by Lan Chan
Adam didn’t answer him verbally, but Caleb’s head slowly turned in my direction. A slow, predatory smile stretched across his lips. Blood trickled down Adam’s nostril and I knew Caleb had busted open Adam’s mind while the S2 made him weaker.
Caleb let go of Adam, and in two steps that sounded like thunder in my ears, he was in front of me. His hand snapped tight around my throat and I felt the pads of his fingers against the pulse on either side of my neck.
He didn’t constrict until his face was a fraction of an inch away from mine. His breath blew hot and clammy on my cheek. Behind him, Adam collapsed to the floor. I tried to struggle free of Caleb but the pain in my side had turned numb. The site of my injury continued to haemorrhage blood. It was everywhere around me, soaked into my shirt and slapped on the wall where I’d used my hands to break my trajectory.
“So,” Caleb said. “Wait until I tell Moe that little Willow Nguyen can hear the whispers of the espers messed up on S2.”
He scraped his probe against my shield. If his defence was a wall then mine was an electric field, coursing and sparking. He rained telepathic blows on me, expecting that any moment now, the S2 would weaken my defences so that he could invade my mind as he had done to Adam.
His grip on my throat began to press firmer against my voice box, making me choke and wheeze. Again and again, he attempted to breach the barrier. Before long, confusion passed over his bleached features, and then, his eyes widened in realisation. I saw it the very second he realised the S2 had no effect on me. I saw the moment it clicked into place that I wasn’t an esper. That was when the nanobots decided he was too great a threat. The electricity that built up at the base of my skull enveloped the stretch of darkness that had been growing in strength with each second that my anger bubbled.
Cold metal pushed my cheek so that my face lay flat against the wall. I stopped breathing as Caleb slugged me across the face. As soon as our skin touched, telepathy erupted. It rolled from my mind like a tsunami over a wall made of sand. Distantly, I heard screaming and then footsteps. My probe struck at Caleb’s walled shield, tearing it brick by brick, crashing into it repeatedly. Bits of information, including the address of the compound we were in, flooded through to me. His mind laid bare for me to pillage. Completely controlled by the nanobots, a probe sliced through Caleb’s mind, extracting everything he had just lifted from Adam.
Desperately, I felt him try to retreat back into himself. The nanobots bridged the distance and hammered into him anew, smashing into the tiny part of his mind that he kept hidden. The pressure on my throat slackened and he fell to the floor as dead weight.
The door yanked open. Two other men charged into the room. With the break in the circuit, the anti-psi tech lost its connection. The electricity roared from me in great tendrils that seared them like marshmallows on an open fire. They didn’t even have enough time to scream or to radio for help.
My legs buckled. That utterly hollow feeling invaded my senses and I could do little more than lay there twitching as my body started to shut down. With the last scrap of my energy, I snatched the mobile telephone in the belt on Caleb’s side.
Without thinking, I dialled the first number that came to mind and then dropped the phone so that I could place my ear against it.
“Yo?” Ryan’s voice answered.
“Pier 64. Cut into the rocks at the edge of the old port house. Hurry!”
Which came first? The phone cutting out or me passing out? I regained consciousness at the sound of gunshots and then heavy breathing as things slammed into the walls around me.
My eyes blinked a few times as more feet than I cared to count flooded into the room.
Somebody tried to reach for my hand, realised I was shackled and broke the plastic in two like it was nothing more than tissue paper.
“Take her,” Ryan’s voice said. Another pair of arms lifted me.
“No,” I heard myself croak. “Adam.”
“Easy, darling.”
I dry-retched from dizziness. My stomach dipped with each heavy stomp of feet. I felt like I had been hollowed out inside and bits of me were being discarded along the way. The last thing I was aware of was being lifted and placed on a soft surface.
“Everybody out,” Ryan said.
“She’s lost a lot of blood,” a female voice noted. “We need to operate.”
“Which part of what I said don’t you understand?”
The response was lost as my body finally gave up.
A trickle of water against my lips made them twitch. When my eyes flicked open, I found myself lying on my back at the mercy of a very inept waterboarding.
“What are you doing?”
Ryan stopped midway through pressing a very damp towel over my face.
“The nurse said to keep a cold compress on your forehead.”
“Did she say to wring out the cloth first?” He looked to where the edge of the towel was spilling water down my face and onto the side of my neck. “Surely you’ve done something similar before?”
He raised a brow at me. “Not when the patient has been this distracting.”
“Ha, ha. Can you please move? I’m getting really wet.”
He shook his head. “I’m going to pretend you have no idea what you’re saying right now. How’s your head?”
I raised my hand to touch where the skin was very cold and quite clammy. He’d obviously been doing this for some time because my hair was damp. When I pulled away, I saw the welts on my wrists. That was when I finally remembered the gunshot wound. Throwing aside the heavy covers, I tried to lift my shirt.
“Careful,” he said. “You’re going to rip off the IV.”
My hand touched on a bandage that covered the entire right side of my torso. It was sore, but when I ran my palm over the area, I didn’t feel the sharp pain of a fresh wound. Ryan caught my eyes and I stopped breathing, fearful of the look I saw on his face. I swallowed hard and turned away, trying to get my bearings.
