by Nana Malone
No matter how he tried to focus on her soothing voice, the gruesome images of the last several hours kept flooding back to him.
He remembered leaning against a black SUV, holding a gun to her shoulder. The way she gritted her teeth when he pulled the trigger made him shudder. No. It was his imagination. The last clear memory he had was being pissed off at Peter Reeser while he tried to find his hotel. Everything else was a hazy movie.
Except, in his mind, the angel’s voice rang clear as a church bell and the rain came down in torrents the dark haired woman put a gun in his hand.
She’d said, “I need you to help me. If we don’t disable this tracer chip, they’ll find us again.”
He remembered not understanding her next command. “Shoot me.”
Say what the hell? “Excuse me?”
“My tracking chip. It's in my shoulder. You shoot it, it'll be disarmed, and I can likely remove it myself. But I can’t shoot it at the right angle, so I need you to pull the trigger.”
She grabbed a fleece jacket from her backpack. “Not a pillow, but this should help muffle the sound.”
Even with his body quaking in pain, his reporter’s instinct had tried to ferret out the story. “I’ll shoot on one condition. You start talking about just what the fuck is going on around here.”
She’d hesitated for only a second before answering. “Deal.”
He’d wondered if he could he really shoot the woman? What if she was mentally unstable? Although, he had just seen his car levitate and roll down a hill. The good news was if he was dreaming, at least he would be awake soon. Leave it to him to conjure up a hot woman, fully clothed and asking him to shoot her.
“Seth?” Her voice had been soft. Almost like she was telling him everything would be okay.
“Yeah?”
“You need to shoot before I start talking.”
Well, how was that for romantic? He had drawn in a deep breath, prayed to every God he ever read about that this was, indeed, a dream and pulled the trigger. A loud pop issued from the gun, but the sound was muted. Cassie didn't shout, didn’t howl, and didn’t whimper—the tensing of her body was the only indication of pain. Blood oozed from the wound, but she did not move.
“Cassie? Cassie? Shit, you told me to shoot you. Please don’t do something stupid and die.”
When she’d spoken, her voice had been hoarse. “I underestimated how much that would hurt.”
“Are you kidding me? It's a gunshot wound.”
With her good arm, she moved him aside, and then stood in front of the side mirror of the SUV. “Yes, I know I just took a bullet, but I process pain very differently than you do. My shoulder still hurts, but it’s more like a deep throb than the lancing pain I've been told about. By morning, I’ll have no scar.”
A knot of horror gripped his gut as he had watched her fish in her shoulder with her good hand. Deft fingers probed flesh and muscle. She kept her eyes trained on the mirror even as her hand did the gruesome work. She hadn’t even flinched.
Seth’s stomach rolled. “God, please don’t let this be real.”
She pulled out what looked like a tiny black marble, and finally turned to him. “I really wish I could say you were dreaming. I'm sorry I put you in danger. It’s something I'll regret for the rest of my life.”
“Seth. Seth, look at me.”
That golden voice pulled him from the memory and he tried to focus on the present. With his good arm, he reached for her.
“Good, glad to see you're listening. Your brain functional yet?”
His brain? Yes, that fuzzy pile of mush responsible for his body. Slowly, clarity dawned, as he took in the worn paisley drapes and drab pale carpeting. Their room was standard cheap motel fare, nothing extraordinary except the woman in it. Flashing images of his car floating off a cliff edge escaped from his memory lockbox. He dragged his mind back to dull-spoon sharpness and he fixed his eyes on her again. “Who are you?”
Rolling her eyes, she stood over him. “Cassie, remember? We don’t have time for this. I need to try and heal you. It’ll be easier if you don’t fight me. Please try to remember that.”
Ahhh yes, there it was. Full memory. He was stuck following a crazy woman. She used some insane magic trick and shoved his car off a cliff because some guys were chasing her. And she dragged him uphill where they'd stolen the Trackers’ car, driven it ten miles, then stolen another car.
