Lie Close to Me

by Cynthia Eden

  “Andreas?” Maddox shoved out the mental call with all the power he possessed. “The others—“

  And he got an answer. “None of the other super soldiers were here. They were all out on missions.”

  Maddox sucked in a deep breath. “Where are you?”

  “Going to face my past.”

  What in the hell did that mean?

  “Don’t look for me.” The connection ended.

  Maddox glanced back. The facility was burning. No damn way to stop those flames. “How many bombs did that bastard set?” Hell had seemed to explode around him.

  “Ten.” Her hands tightly gripped the steering wheel. “He didn’t want to take any chances. He wanted the place gone.”

  Maddox narrowed his eyes on her. “Luna…”

  “He said we were lovers once. That I loved him.” The SUV hurtled forward. “It should have been harder to do.”

  His gut clenched. “What should have been harder?”

  “He said you were going to die. That you wouldn’t come back. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “Luna…”

  “I trusted you. You told me to trust you, right? That was what you said before they took me from the safe house.”

  Her voice was too brittle. Her body was shaking. He wanted to pull her into his arms and never let go.

  “He was going to kill you,” she said again. “Kill you, then sell me to someone. I couldn’t have ever loved a person like him. Adam must have been lying about that part. That’s why it was so easy to do.” She swallowed. “I made him tell me how to get out. I made him tell me where all the bombs were. He thought…he thought I was going to let him get away.”

  Maddox could feel her pain, and it seemed to rip him apart. “Baby…”

  “He thought I was going to let him get away,” she whispered once more. A tear leaked down her cheek. “But I didn’t.”

  Maddox looked back. In the distance, he could still see the light of the flames.

  “I didn’t,” Luna repeated. “And what does that make me?”

  ***

  Adam Brock dragged himself toward the door. Blood poured from the side of his head where that bitch had shot him. He had wounds all over his body because of her. But he wasn’t out of the game, not yet. He threw up his hand, curled his fingers around the knob, but the damn door wouldn’t open.

  He staggered to his feet. Yanked hard on the door.

  Locked. She’d locked him in there?

  Smoke shot in from beneath the door. Drifted in from the vents above him. Filled the room. He could hear the crackle of flames outside. How many bombs had gone off? How many were left?

  His fists pounded into the door. No, no, he wasn’t going out this way.

  The flames crackled louder.

  His fists drove into the door. “You fucking bitch!”

  ***

  Luna wasn’t sure where they were going, but that didn’t seem to matter. Blind instinct had her steering the vehicle.

  Maddox didn’t talk. Neither did she. She was too afraid to speak.

  I killed a man. A man who said I loved him.

  A groan came from the backseat. Her gaze immediately jerked to the rear-view mirror. She’d just repositioned it a few moments ago, and she had a perfect view of Jett. With her enhanced vision, she could see him easily in the dim interior of the vehicle.

  A finally awake Jett.

  “What hit me?” Jett muttered. “And what in the hell burned?”

  “We nearly did,” came Maddox’s growled reply. “After you fucking betrayed us and turned our asses over to Henry Danwith.”

  “Oh, fuck.” Jett lunged upright.

  “Stop the vehicle, Luna,” Maddox ordered. “Now.”

  She slammed on the brakes. Even before the vehicle had come to a full stop, Maddox was out of the ride. He’d yanked open the back door and hauled Jett out of the SUV. Luna jumped out of the driver’s side and ran toward them.

  By the time she got to them, Maddox had Jett pinned to the side of the vehicle. Maddox’s right hand was drawn back into a fist, and Jett wasn’t fighting.

  “Do it,” Jett said, the words making Luna still. Wind beat against her. “Punch the shit out of me. I deserve it.”

  Maddox didn’t hit him, but he also didn’t lower his clenched fist. “Why?”

  “Because I was given orders! Because I was told after this mission—after this one, we’d be free! We just had to turn over Luna. They said she was damaged…” His gaze cut to her.

  Her shoulders stiffened. I’m not damaged.

