Forged in Ember

by Trish McCallan

Squaring his shoulders in his wheelchair, as though he were metaphorically stepping up to the plate, Embray looked Mac square in the eyes. “I can expose them. I can line up a press conference ASAP, one carried by every news station in the world. I can tell the world what they told me. What they did to me. I can clear your names. But it will take months for the various authorities to investigate my claims. With their wealth and influence, they will remain free while my story is verified. Free to serve their agenda. Free to implement their crazy-ass plan to destroy the world. Free to use the devices they stole from me.” Rage erupted across his features, writhed in his eyes. He took a deep breath and then another before continuing. “They can’t be allowed to regroup to rebuild their network. We need to shut them down. All of them. At once. For good.”

  Mac stirred, leaning back in his chair to ease the constant ache in his chest and spine. “Link told us the council has quarterly updates. These meetings are held in person at random locations. The next meeting is scheduled for late next week. That’s when we need to hit them. Every damn one of them will be there. Including Coulson, the bastard in charge of repurposing your clean energy generator. We can grab Coulson, convince him to give us the locations to the new warehouses. After we clean the council, we can wipe out every device they’re producing.”

  Embray smiled. A cold, confident, chilling smile. “Then that’s when we hit them.”

  Mac simply nodded. They were way ahead of him there. But, hell, he was starting to like this guy. “That’s the plan. As soon as we get a location.”

  Considering that every single member of the NRO had their own fucking jet, chopper, and yacht, not to mention a trillion estates between them, how the fuck were they supposed to find this meeting? The question was giving Mac a headache.

  Embray frowned thoughtfully. “I might be able to help with that. We know who makes up the council. If we can trust James to supply us with the locations of all the quarterly meetings he participated in, I can write a script that will predict possible locations for future meetings based on past ones and property owned by council members or their family and friends.”

  “You can do that?” Mac’s eyebrows shot up.

  “I can write the script. I can plug in the previous locations and instruct the program to pull all the necessary information off the net.” He shrugged. “It would give us a list of possible locations and rate them from highest probability to lowest. Whether any of the locations will be where they actually meet . . .” He trailed off with another shrug.

  “It would be a start,” Rawls said. “Give us some locales to check out.”

  Mac nodded his agreement. “Do it.”

  Embray released the brake on his wheelchair and started rolling himself backward. “I’ll get started on that right now.” He looked at Amy as she pushed her chair away to clear a path for him. “We can’t sit on the reversal much longer. You need to make a decision.”

  Brendan shifted in his chair, his mouth open, but a quick glance at his mother had him shutting it again. Smart boy. He’d been so quiet through the discussion with Embray, Mac had forgotten he was even in the room.

  As Embray wheeled past the curtain, Mac braced himself. Climbing to his feet was going to hurt like a thousand hells. Maybe a million. One of those pain pills the nurse was constantly trying to shove down his throat was looking better by the second.

  The agony was every bit as bad as Mac had feared. But finally he was up—sweatier and shakier than before—but up. By the time he reached his bed, he must have been a little green around the gills, considering the alarmed look Rawls gave him.

  “I’m gonna hunt down the nurse. Get you a pain pill. And this time you’ll damn well take it.” Rawls vanished through the curtain.

  Mac lay back, holding his breath, waiting for the chainsaw churning through his chest and back to ease up enough to allow breathing again.

  By the time Amy slipped into his cubicle, the pain pill had been in him a good thirty minutes, and the agony had receded behind a fuzzy barrier. He could sense it was there but didn’t feel it much anymore.

  He’d been waiting for her. He wasn’t sure why. She hadn’t said she’d stop by.

  “Hey.” He smiled. The feeling of floating brought on by the drugs was getting stronger.

  “You look a lot better.” She stepped to his side and reached for his head, then suddenly stopped and dropped her arm.

