Echoes at Dawn

by Maya Banks

Page 12

 

  She was already at that point, but she ate a few more bites because it was too damn good not to. Finally she leaned back with a sigh. “I’m good. No more. ”

  Rio scooted back on the bed, slid off and then reached back for the tray. Wordlessly, he ambled out of the room, leaving Grace alone in the silence. She strained to hear any other sounds in the house. The other men. But it was completely quiet.

  They’d probably all gone to bed. She felt a surge of guilt thinking back on just all they’d sacrificed to get her here safely. Were they for real? She had so many questions to ask, more than her tired mind could even process.

  She glanced back up when Rio reentered the room. He hesitated a moment and then said, “I promised you we’d talk and we will, but I’d like to jump in the shower if that doesn’t bother you. I’ll be out in five. Think you’ll be awake that long?”

  Again, she felt guilt that he’d put her before everything else, even his comfort. He was still wearing the same clothes he’d been in for as long as she’d been with him.

  “Please do,” she said quietly. “Take your time. I’ll be awake. It’s important to me to know what’s happened to Shea and how she’s doing. ”

  Rio nodded. “Okay, give me five and I’ll be back. ”

  He went to his chest of drawers, pulled out a change of clothes and then disappeared into the bathroom. She heard the shower come on through the closed door and she sank farther down into the bed, hoping she hadn’t been lying about being able to stay awake.

  WHEN Rio came out of the bathroom, exactly four minutes later, he was still toweling his hair. He hadn’t wanted to stay gone long because Grace had looked like she was about to fall over at any second.

  He smiled when he glanced toward the bed and saw that she was indeed asleep, her head and body tilted precariously to the side of the mound of pillows propping her up.

  Tossing the towel aside, he walked silently to the side of the bed, eased onto the edge and gently shook her awake.

  “Grace,” he murmured. “Wake up, honey. Just long enough to get you under the covers and comfortable, okay?”

  Her eyes flew open and her breath ended on a gasp. He could feel her pulse racing against his fingers resting on her wrist.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. ”

  She righted herself, pushing back against the pillows so she sat farther up. “No, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to fall asleep anyway. ”

  “It’s probably a good idea if you get some rest. You’re dead on your feet. ”

  Her face fell. “You said we’d talk. ”

  “I did,” he said gently. “And I will. Just maybe not tonight. You’re exhausted, Grace. I don’t know how you’re even conscious right now. Any normal person would be damn near in a coma. ”

  Her lips tightened into a stubborn line. “I’m okay. I want to know about my sister. I’ll go to sleep after we talk. ”

  “Okay, but I want you to get comfortable first. ”

  He held out his hand to help her off the bed and then he turned down the covers, arranged her pillows and motioned for her to crawl back in. Once she was setce hetled, he walked around to the other side and sat at the opposite end of the bed on top of the covers so they faced each other catty-corner.

  “How do you know my sister?” she asked before he could open his mouth.

  “She helped an American soldier escape captivity several months ago. ”

  Grace nodded. “Yes, I know. I was sort of there when things got bad. I was worried that Shea was going to get hurt. Using telepathy for any prolonged period of time weakens her, and then there was the fact that she was absorbing all his pain. ”

  Rio cocked his head. “Shea swears she’s very different from you. She says she can only temporarily take away a person’s suffering but she can’t truly heal anyone. ”

  “It’s true,” Grace said quietly. “We’re different in some ways. But the same in others. Shea’s abilities are random, a fact that has always frustrated her. She never knows who she’ll connect with. Who she’ll hear. Who will be able to hear her. ”

  “And you? You have the ability to focus your telepathy?”

  Grace looked down at her hands, and Rio very much wanted to touch her. To somehow make contact. Pull her into his arms and just hold on to her until she knew she was safe.

  “I could. I’m not sure about now. It’s all a mess really. I’m not sure how what they did to me will affect me in the long run. I severed my link to Shea because I wanted to protect her. But when I tried to reach out to her again, I couldn’t. It feels random to me now. I heard the man in the mountains. He was broadcasting so much anger, I could literally feel him as well as hear him. But everything is silent around me now. I learned to focus my talent better than Shea did. But I don’t have the same control now that I’ve always had. Maybe I never will. ”

  Her lips were turned down into an unhappy frown that made his chest ache. There was so much despair and fatigue in her voice.

  “So this soldier Shea saved…You know him?”

  Rio nodded. “I work with his brothers. They’re all ex-military. They run a special ops group that takes on dangerous jobs no one else can or is willing to do. Sometimes we contract with the government and take military assignments that the government can’t officially get involved in. Other times we do private sector jobs, like hostage retrieval, tracking kidnap victims, protection, basically anything that takes a lot of muscle and stealth. ”

  Grace’s eyes widened. Her hands twisted nervously in front of her, and he could tell her unease had just shot through the roof. It didn’t take a rocket scientist or being telepathic to figure out what was going on in her head.

  “Grace, listen to me. The people after you may well be backed by a government group. We may all be on the same team on paper, but there are any number of shadow groups with their own agenda and each serves a different master. We don’t work for the government. We aren’t government owned. We contract with Uncle Sam on certain assignments. We don’t prey on innocent civilians. ”

  “Where is Shea now?” she asked nervously.

  Rio smiled. “If I had to guess, she’s with Nathan and he’s keeping very close watch over her. She couldn’t be in safer hands. He loves her. They’ve been through hell together. ”

  “But she’s all right?” Grace demanded.

