Lie Close to Me

by Cynthia Eden

  “No?” Sawyer raised his eyebrows. “That what your special talent is? Hunting?”

  He wasn’t ready to play the sharing game on exactly what he could do, not yet. “You’ll know my talent when you see it.” He turned away.

  “Fire.”

  Maddox stilled.

  “I remember…” Sawyer’s voice had turned musing. “Adam could manipulate fire.”

  Maddox glanced over his shoulder, a very bad feeling spreading in his gut.

  “Saw him do it once, when we were in the field. A vehicle had exploded after taking some bullets.” Sawyer’s lips thinned. “The line of flames was coming straight for us, but he, hell, it’s hard to explain, but it was like he pulled back his hands and he could push the fire back. Like send a surge of wind at it. Thought it was damn impressive at the time, but he told me it would only have been really impressive if he’d been able to make the fire. He couldn’t do that. He could only control it once the flames started.”

  “That’s why the sonofabitch set our labs to blow,” Maddox realized. “Once he started the fire, he could get it to do anything he wanted.”

  Sawyer looked as worried as Maddox felt. “Did you see him die?”

  Maddox’s gaze flew to Jett. “No.” He swallowed. “Jett was trapped downstairs. I went to get him out.”

  “And I’m going to fucking be forever grateful for that fact,” Jett muttered.

  “You don’t leave a friend behind.” His gaze swung back to Sawyer, and the guy was watching him with a glint of respect in his eyes. Maddox’s jaw tightened. “Luna saw him die. Luna fired the shot that ended him.”

  “Maybe we need to make extra sure of that. Ask your lady again, get full details.” Sawyer shoved back his shoulders. “I’d like to know all of the enemies we’ve got coming for us. Easier to stop them that way.”

  Maddox turned from him, heading for Luna. The last thing he wanted to do was grill Luna about her ex. The guy was dead. Time for Adam to stop haunting them.

  He marched down the corridor. Rapped lightly at the door to the exam room. Luna’s voice—nervous and a little shaky—called out, and he pushed open the door.

  She was alone in the room. Sitting on the exam table, wearing a hospital gown. Her feet were bare, and her toes were curling nervously under. She gave him a weak smile before speaking. “Elizabeth…she, um, she had to set up some different tests.” Her gaze wouldn’t meet his, and he could hear the frantic racing of her heartbeat. “Little change of plans.”

  He shut the door behind him. Stalked toward her. His hand curled under her chin as he tipped her head back, forcing her to look at him. “What’s happened?”

  Light spots of color stained her cheeks. And her eyes gleamed. “I…I just didn’t think. I was feeling with you. And I was—I wanted you. I was happy, and I didn’t think…”

  Her words were tumbling out in rapid-fire succession.

  “Baby, slow down.”

  She eased out a slow breath. “Pregnancy.”

  Her heart was racing. His absolutely stopped.

  “You and me,” she continued quickly. “I mean, I know the sex just happened recently, so it’s too soon to tell, but I didn’t stop to think that we weren’t using protection.”

  She thought he’d made her pregnant. He damn well wished. “It can’t happen.”

  The gleam in her eyes died away.

  “Henry told me—back in the early days at the lab. He said the Lazarus subjects couldn’t have kids. We died, Luna. We’re dead men and women. Life can’t come from death.”

  Her lips trembled. “But…but Elizabeth said…”

  A knock sounded at the door. He caught Elizabeth’s scent, drifting to him, and she called out, “Luna? Is it okay if I come back inside?”

  The spots of color weren’t on Luna’s cheeks any longer. If fact, she seemed too pale. “Luna.” He barely breathed her name. “Did you want to have my baby?”

  “I did.” A hoarse whisper. “I think a little boy who looked like you would have been quite spectacular.” A smile came and went on her lips. “For some reason, after Elizabeth asked me if I might be pregnant, I just started picturing him. And us playing together on a beach, making sand castles.” Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them away. “But it was all just a mistake. Elizabeth didn’t understand.”

  The knock came again. “Luna?” Elizabeth called. “Everything okay?”

  No, everything was not okay. Luna was crying. A tear had slid down her cheek.