  What had she intended to do? Feel his forehead like she constantly did with Benji? A sharp sense of longing constricted his throat. He would have liked the touch of her hand on his head. Hell—he’d like the touch of her hand anywhere: head, hand, arm, cock . . .

  “What do you think of Embray?” she asked, snagging a chair and dragging it up to the bed.

  “Seems like a good guy.” Mac watched her take a seat.

  Too bad she didn’t sit on his bed next to him, like she did with Benji. Of course, there was only about three inches of room between his hip and the edge of the bed. He carefully scooted himself over until his right hip hit the steel bars, hoping she’d get the message.

  She didn’t.

  “What’s wrong?” Amy asked, half rising from the chair. “You’re scowling.”

  “Nothing.” But he could feel the scowl gaining momentum.

  “I should go. Let you rest. I’ll come back later.” She rose to her feet.

  Ah fuck.

  He caught her hand. “Don’t leave.”

  Troubled hazel eyes scanned his face. “Are you sure? If you don’t want company, just tell me.”

  “I always want your company.” His hand closed around hers. He drew her up to his side. “Just closer.”

  “Closer,” she repeated. Her gaze dropped to the space he’d opened on the bed, and understanding registered.

  She stood there a moment with the strangest, most solemn expression on her face. She hesitated for so long he was certain she was going to retreat to the chair or flee the room. Then she shook her hand free and turned around.

  Ah fuck, you scared her away.

  She placed her hands on the mattress in front of his knees and hoisted herself up, then scooted around until she was facing him.

  “Like this?” Her eyebrows climbed.

  A sense of contentment swamped him. He leaned back, basking in her heat beside him. “Perfect.”

  “Good to know.” She paused. “Sweetheart.”

  Ah . . . yeah. His contentment disintegrated, unease taking its place. “About that.”

  She laughed softly. That strange, solemn expression flitted across her face again. “It’s okay. I guess we’re at that stage now, aren’t we?”

  The contentment returned. He offered her a lazy smile and reached out to claim her hand again. “We hit it back when you offered to jump my bones.”

  Another soft laugh. Her hand clasped his. “Looks like that will have to wait. You’re in no shape for acrobatics.”

  True enough. Too bad Kait hadn’t used more of her mojo on him. At least to heal him enough for some extracurricular activity.

  “Give me a few days. I might not be ready for acrobatics, but I’ll still rock your world.”

  “What ego.” Her smile was teasing. “You know I’m going to hold you to that promise, right?”

  A turbulent darkness engulfed her eyes, and he knew she was thinking about before. How she had frozen and fled. They had identified what caused her panic. They could work around it. He’d do some Googling too. Read up on rape and the accompanying psychological scars. There had to be women out there who’d detailed their path back to sexuality. Maybe he’d find a roadmap to helping Amy find her way back to hers.

  Amy still hadn’t decided who to give the antidote to by the time she slid down from Mac’s bed. They’d discussed the pros and cons again, but everything boiled down to one thing—uncertainty. While Embray and the lab techs could make assumptions based on testing Benji’s and Brendan’s blood, nobody had any idea what would happen to a living, breathing human body once the ne
w isotope was given.

  “What are you going to do?” Mac asked, squeezing her fingers.

  She hadn’t asked him who he’d give the antidote to, although she suspected he’d have said Brendan—for all the reasons Brendan had given. But she couldn’t ask him to make such a decision any more than she could ask herself.

  Maybe she didn’t need to make that terrible decision anyway. A third possibility had crept into her mind, and the more she thought about it, the more she realized it was the only option she could live with.

  She drew in a breath and let it out slowly. Her decision was finally made. Peace spread through her. “I’m going to talk to Embray. Ask him to recreate the compound and inject it into me. That way I can test the reversal.”

  Mac’s fingers clenched around hers. At her hiss of pain, he released her hand.

  “You think this is a terrible idea.” She could see his disapproval in the sharp furrow of his brow and the compression of his lips.

