by L. B. Carter
“Who’s Lynn?” Henley inquired belatedly.
“A colleague in our organization. She was killed on her mission to collect Sirena.” Nor grew somber, blue eyes darkening as they met Henley’s.
“Stranding us all in Podunk nowhere,” Reed added.
“Jen’s mom, Katheryn Tate, wasn’t the one to hire us then?” Nor asked.
“More importantly, she had a boyfriend? And deigned to flirt with me on the phone?” Reed slipped in.
Nor was unamused.
“I guess so,” Sirena said. She peeked into the trunk. “We really need Jen awake for all this. I think it’d make more sense coming from her. And we can ask her about the locket.”
Henley nodded. “The time-line is not chronological by what I’m hearing.”
“Well,” Reed said cheerily, “let’s just sit in uncomfortable and hateful silence until she wakes. That’ll be fun.”
“Fine with me,” Sirena chirped, then pulled an imaginary zipper across her mouth.
Nor raised a brow at her.
“As long as we orient toward my meet-up,” Ace entreated. It was still worth a shot. Someone might receive his note. He hadn’t decided if he believed these guys anyway.
Nor’s blue eyes assessed Ace. “To what benefit is that for us?”
“Protect the experiment. Clearly you have a relationship with her.”
Reed guffawed. “Can’t even fool someone you just met! And you thought you could convince me you weren’t ‘involved.’”
“I’m not! We’re not,” Nor sputtered.
Sirena smiled serenely, miming an additional lock on her lips.
Ace was confused. “Did you not know each other before?”
“We did,” Nor agreed. “But not… in that way.”
“Dating,” Henley explained when Ace continued to be unsettled at just how stunted he was at human understanding. “They think you mean a romantic relationship.”
“I meant an acquaintanceship. I apologize for the confusion.”
Henley’s jaw dropped. “They get an apology? For confusion? And yet you refuse to explain anything to me. With no remorse. You don’t even have an acquaintanceship with these guys.”
Ace ignored her, largely because she was not incorrect in identifying his unjust bias. “Regardless of the level of your interactions… You want the experiment.” It was a fact.
“Yep.” Reed snapped his fingers in confirmation.
“Rena.” Nor frowned.
“For what purpose?” Ace didn’t know what he was going to be fighting against when he allowed Jen to bring her experiment.
“It’s—”
“Don’t say confidential.” Henley snapped waspishly at Reed. “It is not beneficial, all these secrets.” Ace received another glare.
“It’s for her protection is what I was going to say,” Reed answered mildly, amused by Henley’s wrath rather than offended. “We were rescuing her from BSTU at the behest of someone on the inside, who we thought was Professor Katheryn Tate.”
“It was a Tate but not her,” Sirena opened her mouth to say, without unlocking it first, breaking the pantomime.
Reed shrugged, keeping his hands on the wheel. “Doesn’t matter at this point. We just needed the specimen, not the contract letter, to uphold our end of the agreement.”
Ace recalculated. “We have the same objective, then.”
“Seems so.” Reed was further amused.
“Is the location you were taking her secure? After the explosion with Valerie?”
Nor winced. “Well.”
“Father is working on it.” Reed’s tone had darkened.
“Assuming he’s functioning better than he was when we left,” Nor softly reminded his brother.
“Well, your direction is missing your contact, isn’t it?” Reed reciprocated to Ace.
“According to you,” Ace said benignly with an inclination of his head.
“So, which way is the right way?” Henley posed to the car as a whole. “East to the insecure or west to the unknown?”
Sirena whispered to the window, “Either way, there’s death.” She didn’t voice the end of her sentence. It simply permeated the air. Would there be more?
Chapter Seven
About thirty seconds later, it didn’t matter. Jen awoke with fervor. The last thing she knew was that there were two guys chasing them down, who had claimed Sirena and were in pursuit of her, while Henley and Buster had either escaped or were also caught. Her senses took all this prior information into account, layering on thickly the new awareness of being in the trunk of an unknown, moving vehicle, and reacted accordingly—choosing fight.
