Kyle threw himself in after her without a second thought. Everly stood in front of the containment unit, already reaching inside for her prize. Kyle opted not to shoot because he didn’t know what other lethal chemicals or diseases were being stored here. Neither did he know if the lockdown procedure for the rest of the smart building might have been damaged in any way during the cyberattack.
He would not risk his team.
Kyle slammed into Everly, wrapping his arms around her even as she wrenched her arm free of the containment unit, several vials grasped tight in her hand. Kyle hauled her away and twisted his leg around hers, taking her down to the floor. She hit with a grunt and a cry, turning her face to the side so she could glare at him. Kyle twisted her right arm behind her back before wrapping his hand around her left one and pressing it to the floor, trying to get at the vials she held in a seemingly vise-like grip.
“You think this vaccine will work?” Kyle asked harshly.
“I know it will,” Everly ground out. “Our data extrapolation proves it.”
“Then let’s find out.”
He slammed their joined hands against the floor hard enough to shatter the vials. Everly’s eyes went wide, mouth dropping open in a painful shout as the glass shards cut into her skin, paving the way for absorption of whatever miracle Dr. Patel may have created.
“You bastard!”
She heaved beneath him, blood and chemicals making her hand slippery. Everly got her left hand free and landed a glancing blow to the side of Kyle’s face. Something wet smeared over his cheek. He wiped it away, staring dispassionately down at the sheen of liquid and blood on his gloves. Everly breathed heavily beneath him, chest heaving, and not just from exertion if the fearful look in her eyes was anything to go by. Kyle leaned down close, ignoring the growing heat spreading out from his face that was all too familiar.
“Do you even know what power I woke up with that day?” Kyle smiled, the twist of his lips hard and vicious as horror filled her eyes. “I heal. You don’t.”
A line of bright red blood trickled out of Everly’s nose, slipping over her upper lip to stain her teeth with a crimson hue. A furious ache dug its way through Kyle’s body, muscles tightening against bone, as the heat of impact from Everly’s only frantic hit burrowed into his chest.
Kyle shoved himself to his feet but didn’t get very far. He staggered beneath a shuddering spike of pain he vividly remembered experiencing a lifetime ago, in a different lab, when he was still human. Kyle fell to his knees, struggling to breathe with lungs that felt like they were on fire. Like before, in Geneva, Kyle could hear Alexei screaming for him through the agony filling his body and mind. Only this time, Alexei’s lament was joined by their team, Jamie’s voice ringing loudest in Kyle’s ears as darkness swallowed him whole.
“Kyle!”
17
Somebody to Die For
“We need Dr. Gold at our location now!” Jamie snarled over the comms as he grappled with Alexei to keep him away from the sealed door to the Level 3 lab.
Jamie didn’t know what Alexei was screaming, but he did know that it was taking all his enhanced strength to hold onto him. Frantic emotion, paired with near-disabling moves to get free, meant Alexei was a handful. Jamie grunted against a punch to the side of his head, the helmet taking most of the blow. He tightened his hold, moving to pin Alexei against the nearest wall to keep him still.
“Stop it,” Jamie ground out viciously. “That’s an order, Alexei.”
Alexei snarled something in Russian Jamie couldn’t understand, though he could guess at its underlying meaning judging by the fury in Alexei’s tone.
“Stop. Right now. You’re no good to Kyle like this or the rest of us. The lab in there is quarantined—Ceres won’t open it until all safety procedures have run their course.”
“I not lose him. Not wait,” Alexei ground out, lips peeled away from his teeth beneath the edges of his tactical goggles.
“You think I want to?” Jamie asked, pitching his voice low through gritted teeth. “You think it’s easy for me to stay out here like this? Because it’s not. But you forcing your way inside there puts all of us at risk, and I’m not losing anyone today, Alexei. Not Kyle, not you, not anyone. Understand?”
