"Sure, to help him, make sure he got there okay. You can’t be thinkin’… MC, he was caught in the first blast. Bomber wouldn’t risk it, would he?"
In a guttural voice, Declan swore hard enough to make the man blanch. "Check medical, see if he’s there. If he’s not, check the route they took for your guard and hope to hell he or she isn’t dead."
Pete’s strained voice caught his attention. "Ventura’s not in medical, boss."
Mick must have heard, because he let out a sound like a sick moan, looking green and drawn.
"Station search, Mick. Put somebody on the rest of the supply crew, just in case Ventura had a buddy or buddies. Then gather up everybody else and go hunting."
"Yes, sir," Mick rasped, eyes dull with sickly lines bracketing his mouth.
"Don’t beat yourself up, man. At least we know who it is. Makes your job easier. Now all you gotta do is hunt him down."
The older man’s face hardened. "Yes, sir."
The holo blinked out and Declan rubbed a rough hand over his face.
Pete appeared at his side, hazel eyes shadowed with anxiety. "Ventura’s the bomber? How do you know?"
"We found out the GenTec have been talking to somebody, connecting with one of the crew to help them with the attacks. Nobody was ever killed and the GenTec seemed to know exactly when and where to strike. Crew rotation puts Ventura on each and every one of the supply runs that were attacked. And now he’s gone missing, right when I ordered all the supply crew to be rounded up. Jackass fed me a line when I saw him in medical. He had the balls to tell me it was some mysterious stranger wrapped all in black. Goddamn it. And I bought that shit."
"But wasn’t he hurt? From the first blast?"
"He had a cut on his leg. No other injuries. But the security guard was burned all to hell."
"He was caught in the back draft," Ryelle interjected. "I felt him when I plugged the hole. He really was being pulled into space. An error?"
"Must have been," Declan muttered, rubbing a hand around his neck as he paced restlessly across the deck. "It was the first blow—maybe he didn’t know what the hell he was doing or maybe the guard caught him at it and he had to blow it early." He spun to face Pete. "Check on her. See how she’s doing, if she can talk. Ventura looked pretty worried about her when I saw him in medical. Maybe he was worried she’d rat on him."
"Put a guard on her, Declan. If she knows something, she could be in danger."
The word made him shudder for some reason. There was something in the back of his mind, something he’d forgotten or hadn’t really focused on, something important…but it didn’t come clear to him and he had to move on. "Ryelle, I’d feel better if you were up here," he heard himself say and blinked in surprise. Then he shrugged. He really would feel better with her close by and she might be able to help in the search.
"I can’t come without the children."
"What the hell, bring ‘em. Things can’t get much more squirrelly."
"Such an optimist. We’ll be there shortly."
Pete informed him that the security guard still hadn’t regained consciousness, though her condition was improving. Declan told him to get hold of Mick and set a guard on the injured woman. Then he paced, waiting with barely muffled anxiety for Ryelle to appear. He reminded himself that she was the most powerful telenetic alive and if Ventura came anywhere near her, she could break him down to his molecules.
It didn’t help.
Chapter 20
When the door opened and Ryelle stepped through with the children in a line behind her like strange little dark ducklings, Declan lurched toward her as if magnetized. The need to touch her was so sharp it cut, but when he reached for her, he plunged into the river of her power and staggered back with a gasp.
"That’s right, back off," she said coolly, holding up a flat, aromatic object in her hands. It took him a second to recover enough to name it pizza. "This is for the kiddies. If you’re very good and beg nicely, we might deign to give you a slice."
Declan retreated with a frustrated growl, leaning his hips on the rail and watching her with painful, snarling hunger.
"Whatcha got there?" Pete asked brightly, eyes avid on her hands as he strolled up his ramp.
Ryelle sighed. "We should have made more."
"Will we have to share with them all?" Jake asked, his forehead crinkling in dismay as he peeked around Ryelle at the people scattered through the large space.
