by Fall, Carly
“Oh, hell,” Rayner hissed.
Blake knew they had to get moving. “Annis, Micah, put your hands behind your back like you’re in handcuffs. Rayner, Jovan, walk directly behind them, and I’ll lead. Going out the same way we came in: like we own the place.”
“Got it,” Jovan said.
They walked down the hall and Blake could see the door out. They were so close.
“Hey!” someone yelled from behind. “Where are they going?”
Blake turned around to see the head of the facility.
God. Damn. It.
Jovan looked at him. “I take it this is not good.”
Blake shook his head.
“I fucking knew it,” Jovan bit out.
More people came out into the hall, and a few ran to the phones on the walls, which were a direct line to security.
Taking a deep breath, Jovan turned around to face everyone. He looked over his shoulder at Blake. “Get them out of here.”
Blake watched as people stopped what they were doing and looked over at the group, as if they had been given a voltage by a stun gun.
Taking Annis’s hand, Blake took off for the door with Rayner and Micah trailing him. He heard the pounding of boots behind him and briefly glanced back. Jovan was doing hand-to-hand combat with a couple of security guards, and he was winning.
“C’mon!” Blake yelled.
The wall parted to reveal the security guard still sitting at his desk staring off into space.
“Don’t you move a fucking muscle or I will make your brain a bigger pile of shit than it already is,” Rayner growled while pointing his gun at him.
The security guard raised his hands above his head.
Blake turned around to see Jovan running toward them. It was like a slow-motion movie. One minute Jovan was hauling ass, then a surprised look came over his face. He turned and pulled some type of small arrow out of his shoulder, then stumbled. His back arched as he was hit again. “Go!” he yelled.
Rayner looked back and took a dart to the neck and one to the chest.
Blake screamed at Micah to haul Rayner out of there as he watched two more darts get shot into Jovan’s back. Jovan was now crawling on the floor, a look of determination on his face.
Blake looked over at Annis, who was in a fighting stance, ready to take on whatever was coming. He glanced back at Jovan.
“Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. Here!” Jovan yelled. His face then hit the floor.
Grabbing Annis’s hand, Blake ran out the front door into the sunshine.
Micah was in the backseat with Rayner, who was passed out. Blake panicked for a moment thinking about who drove them there—Rayner—but when he opened the door he was happy to see the guy had the foresight to leave the keys in the ignition. He pushed Annis in, who clamored to the other side of the Hummer, and sunk down to the floor.
Blake got in, slammed on the gas, and took off through the pouring rain.
Chapter 39
Liberty paced Jovan’s bedroom, wanting to be close to his things. Tears streamed down her face, and her body rattled with anger and sadness.
They left Jovan. How could they have done such a thing?
She swiped the tears and brought one of Jovan’s t-shirts to her face, inhaling the masculine scent.
Waiting for all of them to get back to the mansion had been torture. Liberty paced the top floor of the house, while Faith sat silently in the Solarium staring out the window. They hadn’t said much to each other except a few words, but the worry was as thick as a large ball of cotton.
The crunch of gravel let them know that a vehicle had pulled up outside, and both ran to the front door. Blake got out of the truck and opened the back door where Rayner sat with his eyes closed.
“Oh no,” Faith had muttered and ran over to him.
Liberty saw Annis in the front seat and ran over. “Annis, it’s Liberty,” she said as she opened the door.
“Liberty. I’m so happy to hear your voice! Blake told me he knew of your whereabouts!”
Liberty took her hand and helped her out of the car. She couldn’t see in the backseat through the heavily tinted windows, and she hoped Jovan would be getting out quickly.
As she helped Annis inside, she had heard Faith talking to Blake, her voice threaded with fear. “What’s wrong with him? Is he hurt? Why is he unconscious?”
“He was hit with a tranquilizer gun. Jesus, he’s heavy.”
Liberty got inside and guided Annis to the Solarium. “I’ll be right back, Annis.”
Running back to the front door, she almost collided with Blake and Rayner. “Where’s Jovan?” she asked, looking around them to see only Faith.
Blake stopped and met her eyes. They were sad, and he shook his head. “I’m sorry, Liberty.”
A punch to her stomach wouldn’t have hurt so bad. “He’s . . . dead?”
“He was alive when we left, but they have him. We couldn’t get everyone out, and Jovan pretty much sacrificed himself for us.”
Liberty felt faint. “Well, go back and get him!”
“Look. Let me get Rayner to bed and then we can talk.”
Blake had lugged Rayner to the suite, and Liberty heard him say how glad he was he didn’t have to go down any stairs.
A minute later, he came out. “Let’s sit down and talk, okay?”
She had nodded. “Talk quickly, Blake, we have to go get him.”
They went to the kitchen, and Blake got a bottle of water, then sat down in the stool next to her, exactly as her and Jovan had sat the night they first met.
She listened as he explained what had happened in the facility, and how once they had been on the road, the trooper called Micah had requested to be turned loose. They stopped at a gas station and he got out. Blake took off and didn’t look back.
Standing, she had said, “Well, let’s go, Blake. We have to get Jovan back.”