It took a full minute before Alexei finally signaled that he wouldn’t fight Jamie. Slowly, Jamie let up his bruising grip and stepped away. Alexei spun around, eyes hidden behind his tactical goggles, though Jamie didn’t need to see Alexei’s face to know he wasn’t in any condition to remain on the field right now.
“Kyle heals,” Jamie reminded him. “He’ll heal from this.”
“Not know if he heal from this,” Alexei spat out.
Jamie swallowed tightly and repeated himself as if the words were a prayer, even though he wasn’t religious in the least. “He heals. We have to believe in that.”
If there was one thing Jamie had discovered about Kyle since their first meeting, it was that nothing stayed on the younger man’s body. No injury lasted long on his skin, and Jamie had to believe, with everything in him, that this time would be no different. That belief was the only thing keeping the dread he felt at bay.
Jamie couldn’t lose Kyle. That loss would break him in a way he knew he might never recover from.
It felt like an hour passed before a team from Medical, led by Gracie and escorted by a trio of MDF metahumans, made it to their location. Jamie knew it couldn’t have been more than five minutes at the most since his request for a medevac, but every minute felt like ten to him right now. Everly’s people had all been dealt with, but Alpha Team kept a perimeter around the area and didn’t relax from their posts until they were given the all-clear.
The director’s voice came over all comms channels and through the sound system embedded in all three smart buildings that made up MDF headquarters. “All enemy combatants have been taken out. We are in the clear.”
I’m coming to your position, Katie told Jamie.
He didn’t respond, too focused on Gracie’s arrival to pay his second-in-command much attention. Alexei planted himself beside Gracie and didn’t move. No one on the team tried to stop him. As much as Jamie wanted to join Alexei, he knew he couldn’t. He was captain of the team, and an officer had to think about everyone, not just one man, even if that man mattered more to Jamie than anyone else right now.
Jamie was relaying orders to other agents scattered around the three formerly compromised levels when Katie popped up by his elbow, helmet removed, but still in the rest of her combat uniform. She looked pale and tired, a tightness to her jaw that spoke of a headache she was doing her best to ignore. Katie touched a hand to Jamie’s elbow, her grip tight from pounded down worry she was only now allowing herself to let go of. Jamie knew the feeling.
“Kyle?” she asked.
Jamie shook his head. “We don’t know.”
Gracie and her team were nearly finished securing their PPPS, the yellow protective gear required for the environment they were heading into standing out amidst everyone else’s dark uniforms. Alexei had tried to argue his way into a spare suit before Trevor managed to talk him out of it. Alexei no longer wore his helmet, and the expression on his face was a twisted mix of fear and anger, face pale except for two bright spots of color high on his cheeks.
“Kyle survived a bullet to the throat. He’ll survive this,” Katie said in a soft voice before leaving to check up on the rest of the team.
Jamie nodded numbly at her words, watching with his heart in his throat as Ceres cycled open the double doors to the quarantined labs on Gracie’s order, allowing Gracie and her team to finally get to work. The viewing terminals had been damaged during the fight, so no one could see what was happening inside the lab. Jamie distracted himself by coordinating over comms with other field agents in charge of clearing Building Two.
Eventually, the double doors cycled through the decontamination program and Jamie watched with unblinking eyes as Gracie guided a hovering field stretcher
with a biohazard shield raised above the person lying on it. Alexei nearly tripped over a dead body in his haste to make it to Kyle’s side.
“Gracie,” Jamie said.
“He’s breathing,” Gracie replied without looking away from her charge. “We need to get him to Medical.”
Katie grabbed Jamie by the shoulder and pushed him forward to follow the medics. “Alpha Team is heading to Medical,” she informed command over comms.
Jamie would have argued her order, except they weren’t in the field in some distant city, but on base, with hundreds of others who could take over for them while they rallied around a fallen comrade. They no longer needed to hold the line. So Jamie kept his mouth shut and dutifully went where Katie guided him, the rest of the team coalescing around them and an agitated Alexei.
