Evolution

by Hope Anika

  “I don’t suppose any of this is connected to the three dead men in your living room?” Haggerty asked sardonically.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  Not a lie, not exactly. Ruslan thought it very likely that it was Kline’s men who had ended up dead on her floor; it was equally likely they were the ones to torture and kill Joseph Pierce. But they did not have definitive evidence of that fact. The Architect could not be discounted, nor could GenTek. Discretion was still prudent. They did not know enough to trust anyone—including the LVMPD.

  Haggerty gestured toward the boards. “And this? This part of it, too?”

  Again, Ash only stared at him, silent. Her face was closed, her eyes shuttered.

  He looked at Butch. “You’re on board with this?”

  Butch sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “She’s the boss.”

  Haggerty snorted. “And Pierce’s kid? Where’s she?”

  “Unavailable,” Ash said.

  He snarled softly. “This isn’t a game, Kyndal. That girl is my only lead.”

  “I know.” She nodded. “I’ll bring her in.”

  “She has the right to know he’s dead.”

  A flash of something crossed Ash’s features. “She will.”

  For a long, tense moment, Haggerty stared at her. His belligerence was palpable, and Ruslan shifted slightly, drawing that coal black gaze, which he met with a cold, flat look of warning.

  “Well,” Haggerty said, watching him with narrow consideration. “I guess I’m done here.” He gave the boards another long, lingering look. “For now.”

  Ash flashed him an empty smile. “Okay. ’Bye.”

  He turned and headed for the door. “Let me know when you’re ready to be a grown up.”

  He swept from the room, his trench coat flaring out behind him.

  “Drama queen,” she muttered. She leaned against the table and rubbed her forehead, and Ruslan saw her pain. Her bruised arm, the contusions on her face, her split lip. And no doubt black and blue in other places, as well.

  She should have been resting. Instead she would launch the rescue of a runaway, and then they would head up to Charlie’s cabin and hopefully locate Wylie, Wanda and Eva Pierce.

  Who they would then have to tell about Joseph Pierce’s death.

  “Shit,” she whispered, closing her eyes.

  “How old is Pierce’s kid?” Butch asked quietly.

  “Twelve.”

  “Any other relatives?”

  “None we know about,” Ruslan said.

  “So...we’ve got an orphan on our hands?”

  “Looks like.” Ash pinched the bridge of her nose. “Well. I guess we can check tracking down Joe off our list.”

  There was pain and anger in her voice. She felt responsible, which was absurd. Joe Pierce had been a grown man—and one trained in counterintelligence, to boot. He’d been a soldier; if he was dead, it was because those who hunted him were equally trained. The man had taken responsibility for Eva Pierce of his own free will; he had to have understood the repercussions.

  “We knew it was a possibility,” Ruslan told her. “That is why he left the envelope.”

  She ignored him. “This is too dangerous,” she said, turning to Jesse. “I’ll figure something else out to distract Kline.”

  “No way.” The boy stood up. “I can do this. I met Eva; I want to help. I’m not scared.”

  “No. I won’t risk your life.”

  “It’s mine to risk,” he said. “I want to help. Please let me help.”

  “I’ll be with him,” Butch added. “I’ll watch his back.”

  “No,” she said.

  Ruslan stepped toward her. It was a deliberate step into her personal space and far closer than he ever stood to anyone. But, inexplicably, he was beginning to crave that proximity. He wanted her close. Her heat, her scent, her presence pressing against his skin. Close enough to touch. To shield, if necessary.

  It was not purely sexual, he thought, although that pull was always there, a constant, primitive awareness and hunger unlike anything he’d ever known. But there was also an odd sense of comfort in having her close. One would think those two sensations would conflict, but they seemed to mesh into an easy, solid whole, and their existence stroked a warm hand over the savagery within him, a caress that made it shiver and stretch in lazy contentedness.

  She looked up at him, and something flared in her gaze. Awareness. Color curled into her cheeks; her breath hitched. And satisfaction slid through him, a sensation as primeval and archaic as the thrumming sexual need.