That's right. He was in the Twilight Zone. “Cassie.” His voice sounded gravelly and using his arms, he pushed himself up into a sitting position. Not the brightest idea he ever had. Pain shot through his extremities.
“Be careful. I don’t 'know what that Nisulin shit will do to you. And I can’t heal you if you move around too much and do more damage.”
Seth looked her over from head to toe. Her jet black hair was in need of a good brush, but the strands glinted in the dim light of the room. Her eyes were bright and alert. No pupil dilation so she wasn’t on drugs. They were the palest shade of winter green. He scanned to her collar bone and stopped. A thick gauze bandage was taped to her shoulder. For the love of God, he really had shot her.
She cocked her head, eying him, as if she expected him to run out the door screaming. “C’mon, I'll help you up.”
“What the hell did those assholes shoot me with?”
Cassie propped him up with pillows. “Nisulin bullets. We need to stich you up.”
Seth stayed as still as possible and silently wondered where he'd taken the wrong turn to freaky town. “What are Nisulin bullets? What part of start talking did you forget about?”
Her eyes narrowed as she flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I hoped you’d forget that.” She sighed. “But I suppose a deal's a deal. I hope I don’t regret this.”
His head swam. His body rejected the ‘this is a dream scenario.” He lay back and stared at her sewing kit sitting beside a whisky bottle. “Do you really plan on stitching me up with that stuff?”
Nodding, she handed him the bottle. “Drink this. It should help a little.”
After he took a swig, she yanked his pants down past his injury. This couldn’t be a dream. Because in his imagination, she would be taking his pants off for a far different reason. He shifted uncomfortably hoping the tenor of his thoughts didn’t manifest in his shorts. “You don't have to do this.” He cleared his throat, trying to rid it of that husky quality.
She smiled and her full lips separated to show a row of teeth. “Don’t worry. I'll leave your virtue intact, Ace. I just want to do what I can to help.”
She retrieved the bottle. “This will hurt, but I need you not to shout. I don’t have the strength to mind push any witnesses right now.”
“Mind push. Right. You still haven't started talking.”
She poured the whiskey into his leg wound. He belatedly remembered what she said about shouting, so he slapped his jaw shut and muttered a string of curses to make his marine buddies proud.
Concern etched on her face, she frowned. “I'm so sorry. I don’t know what Nisulin will do to you, but I'm hoping some of this alcohol will kill whatever's in there.”
Concrete thought escaped him for another moment. When his mind cleared, he ground out one word. “Talk.”
Chapter Five
Cassie focused on the task at hand and not the fact that her hands were within inches of Seth’s genitals. With a control she never tested before, she ignored the rush of heat spiking under her skin. The conflicting emotions confused her so she filed them away for later evaluation. Instead, she put her attention to the thin line of stiches, keeping her eyes on the expanse of muscled leg and not the intriguing bulge just inches away from her fingertips. Her mouth went dry as Seth’s leg shifted bringing his hips up.
Keep your eyes on the wound and not the rest of his body. Her nostrils flared at the new scent in the air. The scent of sandalwood filled the room. Cassie wondered if he was as aware of her as she was of him.
“You were there to get t
he scoop on Gentech and their plans with Symcore for biological weapons.” She drew in a breath, not sure how much she could really tell him without further endangering him. Though, it wasn’t like he would ever see her again after the morning. She had a plan, and it didn’t include getting him killed. “Well it's worse than you imagined. Peter’s making human weapons.”
Seth's chestnut brows drew down and she wasn’t sure if this was because of her words or the stiches. Again she tried to read him and again a headache bloomed between her eyes so she shut down the connection.
He raised an eyebrow. “Explain human weapons.”
Even after all that happened, he was still skeptical. “As a child, I had a congenital heart defect. The condition kept me from doing a lot. Everything actually. I was always sick. My father worked for years to improve my quality of life. And I had some improvement. I could go to school, even the occasional sleep-over. He died when I was sixteen, leaving me in the care of my older brother. Peter was a genetics wunderkind having graduated from Harvard with his PhD in genetic science and a medical degree from Columbia all before he was twenty-six. He worked for my father for years and was already poised to make some radical changes.”