They took two separate elevators down to the ground floor. Trevor rode with Gracie to keep an eye on Alexei. Jamie and the others were only a second behind them, which was a good thing, because Alexei looked like he was going to fight Trevor for a spot in the ambulance Gracie was loading Kyle into.
Jamie strode forward and got between the two, gripping Alexei’s shoulders in his hands. “Stop it,” Jamie commanded. “We’re all on the same side here.”
Alexei scowled up at Jamie, gray eyes like hard slate in his face. “I not leave him behind.”
“You’re not. None of us are. But Gracie is the only one who can help him. Right now, we’ll only get in the way. Now come on. We’ll get a different ride.”
Alexei shrugged out of Jamie’s hold and followed after Katie, who was already commandeering a troop transport truck. Jamie stopped briefly at the rear of the ambulance, looking inside as Gracie, still in her PPPS equipment, worked to stabilize Kyle through the biohazard shield.
“Gracie.”
She looked up him, her face expressionless. “I’ll do everything I can.”
It was all anyone could promise in the face of a possibly catastrophic injury. Jamie closed the ambulance doors with hands that shook just a little and signaled the driver to move out.
Jamie retreated to the transport truck and climbed into the front passenger seat. Donovan took his foot off the brake and drove after the ambulance, following it to Medical. Deputy Director Stirling met them at the emergency doors and Jamie, for all that he wanted to follow Gracie and Kyle into the OR, knew his duty had to come first.
“Director Nazari needs you up on command,” Stirling said as they all scrambled out of the truck.
Jamie nodded stiffly. “Of course, ma’am. Please give me a moment.”
He turned to Alexei, stepping in the other man’s way before he could dart inside Medical. “Staff Sergeant Dvorkin.”
Alexei drew up hard at the use of his rank, shoulders automatically straightening. He didn’t say a word, but he didn’t have to. The look in Alexei’s eyes spoke volumes.
“Call your parents,” Jamie said quietly. “You need to tell them what’s happened. I’ll clear it with command.”
“Can’t—”
“Call them. Tell them to come here. Katie can help you with travel arrangements.” Jamie glanced over at where she waited patiently at his elbow. “Use my account.”
Katie nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Jamie caught Alexei’s gaze again, thinking of what Kyle had told him about their past. “I sincerely doubt they will stop loving you and Kyle, so tell them. Bring them here. They deserve to know.”
No one gave voice to the just in case that filled everyone’s thoughts, because that would be inviting death to take home one of their own. Jamie wasn’t willing to let that happen.
Alexei saluted before turning his back on the team and retreating inside Medical. Everyone left to follow Alexei until only Jamie and Stirling remained. Stirling looked up at Jamie with an unreadable gaze.
“Let’s go,” she finally said.
Jamie left, when all he wanted to do was stay.
It didn’t take long for them to make it up to the command levels. The war room was abuzz with frantic energy, with the director at its helm as its coolheaded conductor. Jamie was stopped from reaching Nazari by the familiar figure of his father, who defied an order to stay put in favor of addressing his son. Stirling, for her part, quietly left Jamie to deal with his father.
Jamie stood before Richard in his blood-spattered tactical body armor and combat uniform, weapon held against his body at a secure angle. He took a moment to undo the snaps of his helmet and take it off, scrubbing a gloved hand through his sweaty blond hair. Now, nothing remained between them that would impede Jamie from looking his father in the eye.
Richard’s mouth was drawn into a pale white line, hands clenched into fists at his side. Other than those two physical tells, he looked every inch the senator instead of a worried father.
“Jamie.”
“Senator.”
“I watched you fight.”
Jamie tilted his head to the side, raising a single eyebrow, waiting. He wasn’t in the mood to have this conversation, and he wasn’t going to make it easy on his father if the other man tried.
“You could have died, Jamie.”
“That’s a risk I knew was out there the moment I put on a uniform. This is my job. This is my life. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m not done dealing with the clusterfuck that turned out to be today.”
Jamie nodded stiffly at his father before moving past him. Jamie didn’t look back, only looked ahead, and met the director’s impatient wave with a quicker stride.