  But Luna replied, voice husky, “Yes, it’s fine. You can come in.”

  Maddox stayed planted right in front of Luna, shielding her. He didn’t want anyone else to see her pain. His hand moved to her cheek, and he brushed away the tear. Anger coursed through him as he stared into Luna’s eyes, and when he spoke, that anger burned in each word, “Dr. Parker, if you want our cooperation, you shouldn’t lie to Luna.”

  Elizabeth’s footsteps stopped. “I haven’t lied to her.”

  “You told Luna that she could get pregnant.” He finally turned to look at the doctor. “But Henry Danwith explained to me and Jett that Lazarus soldiers couldn’t have kids. Hell, the bastard acted like we should be pleased. Said when we were on missions, we should always take some time to enjoy ourselves since the risk was gone.”

  Her eyes widened. “OhmyGod.”

  Not the response he’d expected.

  She bounded toward him. “He was encouraging you to have unprotected sex?”

  “Henry said our bodies would heal from any diseases we got. Sure, we don’t heal as fast as Luna, but he told me our genetics were different. He—”

  “He lied,” Elizabeth exclaimed. “Didn’t you notice? Wasn’t he giving off any signs? Elevated heartbeat? Sweating? Pupil dilation? I know you can pick up things like that. Lazarus subjects are nearly human lie detectors.”

  Maddox’s shoulders stiffened. “Henry was good at lying.”

  “Probably because the guy sounds like a psychopath. And to think, I knew him and didn’t even realize this shit.” She rocked forward onto the balls of her feet. “He lied, though, he did because…oh, man, it sounds like he wanted you and the others to get women pregnant. Probably another experiment.”

  “What?” Maddox didn’t like where this was going. Henry loved his freaking experiments.

  “Listen to me.” Elizabeth’s whole body was tense. “There is no reason why you can’t have children. I mean, unless there’s something I don’t know about you, specifically, and I can certainly test you both to make certain but…as far as the other Lazarus subjects are concerned…the subjects I’ve examined before…you can have kids. Your bodies are functioning normally so there isn’t any reason to suspect a problem.”

  Maddox felt rooted to the spot. “But Henry said…” He stopped because he realized the truth—another fucking lie. “He wanted the kids. That bastard wanted us to get someone pregnant.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “As far as I know, we haven’t had a Lazarus birth. We don’t know if the enhancements the test subjects have will or will not be passed to future offspring.” She bit her lower lip. “I suspect they would be.”

  And Henry had wanted to see for certain. Sonofabitch.

  “If you’ve had unprotected sex with other women out there, women who might be pregnant, we’d need to find them.” Elizabeth’s voice held an urgency. “It’s possible that Henry could have been tracking them, watching for the development of the pregnancy—”

  “I told you already,” Maddox gritted out, “Henry is dead.”

  “But other scientists from your facility aren’t. And a Lazarus child would be something they’d be very interested in seeing. So I’m sorry, but we need the names of those women. We need to check them for their own safety, and if any of them are about to have a Lazarus baby, a baby with genetic enhancements, don’t you think that is something the mothers should be told about?”

  Maddox looked back at Luna. “There was no one for me…no one but Luna.”

>   She stared into his eyes.

  He bent forward, his forehead resting against hers. “If I’d known, I would have used protection, Luna. I would never take a choice like that away from you.”

  Elizabeth cleared her throat. “Do you happen to know about Jett—”

  “You’ll have to talk to him.” And Andreas—wherever the hell he was—he’d been told the same lie, too.

  So many lies. Would they ever stop?

  He backed away from Luna, but she caught his hand in hers. “I can’t imagine having a child…”

  Pain knifed through his chest.

  “With anyone but you,” Luna finished softly.

  Sweet hell. “Luna?”

  “Maybe when we’re safe. Maybe when the madness is past us…maybe then we can have a real life.” Her gaze didn’t waver from his. “Because I’d really like to have that, with you.”

  She wasn’t saying she loved him. Wasn’t swearing eternal devotion. But what she was saying was one huge step in the right direction. He brought their linked hands to his mouth. Pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “Sweetheart, one day you’ll realize, I’ll always give you everything you want.”