In the ensuing chaos, Reed somehow managed to maneuver to a park while water bottles pelted at his head. That was fortuitous for Jen as by that point, she had gotten hold of the internal emergency latch on the back door and swung it wide open, dropping onto the tarmac at a bit of a jog as they slowed—switching to flight.
Throughout it all, the reassurances and warnings being shouted at her were either not penetrating the fog that was likely a reward from the accident, or else together, they overlapped to form such a cacophony as to be unintelligible.
She blindly took off into the woods at a stumbling trot, one of the guys’ duffels dragging behind, the strap clutched in one hand, another water bottle clutched in the other.
Reed was the fastest. Before Henley could even shove the slow-moving Buster out the door to tumble after him, Reed was already in a hand-to-bag combat with a confused and enraged scientist in between the trees. That’s how it appeared, but as Henley paused to watch, she realized Reed was actually only on the defense, doing nothing to damage the injured girl further.
She was doing enough of that to herself, the bag being an ineffective weapon. However, the dried blood on her face really enhanced her rabid, animalistic snarl, keeping everyone at bay. With a whip of her arm, the duffel sailed through the air in a leisurely swing Reed could easily evade before it wrapped around the back of her legs and caused her to stumble into a nearby trunk.
Reed took advantage of her leaning posture and lunged, wrapping his arms around hers in a bear hug that essentially forced her limbs to her sides.
Unfortunately for him, she still held the water bottle, which, with a flick of her wrist, impacted the most vulnerable part of his anatomy.
He dropped to his knees with a groan to cup his groin, freeing Jen.
“Shit,” Nor empathized. Henley caught his wince, and a similar flicker crossed Buster’s cheeks.
Henley had once gotten an elbow to the breast, when a male colleague was helping her to loosen a screw that had over-tightened, to her inner feminist’s chagrin. She imagined Reed’s pain was similar, though several orders of magnitude amplified with more nerve-endings.
Since the other men made no move to get close for the safety of their own bodies, Henley stepped in, easily loping up to Jen who, untangled, was once more wavering through the foliage. To avoid startling the girl, who was muttering to herself, Henley eased her hand—her warm hand—into Jen’s duffel-vacated one, trying to be neither startling nor too domineering. She slowed them to a stop instead of yanking Jen back abruptly.
Confused at first by her leash, it took Jen a moment before she spun, raising the water bottle in threat, but her other hand didn’t pull free, which Henley took to be a sign that some part of her frenzied mind recognized that Henley wasn’t an enemy. The bottle had been squeezed at some point during the commotion and slowly dripped onto Jen’s head.
Henley kept hold and lifted her opposite hand in peace. “Don’t worry, Jen. It’s me, Henley. You’re safe.” She gave Jen’s sweaty hand a reassuring squeeze. “We’re safe.”
Jen’s fevered gaze fixated on their hands and slowly focused, her turbulent thoughts settling like a hysteric dog feeling the soft, consoling pet of its master. Was that how Sirena felt with Jen? Or was it more like being trapped by an abusive parent? “Hen?”
“Yes, it’s me. We�
��re okay.”
Jen’s wide eyes went past Henley. A trickle of water was mixing with the blood on her chin, turning it from dark and crusted back to a sanguine color again, enhancing her fierce look. “Who—?”
Henley took a cautious step closer, smelling the iron of the blood and Jen’s stressed body odor. With little effort, she extracted the water bottle, careful not to tighten her inhuman hold to prevent more pressurized fountaining. Jen’s arm fell limply to her side. “They’re not BSTU. They’re safe.” Henley hoped. “Sirena knows them.”
Jen’s gaze shifted, probably to seek out Sirena, someone with whom she was more familiar.
“Sirena?” Henley called in a low voice without taking her hand or attention from Jen. “Can you confirm that you know Nor and Reed, please?”
Jen didn’t seem to recognize the names immediately.
“They’re good guys,” Sirena vouched, avoiding getting into details. “They’re not here to hurt anyone. In fact, if anyone should trust them, it’s you—you hired them.” That statement merely refueled Jen’s agitation, her mind cautiously reeling back to sanity.
