brothers. On the mountain, he could hide from the pressure that came back with a vengeance when he regained his memories.
"We need to deal with this before we lose everything. Without the drugs, we'll lose control. What's going to happen then? We have almost three hundred fucking tourists milling around each day of the summer. We need to keep running the businesses. If the locals start seeing us drop the ball, they will question what we're doing." Prez closed his eyes an extra breath, inhaling deeply. "As it is, we're failing to keep up since the implosion."
The club wasn't the only thing on the brink of disaster. He had a woman he'd kidnapped tied up on his bed in the cabin.
"We need you, Keenan."
To come back to his house, he'd need to bring the woman. Letting her go would only bring the authorities down on him and everyone else involved with the club.
"I have a problem." He sat back down.
He quickly informed Prez about the happenings over the last several days. The last thing he needed was a woman underfoot, but it was too dangerous to let her go.
Chapter Six
Grace held on to the cargo rack behind her on the back of the ATV, trying to keep her body away from her kidnapper in front of her. An almost impossible task as they navigated over the rocky ground.
From her advantage point on the mountain, she could see the lights of Avery Falls in the distance, along with the flowing St. Joe River. Somewhere down there, her Jeep was waiting for her to go home.
When he'd ordered her outside that morning to get on the ATV, she'd jumped at the chance to escape the confines of the cabin. Nausea hit her. She closed her eyes. One more night in pure blackness with only a speck of the moon shining through the holes in the roof would've made her go insane.
She wanted electricity, a cell phone, and her sister.
She hadn't eaten since the morning of the kidnapping. Never in her life had she gone three days without eating and living on water that tasted of earth.