Illicit Senses: Illicit Minds #1

by Royce, Rebecca

  “Why are you laughing at me?” Really, some day she was going to have to figure out exactly what it was that Spencer found funny, because he always seemed to be laughing at the most inopportune times, and usually at her expense.

  “You know so much about some things and then zero about a whole slew of other stuff.”

  “I’ve deliberately gone out of my way to know nothing about the Condition. I didn’t want to get caught.” She took a deep breath and released it a moment later. “You can put me down now. I can walk.”

  He hesitated, his arms still tight around her. After a moment, he let her feet touch the ground, not letting go until she stood for a few seconds without collapsing. Spencer would hate the description if she vocalized it, but more and more she realized just how kind and considerate he was.

  He waved his hand, beckoning the others to the door. Quietly, she pushed it open, slowly at first until she was certain it wasn’t going to creak. They stepped into a dark room, empty except for two run-down trucks. One had the hood open, like someone had been looking at the engine, and the other was missing its wheels.

  Addison shivered. It might just have been her imagination, but the room seemed ten degrees colder than outside. Spencer pointed to a staircase that stood on the opposite side of the room. Pressing a forefinger to his lips in a gesture for them all to be quiet, he moved forward.

  Following so closely in his wake that if he stopped short she was going to topple into him, she let him lead them to the stairs.

  “Hey!”

  A shout sounded behind them, and Addison whirled around. Three guards holding guns ran through the room, one of them screaming on a walkie-talkie that the facility had been infiltrated.

  “Addy, go get Jeremy.” Spencer grabbed her arm, pushing her toward the stairs. “Jack, go with her. The rest of you with me.”

  Spencer charged the guards. What the hell was he going to do to them? She opened her mouth to order them back when she felt herself propelled forward.

  Jack yanked on her hand just as the first shot was fired at them.

  “You heard him. Don’t argue. We have to trust him if we’re going to get through this. C’mon, your nephew is upstairs. Let’s go get him.”

  She spared one more look at Spencer, who had taken cover behind one of the trucks. Please, she silently whispered to whoever it was that was in charge of the universe, please let me see him again.

  The gunfire was deafening but she didn’t have time to care. All she knew was that she’d covered her ears with her hands, and she was desperately trying to take the stairs two at a time as she kept up with Jack’s fast gait. Her breaths came in gasps as she struggled between fury and blind panic not to trip on the dark staircase.

  “Jack!” She shouted to be heard. “Why aren’t they firing on us?” It made no sense. If Jeremy was upstairs, it would make more sense to attack the two people trying to get up there than wasting time firing on unarmed people in the main room.

  “Russell must be compelling their attention away from us.”

  “Why doesn’t he just compel them to put down their guns?”

  “I’m not sure. My guess would be that he tried that and failed. Russ can’t get people to do something if all their will is directed on doing it. Clearly, they want to be firing their weapons. He’s most likely getting them to do it away from us as an alternative to stopping.”

  The stairs turned and they arrived at the top, the main room down below and a closed wooden door in front of them.

  Jack shouted. “Can you do that thing you do to open doors?”

  Addison dug deep to find her power reserves. She was all but depleted.

  “Honestly, no.”

  He nodded like he wasn’t surprised. “Then I guess we’re going to do this the old-fashioned way.”

  “What is that?”

  “We’re going to break it down. On three, we ram into this puppy together.” He banged on it, and she watched it vibrate. “It’s ancient and it’s taken on water. We should be able to get through. It’s going to hurt, but we’ll do it.”

  “How do you know so much about carpentry?”

  “Wood shop in school.”

  “They teach wood shop at Safe Dawn?”

  “I didn’t get caught until I was seventeen. I had three years of high school.” He looked her square in the eyes. “Are you ready?” At her nod, he continued. “On three. One… two… three.”

  Together they banged their shoulders up against the wooden door. She felt it give, but it didn’t open. Shooting pains traveled up her arm and down her back.