  “I think you haven’t thought this through. What if Benji gets sicker while you wait to test this thing? What if by the time you do test and clear it, he’s too sick to recover? What if the compound followed by the reversal kills you? Who’s going to raise your boys then?”

  All questions she’d asked herself.

  “If Benji or Brendan goes downhill, we can switch tactics and give the antidote to them immediately. But as of now, the healings are keeping Benji’s body healthy. Kait and William can continue healing him until I test the antidote.”

  Although she hated leaving Benji in that coma, with tubes up his nose and piercing his arms, and she hated asking Kait and William to continue healing him, until she could test the reversal, this was the only option she could live with.

  “Brendan isn’t even sick . . . yet,” she continued. Was she trying to convince Mac or herself that this decision was the right one? “It could be weeks before the compound starts affecting him. There’s time to do this. Time to test it and make sure it won’t kill them. If something happens to me, my parents will raise the boys.”

  The look on his face grew colder. Her stomach flip-flopped. “How am I supposed to choose, Mac?” Her chest heaved. The ache in her head pounded in time with the one in her heart. “I can’t choose between them. I can’t.”

  Mac went still. “You’ve already decided on this, haven’t you?”

  She nodded. “It’s the only choice I can live with.”

  His face went completely expressionless, his eyes blank.

  Her breath caught in her throat as a piercing sense of disorientation hit her. She’d gotten used to his . . . if not warmth, at least openness toward her. But the flat look stamped across his features reminded her of when she’d first met him. Closed, chilly disinterest. It felt like a giant step backward.

  She’d just lost something precious. She could sense it. She turned away. “I’m going to find Embray.”

  As she slipped past the curtain, she expected, even hoped, that he’d call her back. But dead silence followed her out of the room.

  What did you expect? His blessing? For him to talk you out of it? Maybe order you not to do it?

  Most of all she wondered why. What had caused the change in him? What had he expected of her?

  Eventually anger nudged aside the confusion. She’d done nothing to deserve such a cold reaction. And she had enough on her plate without worrying about him. She’d focus on her boys, on getting them cured and healthy. The first step in that goal was finding Embray.

  Which turned out to be more involved than she’d expected. When she went to his cubicle, the nurse said he’d gone to the lab. The lab said he’d gotten a phone call and left—but nobody knew who had called him or where he’d gone. She went back to check on his cubicle. A laptop was sitting on the bed, but no Embray. Frustrated, she walked over to check on Benji.

  A curly-haired brunette nurse with huge brown eyes nudged back the curtain to Benji’s cubicle and poked her head through the opening. “If you’re still looking for Mr. Embray, he’s visiting next door.”

  Amy’s eyes followed the sideways jerk of the nurse’s chin. The woman was indicating Mac’s room. She listened hard but couldn’t hear anything. Whatever the two men were discussing, they were being quiet about it. When she reached Mac’s cubicle, more evidence of privacy presented itself. The curtain was pulled fully across the entrance. She heard Mac say her name.

  They’re talking about me?

  Curious, she eased up to the curtain. The voices were still low but clearer.

  “We’re agreed?” Mac’s gravelly voice.

  “If she insists on this,” Leonard said. His voice softer and less gritty. “She may change her mind once she realizes how long it will take to recreate the isotope.”

  “I doubt it. She’s damn determined. If she changes her mind, fine. But if she sticks to this plan, I want your word that you’ll come to me when the isotope is ready.”

  “You have it.”

  What the heck were these two planning?

  The obvious answer hit, and good Lord, did it ever pack a punch. Suddenly Mac’s complete shutdown made sense. He’d been determined to hide his intentions from her, and how better to do that than by pushing her away.

  She shoved the curtain all the way to the side and stepped into the room. “Why exactly does Leonard need to come to you first with the tracking isotope, Mac?”

  The two men looked guilty as hell . . . like two grade schoolers with their hands stuck in the cookie jar. Mac straightened and scowled.