She carefully tied off the knot of his stitches and inspected her work.
“When I came home from boarding school, things were different of course. I was so depressed I didn't know what to do with myself. Being near Peter helped a little, but nothing made up for the loss of my father.”
Ice licked her skin at the memory. “Two weeks before my seventeenth birthday, I had a major relapse. I spent the next two months in the hospital. That’s when Peter came to me with a solution.”
Seth flopped his head back against the pillows and studied her, all traces of sarcastic humor wiped from his face and replaced with a scowl. “What did he do to you, Cassie?”
“He had me moved out of the hospital and back home. And at the time, I was so happy to be away from the sterility and loneliness that I didn’t see what was happening. I was being isolated. Gradually, over time, I wasn’t allowed any friends. Then, I wasn’t allowed to go out.” She sighed. “The experiments started small. Peter tried several medications. Eventually the doctors I’d seen my whole life were replaced by Peter’s experts. The drug combinations my doctors tried were replaced by experimental ones produced by Gentech. Peter told me they'd help me feel better. And in some ways they did. I started getting stronger and my appetite came back. I went to his labs every day for observation. He spent the majority of his time there and I wanted to be with him.” She shook her head. “I was so stupid and blind.”
“You seem healthy now.”
Cassie shrugged. “If that’s what you want to call it.” She cleared her throat and continued. “At first, the tests were simple mind games and sports to keep up my strength and help me stay fit. Finally, I was moved to intravenous medications. When I would ask what I was being given, Peter always said he would never hurt me, that I should relax.”
Cassie covered Seth’s hips with the blanket and moved closer to the headboard to work on his shoulder. “I'm going to have to cut your shirt off to make this work.” He nodded and she flushed. He was just the kind of guy she'd have had a major crush on before Peter made her a monster.
With tiny deliberate snips, she cut away his shirt, careful of his shoulder. She'd been around men half her life, but never enjoyed this kind of closeness. She tried to fixate on his shoulder and not how good he smelled, despite the blood. His stomach was flat with a hint of six-pack abs, but With his slim frame and hard, lean leg muscles, she could tell he was more a running guy not one of those muscle-heads on television.
“Did you ever try to escape?”
His question caught her off guard. “Every once in a while when I complied with his tests and took my medication without complaint, he used to let me out of the labs so I could have friends over to the house. One time I snuck out to see a boy. Harmless teenager stuff. When he discovered me climbing back in the window, he grounded me, and told me I wouldn’t be spending my free time with anyone he didn’t approve of. Then he assigned me a caretaker. Only the guy was more refrigerator-sized James Bond than Nanny McPhee.”
“I don’t understand. How does Symcore play into all of this?”
“I’m getting there. The second time I ran was when the telepathy abilities started to manifest. I thought I was losing my mind. At the very least becoming schizophrenic or something. All those voices all at once. When I told Peter, he wasn’t surprised. More like thrilled. He wondered what had taken so long for them to manifest as my brain scans were off the charts.”
She shuddered at the memory. “I was already stronger than his best projections. He didn’t realize until later that I’d read him and knew what he planned. The drugs he gave me weren’t to help me, but rather part of his sick experiments to make human beings faster, stronger, more agile. He planned to sell the technology to Symcore. Their research on lab animals had been marginally successful, but only on the youngest ones. My asshole of a brother needed human subjects, but what parent in their right mind would sign their child up for risky experiments?”
Seth frowned, but he used his good arm and reached over to the bedside table for his recorder. Clicking the record button, he asked, “Do you know what he was giving you? Do you have access to any samples?”
“You mean besides what’s in my blood?” She shook her head. “On the night of my second escape, I stole a sleeping pill from the lab and slipped it into my bodyguard’s coffee. I made it thirty miles before Peter’s men found me. After that, I was moved to the labs full time.”