The room I was in seemed nothing out of the ordinary. It was decorated entirely in neutral blue and cream tones. Mounted on the wall opposite my bed was a big-screen television. The sound had been muted, and as I watched, two figures circled around each other in an octagon surrounded by jubilant spectators. I turned my head to the left and registered the black-and-gold banner with the shield logo on it.
“Please tell me I’m not in the League hospital.”
“You’re not in the League hospital.” He placed his forearms on the railing of the bed and rested his chin on them.
“I am going to be in such deep shit when Rich finds out.” That was when I remembered Adam and bolted upright. Ryan merely tracked my movement like a cat ready to pounce.
“He’s fine. They pumped his stomach and he’s on fluids. He should be out of the woods in a few days.” With a palm on my shoulder, Ryan pushed me back onto the pillow.
“You didn’t let them see me, did you?”
His face twisted as though insulted by my question. “Even if I had tried to let them, before they could roll you into the operating room, you were already interfering with the machinery. Which begs the question of what’s going to happen when you need surgery.”
He’d said when and not if. And he was probably right. If my track record was anything to go by, I would eventually get myself into some scrape that would require surgery. In that case, I would probably die, because there was no way the nanobots were going to let that happen. In trying to protect me, they were also effectively killing me at the same time. Talk about ironic.
“You didn’t by any chance call Rich while I was asleep, did you?”
I thought for a moment he was going to give me some snide comment about not being my secretary, but instead, he reached out with a finger and ran it down the side of my cheek and along my jaw, making me shiver. When he pulled away, I almost, almost, moved with him.
“I spoke to Oz when it looked like you weren’t going to be able to be operated on. He put the little gir
l on. She suggested we ply you with IV bags and wait to see if you healed yourself. I thought she was joking and then…”
His hands reached down to cover the bandage on my side. I felt the warmth of his skin radiating through the material. “There’s no bullet in there.”
“What?” I tried to sit up again, but he kept me on my back with just the pressure of his palm. “Are you kidding?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding, darling?”
“Stop calling me that!” I shoved his hand off and tried to tear open the tape that held the bandage down. He laced his fingers between mine and pulled them away.
“Will you, for once, stop being stubborn and believe what I’m saying to you? There’s no bullet inside the wound.”
Ignoring him, I tried to feel for an exit wound. There wasn’t a blemish on the skin on my back. That didn’t mean anything. Maybe the exit wound had just been healed. That was a far more credible explanation than the nanobots dissolving the bullet. “How many IV bags have I gone through?”
“Twenty-seven in eight hours.”
Focusing on the two black dots on the ceiling, I tried to stop the world from spinning around me. I needed to speak to Lily but what I wanted was to talk to Zeke.
“Can I call Zeke?”
If I hadn’t been looking straight at him, I would have missed the way his jaw twitched. Instead of making an issue, he passed me his phone and then settled down as though to hibernate in his spot.
“Umm, can I have some privacy?”
“You could. But you’re not going to.”
I scowled at him. “Why not?”
“I have to make sure you don’t provide him with any details that might compromise the position of the League hospital.” Then he grinned and showed me his canines. “Mostly, though, I just don’t want to leave.”
“You have some serious issues,” I said.
“Clearly.”
Rolling my eyes at him, I dialled Hyper. The phone rang out and I tried twice more before the receiver clicked and I heard someone panting. “Hello?”
Zeke.
“Hey, it’s me.”
Silence filtered through the line for a couple of heartbeats as I felt the coil of tension in my chest release. “Thank, Christ,” Zeke said. It wasn’t much of a response but more than either of us needed to convey the breadth of our relief.
“You know better than to take the Lord’s name in vain,” I said. We fell into a fit of giggles and I became very aware of Ryan’s deadlocked attention on me.
“Are you okay?” Zeke asked.
“I’m a bit freaked out. I’m…the healing is getting out of hand. But mostly I’m worried about Gabe. Has anyone heard anything?”
“He hasn’t tried to make contact. Bianca smelled out some leads with her friends but no one’s seen him or they’re not willing to say anything.”
“Shit. He’s never been this long without sending me a sign. I need to get to the Rendezvous.”
“No. If he’s missing and you go there now, there’s no telling how they’re going to take it. The last thing we need is for you to get into yet another incident with Edward Blake. I’ll go. I’ll take Bianca with me.”
Biting back the immediate refusal, I tried to be rational. The thought of them stepping in for me wasn’t ideal, but I kept reminding myself that we were a team, and I couldn’t just go running off on my own all the time. “Okay. Just, can you see if Julian’s alright?”
“Will do. When are you coming home?”
My lips pursed as I glanced in Ryan’s direction, hoping my expression was sufficiently sour. “Whenever my watchdog deems it safe, I suppose. I want to make sure Adam’s alright. The S2, it completely drained him. I…” My voice lowered to almost a whisper which was ridiculous because both Zeke and Ryan could hear me regardless. If I didn’t say it out loud, maybe it wouldn’t be true. “…it’s definitely me. Caleb made me take some too, but it had no effect. I need to get my hands on some of those pills.”
