In My Skin (The Obsidian Files Book 3)

by Shannon McKenna

Zoe was posed against the roiling sky, hair flying like a banner. Wow. She was something else. He wondered if that glossy hair was as satiny as it looked. He wanted to wind some of it around his fist and find out.

  Her attitude bugged the shit out of him. Her pain and tragedy and loss were all real, but life was never fair. It didn’t care how much you suffered.

  “The sister’s not part of the equation,” he said. “Keep it simple. This is about Luke and Zade. Never mind this Jada.”

  “Listen up, asshole,” Zoe said. “She’s my sister. And I’m going in.”

  “No,” Sisko said. “You’re following the doomsday plan like the others.”

  Zoe gave him an unbelieving look. “What? You mean we run for cover and just let them kill three of ours?”

  “No,” Sisko said quietly. “I’m just saying if anyone is going to walk into the trap, it should be me. Not you.”

  The rest of the group was shocked into a brief silence.

  “Why?” Zoe asked. “Why you? What’s the reasoning?”

  “If Noah were here, he’d do the same,” Sisko said. “It should be me. I’m the oldest.”

  “Bullshit,” Zoe said. “We’re all adults now. That’s not relevant anymore.”

  “Zade’s getting farther away from us while you argue.” Simone’s voice was tense.

  “Listen, guys,” Hannah said urgently. “Face it. The doomsday plan sucks. We never liked it. It was Noah’s idea and Noah’s a genius, but we can’t do it to save our lives. Literally. We’ll warn the out-of-towners so they have time to cover, but the present company stands together.”

  “OK, that’s inspiring,” Asa murmured. “So what’s the new plan?”

  Zoe turned her cold gaze on him again. “Step one, you go back home.”

  He looked at her calmly. “Nah. I’ll stay and help.”

  “You can’t help us,” Zoe said. “You’re an unmod. You’re a liability.”

  “Zoe!” Hannah sounded scandalized. “That’s not true.”

  Asa shrugged. “I’m less helpless than I appear.”

  “He saved our asses when Mark and his slave soldiers came after us,” Sisko said. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see him fight. He can handle himself.”

  “And Brenner would be dead if not for him,” Hannah said. “We would never have found Luke or known about Jada at all. So back the fuck off. You’re way out of line.”

  Awww. How cute. Asa shot a fond glance at his little sister. He wished he could rake his hand through that tousled mane of blazing fake-red curls, but he figured he might lose that hand.

  “You don’t have to defend me,” he told her.

  “Actually, she will,” Zoe said. “That’s precisely the problem. She’ll be distracted. Compromised. It could get us all killed.”

  “This may shock you, but some unmods can handle themselves in a crisis.”

  “Guess what, tough guy,” Zoe said coolly. “Our yardsticks are different. You just don’t measure up.”

  “Whoa.” Asa refused to let himself smile. “Harsh.”

  “Don’t be a cranky bitch, Zoe,” Sisko growled.

  “There’s no time to be nice. We can’t carry dead weight into battle.”

  “You don’t have to,” Asa said blandly. “My helicopter is currently on its way to the airport where we flew in. It’ll be standing by for eventual emergency extractions. Brenner’s piloting the copter. He’s the rogue Obsidian operative who’s alive because of me. In case you forgot that detail.”

  “Helicopter?” Zoe turned to Sisko. “Is he shitting me?”

  “Nope,” Sisko said evenly. “He has three. This one’s the newest.”

  “And the biggest,” Asa told her.

  “OK. I get it. My cue to shut the fuck up,” Zoe muttered.

  “About fucking time,” Simone snarled. “Zade posted the comment just a few minutes ago. He might still be nearby.” She pressed against her eyes with the back of her hands. “Shit,” she whispered to herself. “I do not want my last words to him to be so damn stupid. Busting his balls about being ready for the prom.”

  “The prom?” Sisko gave her and then Hannah a questioning look.

  “Before Zade left,” Hannah explained. “Product testing, remember? He bedazzled Simone and then got it on his jacket when he…oh. Simone, the glitter spray!”