  She is with me. Whether she liked it or not, they were in it together.

  “Fuck you very much,” she said, quite distinctly, and Ruslan tilted his head in question.

  “I did not know you were unaware of Charlie’s status as a former agent for the Central Intelligence Agency,” he replied quietly. Which was true. “I did not keep that from you intentionally.”

  A breath escaped her, an annoyed huff of air. “But you didn’t bother to mention it, did you?”

  “We had no evidence that Charlie might be a factor in this case until approximately fifteen minutes ago,” he said. “Before that, there was no reason to believe Charlie’s status as an agent had anything to do with Joseph Pierce.”

  She glowered at him. “We had a very clear conversation about agencies. And you said nothing.”

  “One has nothing to do with the other,” he told her. Then he turned to Jesse. “If you do this, we cannot guarantee your safety. No matter the precautions we take, if Kline believes you are a Primary, he will target you, either for assimilation or assassination. We should not be there long enough for him to accomplish either, but to promise we can keep you safe would be a lie.”

  “No,” Ash growled.

  “Understood,” Jesse said with a clipped nod. He turned to her. “Don’t worry. I can handle myself. And I want to do this. Eva’s just a kid. Please. Let me help.”

  She glowered at him then, too. “Goddamn it.”

  “That means yes,” Butch said. “So what’s the plan?”

  *****

  All things are possible.

  Wanda had always held that belief. No self-respecting Hindu would decry the idea of divine intervention; in point of fact, all of the deities and saints had, at one time or another, performed miracles.

  Her certainty that the impossible was possible had saved her. That belief had given her the courage to flee everything and everyone she’d ever known in order to save herself; without it, she would’ve become a slave. Possessed and owned, with no value or power over anything: her body, her future. Her life.

  The unwavering confidence that she could fly, if only she was brave enough to spread her wings and jump, had changed her life. She had learned that she was capable of anything, and that life had infinite possibilities.

  So she didn’t view what Eva had done to her as an impossibility. That didn’t mean, however, that it didn’t shock her. No, witnessing such a feat would have astounded her. To experience it first hand had been...

  Life changing.

  To feel that odd, frenetic energy coursing through her veins; the sizzle in her cells, the intense heat of her flesh as it wove itself back together. The sensitive tightness of new skin. Her hip was entirely mended; her chest no longer ached. Even the occasional twinge in her left arm from having broken it as a child had faded.

  She was healed, wholly; every scar she’d ever had was gone. It was...

  Miraculous.

  And Wanda was left both joyous and apprehensive at having experienced such an anomalous and blessed gift. Because such an offering demanded repayment, and she felt both overwhelmed by and unworthy of such a task. And yet...now she understood.

  Why they were running.

  Wylie, too, had seemed to realize that their predicament likely owed itself to Eva’s phenomenal ability, and, astoundingly, he’d responded.

  In the last hour, since they’d fled the
rest area and Eva had passed out in the backseat, a change had come over him. One Wanda was still trying to assimilate.

  Because this Wylie...this was not someone she knew.

  The one from this morning—the one who’d left them in the lurch while seeking his own pleasure—that one she knew. The one who could be counted on to be wholly unreliable; the one who disappointed her again and again.

  But the man who now sat beside her—the same one who had beaten another nearly to death in front of her—he was a stranger. Tense and vigilant and intensely focused, he seemed to have hardened right before her eyes, as if the easy-going, capricious man she knew was only the shell of someone much darker and far more unforgiving. She saw shades of Charlie in him for the first time as he sat beside her, driving too fast, his gaze constantly moving between the mirrors and the softly snoring form of Eva in the backseat behind them. The hard line of his jaw; the flat surface of his dark blue eyes. The calm, the silence, the competence that suddenly cloaked him.

  The soldier, she thought, trying to make sense of the whole. Wondering why it had taken this extreme to bring out the man who hid within, a man far stronger than his façade ever portrayed.