  “Yes, she’s safe with Nathan and the rest of KGI. ”

  “KGI? Is that the name of your…organization?”

  Again he nodded.

  “Do you know who’s after me and Shea?”

  Rio’s lips tightened. “That’s the thing. I’m not convinced that there isn’t more than one faction after you. I saw the video surveillance when you went to your parents’ house. Shea saw it too. She went there looking for you with Nathan. I promised her then that I’d bring you home. ”

  Grace closed her eyes and leaned her head onto her upturned palm for support. “How are we supposed to live when every moment of our lives someone is after us, wants to destroy us for their own purposes. ”

  When she reopened her eyes, to Rio’s dismay, they were glossy with tears. Oh hell. If she started crying, he was so fucked.

  “What happened after you went to your parents’ house, Grace?” he asked, hoping to distract her. “Were you taken then? Did you manage to escape?”

  She sighed. “Shea was right. It was probably stupid of me to try to look for answers. I was just so frustrated with our lives. Or lack of one. We’d been running for an entire year. Never seeing each other. Always scared out of our minds that whoever killed our parents would catch up to us. Jumping at my own shadow. Never trusting anyone. Someone smiled at me, I was immediately suspicious and couldn’t get away fast enough. Someone says hello, I freeze up. Someone looks at me too long and I’m convinced that they’re following me. It was no way to live. I missed my sister. I wanted a normal life for both of us. So I went looking for answers. I found my mother�
��s journal, or rather who I always thought was my mother,” she said bitterly.

  “She was just a scientist who created me and Shea in a lab and then felt sorry for us and took us away to raise as her own. ”

  “Shea told us,” Rio said quietly. “She found the journal you dropped in the escape tunnel. ”

  Grace’s mouth drooped. “So she knows the truth now. ”

  He nodded. “What happened when you left? Did you manage to escape?”

  “I did, that time. But they were close and I was panicked and stupid. I didn’t cover my trail as well as I should have and they picked me off a few weeks later. I can’t even tell you where I was. I was drugged for most of the time. Until they started bringing in their test subjects for me to heal. Then they wanted me alert and able to do their bidding. ”

  Rio felt sick. He could only imagine what she’d been forced to do and experience. The toll it had taken on her was something she may never fully recover from. The stupid bastards didn’t even realize the precious gift they had. They were too busy trying to destroy her without even knowing what they were doing.

  She frowned. “You said there could be more than one group after me. ”

  Rio nodded. “I don’t know for sure, but it’s possible from what I know. ”

  “The day I escaped, the facility I was being held at was bombed. I remember hearing gunshots. It was chaos. The cell I was in collapsed and I was able to crawl out and escape, but many of the researchers were dead and I don’t think it was from the explosions I heard. There was blood everywhere, like they’d been slaughtered. ”

  She broke off and put a hand to her head, closing her eyes as she swayed back and forth. Alarmed, he reached forward to touch her arm but she pulled back.

  “Just give me a minute. I had something for a moment. It was a brief memory of that day. I picked up something from a man close by. I remember how cold I felt and how fee afrightened he made me feel. I could sense his determination to find me and to destroy those who had any knowledge of me. ” She glanced back up at Rio. “What does that mean? Why would he do that?”

  Rio blew out his breath. “Titan. ”

  “Titan?”

  This was the part he hated the most. He didn’t want to frighten her. He didn’t want to appall her. But he wouldn’t be anything but honest with her because deception would only cause more problems down the road. The very last thing he needed was for her to bolt unexpectedly because it looked like he was trying to deceive her.

  No longer able to sit still, he pushed off the bed and paced back and forth at the end.

  “Titan is a highly classified specialized military black ops group. Doesn’t officially exist. These are the last-resort guys. The guys you call in to clean up messes, the guys you call in because you have no other options. ”

  Her brow wrinkled in confusion. “Then how do you know so much about them?”

  “Because I used to be one of them. ”

  For a moment she was completely still, as if she hadn’t really processed what he’d said. Then alarm flared in her eyes and she shrank back against her pillow. But to her credit, she didn’t freak out.

  “You said used to be,” she said in a steady voice. “Why aren’t you any longer?”

  He stopped his pacing and looked at her. She was asking, not judging. His admiration grew for her by the hour. She was rock solid. Someone who didn’t crack under pressure or fold in a crisis. He didn’t think he’d ever met a woman quite like her and he’d met all the Kelly women. They were certainly remarkable women. Survivors. Fighters. More courageous than most men.

  But there was something about Grace that made him stop and take notice.

  He eased down on the edge of the bed. “I decided that unwavering, unquestioning loyalty wasn’t for me. ”

  She cocked her head to the side. “Some would say those aren’t bad traits. ”

  “Blind faith is never a good thing. Being a unit of automatons trained to do as ordered without conscience, without question…I couldn’t do it anymore. I lost a lot of my soul during my time with Titan. I’m hoping I haven’t lost all of it. ”

  “That bad?” she asked quietly.

  He ran a hand through his still damp hair. “Not all. Depends on what side you’re on. There’s always a good and a bad depending on perspective. Are there things I regret? Yeah. But there are also things I don’t regret. It was time for me to move on or lose myself completely. ”

  “And KGI is better?”

  “Different,” Rio said. “We decide what missions to take. We decide what side we line up on. The Kellys…they’re righteous. Upstanding. They have integrity and principles. It’s why I work for them. It’s why my team works for them. ”

  She looked relieved by that.