  Simone’s eyes went wide with terrified hope. “You think…but it was only second hand. We didn’t spray him directly. Would it register?”

  “He double-dosed you and then he dragged you into a crotch-grinding face-sucking bear hug, so maybe. It’s short range, but…Sisko, hurry! Get the laptop!”

  Hannah and Sisko scrambled for the back of the Lexus. They started digging through their gear.

  Asa watched, impressed in spite of himself. Had to hand it to them. Those Midlanders always had something else up their sleeves.

  Curiosity eventually got the better of him. He peered over their hunched shoulders. From this angle, he barely saw a faint flickering blip on the screen. It came and went.

  “There’s a signal.” Hannah’s voice shook with excitement. “Faint. Heading south. Fifteen, maybe. Another mile and we’d have lost it. Come on! Move!”

  “I’ll drive with you,” Asa told Zoe. “You shouldn’t travel alone.”

  Yowza. If looks could kill he’d be gasping on the ground, choking his last.

  “I prefer to drive alone.” She turned to her Jag with a toss of her glossy hair.

  Hannah shot him a warning look as he got into the driver’s seat of the Lexus.

  “Asa,” she said. “About Zoe. It’s a lost cause. And even if you won? That is trouble you don’t need.”

  “Trouble pulls me,” Asa said. “Why else do you think I hang out with you losers?”

  Hannah propped the laptop on her knees, shaking her head. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she muttered. “Floor it.”

  Chapter 25

  Light assaulted his eyes. Slicing in through his eyelids like a blade that jabbed his brain…and twisted. Fuck. Hurt so bad. Drug headache.

  He forced himself to let more light in, peering through slitted eyes. He was pressed against a heavy wooden wall, with thick plastic bands over his body keeping him upright. He was poised on the edges of his feet, off balance. His muscles cramped and burned.

  The auditorium was huge, dim and mostly empty. White spotlights blazed down right where he stood, illuminating a dais surrounded by chairs.

  Zade was fastened to a wall at his right, apparently still unconscious, and just barely in his field of vision. He stared hungrily at his brother. Holy fuck, Zade had buzzcut hair. Unreal. They looked so alike now that Zade had sheared off his mane.

  A big, heavy chair like a throne was positioned at his left. A bunch of white-coated types bent over a metal hibernation pod beside it, now open. All of the equipment he’d retrieved from Serrati Falls was arrayed around it.

  They’d collected Ivy, too. Those fuckers moved fast.

  Dani lay crumpled and forgotten on the floor, an afterthought. He ran the data on her that he could catch from where he was through his ASP. Low blood pressure, low temperature. She could have a concussion, hypothermia, shock. She needed medical attention, and he could not move a fucking muscle. Jesus, it had only been a few weeks and he’d already half-forgotten how it messed with his head to be stun coded. The soul shriveling, crushing frustration and humiliation of it.

  And burning, killing rage. His temperature was rising.

  Do something. Hack this place. Find a way.

  He sensed the electromagnetic radiation in the air, the place hummed with it. But whatever drug they’d pumped into him screwed up his brain’s ability to connect to his implants. He felt them buzzing in there, all powered up and ready, but the bridge just wasn’t there. The connection had been severed someh
ow.

  He heard footsteps and then a low, oily chuckle. He shifted his gaze to look at his captor, who now stood directly in front of him.

  Luke dragged the name out of his disordered memory banks. Hale. That was what this prick had called himself.

  “Trying to cyber-connect?” Hale asked. “I recognize the look on your face. My operatives get it too. But you blow them all out of the water.” He shook his head in mock surprise. “We’ve never seen anyone so skilled. You’re going to teach us how. Before we flush you.”

  Luke gazed around the room, looking everywhere but at the smirking scumbag in front of him. Fuck that guy.

  Jada worked alongside the white-coated tech types. A swift ASP scan ascertained that of the people present in the room right now, only Hale and Jada were significantly enhanced. The others were just unmod grunts.

