by J. M. Madden
She frowned and he knew he wasn’t going to like the answer. “He asked me where ‘he’ was.”
Aiden looked down at his boots and sighed. “He must have seen me here yesterday, then he saw us together today and connected the dots.”
“Did you recognize him? Has he been at Harmony House?”
No, and that worried him even more. He shook his head.
She was frowning at him, and there was something soft in her eyes, like concern. Aiden pushed past her, feeling frustrated and hard and angry. But she reached out to grip his arm, and suddenly they were close enough again that he could just lean down and rest his lips against hers. Or she could lean up to kiss him. Which is exactly what she did.
Aiden felt his resolve crumbling as she very gently pressed her lips to his own, then tilted her head and kissed him again. Their lips gave a tiny, intimate click as they separated. Aiden was too surprised to respond. It had been years since he’d been this close to someone in this kind of situation.
His non-response bothered her. When she pulled away he knew she was frowning and her eyes shuttered with disappointment. She started to pull away, but he couldn’t let her think that it was in any way her fault that he couldn’t … react, wholeheartedly.
Before she turned away completely he caught her face in his hand. Then, not knowing what else to do, he lowered his mouth.
Aiden felt rusty. He hadn’t done this in so long. Angela was a beautiful woman and he doubted she stayed home and knitted on the weekends. He had a feeling she had an active social life; maybe even a boyfriend.
The thought shot a lance of pain through his heart and he drew in a harsh breath before kissing her even more deeply. She moaned into his mouth and leaned into him, giving him control of the kiss. Aiden cupped the back of her head, angling his mouth more sharply over hers. Damn, this woman was shattering every bit of his control. He knew he needed to pull away but something stronger than his own self-preservation was connecting him to her. It had been so long since he’d even connected with another person, let alone a woman, and it was a more powerful need than he’d realized.
It was several long seconds before they finally drew apart, as if they both knew that if they didn’t, they would move too fast. At this point, with his body screaming at him, Aiden would have been fine with a rough tumble, but she deserved more than that. And honestly, he did too. It had been so damn long…
“I think we got off track,” Angela murmured, pulling back. She tried to straighten her shirt, then gave up.
“I think that’s an understatement.”
She led him back into the living room and motioned to the couch, but he shook his head. He grabbed the kitchen chair she’d been sitting on moments ago. “I’m pretty grungy right now. I shouldn’t sit on your furniture.”
Angela looked down at herself and apparently decided she was okay, because she collapsed into the corner of the couch. Her legs curled up beside her and for a moment she just shut her eyes and breathed, her elbow propped on the arm of the couch.
Aiden wished he could sit with her, but there was no way he could unless he stripped down. And even then he should probably shower first. It took a lot of dirty work to fit into the homeless guys at Harmony House.
“So, are you going to tell me what’s going on? What is it about Denver that keeps you here?”
He could have probably held out if her voice hadn’t sounded so tired. What right did he have to stress her out this way, let alone put her life in danger? “John Palmer is my brother.”
She frowned as if the name sounded familiar but she couldn’t quite place it.
“He’s one of the investigators at Lost and Found.”
Her pretty mouth dropped open in understanding and he could almost see all of the puzzle pieces falling together. “So that’s why you’ve been hanging around here. You’ve been protecting him. And he’s married to the office manager, Shannon, right?”
“And they have two babies now. My nephews.”
A slight grin curved his mouth because he never thought he’d be able to say that to another living being. It had been a dream to even imagine connecting with his brother, let alone being close enough to glimpse his growing family. There was a whole lot of ache in his chest when he thought about his brother’s family, and pride. It gave Aiden an unexpected thrill of hope that John had been able to make a happy life out of their shitty childhood.
Angela was staring at him curiously. “Sorry. I get a little distracted when I think about my nephews.”
Angela smiled at him and nodded her head. “I’m like that with my sister’s kids. They’re little beasts but I love spoiling the crap out of them.”
Maybe someday they’d get to the point that he could actually do that with Wyatt and Caden. He wanted to be a part of their lives, if just to make sure that the cycle of neglect he and John had dealt with wasn’t passed on. Shannon was not the type to allow that.
“So, what does he say about all this?”
Aiden stared at her, then shook his head. “I haven’t told him about it. The farther I can keep him out of it the better. He’s already been targeted twice.”
“Was the incident at the hospital where Duncan was injured one incident?”
He nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. The knife wound in his side didn’t even twinge anymore and he knew if he looked at it that it would be all but gone. There might be a faint scar, but even that was doubtful.
Angela stared at him like he’d grown three heads. “So, all this time you’ve been running around trying to protect him from unidentified people…”
“Former soldiers and mercenaries,” Aiden corrected.
“Soldiers?”
Aiden sighed, knowing that he was going to have to explain everything for her to understand. “We’re all former soldiers— SEALs, Rangers, Marines, any special forces group. They picked the cream of the crop to test on, and they chose the cream of the crop from every other country that is participating in the study to test on.”
“Who is they?”