  “I can’t let you do this, Amy. You have no idea what this shit will do to you. You say you can’t make a choice between your boys? Well, I don’t accept this choice.” He thumped the back of his head against his pillows, looking disgruntled and stubborn.

  At least he’s not cold or closed off anymore.

  Amy glanced between the two men. When she caught Embray’s eyes, he shrugged but didn’t look remorseful. Apparently he agreed with Mac’s solution.

  “Let me guess.” She crossed her arms and cocked her head. “He’s supposed to inject you instead of me. Right?”

  Mac eyed her carefully and then crossed his arms, mimicking her posture but from a reclining position. Pure determination glittered in his black eyes. “Not supposed to. He’s going to.”

  “For God’s sake, Mac—”

  “If you insist on this, it’s going to be me. End of discussion. You have a family. Children, for Christ’s sake. If things go wrong, I’m the expendable one. You’re not getting near the fucking isotope.”

  They’d see about that. “I can’t ask you to—”

  “You’re not asking,” he broke in, his voice emphatic. His face hardened. “And I’m not offering. I’m telling you. I’m the one who takes that needle.”

  Her chest went mushy and warm. He was putting his life and health on the line to keep her and the boys safe. Proof positive that he hadn’t shut her out or backed away. Relief shot a giddy fizz through her veins.

  Not that she could let him do it. And he was certainly not expendable.

  “Mrs. Chastain. You need to come with me right now,” a woman said from behind her. Pure urgency rang in her voice.

  The warmth loosening Amy’s chest vanished in a shower of ice. “What’s wrong? Is it Benji?”

  She spun around and stumbled to the cubicle next door.

  “It’s not Benji. It’s your other boy. The older one. He’s locked himself in the lab.”

  “What?” Amy’s voiced climbed in horror because she knew what Brendan was going to do. She whirled back around and hurled herself into Mac’s room, her eyes locking on Leonard Embray’s startled face. “Where do you have the antidote stored?”

  “N2FP9?” He straightened in his wheelchair, understanding widening his eyes. “In the lab. Shit.” He struggled to his feet. “The vials are marked. It won’t be hard for him to find them.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Mac bolted up, slid his legs off the bed.

  Amy was in
a flat-out run before she’d even cleared Mac’s cubicle.

  “Amy!” Leonard’s voice echoed behind her. “N2FP9 needs to be administered in the precise dosage based on body weight. He cannot just inject himself. The wrong dose would kill him.”

  The news hit Amy like a thousand Red Bulls. Her muscles jolted and buzzed. She kept running.

  Please, God . . . please . . . please don’t let him have injected himself. Please, God.

  White walls and closed doors flashed past her. It seemed to take forever—even though the lab was only three rooms over—before she skidded around the last corner, and the glass doors of the lab came into view.

  She slowed long enough for the double doors to slide open. Several people in white lab coats were clustered against the windows of a smaller, rectangular glass room at the back of the lab. She headed in that direction and pushed her way to a clear spot against the glass.

  Brendan was standing next to a stainless-steel counter with two racks of vials—one on either side of him. She watched him pick up a vial from the rack on his right, look at the label, and move it across to the rack on his left.

  Thank God.

  Her entire body went limp with relief. If he was still checking the labels, then he hadn’t found the antidote yet. She knocked on the window. He glanced up and spotted her. Recognition flashed across his face, but he went back to picking up vials and checking labels.

  “Brendan.” She knocked again.

  This time he ignored her.

  “Brendan, hold on.” She raised her voice until she was shouting.

  “He can’t hear you,” someone in a white lab coat said. “It’s soundproof. There’s an intercom next to the door.”

  The door . . . the nurse had said he’d locked himself in. Someone had to have an extra set of keys, right?

  “Doesn’t anyone have the keys?” She shuffled along the window, bumping people out of her way until she found the door. Instinctively she tried the handle, but, yeah, it was locked.

  “Sally has the keys. She’s on her way,” someone three or four people back said.

  A pause followed and then, “Damn. He found what he’s looking for.”