  Hale followed his gaze and more or less read his mind. “You won’t get a chance to fight. You and your brother are both stun-coded and drug-blocked. We’re using a Braxton formula that disables the technokinetic connection. How’s it working for ya? Wearing off yet?”

  Hale blinked for a moment, as if waiting for Luke to answer.

  “Guess I have my answer, D-14,” he went on smoothly. “You’ll be drugged even more during the interrogation, since you’re the starring act in my big floor show. You and your brother are going to make my career.”

  Not if I can help it, ass face. He ached to spit the words out.

  He focused in on Ivy’s pod. The techs were pulling her out now. A puddle of hibernation fluid had formed around the pod. The little girl was limp and unconscious as they hauled her up onto a rolling table, threaded the probes and attached the sensors, arguing about what they were doing and how best to do it. He could only see her feet. Small and bluish. Ankles, shins, all skeletally thin. Fluid dripped steadily from the table to the floor.

  “…dead?” One of them was asking another in a low, hushed voice.

  “Don’t tell me she’s dead.” Hale’s voice got nastier. “Unless you want to join her in that state.”

  “No, sir. Just getting vital readings, that’s all.”

  “Wake her up,” Hale said. “The committee members arrive in an hour and I need her conscious. Zap her now. Make her presentable. That’s an order.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Luke fought for breath. He needed to damp down all non-essential functions so he could stay conscious on less oxygen. The trick was to not let himself panic. If he did, he passed out. Not an option. Not with his brother, the woman he loved and a victimized little kid laid out on the altar, waiting for him to think of something.

  A shriek and then shocked, bewildered whimpering from Ivy hurt him inside. He knew exactly how that brain-zap felt.

  A tech propped her up to swab the fluid off her body. The little girl was shivering. Her eyes looked bruised and shocked, uncomprehending. She didn’t seem to see anything that was in front of her.

  Then Jada appeared in his field of vision with a fleece-lined man’s jacket and draped it over the little girl’s shoulders.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Hale snarled.

  “Her temperature’s falling, sir.” Jada’s voice was lower than Zoe’s, and husky, as if she’d been coughing. “She could go into shock.”

  Hale scowled. “Only until the committee gets here. Then take it off.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Dani was stirring. Moaning inaudibly. Luke strained to see her face, but the way he was positioned made it impossible to see above her waist.

  “R-48!” Hale bawled out. “Get over here!”

  Jada turned with a barely perceptible delay. When she approached, Luke was struck by her resemblance to Zoe. Similar haunting dark beauty. Her braided black hair revealed a geometric design on the skin of her neck. Looked like some kind of circuitry.

  Her face was blank except for her trapped, burning eyes. She would not look at him. She had no expression on her face at all, yet she exuded misery.

  “Yes, sir?”

  Hale gestured at Dani. “Hold her up for me. I want to take a look.”

  Jada did as she was told, hoisting Dani’s limp body up by the armpits. Hale tilted up her chin, then let her head drop as his hand wandered. And squeezed.

  “Nice tits.” He looked over at Luke with a grin. “And best of all, she’s not an operative so I don’t even have to be careful. With this bitch, I can let loose. Anything goes, because nobody cares.”

  Luke’s ears were roaring. The data scroll was a frantic double-sided white stripe, a cascade of info on the quickest, ugliest ways to kill this sadistic motherfucker. Shoving his nose into his brain, reducing his trachea to jelly and watching his throat swell closed, smashing his ribcage and pulling out his lungs. Disemboweling him. Tearing his head off. It all worked. If he could use it. Which he couldn’t.

  “Take her to my rooms,” Hale said to Jada. “Restrain her. Wrists to the bedposts. Then get into uniform and get down here. I want the new squads set up in formation behind the chairs. There’s not much time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get a move on. Your reaction times are slowing and it’s pissing me off.”

  “Apologies, sir,” she said woodenly. “With your permission.”

  “Yeah. Go.”

  Luke tried to catch Jada’s eye as she heaved Dani up over her shoulder with an ease that surprised even him.

  She still refused to look at him as she carried Dani away.