Pete did a double take on the children, eyebrows lifting almost to his hairline. "Well, hello there," he said mildly. "Aren’t you a sight. Is that your pizza?"
"We made it," Jake said then grunted when Rose elbowed him in the side. "Well, we did," he muttered, dropping his chin and rubbing his ribs.
"Normally," Ryelle said to the children in a confidential tone, "we would be polite and invite this man to join us. However, since you are growing children and he’s obnoxiously drooling on it, you can eat first. We’ll share any leftovers."
"I’m not drooling," Pete denied then took a furtive swipe at his chin.
"I believe there are enough pieces for him to have one. May we share now?" Rose asked in her sweet, clear voice.
"You are a better woman than I am," Ryelle whispered with a wink and a quick grin. Then she pinned a stern look on Pete. "You will take one slice. No more."
"Yes, Mem," he said meekly with an ingratiating smile.
"Ryelle," Declan growled, his patience evaporating under the weight of his impossible need to touch her.
She glanced at him with a quizzical smile then studied him with eyes gone soft and luminous. "Daniel, you’re on pizza distribution duty. Pete, we could use wipes." She let go of the food, not watching when it floated away from her. Her attention was on Declan. She moved closer, lips curving in sultry invitation. "Something I can do for you, Master Chief?"
She said it low enough that only the communicator picked it up and whispered it in his ear. His muscles tightened in heated response, his hands gripping the rail in a useless attempt at restraint. He waited until she was arm’s length away before he responded just as low, "Can you tuck your talent away so I can put my hands on you?"
She made a face. "How badly do you want evidence from the blast sites?"
"I doubt we’ll find much more. We don’t have any forensic experts here and we’re sure as hell not gonna make you hold the sites until we can ship a team here. You can drop ‘em."
She sighed and stepped closer, hands reaching out for his. He could feel by the tingle on his skin that she was still working on something, but she was keeping the main rush of her power from him. He twined her fingers in his with a low sound of relief, wondering when touching her had become so necessary. She leaned forward to rest her forehead on his chest and he nuzzled his face in her silky hair, breathing her in with a strange sense of contentment. This was right; this was what he needed, to feel whole, to feel balanced. The realization that he was in love with her came over him with a quiet matter-of-factness, minus the dismay and despair that he’d expected. Oh, hell. He let out a resigned sigh, giving himself up to his fate. Truth was he’d never stopped loving her. If he was destined for pain, at least he had moments like this to be a balm.
"I missed you," she whispered and he hid his answering smile in her hair.
"You made me nervous. Not being where I could see you. We need to catch this guy so I can get you naked again."
Her throaty laugh sent a fierce coil of heat straight to his groin. Mindful of their audience, he raised his head and drew in a slow, steadying breath. She looked up at him with the kind of smile that drove strong men to their knees. Good thing he was leaning on the rail.
"I like your priorities," she murmured.
If they kept up this conversation, he was more than likely going to drag her to a secluded corner or closet and behave like a mindless animal. Tearing his gaze away from the soul-sucking heat in her dark eyes, he fixed his attention on the munching children and tried to focus on the rat
her monumental issue of a bomber running around his station. "Can you help find him, Ryelle?"
She made a low sound in her throat that didn’t help cool his lust. "I could try, but I’m not sure how much help I’d be. He’s human, just like everyone else on this station. Unless he has some outstanding molecular characteristic, like an implant or an obvious deformity, it would be like sifting through a field for a specific blade of grass."
"Huh," he said thoughtfully and glanced around at the skeleton crew in the pit below. "I need medical history on Ventura." After a few seconds, it appeared over Ryelle’s shoulder.
She twisted a little to read it with him without releasing his hands. "No such luck," she sighed.
"You might still be able to help, though," he mused, smoothing his thumbs over her soft skin with absent enjoyment while he considered the situation. "We’re on general quarters, so everyone should either be in their units or in safe containment areas, except for security and us. Ventura’s on the run, so he’d be trying to stay away from people, avoid detection. If you looked for somebody who’s on their own—"
She was nodding as he spoke and finished his thought, "That would probably be him. I’ll give it a try. You’ll need to let me go, though." She paused with a sly, sultry smile. "Unless you want everybody to see you fall at my feet."