  “Henry said she had to come back so he could fix her. But I swear, man, once we got to the safe house near Aspen, everything changed, okay? When I realized what she could do…” His lips thinned. “I knew how valuable she was. I knew I couldn’t just turn her over to him. We couldn’t. So I was going to throw him off. I was going to help hide you both. That was my plan, but the jerk got to me first.”

  Maddox still didn’t lower his fist. “I trusted you.”

  Jett flinched. “You saved me, didn’t you? Whatever the hell just happened—why I smell like someone tried to cook me and I’m covered in ash—you saved me.”

  “Henry ordered you pumped full of tranqs and put in containment. You were going to fucking be unconscious while they killed Luna.”

  “I swear, I wasn’t going to sell you out! I was going to lead Henry away! But he was watching me. He tracked my phone. I was…shit, I was supposed to give him updates, but I promise, I was going to lead him away.”

  Luna glanced down the road. A long, narrow stretch of road that was deserted. Stars glittered overhead. “We can’t stay out here.” Her voice was too flat. She wrapped her arms around her stomach. “Adam said he’d taken all tracking devices off the SUV, but we still need to get another ride. We need to keep moving in case someone comes after us.”

  Maddox slowly turned his head toward her. “Adam told you a whole lot.”

  She wouldn’t let tears fall again. “A man will say plenty when his life is on the line.” She couldn’t hold Maddox’s gaze.

  “Who the fuck is Adam?” Jett demanded. Then he frowned. “Wait, isn’t he one of the guards at the facility? Blond dude?”

  A shiver slid over her body. “He was one of the guards.”

  “Was?” Maddox asked.

  Luna swallowed.

  “Look, man,” Jett spoke quickly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—shit, it’s not like I wanted to—”

  “I saved you. We’re done.” Maddox motioned to the SUV. “Luna, let’s go.” He stepped away from Jett.

  Jett grabbed his arm. “What?”

  “I can’t fucking trust you,” Maddox gritted out. “You betrayed us once, and I can’t risk her life again. They were going to wipe her memory away. If she loses her memory…” Fury and what could have been fear flashed on his face. “I lose her.”

  I lose her.

  “So I’m getting her to safety.” Maddox’s body was tense with determination. “And you can’t know where we’re going.”

  Jett flinched.

  “Andreas got out, too.” Maddox’s gaze swept the area. “He’s someone else you might not want to trust too much, if he finds you. Because he’s the sonofabitch who helped pump us both full of tranqs so Henry could take us in.”

  “Henry,” Jett growled the name. “That’s a bastard I want to get my hands on.”

  Luna cleared her throat. “No need for that. He’s gone.”

  Jett blinked, and his head immediately craned toward her. “You killed him?” His brows shot up as he studied Luna.

  “No, Adam did.”

  “The guard?” More confusion from Jett. “Jesus, how long was I out? How did I miss so much?”

  She marched toward the driver’s side of the SUV. “Adam wasn’t just a guard. He was Lazarus.” Luna jumped in the SUV. Revved the engine. With the door still open, she called, “We need to go!” Because she wasn’t going back to that facility. She couldn’t lose her m
emory. Not again. It couldn’t happen. She’d be helpless.

  Helpless in a world full of freaking super soldiers.

  They needed to keep using the cover of darkness. They had to move. To flee.

  “I won’t betray you again.” Jett’s voice was low, but it easily reached her ears as he spoke to Maddox. “I’ll prove it, I promise, I will.”

  Maddox didn’t speak.

  “But you’re right, man,” Jett added. “We need to part ways here. Because if they are hunting us, I’ll lead them away from you. I swear it. I’ll distract them. Get their attention. And you can disappear.”

  “Watch your ass, Jett.”

  A rough laugh was Jett’s answer. “Watch yours…and hers.”

  Then she saw Jett run back the way they’d just come, heading into the darkness of the night and vanishing quickly.

  Maddox jumped into the SUV with her. In moments, they were rushing down the road, driving as fast as they could. Her hands wanted to shake, so she just held the steering wheel tighter.

