“I need to talk with you,” Humphrey said, his enunciation even weaker than usual—on purpose, Lou was certain.

“What did you say? What in the hell do you want?”

“I need to talk to you now!”

“Fucking gnome,” the man muttered.

The door opened enough to emit the barrel of a pistol. Then it opened some more. Finally, it opened enough.

“What are you doing here, creep?” the man snapped. “Get back to work. You’re supposed to be in—”

Lou pushed away from the wall, whirled behind Humphrey, and threw the beaker of sulfuric acid, aiming at what he imagined would be Jessup’s face. It was a perfect strike. The glass smashed against the bridge of the security guard’s nose, shattering on impact, and sending him stumbling back into the room.

Immediately, there were piteous screams and the sizzle of frying skin. Jessup dropped his gun and pawed at his eyes. The air instantly turned sickly with the odor of singed hair and searing flesh. A noxious billow of greenish-yellow smoke began to fill the room.

The shrieking continued.

This was nothing Lou had wanted to do—nothing he enjoyed doing. But Red Cliff and the people within it were extremists who espoused a philosophy of pain for those less fortunate than themselves. And Cap was in serious trouble because of them.

In his years in the ER, Lou had only taken care of one acid-to-the-face injury. It was a woman who had taken out a restraining order on an abusive boyfriend. If he worked in medicine for a thousand years, Lou would never forget the sight of her face. He knew this man’s eyes were burnt beyond use, and it was doubtful anyone would ever take him out of prison to give him a face transplant. But injured as he was, he would survive because his burns, though terrible, were not mortal.

Chilled by the sounds and sickened at the smell, Lou took out his Glock and aimed the weapon at Jessup’s forehead. The situation was approaching unbearable. He stared down at the scorched and charred remains of what was once a human face. His gun hand began to waver as his thoughts swirled with images of all that had happened since his run in the Chattahoochee forest with Cap.

“Maybe in jail you’ll find new meaning to your life,” he said, holstering his weapon.

Backing from the room, he closed the door, sealing Jessup inside. Even with the heavy portal shut and a foot of stone wall between them, Lou could still hear the man’s agonized moans.

“Where to now?” Humphrey asked.

“Now you go back to the lab and help Kazimi gather up all the notes and data he’ll need to make a working antibiotic treatment.”

“What are you going to do?” Humphrey asked.

“I’m going to find Doug Bacon and put an end to One Hundred Neighbors once and for all.”

Chapter 54

CHAPTER 54