Henley slipped the water bottle between her arm and waist and snagged Jen’s other hand, knowing the scientist was too distracted to notice its coldness and rigid texture through the glove’s perforations, and ensnared her regard, using both the physical and visual links to envelope Jen in her bubble of comfort.
“We can talk more after you’ve rested. There was a misunderstanding, but we are not in current danger.” Henley spoke into Jen’s dilated pupils. “…From these two,” honesty led her to clarify.
“You were in a car accident—not badly hurt, but we need to get your heart rate down and give your body time to recuperate. Okay? We can go sit in the car and calmly discuss everything.” It felt like talking to her little sister back when Bromley was too young to understand family rules about social expectations and politeness. Mama’s parenting skills had faltered without Daddy.
Jen’s brows slowly relaxed, the crease between them smoothing like a straightened bed sheet. “Okay.”
Henley nodded and smiled supportively. “Okay.” She kept one hand trapped in hers and looped the bad one around Jen’s waist, supporting her as they walked side by side back toward their waiting audience.
Reed roused himself as they passed, hoisting first himself to his feet and then the duffel. His scowl was weak—just for show; he didn’t blame Jen for her self-defensive instincts. He trailed behind them.
Jen tried to look round at the sound of his footsteps, so Henley gave another reassuring, one-armed hug.
“He’s just escorting us,” she guessed, “not herding.”
Nor’s frown and raised brow insinuated some level of amusement, probably at Jen’s fighting vigor against Reed, considering the brothers’ sibling rivalry.
Sirena’s brow went the other direction, showing concern. Either she was caring by nature or had some subconscious level of recollected tenderness for her forgotten friend.
And Buster? He was staring at Henley, an abnormal expression on his face. Henley was so used to his dead-pan aloofness it took her a moment to place the feeling he was conveying: respect… and an iota of pride.
Henley looked away with a blush. Her mentor had rarely praised her work, fixating on improvements and oversights to modify. Henley preferred that.
Aiming ahead was much wiser than checking over her shoulder to the past—intention toward something better, imbued with positive feelings of hope, motivation, intention, rather than harping on inalterable actions that associated with negative emotions, like remorse and disappointment. Praise was often an insincere manipulation to reward and encourage wanted behavior—a training device used on the weak. In retrospect, if her mentor had employed such a tactic, Henley might have been more vigilant to BSTU’s utilitarian apathy.
Coming from Buster, it felt entirely authoritarian. Her blush morphed into an agitated flush. For what purpose was he attempting to manipulate her?
Henley helped Jen sit in the open trunk on the bumper, retrieved the water that had seeped a damp spot on her borrowed shirt, and opened the bottle, offering it to Jen.
Jen accepted and took a few small sips, then downed half the rest in a hearty chug, and upended the last of it over her head. She spat the rivulets out of her mouth, watching as the others joined to form a leery but protective semicircle around the trunk. Her appearance suggested she had been mauled by a wild animal. Henley didn’t believe Reed was that wild—at least, not after Jen’s ferocious swat to his weakest point.
“All right. You.” Jen pointed at Sirena, back in control. “Start explaining who the frick these two are.” Her finger flicked back and forth from Nor to Reed.
“You.” She pointed at Buster. “Stop staring at my wet t-shirt and find me a towel.”
Henley smirked. There was no way the Bus had even noticed Jen had breasts until she brought attention to them.
His eyes widened, dropped, and he turned around. It was wise to have one person watching their backs anyway.
“You.” The soggy blonde adjusted her index finger to indicate Henley, whose smile fell. “Thank you.”
Henley’s grin renewed tenderly.
“And you.” The finger extended toward Reed, her eyes narrowing, lashes meeting in the middle. “I’m sorry about the damage to your future offspring.”
“Sorry enough to keep the wet shirt on?” Reed grinned lasciviously and winked. “You can check everything is still working properly if you’re feeling guilty.”
“Not guilty enough to resist simultaneously checking if my bite force is stronger than my gag reflex.” She smiled sweetly.
“I’ll grab the shirt and towel,” Reed proffered with a little genuine fear. The hit had to have been painful enough to forestall his enthusiasm to do anything that had even a chance of earning a repeat. The hit had also demonstrated that she had unsuppressed fighting nature; the threat was not a bluff. He ducked to the side, digging through the duffel he’d salvaged before Buster could.