  “Luna…”

  “He’ll be okay, right?”

  “He’s strong.”

  That wasn’t a good enough answer. “Maybe he should have stayed with us.”

  “No.” His immediate denial. “Jett…hell, he was working with Henry, Luna. The guy was reporting in, telling Henry every move that we made.” Maddox’s voice roughened. “Being a fucking good soldier.”

  The SUV hit a pothole, bounced. “Isn’t that what you were doing, too? Finding me at first, because that was what you’d been ordered to do?”

  “I don’t take orders any longer.”

  No.

  Silence. More darkness. A road that didn’t seem to end.

  “What did Henry tell you about me?” Maddox finally asked.

  Her hold jerked on the wheel. They swerved, just a bit, but she steadied them quickly.

  “Luna?”

  “I got it,” she whispered. “It’s fine.” Adrenaline had flooded her system. She was shaky and her heart wouldn’t stop racing and her whole body felt too tight and tense.

  “You trusted me.”

  Her breath came faster. “You told me to.” And she’d obeyed. Being a good fucking soldier.

  “What did he tell you?”

  “H-how do you know he said anything?”

  “Because the asshole came to me and bragged about how he was turning you against me. He was planning to kill you and wipe your memories away, so there was no need for him to lie to you…the only fucking reason he did it was because the guy wanted to see your reaction. Wanted to see my reaction. Every damn thing was an experiment to him.”

  “I don’t understand…” And she didn’t. “Why not just kill me at the safe house?”

  “Because there were too many witnesses there. Too many guards who might report to the wrong person. But once he got you to the Lazarus facility, he could bring you into the exam room. He could shut off the cameras when he went to work, and no one would be the wiser about what he’d done. He had control there.”

  Henry hadn’t been in control when he’d been dying.

  Maddox swore. “Dammit, he got to you, didn’t he? The lies he told you…they’re between us.”

  Nothing was between them.

  “I can feel your fear.” Anger was there, making each word almost a growl. “You’re not sure you made the right decision with me. And the fear is pumping through your veins like wildfire.”

  “I’m not afraid of you,” Luna denied.

  A mocking laugh came from him. “Oh, Luna, you know I can tell when you lie.”

  Her own anger flared to life. “Then you need to look again.” She didn’t take her gaze off the road. “Fine. You want to know what Henry said? He said that we knew each other, before Lazarus. Before the first time we died. That you knew me, you knew Adam. And that—that you wanted me.”

  Maddox didn’t spit out a denial. He said nothing at all.

  “Henry said you wanted me more than you wanted anything. He said he’d learned that you’d gotten possessive and jealous when I-I got involved with Adam.” She stumbled there, still confused about how she’d been so wrong about Adam. “You probably don’t remember any of that, of course,” she added quickly. “I mean, you don’t have all of your memories, and Henry spinning the story about you wanting me had to be just a mind game that he was playing—”

  “I wanted you from the first moment I saw you at Lazarus.”

  Her heart seemed to shove into her chest.

  “I felt a connection, fucking felt like you were mine. And every time you died, it tore out a piece of me. You’d wake up, and everything we’d shared would be gone. We did that shit over and over, and it was a knife cutting into me again and again.”

  Her throat had gone desert dry.

  “Yeah, we knew each other before Lazarus. I had a flash of us—when we died together. I told you I died, that I remembered that, but I didn’t say that you were there, too. Didn’t say that the last thing I saw was you. The last thing I remember was holding you. A bullet went through me and into you. Adam was there. I’d stabbed him.”

  Now she flinched.

  “Yeah, I remember stabbing him, but I don’t remember why I did it. Henry said the bastard was selling government secrets, but we both know Henry can lie as easily as he breathes. The guy wasn’t an easy read.”

  Henry wasn’t breathing anymore. Adam had seen to that.

  “I remembered,” she said, voice soft. “I remembered dying with you.”

