One Wrong Move

by Shannon McKenna

“Stop,” Rudd ordered. “I didn’t give you permission to beat him.”

  “You said he was mine after you questioned him,” Dmitri said.

  “I’m not through yet,” Rudd snapped. “Where’s the last A dose, Anabel?”

  “Found it in her purse.” Anabel approached, unwinding the bubble wrap that was wound around the syringe.

  Aaro glanced at Nina. She was snowy pale, but eerily calm.

  Her face had that carved-out-of-marble look, in spite of the blood trickling from her nose and lip. Wild hair, springing in all directions. Undaunted.

  Anabel held up the syringe. “What are you going to do with it?”

  Rudd gestured toward Aaro. “Inject it into him.”

  “But . . . but it’s the only dose we have!” she protested.

  “It’s garbage,” Rudd said. “A fairy tale. That’s all. Kasyanov’s dead. Without the B dose, what’s in this syringe is a slow poison.

  If these two can’t tell us where the B dose is, there’s no one left alive who can.”

  “No!” Nina’s unnatural calm had shattered. “No, please, there’s no reason to inject it into him! There’s no point! You don’t have to—”

  “Did I ask for your opinion? Go ahead, Anabel.”

  Anabel looked as if she were going to cry. “But there’s no other—”

  “There never will be!” Rudd shouted. “Accept it! We’ll find someone who can duplicate the current psi-max we’ve been using, and content ourselves with that. I’ve been wasting pre-274

  cious man-hours on a worthless treasure hunt. Score one for Kasyanov. She fucked us. We fucked her back. She’s dead. We’re flat even. Game over.”

  Anabel turned and looked them over. “And them?”

  “Take them to Karstow,” he said. “Lock them up together in the subbasement. Set up video surveillance. Should be entertaining, to watch them break down. We can contemplate our own narrow escape.” He wagged an admonishing finger. “It’ll be an object lesson.”

  “But he’ll be on psi-max,” Roy said. “What if he manifests?”

  “If it’s a dangerous talent, just kill him. But don’t damage his brain. I want a full autopsy. On both of them.”

  Anabel shoved up Aaro’s sleeve. His muscles bunched up as he strained at the plastic cuffs. She punched the needle in, savagely.

  Nina screamed for him, though she hadn’t screamed for herself.

  Nina’s mouth was still moving, but his blood pressure was going south, and he could not hear her. Just his heart thudding, very fast, very loud. Falling, falling. Gone.

  Chapter 23

  Nina fought back the fear. Don’t faint. She stared at Aaro, willing him not to be dead. He didn’t seem to breathe, and his mind didn’t respond when she reached out with hers. Don’t faint.

  It was just her, now. All up to her. She had to come up with a plan for them both. Something brilliant, amazing. Hah.

  Pay attention, goddamnit. She focused in on the conversation.

  “. . . us to take them to Karstow now?” Anabel was saying.

  Rudd frowned. “Not you. Dmitri and Roy can take them to the Karstow facility. You’re coming with me.”

  Anabel looked put upon. “But Roy—”

  “Roy can make do with Dmitri. They’ll manage without you. I know you were looking forward to playing with your new toy, but I need you with me at that fund-raiser for the Greaves Institute, remember?”

  “Fund-raiser? I have to leave those two fuckups all alone with the captives to go and be arm candy at a cocktail party? Are you serious?”

  “I will decide what’s relevant, Anabel, not you. This is Greaves, remember! I have to present my gift! Maybe if you’re lucky, your toy will still be alive in a couple of days. You can amuse yourself then. We have flights booked from New York, but at this point, we’ll save time driving there directly. Besides, someone has to transport the model, now that Roy will be babysitting these two.” He grabbed a handful of Aaro’s hair, making his head loll. “Roy, come out with us. I want you to move the boxes of the model from your car into mine, and you might as well carry the man out while you’re at it. I have no intention of leaving this place until he’s safely locked in the trunk of your vehicle.”

  Roy sliced through Aaro’s cuffs and caught his limp body with a grunt of effort as it sagged. He hoisted Aaro over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, cursing as he staggered out the door.

  Rudd gave Dmitri a narrow glance. “Roy will be back in a few minutes, to load her up, too,” he warned. “Do not damage her.”