The memory of the ruthless seduction of her focused power made him groan with longing and regret. "When this is over, I’d love to fall at your feet," he growled, tightening his grip on her. "But right now…" He let out a measured breath, lifted her hand to brush her knuckles against his lips, and let her go. He was about to step around her and get out of her way, when a stir of excitement among his people drew his attention.
"Boss, I think we did it," yelled Sven, one of the younger but more brilliant members of his team.
"Did what? Or do I wanna know?" Declan called back with casual humor, hiding his sudden tension.
"Nothing kinky, sir, just a minor miracle," Sven answered with a cocky grin. "Made ourselves a scan for things that go boom."
"Damn, boy, I think you just might be as smart as you think you are. Fantastic work."
Sven lowered his eyes modestly and put a hand over his heart to make a theatrical bow, but his mouth curved in a smug smirk. Until one of his coworkers kicked him not so gently in the rear. He jumped, rubbed his abused posterior, and muttered, "Wasn’t just me, boss." Then he brightened. "Wanna hear how we did it?"
"Hell, yes," Declan answered with burning curiosity, the inventor inside him clamoring for knowledge. "But later. Right now, we need to find out if this bastard means to make any more holes in my station."
Sven’s face fell a little with disappointment. "Well, sure, first thing’s first…" he responded, his voice trailing away into mumbles.
"You’re all so nerdy, it’s cute," Ryelle murmured for his ears only, sending him a sparkling look out of the corner of her eye. "I can encase a bomb when we find it, keep it from doing damage until it’s removed."
"What if it explodes while you’re holding it?" Declan asked with a painful clench of his stomach, studying the delicate line of her jaw. How the hell did someone so petite and fragile-looking contain such unimaginable power? He was afraid they’d find her limits, find her weakness, and he’d have to watch her hurt. Or die. He wouldn’t survive it.
She gave him an incredulous look. "Declan, I took fire from a sun. Suns explode a lot more than a puny, manmade bomb."
"Not so puny," he said with a scowl. "They’re making some big damned holes."
"Okay, we’re coming up with something," Sven called and a hologram appeared above the rail. It showed a three dimensional diagram of the station, ghostly blue, while riots of color flowed in streams throughout its structure.
Declan recognized the pattern and raised his eyebrows. "Using the power grid?"
"Well," Sven responded with a modest tip of his head, "it could use lots more fine-tuning, but we figured this would do for now."
Declan tamped down his fascination with the mechanics of the problem and his mind’s tendency to follow the team’s thought processes and refine the results. "Very pretty. Show me what you found."
"Here, you see?" The diagram abruptly zoomed in on one of the power cores of the station, where a spot of color swirled in a different, darker pattern. "We went with the theory that the guy was using a remote, figured that meant a receiver."
"Got lots of receivers all over the station, Sven," Declan cautioned, but he could see what the young tech had in mind.
"Not there we don’t, sir. We’re working on running a list of normals, their functions and probable output patterns, but that there’s not a normal."
"Where is that again?" Ryelle asked, studying the diagram with a faint crease in her brow. "Could you pull back so I can see…?" The diagram zoomed back out and her expression cleared. "Thanks. I’ll take a feel, let you know if it’s explosive. Declan, step back, please."
He did as ordered then fretted when he could only see part of her face. She was facing the railing, slim form relaxed and still.
"It is explosive," she said softly. "I’ll remove it, try to disarm it. We’ll want to keep it for evidence."
"Dec!" Asha’s voice was sharp with anxiety, her pretty face taut with horror. "I think we’ve got another one. It’s in the residential—"
The station groaned and quaked under his feet, triggering cries of alarm and denial from his crew. Ryelle’s power shoved by him, but he barely flinched, his entire being focused on her tense face. Residential? "Where?" he barked.