“One thing at a time. Just concentrate on getting better.”
“Alright.” Then I remembered something. “Collins?”
“Alive and kicking. Showed up with the Psi-Ops for their stakeout as if nothing happened. I don’t think she’s Fake Spectra?”
“But I have a feeling…”
“Well then, if you’ve got a feeling…”
“Shut up, smartass.”
“Are you sure you don’t just want it to be her because you don’t like her?”
“I don’t like a lot of people and I don’t accuse them of being part of a drug syndicate. Besides, I like her as much as the next person on the street. It’s Flynn I have a problem with.”
“That’s true. Either way, Oz is keeping an eye out. Rich is livid, by the way.”
“Of course he is. When isn’t he pissed off at me? It’s not like I went ahead and planned for this to happen.” Annoyance bubbled up inside me. The lights flickered twice before I balled my free hand into a fist and concentrated on breathing slowly.
“I told him trouble just follows you around.”
“Very funny. I’ll deal with it when I get back. What’s another lecture, right? See you soon.”
I rang off and handed Ryan back his phone. “You didn’t by any chance think to swipe some of the S2 pills that Caleb had on him, did you?” I asked.
“Unfortunately, no. I was too busy dealing with one unconscious esper and another that could barely be touched because she was throwing electricity all over the place. I find it very interesting that you called me and not Zeke, by the way.”
“He had an exam,” I said, knowing full well that I was being intentionally obtuse. I couldn’t explain to myself why I’d called Ryan of all people. It would be impossible to explain it to him. “I’m going to get up. I want to see Adam.”
“He’s asleep. Unlike you, he hasn’t just miraculously recovered. I’m still trying to get my head around how you’re not bleeding out. Imagine what the others will think when you just walk up out of your bed like you haven’t been shot.”
When he said it like that, it made sense to be careful. Something occurred to me then. “Have you just been sitting there making sure no one comes in and figures out I’m a freak of parapsychology?”
A slow smile tugged at his lips. Up close and with the lights shining directly on his face, I noticed that there were green flecks in his blue eyes. “It wasn’t all selfless.” He kept his eyes level with mine, never breaking the connection for a second. “There was that interesting part where the nurse came in and changed your clothes.”
“You’re not funny.” It would have had more impact if my cheeks didn’t feel like they were burning up. “I bet you’re lying.”
He steepled his fingers and pressed them to his lips. “Nice birthmark on your inner thigh.”
I should have known better than to try and punch him. As I drew my shoulder back to swing, it tugged the IV stand, making the instruments topple. The handle would have struck me right across the head if he hadn’t reached out and grabbed it. His laughter echoed in the tiny room, adding insult to my injury. After setting the IV right again, he clasped his hands on either side of my face.
Don’t even think about it, he said in my mind when he picked up my intention to go for another strike. You’re not in any condition to go toe to toe with me.
The snappy comeback died on my tongue as he flooded my mind with images of what had happened. How the nurse had tried to cut open my shirt to get at the bullet wound. How I’d screamed in my unconscious state and caused anything remotely metallic in the room to turn into a deadly weapon. How he’d had to hold me down at the expense of being mildly electrocuted a number of times. There was the final image of me kicking out as they removed my blood-soaked jeans, sending an orderly flying across the room. All done while I was unconscious.
On the bright side, he sent me, I’d love to get you in a ring and see what you can do while you’re awake.
I’m not an esper, I told h
im. If you get into a ring with me, you’re not going to have any kind of telepathic advantage and I would destroy you.
Swallowing hard, my skin hummed where his fingers touched me. I was very acutely aware of shielding every inch of my thoughts and emotions that might have given him an inkling of the minuscule crush I might have on him. Rather than deter him, my challenge made him frown. He turned the notion over in his mind and something about it must have been appealing because a Cheshire grin lit up his face again.
You’ll have to show me sometime.
Any time you want to get your ass kicked.
He scoffed and released me. Settling back down, I moved the blanket so that it covered every inch of my bare skin besides my arms. He smirked like he knew exactly what I was doing. “So you want to get your hands on a sample of S2?”
“First chance I get.”
“What if I told you there was a way?”
“How?”
He stopped short of saying anything. Almost as though he was trying to protect someone. Then I remembered what it was that his mother did for a living. We should have taken the original pills she’d been caught with. At the time, how were we supposed to know I might be the origin? I wasn’t sure if I could ask him for that kind of favour. He sensed my hesitation and cleared his throat.
“If there’s something new on the market, she’ll have her hands in it. The sooner we get it off the street, the better. As you can imagine, it’s not great for business. Do you feel up for a ride?”
“How am I going to get out of here without being seen?”
“How you always have. Out the window, after dark.”
“I’m not supposed to be going M.I.A. On your brother’s orders.”
He leaned in close again and almost growled in my ear. “Come on, Spectra. Live a little.”
As far as arm twisting went, I didn’t need to be convinced.
22
“I’m not even going to ask where these clothes came from,” I said as I slipped into a fresh pair of jeans, a black T-shirt, and a black bomber jacket. A baseball cap finished off the outfit and I came out of the bathroom feeling more myself than I had since I’d woken up.