  She grabbed her shoulder and glared at Jack.

  “That didn’t work.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Obvious.”

  “Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Jack.”

  “One more time. This time it will give.”

  Could her shoulder take another assault? She thought of Jeremy’s cherubic face and blond hair, of the way he looked when he woke up in the morning after sleeping for twelve hours, of how his little voice sounded when he said “ice cream,” since the long C sound in it made him lisp. Yes, her shoulder could withstand whatever it needed to withstand.

  Together they charged the door again. This time, it gave way under their assault and they both fell through the center of the door, landing in a collision on top of the splintered wood.

  “Don’t move.”

  Addison raised her head to look at Loretta, who was standing above her holding a gun.

  “You.” Maybe it wasn’t the most articulate answer, but it was the best she could muster considering she’d just broken down a door and she’d been on her last legs as it was.

  “Ms. Wade, I wish you’d just stayed away. I would never have let anything bad happen to Jeremy. Now I’m going to have to kill you.”

  Loretta sounded annoyed, like someone had just told her she needed to renew the registration on her car or go to the dentist.

  “Addison…” Jack’s voice startled her. “You know what my particular power is, don’t you?”

  Clearing her throat, she looked at Jack, who lay as sprawled out in the wreckage of the door as she did. “I do. I was really hoping you wouldn’t have to use it.”

  “Me too. Listen, when I say run, I want you to get up and run. It’s not pretty. She’s not just going to fall to the ground.”

  “What are you two jabbering about?” Loretta looked between them.

  Addison was glad Loretta didn’t know what Jack could do.

  Ignoring Loretta’s question, she looked at Jack. “She’s holding a gun.”

  “She’ll never get a chance to fire it. Now run.”

  Needing no other direction, Addison did as instructed. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was that he wasn’t as accurate with his power as he’d like and he was worried she could die, too. In any case, she wasn’t going to turn around to find out. She heard Loretta let out a scream and Jack’s yell of agony before she rounded the corner and ran down a long hallway.

  Where was Jeremy? Was he in one of these rooms?

  An explosion rocked the hallway, and Addison gripped the wall. It felt like an earthquake had shaken the warehouse. What the hell was that? Pushing herself forward, she prayed she wasn’t going to fall over.

  “Hello, Addison Wade.”

  A male voice she didn’t know filled the hallway. “Who’s there?”

  Was it just her imagination, or had the hallway gotten longer and was it swaying slightly?

  “Have you come to play with us?”

  “What?”

  “I like to play, and I’ve been expecting you.”

  Whoever it was speaking to her had an almost childlike quality to his voice. It didn’t matter. She had to find a way to move forward. Only now the hallway spun in a series of red, blue and green swirls. Oh God, what was happening?

  She fell to her knees, hoping the spinning would stop as a high, maniacal laugh filled her ears. “Oh, we’re going to play, Addison Wade. I own you now.”

/>   Twenty-One

  “I thought you had this under control.” Spencer looked at the raging fire that had caused the explosion and rocked the warehouse only moments earlier. He wanted to throttle Tara.

  “Look, I’m not used to being out of Safe Dawn. I underestimated my power. I guess it grew while I wasn’t using it.” For once in her life, Tara sounded sheepish. “It got the job done, didn’t it? How was I supposed to know there was still gasoline left in that car?”

  Spencer looked at the car in question… or rather what was left of it. Thank God they’d taken refuge behind the one that had the tires off and not the one that had the hood open, or they’d all have been toast now. The whole building was burning around them except the small portion where they were momentarily protected by the abandoned vehicle.

  Tara was right on one account; it had gotten the job done.

  Those guards had been fried.

  “Put out the flames so we can get out of here.”

  Tara stammered. “Here’s the thing, Spence—”

  He interrupted. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Tara, you aren’t going to tell me that you can’t? We’re going to burn to death because you can’t put them out?”