Blake shook his head. “We can’t, Liberty. The place will be on lockdown until they move him, which will probably be either tonight or tomorrow night. My guess is tomorrow night, as arrangements will need to be made.”
“Then plans need to be set in place to rescue him.”
“Liberty, I can’t go in alone.”
“Annis and I will go with you.” She knew Annis wouldn’t care if she offered up her services.
“No, Liberty. It’s too dangerous. Jovan would have my ass if I showed up there with you.”
“Then take Rayner back with you!”
“Rayner is going to be out for a while, and then probably not feeling well.”
“Call Noah!”
“I plan to Liberty. You need to relax.”
Relax? How could she relax?
She held Jovan’s shirt up to her nose again, and there was a knock on the door.
“Come in.”
“Hi, Liberty.” Annis limped in, her eyes gold. Liberty hadn’t realized the sun had gone down.
“Annis, hello.”
Annis limped over and gave her a quick hug. “Come sit with me.” She took her hand and led Liberty to the bed.
“You are crying, Liberty. Is it because of the male we left at the facility?”
Liberty nodded, swiping at her tears again. “Yes. His name is Jovan, and he is a good male, Annis. One that I care for deeply.”
Annis’s eyebrows arched. “Are you mated to him?”
Liberty studied the shirt in her lap. “No.”
Annis nodded. “I’m afraid I’m not much help to you, Liberty. I would go in after him, but my leg is still injured and I don’t know the first thing about driving the vehicles here.”
Liberty smiled at her friend and put her hand over Annis’s. “I know, Annis. Thank you. Your friendship means so much to me.”
There was a beat of silence. “How have you been faring, Liberty?”
“I am well.” Liberty looked down at the shirt again. “I’m so sorry I left you alone, Annis. I can’t imagine what . . . what you have been through.”
“I’m so very worried for Jovan, Annis, as you were worried for me.”
“Blake said there is another Warrior on his way down with the name of Noah. Is that the same male The Platoon wants to kill?”
Liberty nodded. She explained that Noah was considered her family, her brother, by Earth’s customs.
“Really? How odd.”
“Yes, it is. But one thing I have come to realize while being with the Six Saviors is that I am not in servitude any longer, and I do have a strong voice, as well as opinions. I am not afraid to speak them out loud.”
Annis nodded and smiled, her stark-white teeth standing out against her dark chocolate skin. “I have noticed the shift within you.”
She stood. “The Warrior Noah will be arriving in the morning. That is what I came down here to tell you. For now, I believe I am hungry, so I’m going upstairs to find something to eat.”
Liberty did a quick internal check and realized she was hungry as well. Noah would come tomorrow and he would get Jovan back. It wouldn’t do her any good to sit around and worry about him, although that seemed an impossible task, but she also needed to keep her strength up.
“I’ll come with you, Annis. You must try this food called macaroni and cheese.”
Chapter 40
Jovan woke with a splitting headache. Holy hell, how much had he drunk last night? He felt like his brain was goo and about to ooze out his ears.
His stomach rolled, and he felt the contents about to make an appearance. Trying to turn over, he realized he couldn’t move and became aware of cold clasps around his ankles and wrists and cool air caressing his skin.
With sheer will, he pried his eyes open and took in his surroundings. He was in a white room with a white floor lying on a stainless steel table, cuffed at the ankles and the wrists.
Oh, and he was naked.
What. The. Fuck.
He shut his eyes again wondering if he had landed in some BSDM dungeon, and wondered where his fellow Warriors were. One thing was certain, he was going to beat the ever-living shit out whichever one let him get involved in this.
The door opened, and Jovan expected to see a woman in leather with a riding crop ready to slap him around a little bit, but was instead greeting with an average-looking man with brown hair and brown eyes dressed in brown slacks, a white button-down shirt, and a doctor’s coat.
Memories came flooding back, and Jovan shut his eyes again, wishing he were in a BSDM dungeon. He had a feeling shit was about to get nasty.
“I see you’re awake.”
Jovan opened his eyes but didn’t say anything, just met the man’s gaze.
“I’m Dr. Davis, and I’m here to evaluate and study you.”
Yeah, more like slice and dice.
“Do you have a name?”
My name’s Fuck Off.
“Ah, so you aren’t the chatty type. The others like you were quite talkative.”
If you let me out of these cuffs, my fists have a few things to say to you.
The man paced back and forth and was silent for a moment. He stood just outside of Jovan’s peripheral vision.
“I do have to admit, at first I was livid at what you and your cohorts did. But then I realized what you did—how you caused everyone to stop just long enough to allow the others to escape. It was a very interesting experience.”
No kidding. Jovan could tell they were out of options and decided to try something he had never done before. He had been tossing around the idea that if he could read others’ thoughts, maybe he could project his thoughts into others. If Liberty could do it, maybe he could as well. Obviously, he had never tried it before, but when caught between a rock and a hard place, sometimes you had to throw caution to the wind. He didn’t know if he would blow someone’s frontal lobe out or what, but he had to take that chance.