  “Can we, uh, you know . . . ?” Dmitri waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Might as well have our fun before she falls apart.”

  Rudd’s nostrils flared in distaste. “Oh, I suppose,” he said faintly. “If you must. But I repeat. Do not damage her. I want to observe what the drug does to her at Karstow. Is that understood?”

  “Crystal clear,” Dmitri said.

  Rudd left. Anabel shot Dmitri a warning glance, and followed.

  Nina’s fear kicked up, tenfold, until it choked her, but Rudd’s words kept echoing. Greaves Institute. Greaves. Greaves?

  The thought evaporated as Dmitri yanked her hair, and leered into her face. His hot breath was sour. She struggled not to gag.

  Be clear, be quiet. The less he read, the better her chances of taking him by surprise.

  “This would have been more fun with Sasha watching,” he said. “But fuck it, I’ll manage. I see he’s tarting you up. You’re showing your tits now. Very pretty.” He squeezed one, hard enough to make her gasp, her mind shield roaring up to protect—

  Whack, he slapped her. “Drop the shield, bitch. Or I’ll break your nose.”

  She blinked, eyes watering at the umpteenth blow to the face.

  It was excruciatingly difficult to lower it. But she’d done it when Anabel read her. To protect Aaro. So she knew she could. Still.

  Lake water in the moonlight. Not thinking. Mind open, empty, so very still. Opening . . .

  He jabbed into her mind as soon as he felt the yielding. She read what he had planned for her, freezing it somewhere in her head, not allowing herself to react.

  Empty. Calm. Still water. Moonlight. “What you have in mind requires taking these cuffs off,” she said to him.

  “Shut up, bitch. I’m on to your tricks.”

  “No tricks.” She smiled at him. Still mind. Clear water. Moonlight on a lake. “I could never pull one over on you. So I won’t try.

  I’m not stupid. But I’m a telepath, too, you know.” She peeked up through her lashes. “Don’t you think that could be . . . interesting?”

  Dmitri’s eyes narrowed. His face was like a ruined, nightmar-ish version of Aaro’s. Like, and yet horribly unlike.

  “What would be interesting?” he asked slowly.

  “You and me,” she said, trying to sound coy. “Minds open.

  Joined. Have you ever done that? Joining mentally during sex?”

  She gestured with her chin toward the door. “Sasha can’t do that.

  He can’t read me, and won’t let me read him, so that door is closed. But with you, it could be, like, total union. It’s just so intriguing, you know?”

  She parlayed a shudder of revulsion into what she hoped looked like desire, and formed an image of herself, naked, inviting him.

  Lust kindled his bloodshot gaze. “You’re a bad girl.”

  She tried to shrug, but her shoulders were in a state of burning agony. “I know when to switch sides. I like winners. Sasha lost.

  Time to move on.” She gazed at the bulge in his pants, and formed a clear image of herself, kneeling, caressing him with both hands while she serviced him with her mouth. “Untie me,” she urged. “I mean, what could I do to you? You’re twice my size, and armed to the teeth. And a telepath. So strong. It’s just, like . . . wow.” She licked her lips. “I go for that.”

  Dmitri pulled out a knife. The blade snicked out, and he waved it in her face. “Take a good look,” he wa
rned, and circled behind her chair.

  She bit her lip and stifled a moan as the blade put pressure on the tight plastic cuffs, and then cut through them. She tried not to cry out as her arms fell free. Blood rushed into her numb, cold hands, hurting like fire. Her wrists had a raw, bleeding line.

  “Get to it,” Dmitri said.

  She forced a smile, and got up. Backing away as she tugged off the sleeve of the flannel shirt. It came loose, dropped to the floor.

  His brows knitted. “Where the fuck are you going?”

  She arched her back. “The couch, of course.” It was a balanc-ing act, hiding real thoughts, projecting the false ones. Calm mind. Still water. He came closer, until his fetid breath filled her nose. She kept the smile on, projecting a stream of submissive sexual images until he was inches from her face, groping her breasts, with rough hands.

  He jerked his belt loose. “Get to it, bitch.”

  She let her smile freeze, and her gaze drop to his shoulder. She shrieked, backing up a step. “Oh, God, don’t move,” she said, voice quivering. “A spider . . . oh, my God, it’s a black widow!”