“Sir,” Jamie said, snapping off a salute.
“Good job out there,” Nazari said brusquely, eyes on the multitude of holoscreens arrayed around them above the table. “I know this isn’t where you want to be right now, so let’s get started on your debrief.”
Jamie settled into an at-ease position, gathered his thoughts in seconds, then opened his mouth to report.
It took hours—hours to report, to handle the aftermath of the attack on home soil. The president and his cabinet, Congress, and the Department of Defense had all been briefed throughout the course of the attack. All federal buildings and military bases within the Washington, D.C., megacity had gone into lockdown. The media was in overdrive covering the attack, the breaking news cutting across all media streams and websites. Reporters had converged on the MDF’s perimeter, kept at bay by armed guards. The shield had been retracted on the director’s orders once Everly was confirmed dead by Medical.
Only a few of Everly’s mercenaries were taken alive. Alpha Team had shown no mercy to the enemy that came within their crosshairs and Jamie wouldn’t apologize for that fact. The ones in custody most likely didn’t know anything critical, but they were all still subjected to a full telepathic scan on the director’s orders. The telepath tasked with the job—a tiny slip of a girl barely old enough to drink who’d lost her family at the age of twelve on vacation in Brazil and who’d signed up with the MDF the moment she turned eighteen—had been absolutely ruthless in getting the information the director wanted.
She’d left bodies behind when she finished. Nazari praised her for it.
Jamie would have, too, if he’d been there to receive the report in person, except all critical updates were now being rerouted to his tablet as he finally reunited with his team nearly eight hours later. Katie had kept him constantly updated on Kyle’s condition with quiet telepathic interruptions over the course of the day, but none of the updates made him breathe any easier.
Katie must have sensed him coming, because she was standing in his way when the elevator doors opened on the ICU. She looked exhausted, still in uniform, and carried the pinpricks of bruises on the back of one hand that spoke of an IV, probably fluids and meds to offset the migraine he was surprised she wasn’t feeling.
“Gracie got rid of my migraine,” Katie said in answer to his unspoken question.
“And Kyle?”
Katie bit her lip, hunching her shoulders a little. “He’s alive.”
Jamie closed his ey
es, trying to push back the despair he couldn’t help but feel. Alive, yes, but quarantined, to the point that Gracie still couldn’t use her power on him. None of them could see Kyle; not even Alexei had been granted a familial visit. Whatever Dr. Patel’s possible vaccine was doing to his body, Kyle was fighting it, but no one knew if he would win.
“Jamie—”
“When are Alexei’s parents due to arrive?”
“A couple more hours. All D.C. airports are still dealing with delays and cancellations from the district-wide grounding order. I put the Dvorkins on a charter flight using your account and have someone in command constantly being briefed by the flight tower at Reagan International on their ETA. I had someone in Logistics prep a suite of rooms for them here on base. Alexei didn’t seem keen about having them in a hotel.”
“That’s fine. Kyle’s their son. I think the drive to a hotel would’ve stressed them out. Good call.”
Katie fell into step beside him as they made their way down the hallway. “Kyle is a fighter. He’ll pull through.”
Jamie said nothing in the face of her quiet comfort, the both of them well aware of the guilt and blame he still carried from Tripoli. This was different in the sense that he cared for Kyle, more than as a fellow teammate. In the short time they’d had together around the demands of their job, Jamie had fallen hard for Kyle, and not only because of how good they were in bed together.
Kyle understood the demands of being a fighter in the United States military. Beyond that, he understood the minefield of emotions and lifelong complications that came with being turned into a metahuman. So few people did, because so few people carried an immunity against Splice in their DNA. Almost everyone who came into contact with Splice died a horrible, painful death, but for survivors, living in the aftermath wasn’t easy. Only someone who walked that same path understood what it was like to be reborn in agony and live with the knowledge they’d escaped a grave.
In the Wreckage: (M/M Sci-Fi Military Romance) (Metahuman Files Book 1) Page 28