  “What?” His surprise filled the car. “You remember your past? Baby—”

  “Just a flash.” She wished there was more. “I just…I was going into a motel room. I was going to talk with you. I wanted to turn Adam over to the authorities. I knew you were so angry at him. But I was sure we could just turn him over.” Her voice broke. “Then I opened the door. I saw you. And I felt something burn into my body.” The one memory she had was the worst memory of her life. Figured. “Henry lied.”

  She could feel Maddox’s stare on her.

  “He told me…” Luna licked her lips. “He said that only you and I were brought into Lazarus. That Adam was too dangerous to be included. A traitor to his country. So he hadn’t been put into the program.” She risked a quick glance at Maddox. “Henry lied. Adam was enhanced, just like we are.”

  “He didn’t know.” Maddox spoke slowly, as if considering. “There’s no damn way he knew. Henry wouldn’t have put a Lazarus soldier on guard duty at the facility. He didn’t know Adam had been kept alive. Shit, shit. You get what this means? Adam must have been one of the rogue test subjects that I overheard the lab coats talking about one day. A subject who escaped from his facility and handlers.”

  Yes, she’d already realized that. “Adam was at a lab in Arizona. He said the place got blown to hell.” Goosebumps rose on her arms. “That’s where he came up with the idea to set the bombs. If the fire is big enough, Adam said no one looks for survivors.” Once more, her gaze cut to the rear-view mirror.

  Are they going to look for us?

  “Did Adam say how many more of us there were?”

  She swallowed. “He told me that his team left him behind.”

  “I don’t think Henry knew the guy had been resurrected. That’s how Adam slipped right past his radar. The government is holding secrets, playing games with us.”

  “We aren’t going back,” Luna vowed.

  “No, we damn well aren’t.”

  He didn’t understand. “I can’t go back to not knowing. To being helpless.” She exhaled slowly. “Don’t let me go back to that, understand? If something happens to me, if I lose everything—”

  “You won’t.”

  There was something she wanted to do. Something she wanted to try. “Will you trust me?”

  “Baby, I do. Don’t you see that?”

  “I don’t know how to bring up my own memories. But I think I can give your life back to you. You can remember everything. And if you do,
then we can know all about Lazarus. We know what we signed up for. We know what we’re up against.” She could do this. She would do this. “Let me heal you. Let me give you everything back.” No more secrets. No more lies. He’d have his past. Every single bit of it.

  And since he’d known her before Lazarus, he could help her to discover just who the hell she’d really been, too.

  “Henry wasn’t lying about one thing.” A rough, deep growl rumbled from Maddox. “I do want you more than anything.”

  She could feel her cheeks heating.

  “And I think I wanted you that way, even before Lazarus. When another man had a ring on your finger. I wanted you.” A warning note. “So when we explore my past, shit, it might not be pretty. Maybe I am the jealous bastard Henry described. Maybe you’ll need to get the hell away from me as fast as you can.”

  ***

  The fire hadn’t gone out easily. Even as the sun rose with the dawn, firefighters still fought to control the blaze, but it just kept flaring up. Jett watched from the shadow of the trees, his gaze sweeping the area. He’d journeyed back to the scene deliberately. He hadn’t been lying to Maddox. He was going to make things up to his team leader. He was laying out a scent trail, making it damn obvious that at least one Lazarus soldier had survived. He’d stolen a motorcycle from the facility’s garage, and he was sure that the lab coats would be able to track it down. He’d deliberately left the GPS tracker on the vehicle. They’d spend their time hunting him, and while they did that, Maddox and Luna would be safe.

  It was time to go. His gaze swept the area once more, and he revved the bike’s engine.

  “You’re going to attract too much attention.”

  The voice was low, deep, and far too close.

  Jett’s head whipped to the left. He could see a figure there. A guy who hadn’t made a sound as he approached through the trees.

  “Every good soldier knows you don’t let the enemy see you. You keep a low profile.”

  “You don’t know I’m good.” He bent, reaching for the knife he’d acquired when he’d taken the motorcycle. With a careful move, he slid the knife out of his boot. “And you just let me see you, buddy.”