  “Wha . . .?” Dmitri jerked his head around.

  She punched the image into his head. Black spiders, bulbous, gleaming abdomens, crawling on his shoulder, in his hair, legs scuttling on his cheek, his neck—

  He shrieked, batting at the illusory spiders. Nina lunged for the heavy old landline telephone on the table by the couch. She swung—

  Crack, it connected with Dmitri’s head. He screamed, spun.

  Blood flew. His fists flailed. One caught her a glancing blow on her temple. She lost her grip on the base of the phone, but whacked him again with the heavy receiver on the back of the head, knocking him forward against the couch. She lunged, looped the phone cord around his neck, dragged him off his feet.

  He fell backward, on top of her.

  She hit her head on something as she went down, but hung onto consciousness. She was screaming something, but she didn’t know what, obscenities, insults. He was Stan and every other vicious bastard who had beaten or raped or shot or stabbed his girlfriend or wife or kid or anyone weaker than himself, and she was going to destroy that monster once and for all, annihilate him, crush him. The universe narrowed down to that cord. Keeping it taut. He was big, strong. It took everything she had. His blood smeared her hands. She kept screaming, kept pulling. His fingers scrabbled, trying to get a grip on the cord.

  His efforts got feebler. He twitched, flopped. Went limp.

  She lay beneath his dead weight, panting. Frozen with terrified disbelief. Wary of a trick. She could not believe it.

  Move, idiot. Roy would soon be back. She scrambled out from under Dmitri. The cord wound around his neck was bloody. Was he dead? She didn’t know. Couldn’t bear to check. She scrambled away, snorting for air through snot, blood. Aaro. Aaro. Had to hurry. She saw Aaro’s all-purpose belt knife lying on the table, next to the juice can. Knife. For the duct tape. That would be good. She scooped it up. Aaro’s smartphone still lay on the table, so she grabbed that, too. She looked around for Aaro’s other knives, and the pistols he had carried, but Roy had evidently carried them away. The Micro Glock was gone, too.

  Roy could be here any minute, but she’d gotten away from him at the hospital by using her invisible trick, so she pulled herself in tight, generating nobody here, nobody here. She could do it even while her knees were weak with fear. She had lots of practice.

  She scuttled into the brush, but that meant making more noise, thwacking branches, tripping, snapping twigs. The car they’d packed Aaro into had to have been parked on or near a road, either the driveway or the main road. If she left the driveway, she risked getting lost in the dark. The moon was about to set. No more light ’til dawn. But if she stayed on the road, she was sure to meet up with Roy.

  nobody here, just the breeze, just a rock, just a tree Trees. She’d stay a couple yards off the road, creeping, in the shadows of the trees.

  nobody here, nobody cares, just the dark

  She heard him coming from a good ways off, and scrambled farther into the shadows. Brambles. Blackberries. They clutched at her naked upper arms, raking and scratching. She barely felt them.

  She curled up into a tight ball, gray rock, still water, leaves rustling. Calm, neutral images filled her mind like a cup, flooding out everything else. She herself shrank smaller and smaller, light retreating into the distance. A pinpoint. Vanishingly small.

  Roy’s footsteps were heavy, crunching on gravel. As they grew louder, she herself got smaller. Nanoworld small.

  He walked past, not ten feet from her, and went on.

  It took a few blank, stupid moments to remember who she was, what she was trying to do. Hard to keep the shield up while sprinting, not slide into screaming panic. She tripped over rocks, skinned knees, hands, her breath sawing in her chest. nobody there, nobody there

  She almost ran into the SUV. She tugged at the doors, which were locked, and so was the trunk. And with all the rocks she’d smashed her bare toes against, it was absurd that it took a frantic eternity to find one massive enough to do the job. Heaving that sucker through the car window, hearing it smash, felt good.

  Couldn’t savor it. Feelings were dangerous. They turned her into a beacon for that hound to home in on.

  Cold, stay cold. Lump of ice, gray rock, tiny pebble, nothing at all She groped around in the dark in the vehicle for the trunk release, finally found it, and popped it open. Her time window was closing. Any second, she would hear running footsteps. Gunshots.