She paled, eyes widening as she looked at something beyond him. One of her hands settled on the rail and she leaned against it as if she needed the support. "One casualty," she said in a breathless voice. "Four injured, but still alive. Medical needs to hurry."
"Where, Ryelle?"
She slowly focused on him, eyes wide and unblinking. "Not in the dense residential areas. Guest quarters…"
"What?"
"My quarters, Declan. It’s the central point of impact. The blast took out most of yours as well and several below, which is where the injuries are. The service level above received some damage, but—"
"He tried to kill you?" Declan had never known such rage and terror in his entire life. If he had Ventura in front of him right now, he would tear him apart with his bare hands. He would enjoy it. He suddenly realized what he’d neglected—Ventura had watched him contact Ryelle on the com in medical. He’d seen where she was. Declan must have noticed his attention on some level, unconsciously piecing things together even then, some primitive part of him recognizing the danger before his logical mind understood. He wondered why Ventura had waited to set it off. Maybe he hadn’t had a bomb in place at the time.
Her face eased, the shock seeming to wear off. Her eyes darted to the children, who were clustered together in the far corner of the entrance deck, watching them all with blank, black eyes. The half-eaten pizza hung in the air next to them, forgotten. "I was not the only one he would have killed," she said in a low voice. Her tone was casual, thoughtful, but Declan felt a twinge of dismay as he watched her features sharpen, her eyes narrow. "If you hadn’t asked us to join you, all four of us would be dead." Her voice hardened on the final word, giving a glimpse of her rising fury.
"Ryelle, that doesn’t make sense, if he’s working for the GenTec."
"We don’t really know what he’s doing, do we? We’ve been just guessing. But the GenTec’s primary objective would be to take me out. Even if that meant the loss of their telenetics."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the children’s restless reaction and realized they’d heard her. With a quick glance, he absorbed the uncertainty on their faces, the worry in their body language. Rose had her shoulder pressed to Daniel’s, body turned part way toward him. Jake stood in the V of their bodies, holding Rose’s hand as he watched Ryelle with enormous eyes and a puckered forehead. Daniel’s lips were compressed in a thin line, eyes darting from Ryelle to D
eclan and back.
Ryelle reacted without thought to their distress, body moving before her mind could censor it. She wanted to wrap them in her arms, fold them in layers of protection and warmth. Children should not be afraid. Children should grow up without knowing betrayal or insecurity. "I won’t let anything happen to you," she said soothingly, dragging her feet to a halt in front of them and clutching her hands together to keep from reaching out to them. The need to hold them was an astonishing ache in her chest. She’d always gotten on well with her students and felt a vast affection for most of them, but her affinity for these children was so strong it was scary.
Jake swayed toward her, but Rose tugged him back, her chin lowering and face turning in profile so that she seemed to curl into Daniel’s shadow. Daniel met Ryelle’s gaze with steady challenge, though it lacked hostility and there was an edge of uncertainty in his features. They weren’t ready to trust her yet.
Ryelle swallowed her disappointment, reminding herself that they’d only known her for a few hours. At least they had each other to rely on and to give and receive comfort.
Declan was barking orders behind her, getting a medical team to the injured and sending security both to the most recent blast scene and to where she’d contained the explosive. He also demanded in a strained voice to know the identity of the injured and the location of his mother.
Ryelle turned swiftly, a thrill of alarm running through her muscles. "Your mother?" she asked. "Isn’t she in safe containment?"
"Does whatever the hell she wants, remember?" he said with a quirk of his lips that tried to be a smile but didn’t quite make it.
"Trying to locate her, sir," Pete said, his face sharp with narrow focus on his viewers. "She’s not in her quarters. Med hasn’t reached the injured yet to identify. Asking the nearest safe area."
Declan didn’t answer, but he stepped to the rail and grasped it in both hands, his face set in fierce lines.
"Were her quarters close?" Ryelle asked, as a band of trepidation tightened around her chest.
Declan shook his head. "Damn woman never stays put, though," he muttered, eyes fixed on Pete.
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