Seth narrowed his eyes. “How long ago was that?”
“Five years ago. I've been locked in the labs ever since.” She met his eyes and wanted to shrink back at the kindness in his gaze. The man she drugged, Peter made her watch as his men killed him.
“I assume that wasn’t the last time you ran.”
She smiled. “I never made it very far. Peter has all his employees wear these special earphones. They emit a frequency I can’t get past to read or push minds. They’re a mandatory part of the uniform. Plus only those on a need-to-know list ever had contact with me. Didn’t stop me, though. My father always said I was stubborn.”
Seth cursed under his breath. “How did you manage to get out this time?”
“This time I had help.” Her voice softened at the thought of Annabel. She didn’t want to concentrate on the destiny waiting for her friend. “Peter’s had a deal with Symcore for months. I’m part of the deal. Symcore gets me, and if they like how I perform, they’ll supply Gentech with more lab subjects. When I found that out, I knew I had to get out or die trying.”
The frown lines on his forehead were deep as he scribbled. “Do you have any proof with you to back up your claim?”
“Besides being a walking freak show? No. The only thing I was able to sneak out of there was a file of potential lab locations. I’m not the only person my brother has done this too. He had Annabel’s son, promised to fix his blood disorder like he fixed my heart failure. But also like me, soon after Jeremy started to recuperate, Peter isolated him. I promised Annabel I’d get him out.”
Seth scrubbed his good hand down his face. “That’s some story.”
She sighed. “It’s okay. You don’t have to believe me.” She shrugged. “Your wounds look like they’ll heal well. I’ll be out of your hair in no time and I can become one of those bizarre stories you tell your friends.”
He tapped the pen impatiently on the notepad. “Occam’s razor, Honey. From the outside this sounds like a tale spun by a mentally disturbed woman.”
Cassie tied off the stiches at his shoulder and inched back from him. “Every time I overuse my powers, I get drained. That's my Kryptonite, I guess.” She shrugged. “As it stands, today, I’m surprised I’m still functional. I didn’t have to push too many people, but the physical exertion and my attempts to push you have depleted me.” She touched her shoulder
. “That’s why I wanted to make sure the chip was disabled before we settled. Destroying it bought us some time.”
“And what makes you think I won't sell you out the moment you're asleep. For all I know, you're a crazy person who watches way too many X-Men movies.”
She wondered the same thing. “Because I saved your life. Because you're a reporter and you know there's a story here. Because you're not a complete asshole, even though you may think you are.”
He snapped his jaw shut and tapped his temple. “Do us both a favor and stay out of here, okay?”
Cassie cleaned up the bloody gauze and screwed on the cap of the whiskey. “Don’t worry. Not only would I not breach someone’s privacy like that, but you’re too thick-skulled for me to read. Forget mind pushing you altogether. I don’t need that kind of migraine.” She shook her head. “Pardon my attempt to psychoanalyze. Seems easier in the movies.”
He barked out a laugh. “You’re telling me I'm an unreadable son-of-a-bitch. You and my ex-girlfriends would agree.”
“Not unreadable exactly, but every time I've tried, the resistance causes me a good deal of pain. I’m not anxious to repeat the experience. Your mind is strong. And the stronger the mind, the harder it is on me. Those soldiers in the woods were easier. Although, the higher the rank, the more they exert free will.”
Seth let out a long breath. “I want to close my eyes and pretend none of this is real. But I saw you take down that guy tonight. I watched as he picked off his own guys. I stood there while you levitated my car off the edge of the road. For now, I’m clinging to my dream scenario, even though I'm in too much pain to make that believable.” He reached toward her and brushed a strand of hair from her face. “I have to tell you, as hallucinations go, you’re beautiful.”
Cassie wanted to hold onto the beautiful part of his statement, but she couldn’t. She had to concentrate on healing him. The sooner she started, the sooner they could both get some needed rest, and the sooner she could search out Jeremy and the others. “I’m going to try and heal you, but I'm not sure it'll work.”