  Everything.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “We have a problem.” Elizabeth shoved her hands into the pockets of her lab coat as she faced the occupants of the exam room.

  As soon as she heard the one word, problem, Luna felt her heart squeeze in her chest. They’d finished the exams—so many exams that her head had been spinning. But the tests had finally ended. Luna had dressed in jeans and a loose top, put sneakers on her feet, and she’d started to feel normal.

  Until Elizabeth had just made her little announcement.

  Luna immediately rose from the couch. Maddox was right with her, rising, too, his shoulder brushing against hers. Sawyer stood to the left, his intense gaze on the doctor.

  But Elizabeth’s stare was on Luna. “I think we should talk alone, first.”

  Luna shook her head. “No.” She’d been alone plenty. “Whatever you’ve got, I want Maddox to hear it.” What was wrong? What is wrong with me?

  Sawyer stepped toward the door. “I’ll give you privacy—”

  “No,” Luna said again. No more secrets. No more lies. If they were all going to work together, then… “Is this something that will influence us all?”

  Her expression grave, Elizabeth said, “Yes, I’m afraid it is. And we need to act now.”

  “What in the hell is it?” Maddox’s hand wrapped around Luna’s. Tightened. “Is she sick? Is something wrong?”

  “There is a tracker inside of Luna.”

  Luna shook her head. Her hand automatically moved to her side. “No.” She smiled, realizing that Elizabeth was wrong. “I cut it out already. There was one under my scar before, but—”

  “It’s inside your heart, Luna.”

  What? Luna laughed because… “No.” She pulled her hand from Maddox. Touched her chest. “That’s just not possible. I mean…I don’t have any scars or anything at all. If something was put in my heart—”

  “You don’t scar any longer, baby,” Maddox said, his voice halting. “You heal too fast. Look at your neck in a mirror. The skin is still pink, but you don’t have a scar.”

  She shook her head, and her gaze stayed on Elizabeth. “I can’t have something in my heart.”

  “You do. And I almost missed it since we weren’t doing all of the exams and scans because…” Elizabeth exhaled, then gave a brisk shake of her head.

  Luna knew what the other woman had been about to say. Because of the possible pregnancy.

  “It’s there,” Elizabeth told her. “A small tracking device was implanted in your heart. Whoever did it probably suspected you would never find it there. Normally, it would cause death to the person it was implanted in but because of your healing strengths, your body is constantly adjusting to it.”

  “I’ll be damned.” Sawyer’s rough exclamation. “Someone wanted to always be able to find Luna.”

  “Get it out of me,” Luna snapped.

  All eyes turned to her.

  “Get it out,” she said again. Fear and fury pulsed within her. As long as that tracker was inside of her, none of them would be safe. Whoever was tracking her could find them all. Her tracker would lead to Maddox, to Jett, to Sawyer, to Flynn, to—

  “I can’t,” Elizabeth said quietly. “Not without killing you.”

  “Fucking hell.” Maddox’s face was lined with fury.

  “No.” Luna was definite on this. “There has to be a way. I mean…heart surgeries are done all the time. People are sedated or whatever, and surgeries are done.”

  Elizabeth’s expression remained grave. “I’m not a heart surgeon. I don’t have the skills to remove the tracker.”

  “Then we find a surgeon who can do it!” Maddox immediately fired. “We get it out of her.”

  “We’d have to get a heart surgeon we could trust.” Sawyer crossed his arms over his chest. “He’d want to know how the tracker got in her. Why it was there. How the hell she could heal so fast because there would be anomalies occurring during the surgery itself.”

  Her heart was racing in her chest. “That’s what happened to me in that shithole hospital.” Her hand pressed to her heart. “I was strapped to the table, and our mystery doctor put the tracker in my heart.”

  “Someone went to one hell of a lot of trouble…” Sawyer added darkly.

  She turned to face Maddox. “That someone knows where I am right now. We can’t stay here.” She motioned toward Sawyer and Elizabeth. “And they aren’t safe with us. If I can be found—they can all be found.”

