Live Free or Die Complete Series Boxed Set: Age Of Madness - A Kurtherian Gambit Series Hayley Lawson (ebook reader play store .TXT) 📖

but he didn’t have the passcode to get out. Afana would deal with him next. Robert moved closer to the walls, away from the mutant and Stuart. He didn’t want to be in the middle when Afana ripped them both in two.

Other advisors had seen Stuart’s attempt to open the door through the glass wall and now they watched, wondering what was going to happen next.

The metal of the wrist restraints creaked as they began to give under the pressure of the specimen’s growing wrists. Soon they would come off and his hands would be free.

Afana needed his head free so he could break the man’s neck. There were plenty of things in the lab they could inject him with to try to knock him out, but Afana wasn’t sure what effect they would have on him, if any.

The specimen had almost doubled in size, and the restraints couldn’t hold him anymore. The last of them broke, and he was free.

He ran at Afana with unstoppable force, knocking the vampire off his feet and into the glass wall. Now Afana knew why the man had been called Tank. The name actually suited him, although Afana still couldn’t bear to think of him as anything but ‘the specimen.’

All the advisors in the other room quickly got to their feet and moved away from the glass wall that divided the labs.

The mutated specimen tried in vain to bite Afana. He may have been strong, but he was nowhere near as powerful as Afana. The vampire kicked him in the guts, lifting him into the air to crash back down onto a metal table with a thud.

Afana looked on in furious horror as the specimen got to his feet and threw the metal table across the room. It smashed into the table which held Afana’s music player and records. There was a scratching sound as the needle dragged itself across the record and the music cut out with a final screech. The record player slid off the table and broke into pieces on the floor.

He’s broken my record player. This is my lab, only I can trash it! Time to show this mutated fucker whose house this is.

Afana charged, holding nothing back. He slammed the specimen’s overgrown body into the glass wall over and over. He kicked and punched and stamped, beating the crap out of the specimen-formerly-known-as-Tank, and didn’t stop until the thing was no longer breathing.

The specimen’s neck muscles were wrapped so tightly Afana couldn’t rip off his head, which made his blood boil even more.

He stomped over to Stuart, and before Stuart could stutter out an apology, Afana had taken the advisor’s head in his hands and twisted it off. His lifeless body dropped to the floor.

“Cut Specimen Two’s head off and clean up this shit,” Afana told Robert, and he left for his quarters.

Afana was pissed with himself more than anyone. He couldn’t believe he’d been so reckless as to inject anyone with his blood. His blood! He shouldn’t call himself a scientist if he were going to make stupid mistakes like that. He was as bad as the advisors.

Now he’d seen what the disease was capable of he knew he needed to eradicate it from his bunker before it was too late. He had been too anxious to find out if he was immune to the disease, and had thrown all reason out the window. His blood wasn’t the cure, and if he could be infected, he’d be running the risk of killing his entire herd in his madness—if they didn’t all kill each other first.

Afana clenched his fists as he slumped onto the sofa in his personal living area. He was holding everything inside himself, straining not to trash his own place. He couldn’t replace these things as easily as he could replace the cattle.

Afana laid back. Why hadn’t he drunk Stuart’s blood when he was thirsty and worn out from the attack? The fight had taken more out of Afana than he wanted to admit.

Now he’d have to drink from one of the other advisors since he couldn’t touch his cattle. They might be infected.

Once this shit was sorted out, Afana was going to bring some cattle onto his level so he’d always have a supply on hand.

Afana thought about the different advisors as if they were a menu at his own personal restaurant. He wouldn’t drink Robert’s since his blood was old. He had a feeling it wouldn’t taste like fine old wine, but instead more like wine that should have been left in the cellar, never to be opened.

Afana got up and turned on his opera on his CD player; thankfully he still had that. He sat back down on his sofa and let Mozart clear his head before he went back out to the lab.

Terrier had heard gunfire on Level Five, which meant that there was a general on the Level. Only generals had guns. He wondered if Afana had sent them down here for him. It would make sense—or they might be there for whatever had bitten Justin. The shots had been down in the tunnel and no one had come running out alive, which was a bad sign.

An eerie silence fell on Level Five as if everyone were holding their breath waiting for the next thing to happen. The commotion down in the tunnel where Justin was had died down, which led Terrier to believe the man hadn’t survived the attack.

That thought quickly left Terrier’s mind as Justin sprinted out of the tunnel toward him, his head awkwardly leaning to one side as if his neck were no longer strong enough to support his head.

His mouth gaped, and his shrieks and growls signified his desire for fresh flesh as his arms stretched forward.

High-pitched screams of terror came from a tiny voice. It was Samantha, and she was by the bathroom. Justin cranked his neck toward her and changed direction, since she was closer and easier prey than Terrier.

“Over here,