“You. Talk,” Jen commanded Sirena, toying with the empty water bottle. She was nervous, her bravado a subverting technique.
“As I said, this is Nor and that—” She gestured to the behind bent over the bag. “—is Reed Stanley. They’re brothers working for an organization you hired to protect me after I got out of BSTU—the first time.”
“Green Solutions,” Nor supplied.
Jen snorted. “Sounds like a lawn-care company.” Nor opened his mouth to object, and Jen waved him off. “I remember, I remember. I didn’t hire you per se. My mom’s boyfriend did—Mark.”
“Semantics,” Buster had the audacity to accuse. Henley shot him a silencing glare. He complied for once. Letting go of control, even momentarily, was probably giving him an ulcer, let alone the detour from …wherever he was taking them. Her family at the end of it all, she prayed. Would he lie to manipulate her into cooperating?
“So,” Jen said conversationally. “How did you know where Sirena was?” Jen bore her eyes into Sirena as if they contained laser beams.
“We’ve already established that the phone was a mistake. Can we not keep bringing it up?” Sirena pleaded, eyes to the sky.
“It wasn’t a mistake,” Buster said. “It was intentional.” There was a menacing growl in his baritone.
“In my defense, it wasn’t the phone. It was the necklace.” Sirena’s eyes fell to Jen’s neck.
Nor’s followed briefly before glancing quickly away from the bright blue showing through her wet shirt.
“The necklace?” Jen’s free hand wound around it and she stared down at her cleavage. “From Mark?”
“It wasn’t his. It belonged to our colleague Lynn. Even the nicest gestures can have repercussions,” Nor said kindly.
“But you got it before he hired Lynn.” Henley was confused.
Jen’s face closed in. “He was one of you?”
“Not that we know of,” Nor shrugged. His arms crossed, inte
rrogation mode settling over his empathy. “Had he met up with Lynn before she helped him extract Rena?”
Jen shrugged, a lip curling. “How should I know? He wasn’t my actual dad. I only really got to know him when I got to BSTU.”
“Well, however it got to you, you activated the tracker just a few hours ago.” Reed stood back up, waving a shirt between the two to diffuse the battle. “Let’s not sling blame on each other when we’re on the same side… in a twisted, fucked-up way. We wouldn’t have accosted you kids so dramatically if whatever you hit Nor with hadn’t been as potent as it was,” Reed protested. “That was unnecessary.”
Jen’s eyebrow crease was back, alertness lightening her eyes. “Hit you with?”
“When you took Sirena. I was out for a good while before Reed came to see what had stopped me from getting her home from the hospital.” Nor ran a hand through his hair in remembered frustration.
Jen slid off the bumper, gaze bouncing between the Stanleys. “You’re telling me that you didn’t bring Sirena to BSTU?”
Henley’s stomach was starting to cramp, curdling in a way not dissimilar to its earlier reaction to the fast food they ate.
Nor’s brows couldn’t have been lower. “Why would we do that? Our contract was to get her away from whatever institution Mark snuck her from. Lynn—our colleague—was bringing the specimen and Mark to our headquarters when…”
“Stew,” Sirena and Reed spat at the same time, anger firming their features, hers pinching and his sharpening to hard angles.
He thrust the black thermal at Jen, who whipped it from his hand and wrenched her wet shirt over her head.
Buster immediately busied himself with his watch. Henley hid a smirk in her shoulder. “We need to get on the road or we won’t make the meet-up.”
“We need to get on the road so we can get Sirena to safety, and then I can go kick that punk’s ass,” Jen asserted. “He’s so getting his acceptance offer rescinded.”
“Actually, I think what he did is a jailable offense. And that’s only if there’s even going to be anyone at your rendez-vous,” Reed reminded Buster, brutally. The inference to Val’s demise lost any of its previous sorrow since he was not even pretending to avoid ogling Jen’s neon blue zebra-striped bra. At the inspired look in his eye, Henley mentally increased her assessment of his ‘wildness’ level.