  Run. That’s what they had to do. Run and get the hell away from there.

  “We need to all just take a moment and think,” Sawyer said. He was obviously trying to sound calm. A tactic that didn’t work because when Luna focused, she could hear his frantically pounding heart. He was just as worried as she was. “Look, we don’t know what kind of range that tracker has on it. We don’t know if it’s even transmitting. We—”

  “First order of business.” Maddox pulled Luna’s hand from her heart. “Find the best heart surgeon in the world.”

  “Jay can do that.” Elizabeth nodded. “He’ll throw money at the doctor, enough cash to buy his or her silence.”

  “Step two,” Maddox added, “is we separate. Right the hell now. Because we don’t know who could be tracking Luna, and until we do…” His gaze swept the room. “It isn’t safe for us to be together. We get burner phones, we keep in contact that way. Once you’ve got the surgeon, you call Luna. We work out step freaking three then.” Maddox shook his head. “The people tracking her could be closing in on us right now. Oh, shit…” He seemed to come to a realization. “That’s how the asshole in the big rig knew where we were. He was waiting there to ambush us because he was monitoring Luna. I wondered how he’d gotten to us, and that’s it.”

  I’m putting them all in danger. That big rig crash…Maddox had been hurt so badly. And if she hadn’t gotten him out of the flames…he wouldn’t have come back to me.

  She was a danger to everyone until the tracker came out of her chest.

  “Getting us away from that scene by using your chopper bought us time.” Maddox was obviously considering all angles. “We moved fast and far, so whoever is out there got left behind. And the fact that the super soldier they were using is dead—that’s another road block in their path.”

  But road blocks wouldn’t be there forever. Luna straightened her shoulders. “We have another option.”

  Their stares slid back to her. “Cut it out,” she said, nodding briskly, “and let me heal.”

  “I told you,” Elizabeth argued, voice strained, “I could kill you—”

  “It’s not a bullet to the brain.” She tried to sound confident. “I’ll come back.”

  Maddox spun her to face him. “And you’ll lose everything.”

  Didn’t he understand? “I almost lost y
ou in that crash. I led that bastard to you. You are everything to me, and I can’t lose you. So if I have to get strapped to a table and get this thing cut out of me in order for you to survive, I’ll do it.”

  “No.” His eyes blazed. “Not an option. Not ever a fucking option.”

  “Maddox—”

  “No.” A guttural growl. “Not. An. Option.”

  For his survival, it was.

  “We have vehicles waiting downstairs.” Sawyer’s voice held no emotion. “And we’ve already got plenty of burner phones and cash set to go.”

  Luna turned to him in surprise.

  A faint smile curled his lips. “Definitely not my first ball game.” The smile faded. “And before we start cutting into you, before we risk you losing your memories—let’s explore the other options. I’m betting Jay can have us the best heart surgeon in the country on stand-by within hours. We get to a different facility—we regroup in case someone has tracked us to this location—and we keep going forward.”

  She could only shake her head. “You’re all risking your lives for me.”

  “You’re one of us,” Sawyer replied simply. “It’s what we do.” He glanced down at his watch. “Now we need to get moving. We don’t know if we’ve got time to spare, or if the enemy is about to be at our door, and I’m not the kind of man who takes chances.”

  Luna hurried toward him. He was a stranger, but he was doing so much to help her. It seemed only fair that she try to pay him back. “Thank you.” Her hands pressed to his chest. She felt the tingle in her fingertips. Saw the flare of his pupils. She lifted her right hand. Touched his temple.

  “Luna…” Maddox touched her shoulder.

  She didn’t stop, not yet. She had to give something back.

  Sawyer’s breath rushed out. His hand lifted and his fingers curled around her wrist. “Thank you.” His voice was gruff. “But you need to go now. Take the blue SUV downstairs. There are plenty of vehicles down there, but the SUV has a burner phone and a gun in the glove box.” He dug a pair of keys from his pocket. Pushed them into her hand. “I’ll call you as soon as Jay has a doctor ready for you. I have the burner’s number. I can make contact with you. In order for this to all work, you have to go.”