  Not that it mattered; truly, she couldn’t afford to care. She and Eva couldn’t trust him, and they would never, ever rely on him again.

  She wouldn’t forget, no matter the change that had overtaken him. She was wiser now. She’d relied on him against her better judgment, and she’d paid a terrible price. Eva had paid a terrible price.

  She would not be so foolish again.

  “How do you feel?” he asked, shooting her a concerned look.

  What Eva had done to her had shaken him deeply. He continued to watch her closely, as if expecting her to collapse at any moment.

  “I’m fine,” Wanda told him calmly. “She didn’t hurt me.”

  He only shook his head.

  “You’re upset,” she continued. “Why?”

  “Why?” he echoed. “Why? Because what she did was im-fucking-possible, that’s why.”

  “Nothing is impossible.”

  “Bullshit.” He made a harsh sound. “She healed you right before my eyes. As far as I’m concerned, she’s a goddamn miracle worker.”

  “She’s just a child.”

  He shook his head sharply. “Anyone who can do what she can stopped being a child a long time ago.”

  Wanda couldn’t argue with that. “That doesn’t change the fact that she’s only twelve years old.”

  His hands flexed around the steering wheel. “What the hell are we going to do with her?”

  “We’re going to protect her.”

  He shot her an irate look. “I wasn’t implying otherwise.”

  “No?”

  He growled softly. “The cabin will only be safe for a couple of days, max. We need a better plan. A bigger city—New York or LA. Christ, even Chicago would be better than Vegas. Or better yet—a different country entirely. Some place populated as fuck. Indonesia, China. Fucking Bangladesh. Fuck. They’ll never stop looking for her. Never. Not when she can do that.”

  A sudden, falling sensation filled Wanda, as if she’d taken a step and the ground had given way beneath her. Because Wylie was right. Eva would never escape what she could do; she would be run mercilessly to ground.

  “Just who are those assholes? Private contractors? The feds?” Wylie swore softly, viciously. “We don’t even know who we’re running from.”

  Wanda thought of Joe Pierce and his sharp dark brown gaze, and the contents of her stomach churned. He’d known. What Eva could do; who was hunting her. And he hadn’t warned them.

  “She knew they were coming,” he continued. “That’s why she didn’t bat an eye at being chased all over the city. She’s fucking used to it.”

  Yes. The girl’s cool demeanor had fractured only when Wanda had been shot; until then, she’d been almost preternaturally calm.

  “We need a better plan,” he said again.

  “Perhaps her father will come back for her,” Wanda pointed out, although she had a bad feeling about that, especially when she remembered what Eva had said—I can’t feel him, I think he’s dead—and even if Joe did return for his daughter, that didn’t mean Eva would be safe.

  Wylie shot her another narrow look. “Why did he give her up to begin with?”

  “Perhaps he thought we could keep her safe.”

  “Not if we don’t know what we’re keeping her safe from. This whole situation is fucked.”

  Another thing Wanda couldn’t argue.

  “Ash is going to have goddamn kittens,” he said.

  Wanda blinked. “I’m sorry?”

  He shook his head. “We need to get the cabin fortified.”

  “Fortified?” she repeated.

  “They’re going to come,” he said, his voice hard. “We need to be ready.”

  Her heart lurched painfully. She glanced back at Eva, who slept on in oblivion. She looked even younger than her twelve years, innocent and heartbreakingly beautiful. Just a child. No matter her abilities. How long had she been running?

  And if she was caught, what would they do to her?

  Experimentation. Exploitation. Worse.

  “Is it even possible?” Wanda asked quietly. “That we can protect her?”

  “If we had the resources? Maybe.” Wylie shook his head. “But we don’t have shit. Not the money, and not the contacts. If Charlie was still alive, there’d be a chance. But not with him gone.”

  Wanda was silent for a long moment. “I’m sorry about Charlie. I never got the chance to tell you.”

  Wylie’s jaw turned to steel. “Yeah.”