  * * * *

  Dani’s head swung and bumped strangely. Blood pounded painfully in her head. She was staring down at somebody’s upside down, gray-clad ass, and the moving heels of somebody’s black boots. Click, click, click. It was so hard to breathe. Pressure on her belly. Something was squishing it.

  She opened her eyes wider. Noticed the smooth black braid against her cheek. She was slung over someone’s shoulder. Couldn’t…breathe. She tried shifting, and the grip on her legs tightened painfully.

  A pause, then a pivot, and the light brightened. They had gone through a door.

  Swift movement left her dumped on her ass, pain shuddering through her sore joints, which hurt worse when those black boots kicked her into a kneeling position. The woman in gray who’d carried her reached down and pulled her hands up.

  Click. Dani was shackled to a metal ring in the wall.

  Hanging like that, twisting her upper body was agony, but she had to see the room. Just a narrow cot, a metal locker, a computer console. A chest of drawers. A cabinet, open, full of neatly folded clothing, towels and linens.

  The woman was throwing open cabinets, pulling off her jacket. She changed her undershirt, put on deodorant, pulled a neatly ironed uniform out of the closet, laying it on her cot. Black, with green and blue piping.

  Dani tried to make eye contact. Just in case she was dealing with a human being.

  The woman just ignored her as she buttoned the uniform coat over her undershirt. She turned to a mirror framed with bright bulbs. She pulled makeup out of a drawer loaded with brushes, sponges, tubes and pencils, bottles, puffs and pats.

  Dani hung there in captive misery. Forced to watch this crazy hellbitch fix her face while Luke was probably being tortured to death.

  The woman applied a crimson lip stain, then opened another drawer, rummaging for nail polish and scissors. She shook a tiny bottle. Unscrewed the cap.

  The sickly sweet smell of nail polish hit Dani like a brick, making her head throb and her stomach flop.

  A plastic-lined container appeared under her face just in time. She emptied her guts into it. It went on and on. Her head felt like it would split with every heave. Finally, she just hung there from her ring, spitting bitter slime from her mouth. Eyes streaming.

  The woman briskly mopped Dani’s nose and mouth with a handful of tissues, dropped them into
the container and tied the noxious mess off inside the plastic bag.

  Maybe she was human.

  The woman looked down at herself, turning her arms to inspect her sleeve. A careful glance in the mirror, turning to this side, then to that. Making sure she didn’t have any vomit splatter on her nice uniform.

  Dani focused closely on her face for the first time. Sweat shone on the woman’s forehead. Her eyes were staring, her face so tense and taut.

  Years as a nurse had sharpened her perceptions. She could tell when patients were exaggerating minor ailments to get attention, and she could tell when the proud ones were suffering the agonies of the damned but hiding it so as not to upset anyone.

  This woman was suffering the agonies of the damned.

  Suddenly she remembered Luke’s phone conversation with his brother. I saw Jada…she choked when she looked me in the eye, so I think she recognized me. On some level.

  Dani took a deep breath. “Jada,” she whispered. “Help me.”

  The woman’s reaction was sudden and violent. She recoiled with a gasp as if she’d been struck. “Shut up,” she hissed.

  “Jada, I’m with your old friends. They’ve been looking for you.”

  “No.” Her voice was rising. “Shut up. No!”

  “Luke and Zade? You remember them, right? From Midlands.”

  “I said to shut…up!” Jada whacked her across the face, hard enough to make her ears ring. “Not one more fucking word! Or I knock you out!”

  Dani’s head reeled. Her eyes swam as she watched Jada take a gleaming black helmet out of the cabinet. She fastened the chin guard, tucked hair wisps inside.

  Then she pulled out a heavy belt, with a baton, pistols, an electric stun baton. Her red lips were tight, jaw taut as if she were fighting pain. Color had drained from behind her makeup, leaving a mask of paint. Her vibe seemed…familiar.

  Dani understood. Stim sickness. Like Luke.

  One last time. “Please listen,” she begged. “Your friends—”

  Her voice broke off into a gasping shriek of agony as the electric shock baton jolted electricity through her. Shattering, white-hot pain …