So he had settled his gaze on one person and tossed out a thought. Then he went to the next person. Don’t call security. Your shirt’s on backward. Step away from the phone. Your shoe’s untied. Whatever he could think of. And it had worked.
It had caused enough of a distraction within the people that they stopped, and it had bought them a precious few seconds. And Jovan had thought for sure they were going to make it out until he was hit with that little arrow filled with knockout juice.
The doctor stepped back into Jovan’s line of sight.
“In fact, you told me my wife was fat. Imagine my shock when that thought popped into my mind, considering the fact that I’m not even married.”
Yeah, that would have been a little surprising.
“We’ve had a few humans who possessed special abilities like yours here, and I was hoping you weren’t one of them. I was hoping you were one of the species you rescued. Now that you’re awake and night has fallen, I can see that you are.”
His eyes must be blazing green. He couldn’t tell under the harsh glow of the fluorescent lights.
“And I’m happy to have you as my guest. I really want to study you. All of you.”
Jovan met the man’s eyes and had a pretty good idea of what “study” meant. Jovan was different than the other SR44ians that were here. Sure, his eyes glowed at night, but he also had a special ability of tossing around thoughts into people’s heads. He let down his shield to read the doctor’s mind. He not only wanted to study Jovan’s eyes, he wanted to study his brain.
Jovan sighed. He thought about how the day had started, and he closed his eyes remembering as he made love . . . yes . . . made love to his Liberty. As he recalled how warm and soft and beautiful her body had been, he remembered how they had fit so well, despite their sizes. The glow of bravery in her eyes as he stared down at her while he waited for permission to take her, and her slick, so-tight center had made him feel light in the head.
And now he was strapped to a table waiting to be gutted, or at the minimum, given that lobotomy he had wished for prior to Liberty.
Well, this day had certainly gone into the shitter.
Chapter 41
Blake sat across from Noah sipping coffee at the table in the small nook of the kitchen. Noah looked tired, as he had chartered a plane down here at dawn. He yawned.
“I hate getting up early,” Noah said.
“Yep.”
Blake was tired too. He hadn’t slept well. Guilt was eating at him for leaving Jovan, but as he replayed the whole incident over and over in his mind, he didn’t see any other way things could have gone down.
“Okay, so obviously we need to get the J-man back,” Noah said. “And you think that the best time is going to be during transport, right?”
Blake nodded. Area 2 would be on high alert and impenetrable at this point. Blake wouldn’t doubt if they shut the place down because of the breech. However, they would have to transport Jovan to the new facility, wherever that was.
“I think during transport is the only time we can get to him. I have no idea where they would take him, but I do know that it would take twenty-four to forty-eight hours to arrange everything.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Blake nodded. “This is the government we’re talking about, and approval will have to go up to the Pentagon, and maybe higher. It’s going to take a while.”
“Talin worked his techie magic and set up a facial recognition program on his computer that feeds into their security cameras. When Jovan exits, I’ll get a text.”
“Sweet.”
“Oh, yeah. Talin is amazing.”
They sipped their coffee in silence for a moment.
“We should leave soon to be around when the text does come in. I’d hate to be sitting here having coffee when they move Jovan,” Noah said.
“And we need to go quickly,” Liberty said, walking into the room. She wore jeans and a blue t-shi
rt and sat down at the head of the table between Noah and Blake.
“Hello, Liberty. It’s nice to see you too. And there is no ‘we.’ There is ‘us,’ as in me and Blake.”
“I’m sorry, Noah. My apologies. Hello. And it is nice to see you, brother.” She stood up and gave Noah a hug, then sat back down. “Noah, I would like to join you to get Jovan.”
“No.”
Blake looked back and forth between the two and realized that he was about to watch the siblings fight. He sat back in his chair and took another sip of coffee. Noah ran his hand through his wavy, brown hair at the same time Liberty pushed one of her curls behind her ear, both sitting up in their chairs a little taller, eyeing each other as if they were sizing each other up.
“I can help, Noah.”
“How is that? You stand at what . . . five foot four and weigh one hundred and ten soaking wet?”
Okay, game on.
Liberty rolled her eyes. “Noah, I may not have a large physical presence, but my gift is very strong.”
Noah shook his head. “We need girth, not gifts.”
“Then where are the other Warriors?”
Noah explained that Cohen and Talin were barely functioning, and Hudson needed to stay in Fernley so there was at least one male who was firing on all cylinders around the females and baby Killian.
“So it appears we don’t have a lot of ‘girth,’ as you call it.”
Score one for Liberty.
“No, but we’ve got me and Blake, and if Rayner can ever stop puking his guts out, him as well.”
A point for Noah.
“Faith says he is very ill and she imagines that it will take a few days for him to be at one hundred percent. He’s having some type of allergic reaction to the drug in his system. We don’t have a few days.”
Two-to-one, Liberty.
Noah sighed. “How exactly will you help?”
A small smile played on Liberty’s lips. “I know that right now you are highly irritated with me, but are trying not to show it. I believe you are thinking of me as ‘another female who doesn’t listen to what’s best.’”
Okay, so Liberty was diving into his brain. That was definitely a two pointer.