  “He was a good man,” she continued, in spite of that dismissive response. “He saved my life.”

  A curt nod. “He was good at that.”

  “An honorable legacy, for an honorable man.”

  “Yes,” Wylie said shortly, and Wanda realized that it pained him to speak of his father. Wylie was not a man to share his grief, but she could hear it in the rasp of his voice, see it in the fine lines that fanned out from his eyes and his mouth.

  Stupid. Of course he mourned Charlie. Why wouldn’t he?

  Just because he liked to pretend he felt nothing didn’t make it so.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again, softly.

  He only shook his head. “They’re going to send an army after her. That’s what we need to focus on. Because even if Ash and Ruslan bring Butch with them, that’s only five of us. That’s not enough.”

  Ice condensed beneath Wanda’s skin. She had been trying not to think about that, or just what, exactly, they were up against. The sudden awareness of what Eva could do had changed everything: who they were running from, why.

  The odds against them.

  “She has to disappear,” Wanda murmured. “As I do. Perhaps we should go together.”

  “No,” Wylie said sharply.

  “Yes,” she contradicted firmly. “It’s a reasonable solution. Ajmil will tell his father, and Davansh will come for me. I have no choice; I must flee. If Joe Pierce doesn’t return for Eva, then I could take her with me. We could run together.”

  “You aren’t running.”

  “You said yourself that we can’t protect her. And if her father doesn’t come back for her, she’ll need someone to care for her. She’s a child, Wylie. She can’t survive on her own—even if she could get away from the men chasing her. The streets are kind to no one, children least of all.”

  He shot her a dark look. “No.”

  “You’ll need to find out who Charlie purchased my new identity from. We’ll need to obtain one for Eva and another for me.” She sighed then, sad. “I liked being Wanda Linn. I’ll be sorry to see her go.”

  “You aren’t fucking listening.”

  “And you’re not being reasonable or realistic,” she retorted, growing angry herself. “The Firm can’t protect us. No one can protect us. We must then protect ourselves.”

  “Wand
a,” he bit out, and the deep, harsh tone of his voice—clearly a warning—made goose bumps suddenly wash across her flesh. But that only made her angrier.

  “You have no say in this,” she told him, furious. “You act as though you will protect us, when you will only disappear and leave us to fend for ourselves. That’s who you are, Wylie: a man we cannot trust. Do not dare behave otherwise, with your false outrage and pretend concern. It only makes me despise you more.”

  He said nothing. He gripped the steering wheel so tightly, his knuckles pressed white. A muscle ticked in his jaw.

  Wanda’s heart hurt. “Running is our only recourse.”

  Again.

  “No,” he snarled. “We’re in this together, baby.”

  “No,” she denied instantly. “Eva and I are on our own.”

  “I’m right fucking here.”

  “For the moment.”

  The steering wheel groaned in his grip. “I will prove you wrong if it’s the last goddamn thing I ever do.”

  “Make me no promises.” Her heart was suddenly beating with breathtaking intensity, her blood a hot rush in her veins. She wanted...to kick him.

  More than once.

  She was so angry. He’d left them. And in spite of everything she knew to be true of Wylie, she hadn’t expected him to abandon them. Not after that wild escape through the city; not after he’d made that promise.

  You are a fool.

  And she wasn’t certain who she was madder at: him or herself.

  “I will not trust you again,” she said, her voice low, shaking, like her hands, which were trembling so badly she clenched them into cold fists. “Not ever.”

  “Oh, you will,” he argued softly. “I’ll see to it.”

  “No,” she told him, certain.

  “I’ll make today up to you,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, his voice a brutal grate of sound. “And you’ll forgive me because that’s who you are, and you know people aren’t perfect, and that we all make mistakes. You’ll start to trust me again because you can’t help yourself, because I’m always there beside you, watching your back and taking such good care of you, you can’t remember when I wasn’t there, and you can’t imagine me being gone. I’ll become part of you, baby, another skin, wrapped so tight around you that you won’t know where I end and you begin.”