“The Silverstone Collaborative.” Her eyes widened at the name of the company known the world over for their philanthropic practices, and he nodded wryly. “They have received multinational government funding to try to build a super-soldier, but they’re using highly effective, dangerous, native drugs to do it. There’s a plant called Ayahuasca that grows in the Amazon River basin. The indigenous people have been using it for years, or at least their medicine men have. The vine causes psychoactive effects and the company has learned to produce and concentrate this medicine more effectively than the natives ever have.”
Sitting back in the chair he crossed an ankle over his opposite knee. “At first they requested volunteers.” He shrugged. “I didn’t go at first, but eventually the guy wore me down and I thought what the hell. I’d been in the SEALs for a good while and thought I might like to try something new. There was a nice bonus attached to the experiment, too. So I agreed to go with the group.”
He blinked, surprised that it was all coming out as easily as it was. “But there was a lot of trial and error in the beginning. The doctor had heard stories but he was just guessing on the dosages. The concentrations were running too strong, or the serum was from a different vine. Anyway, men started dying almost immediately after we got there and the men began to protest. One day everything changed. Our barracks had been gassed overnight and when we woke up we were all in cages. Actual cages. They called them pods, but they were outdoor cells, nothing more.”
He swallowed, remembering that minute, that day, so perfectly in his mind, and wished he could have changed something about it. If wishes were horses…
“We were there for… well, we think at least eight months, but we’re not sure. No one told us anything, they just…” his throat finally closed up and he had to look away from her stricken expression. He cleared his throat. Then again. “Anyway, the drug started having an effect on us. We started healing faster from almost any injury o
r illness they pumped into our blood. Our reaction times got quicker. We hadn’t moved on to the practical tests because they hadn’t figured out how to make us do drills and maneuvers while physically controlling us. But we were damn close.”
Aiden could tell she was having a hard time believing him, but she was now perched on the edge of the cushion, her face incredulous. “My God,” she breathed. “You realize how hard this is to believe, right?”
Aiden sighed and decided not to tell her about what they were able to do with their minds just yet. “I know. But every single word of it is true. There was a man in the camp, one of the prisoners, that managed to take out one of the guards, and we took the chance to escape. But before we did we knew we needed some type of evidence to what was going on in that jungle. We managed to secure four thumb drives and a few other pieces of evidence from the doctor in charge’s office. He was paranoid about his ‘recipes’, he called them. Very diligent, kept very detailed notes. We’re hoping they’re loaded with information about the camp, but we can’t get into them. Four of us escaped from the camp and made it out of the country, and we each took one of the drives when we separated. I think the information from all four needs to be together to release the encryption. Or drive four is the key to release the encryption.”
“And where is drive four?”
He gave her a slight smile. “It’s with a German Navy SEAL, either in Germany or Virginia.”
“Oh, damn. And the others?”
“Drive two I got back when Rector was killed, and drive three is somewhere that way.” He made a vague motion to the north.
Her gaze sharpened on him and Aiden realized he’d kind of given himself away. “How do you know that?”
Fuck. Did he tell her or not?
He thought of the kiss in the bathroom doorway. It had been special to him, and he was glad she’d pulled him to her because that was probably the last touch from a woman, this woman, he’d ever have.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
“The drug also had other effects,” he told her slowly. “Yes, we can heal better but it’s also opened up pathways in our minds, or released limits or something, because the four of us that broke out of the camp were connected psychically, telepathically. Rector was killed when he came to deliver the drive, but he and I were too close to each other, just blocks away from one another. The psychic backlash from his death broke me, sent me reeling. That was when the mess in the alley happened and I woke up in Kansas City.”
There was no expression on her face so Aiden had no idea what she was thinking, but it couldn’t be good. The words he’d just spoken were the first time he’d said them to anyone other than his team. And, from a normal person’s perspective, this wasn’t something you ever expected to hear in life, let alone believe.
As the silence stretched out, the tiny little spark of heat that she’d planted in his chest with her kiss began to chill.
Chapter Ten
Angela tried not to betray herself with her face, but it was very hard to hear news like that and not make some type of response. A million different things were racing through her mind. Was he nuts? And looking for an excuse to wipe away his actions? She pondered that for several seconds, then discarded it. There was too much level-headedness about him. And she didn’t think he was trying to impress her. He’d repeatedly tried not to draw her attention. And he’d been very reluctant to open up to her.
Or had that been an act, the cop side of her personality questioned? She’d learned long ago to suspect that everyone was lying to her until proven otherwise, and it had kept her mentally and physically safe many times. ‘Oh, no, Officer, I don’t have a weapon’. Yeah. Whatever.
But Aiden didn’t strike her as being a showboat. Quite the opposite actually. He’d consistently underplayed himself in all ways, but there was a hidden power to him that needed to be noted. And so far he’d proven to be far saner than she’d expected.
“So,” she said finally, “what kind of physic abilities are we talking about here? Moving things across a room with your laser glare, or what?”
He stared at her for a long moment, as if he didn’t believe that she was even considering believing his story. Then his lips twitched. “No laser glare, sorry. But we’ve learned to finesse people telepathically if the need arises.”