  “I don’t appreciate that kind of language.” Tara’s eyes blazed.

  “Don’t threaten me, Tara. I’m pinned down behind a car, hot as hell, as I get ready to die in a really painful way instead of being up there”—he pointed to the staircase—“with her.”

  “I can’t turn off these flames. They’ve gotten out of my control, and God forbid I keep you from your little eye-swirly friend.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “When the two of you are together, you both get these weird eyes. They swirl.”

  “I’ve never noticed Addison’s eyes swirling.” Even though she kept insisting his did, but he wasn’t going to discuss that with Tara.

  “Then you’re not looking hard enough.”

  Russell’s furious voice sounded from the left of him. “Would the two of you stop bitching and put out these flames, or do you plan on just staying here until we’re all scorched?”

  “You be quiet.” He wondered if his head could literally explode from frustration. “If either you or Holland had managed to use your abilities, I wouldn’t have had to ask Tara to torch the place to begin with. You’re not in a position to complain.”

  Gina swore loudly. “Enough.” She stood up.

  “Gina, are you nuts? Get down here! You’re going to be hurt.” Getting his best friends killed had not been on his agenda when he’d woken up that morning.

  How was it that everything had spiraled so completely out of control?

  Pointing her left hand at the two dead guards on the ground, whose skin had been all but flayed from their bodies, she took a deep breath. “Rise.”

  As he watched transfixed, the two nearly charred figures stood from their places on the floor. Their skin had almost melted from their bodies, their faces a distorted mess of red and orange muscle and skin tissue that sagged down from their eye sockets. They turned to “look” at Gina, giving Spencer a completely unobstructed view of their melting flesh. It took everything he had not to hurl.

  Gina’s voice was harsh when she spoke. “Keep it together, Lewis.”

  Next to him, Tara covered her mouth with her hand and gagged. God, he wished he could cover his eyes.

  “Go to the fire alarm and pull it,” Gina instructed the corpses. She looked down at Spencer. “This place is way old. It has one of those old-fashioned alarms. Once they push it, hopefully it should trigger water to come out of those valves on the ceiling.” She paused. “Assuming they still work.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  Gina sighed. “I’ll just have the two of them do something else to help until their bones burn too far to be malleable and movable. Then we’ll have to think of something else.”

  Moments later, a shrill alarm bell assaulted his ears, followed immediately by sulfur-scented water falling out of the ceiling. Feeling exhausted, he reacted slowly and didn’t cover his head before a flood of water, obviously meant to save equipment, nearly drowned him from above.

  The water slammed into the room below at a force that rendered him unconscious. When he came to, he found he was awash in a flood moving the group toward the truck entrance of the warehouse.

  If he didn’t think of something, they were going to slam into the wall. Just then he heard Jack shouting his name. Wrenching his neck, he saw Jack running down the steps holding a large piece of what looked like it had been some kind of door.

  Jack threw himself onto the ledge of the stairway and held out the front half of the door on the water. “Guys, grab this.”

  Looking behind him, he counted heads and was relieved everyone was with him and conscious. He grabbed the wood hard, splinters jamming into his hands. At least he wasn’t going to hit the wall and be smashed like a fly hitting the windshield of a car. Each of his friends in turn grabbed the wood, except Laurel, who missed it and managed to grab Tara instead.

  Jack was brave, but clearly struggling to hold on to the door with the onslaught of water.

  “How long can you hang on?” Spencer wasn’t a judge of these things, but if he had to guess, it would be a few minutes before the water made its way to the door.

  Holland gripped the side of the door and used it to slide toward the ledge where Jack stood. After he pulled himself up, he extended his hand to Spencer. He followed the larger man’s suit and pulled himself onto the ledge. “All three of us, we’ll pull them up.”

  He used his back and what remained of his strength to tug the board and those who remained hanging onto the ledge. After they succeeded, he fell backward, breathing hard.