  Aaro was terribly still, duct-taped within an inch of his life, if he still had one. She sawed at his bonds, begging him in a sobbing whisper to wake up, wake up, please. She could not carry him. Knees, wrists, head, ankles, upper arms. So much damned gummy tape, and her hands shook, and his knife was sharp, and if she made a false move in the dark she’d open one of his veins and kill him herself by accident.

  He moved, stirred. Tears of relief streamed down her face.

  “Huh?” he muttered. “Wha . . . ? Nina? God . . . my head . . .”

  “Get up,” she said sharply. “I’m sorry about your head. But if you don’t get up, we’ll both die! Come on. Hurry. Up. ”

  She tried to lift him, but she could barely roll him onto his side. She pulled one of his legs out, heaving and tugging at his torso. He tumbled out, grabbing the car to keep from falling to the ground.

  “Now,” she hissed. “Up! We have to go! On your feet!”

  He staggered up, clinging to her. She directed him into the featureless dark of bushes and trees. He could barely stay on his feet.

  “Be quiet,” she whispered fiercely. “Inside your mind and out. Roy’s out there. I’m going to try something, Aaro. Are you ready?”

  He stumbled to his knees over something, struggled back onto his feet with a grunt of pain. “Ready for what?”

  “I’m going to project something into your mind,” she whispered. “It’s my invisible trick. If you can feel how I do it, maybe you can do it, too. At least you can try. Open the vault, Aaro.

  Please.”

  “Be gentle,” he begged her. “My head is splitting open.”

  She dragged him deeper into the trees. “I’ll try.”

  The night was a hell of pain and staggering. Even the light of the moon was too much for his eyes. He could only focus on Nina’s crazy invisibility trick if he kept his eyes squeezed shut.

  So damn hard. Counter to his nature. He liked things to be clear, sharp, chopped off. He hated blurring, fuzz, static. If felt like he was hiding from himself.

  Duh, Einstein. That’s the whole point.

  He kept grimly on with it. Nina was the one with the eyes, and the functioning brain. The one who had outwitted the pack of scum-sucking killers, alone and unassisted, and rescued his sorry ass.

  How . . . ? Later for that. It was all he could do to just stay on his feet. Clutching her, for reference, for direction, for everything.

&n
bsp; The moon finally set, and Nina let him stop. They huddled up next to the corrugated aluminum siding of some farm outbuilding. Dawn was lightening. His vision was coming back, slowly.

  He could see the distant lights of the freeway junction, and closer, the back of some prefab strip mall store, recently carved out of the surrounding farmland.

  Nina cuddled next to him, fiddling with duct tape that clung to his head. Her lips were soft against his forehead. The contact eased the pain. “Keep it up,” she whispered. “He’s out there, looking. I feel him.”

  She projected another wave of her static fuzz frequency. He gratefully caught it, matched it, and they rode it together, lost inside their bubble of nobody there nobody there nothing but air. The two of them, fused into a single tiny nucleus. When he gave into it, it was actually kind of restful. He was too tired to resist the sweetness.

  Dawn lightened the sky. They were damp, cramped, chilled, and stiff. His headache had subsided to a dull throb with the occasional lightning strike of apocalyptic agony. More or less deal-able.

  They couldn’t stay huddled here forever. He felt in his pockets, tried to speak, but had to cough for a while to get his swollen vocal folds to produce sound, and coughing hurt like a sono-fabitch. “Phone gone.”

  “No, it’s not. I have it.” Nina dug into the purse that she, amazingly, still had, and pulled out his phone—and his belt knife. “This, too, if you want it back.”

  He took it, and stared at it, mouth agape. “How the hell . . . ?”

  “Later,” she said gently. “We have to go.”

  He nodded, regretting it instantly. “Where?” he croaked.

  She smoothed tangled wads of hair back from his eyes. “Well, about that. I heard something Rudd said, after Roy carried you out to the car. He had to go to a fund-raiser party, for the Greaves Institute.”

  There was something significant there, but he wasn’t grasping it.

  “Greaves,” she repeated. “Graves. Do you think that Helga was saying Greaves, instead of graves? You think it’s possible?”

  He felt a cold flutter over his skin. “Greaves Institute? Helga said Greaves party. Who is Greaves? Where is the party? He didn’t say?”