“Finesse?”
He made a motion with his hand. “Mentally suggest something. Fontana realized it first and used it with some of the guards. Then suddenly one day we were getting double the ration of food and water that they normally gave us. Or we would make a suggestion to turn away when we didn’t want them to look at us. Or not make those shackles so tight.”
Her brows lifted at that.
“Prior to that, though, I was rolling through all the torture we’d been through in my mind one day and I must have been broadcasting because Wulfe, our German teammate, yelled at me mentally to shut the fuck up. Shocked the hell out of me. Our cells were separated by about twenty yards, the closest of any of the subjects, but I heard him as clearly as if he’d been in the cell with me. It was … humbling, shocking, that we suddenly had a way to communicate that they didn’t know we had. We built on from there, eventually figuring out who could communicate that way and who couldn’t.”
Angela shook her head. She could see in his dark eyes how much that had affected him, and he even seemed to get a little glassy eyed with the memory. If she had been treated like an animal and locked away and tested upon, she would grasp at any kind of connection like that as well.
“What…” She seemed at a loss for words. “What can you do?”
He took another heavy breath. “I, specifically, have some telepathic abilities. All four of us that escaped were able to connect mentally. I’m a little precognitive, as well as telekinetic. My gut instinct is sharper than normal. Fontana is a more talented telekinetic than I am. Actually, a lot more. I’m not sure how he does the things he does. Wulfe is a bit of everything. Our skills have grown since we’ve left the camp. Not sure if it’s because of the environment or what. Maybe it’s just the lack of abuse.”
She opened her mouth to ask something then stopped, not sure she wanted to know the answer.
His jaw firmed, like he knew what she was curious about. “This is your chance to ask. Ask.”
“What did they do to you? How did they test you?”
Tension thrummed through the room and his fists began to tighten and release. He was silent for a long time and she was just about to lean forward and tell him not to worry about it when he glanced away, as if he didn’t want to look at her when he told her.
“They started out small. Dosed… infected us with the common cold, or a strain of the flu. There were twenty of us in the group and we were broken into four smaller groups. We each received a disease or illness. When we continued to heal faster than they expected, they started stepping up the tests. We were given smallpox and malaria, worms, you name it.” He ran his hand over several small scars on his tan arm. They looked like needle scars. “Then when those didn’t keep us down, they started adding injuries. Broken fingers, arms, legs. One of the French Marines had his back broken. Knife wounds, gunshot wounds. And this was all while surviving in the Amazon jungle on little to no food or water. They wanted to replicate actual wartime conditions.”
Angela was horrified. She’d seen and done a lot of things as a cop and even more as Marine, but she couldn’t imagine a person, let alone a company, taking part in the torture of humans. Yes, theoretically, she knew it happened, but she’d never actually met anyone that had been a part of anything like it. “How… people can’t survive that.”
His gaze lifted to hers, his eyes hard. “We did. Some of us anyway. The subjects that died were studied as much as those living. After they were autopsied and samples were taken of their brain tissue, they were sent back to their home country, where they were sampled some more, I assume. As far as I know no one has seen able to reverse engineer what they did to us.”
She shook her head, dumbfounded. “I just don’t know what to say. I really don’t.”
Angela was aware that she looked at Aiden with new respect now, because he had survived so much. Deliberately, she looked at his clenching fists and the anxiety in his eyes, noting how hard he was controlling his emotions. Those were the only tells and if she hadn’t been looking for them she wouldn’t have realized how effected he was.
Her heart ached for the man. He’d been a war hero, fighting for their country, and the country had sold him out. Anger began to build in her gut. “Who’s responsible for this?”
Aiden gave her a sad smile. “Well, there are many people that are responsible. The National Institutes of Health, with the cooperation of the Department of Defense, granted the Silverstone Collaborative what amounts to a free pass to get the program up and running, but they didn’t want any details on how it was getting done. Plausible deniability, you know. The company is responsible for the most part. They promised a product and now they’re doing their damnedest to produce one. So far, though, the four of us that escaped are the most advanced. At least that I’m aware of.” Some of the light in his eyes dimmed. “Three of us now.”
Angela sank back against the couch back. “I just don’t know what to think,” she told him honestly. “This is like something out of a science fiction movie. I’m so sorry you lost your friend.”
Aiden gave a single nod. “Thank you. Yeah, he was a good guy. And, yes, I agree, it does sound like a movie. It took them a long time to tell us what the program was about and we were openly skeptical, but they showed us a video of a witch doctor running through the tree canopy. It wasn’t staged or manipulated. The drug actually works, but they’re going about using it in the wrong way.”
“There needs to be some kind of … protest or something. Are there people still in the camp that you left?”
He shrugged. “We’re not sure. There were a few men left, but they were much weaker psychically. We couldn’t reach their minds to let them know we were breaking out. The four of us hoped that they took advantage of the ruckus we made as we left.” He made a motion with his hands. “At the time we were in survival mode.”