  Jack laughed. “The next time you suggest a trip out of Safe Dawn, I’m going to think twice.”

  Spencer grinned. “Ah… you love the adventure and you know it.” Rolling over onto his stomach, he regarded Jack. “Good thing you showed up when you did. Where did you get the board?”

  Jack closed his eyes. “Long story.”

  “I want to hear it, but first things first, where’s Addison?”

  Lids flying open, Jack sat up. “Hell, in all the excitement, I forgot. I can’t get to her. She went down the hallway while I was killing Loretta, and I can’t pass the illusion Daniel put on the damn place.”

  Adrenaline surging through his body, Spencer leaped to his feet. He’d been glad not to see her during the flood, thinking she was safe. Hands shaking, he ran to the steps, taking them as fast as his body could handle. Someone called from behind, but he didn’t stop to see who it was.

  All of his attention was focused on getting to the woman he loved. He’d never even told her. There was no way he was going to lose her to Daniel. If the man liked death so much he wanted to fake it, Spencer would be happy to show him the real thing. And if he’d dared to harm a hair on her head…

  He couldn’t let himself follow that thought to its natural conclusion. He’d go mad even contemplating it. Turning the corner, he saw Loretta lying on the floor, eyes open and glassy.

  He had no time to dwell on the fact that Jack had broken his cardinal rule of never using his powers. A series of ten steel doors stood side by side on the west wall. Behind one of them was the hallway. He closed his eyes to collect himself. No wonder Jack had had a problem.

  Daniel’s message was clear. Whoever got in there was going to have to first figure out which of the doors was real, and then get it unlocked to get to Addison. He tried to look at it logically. Daniel was a master of illusion, but he couldn’t be absolutely perfect at it. There was no such thing as perfection in anything. There had to be a slight difference between the door that was real and the doors that were not. Unless…

  Spencer closed his eyes and forced himself into dark space. His mind was tired—it really didn’t want to go—but he fought until he made it inside. He took a deep breath and looked around, joy filling his soul. He’d been right. N
one of the doors were real. They looked real, and he’d bet if he tried to touch them, his brain would think he could feel the door with his hands. But you couldn’t hide in dark space.

  He could walk right through. He left dark space and clutched his forehead as a migraine began to form. There was no time to deal with that now. With long, confident strides he walked straight through the doors that didn’t really exist.

  The act of moving through the illusion destroyed it, and when he walked into the hall, the doors disappeared behind him. He heard a gasp and focused his attention on the scene in front of him. Addison lay shivering on the floor, gripping her head and begging Daniel to make the room stop spinning. Standing over her, Daniel looked like a king making a peasant beg for forgiveness.

  Seeing Daniel tormenting Addison made him see red. Anger took over his mind with one thought repeating over and over in his consciousness: kill Daniel.

  Spencer launched himself at Addy’s tormentor.

  He charged and had one moment of satisfaction as the other man’s face creased with terror before his fist collided with Daniel’s chin. As the two hit the floor, with Spencer on top, he pounded Daniel with every bit of energy he had. No part of Daniel’s body was left untouched. There was no doubt what he wanted—every part of his soul called out for Daniel’s total destruction. The man had dared to harm—no, torment—the only woman who had ever meant anything to Spencer. Not to mention taken part in the kidnapping of a helpless child.

  Strong hands pulled him away. He fought like an animal to be free; he needed to inflict more pain on Daniel.

  “Dude, he’s dead.” Jack’s voice barely penetrated the angry haze that had formed in his brain. “He’s dead.”

  He tried to comprehend Jack’s words. Daniel was dead. Spencer had killed him. He shrugged off his friend’s hold as he looked at the bloody mess on the floor. This was real. He had killed the heap that lay beneath him. Taking deep breaths, he tried to make the craziness exit his body. He looked down at Addison. She looked up at him from the floor where she was huddled against Laurel, who had probably tried to heal her after the ordeal.