It had been a long time since that had occurred with anyone outside of his family. Not since his days in the Army or maybe the year or so after, when he had been an EMT.
Certainly never with a woman.
And despite the camo and the glow, Caterina was all woman.
It was there in the press of her breasts against his chest as he eased her onto the sofa and held her. In the softness of her hair which tangled with his fingers as he pushed it back from her forehead, offering comfort.
“It’ll be okay, Cat,” he said and she sighed softly, her warm breath spilling against the side of his neck.
Liliana gingerly entered the room, concern etched onto her features. When she saw Mick had it under control, she sat down in the chair across from them, vigilant.
Mick continued his soft caress and leaned his head against the top of Caterina’s as it rested on his shoulder.
He looked across to Liliana and she bopped her head in Caterina’s direction. He knew what she wanted to do.
“Will you let Liliana examine you so we know what’s happening?”
Caterina shivered in his grasp, but nodded.
Liliana popped up from the chair, rushed from the room and then came back with her medical bag. She laid her hand on Caterina’s forearm and stroked it gently. “Let me see your eyes, Cat.”
Caterina turned her head toward Liliana, but her gaze remained downcast. Fearful.
Liliana tucked her forefinger under Caterina’s chin and urged her head up slightly. With her penlight, she illuminated Caterina’s irises, activating the phosphorescent trackers which shot off a bright blue-green glow.
Releasing her chin, Liliana swept the penlight across her skin. Her skin reflected the light as if Caterina had dusted her flesh with body glitter.
“I don’t recall seeing this behavior before. How about you?” Liliana asked Mick.
He thought back to the night he had captured Caterina. There had been the weird fluorescent blood and skin camo, but nothing like this unusual glow.
“Definitely a ‘no’. I’m gathering that’s not good news.”
Liliana shook her head. “Carmen said the cells were replicating at amazing rates. Maybe so much so that they’re overwhelming the true cells in her body.”
Caterina uttered a shocked, “I want to stay human. I want to stop this.”
“Focus for me, Cat,” he murmured, aware that was the one thing that had worked so far to bring her back to reality.
* * *
Caterina gripped his shoulder roughly. His body jerked and a sharp exhalation of pain escaped him. She tempered her hold and concentrated on the gentle tug of his hand against her hair. On the constant heart beat beside hers with its regular human beat.
Before their eyes, the deep coral color and glowing bits on her skin and in her eyes faded while the outlines disappeared and normal sight returned to Caterina.
When Caterina dared to look up at Mick, she tried to explain what she had experienced.
“I wasn’t sure I was supposed to come down.”
“Mi casa e su casa,” he replied.
“When I got downstairs, I heard you, but all I could see were weird auras around everything and all these strange colors.” She shot an anxious look from him to his sister and then back. “I don’t want to be someone’s lab experiment. I want to be normal again.”
A muscle ticked along the line of his jaw and his eyes became flat as he looked at her. “I have no control over that.”
She doubted his words. He seemed to have control over so much, but she wouldn’t push the issue right now. Not when she was relying on the two of them for her safety.
Since Mick’s face had become hard and unyielding, she grabbed hold of Liliana’s hand. “You’ll help me, right?”
His sister squeezed Caterina’s hand, trying to keep her calm and avoid another transformation. “I’ll do what I can.”
Facing him, she said, “Isn’t there anything in my medical file that can help?”
Mick immediately jumped in. “Plasmapheresis was one of the treatments mentioned in your history.”
Liliana let out a low whistle. “Plasmapheresis will be tough. It’s not like I can whip up a cell separator to bring here. The machine is way too big. Plus it’ll require us getting information on what needs to be filtered out of Cat’s blood for the treatment to be effective.”
Caterina glanced back at Mick and asked, “So was there another treatment in the file?”
Liliana answered this time. “Your medical history mentioned an inhibitor drug, but didn’t mention its composition.”
“Inhibitor?” Caterina asked.
“I’m assuming it’s some kind of chemical concoction they worked up that slows down the gene replication going on in your body,” Mick advised.
“But you don’t know what’s in it.”
“We would need to get the medication from Wardwell,” he said.
“You can’t go back there. It’s too dangerous.”
Sins of the Flesh: Chapter Eighteen
Mick exhaled roughly and slipped her off his lap and onto the sofa. Jamming his hands on his hips, he considered her, rattled that she seemed more concerned for him than for herself. He wasn’t used to people other than his family caring for him. And he didn’t like that he was starting to care for her in ways that had nothing to do with the job.
He needed distance from Caterina and so he said, “What makes you think I'm volunteering for the job?”
A bright flush of color worked over her cheeks and she looked away, the apprehension apparent on her face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to presume.”
Guilt slammed into him, because he knew that no matter what, it was his responsibility to find out what was going on and how to get her the help she needed.
“Let’s get you something to eat. Then I can decide what to do,” he said and with a sharp look at his sister, he urged her into motion. Like the mother hen that she was, she quickly had Caterina moving toward the kitchen.
Once they were there, he scrubbed his face with his hands, glad for the physical distance so he could master the emotions she roused in him. Emotions that were making this assignment much harder than it needed to be.
When he had gotten his guards back up into place, he headed toward the kitchen, but as he entered and Caterina met his gaze, those protections crumbled faster than a house of cards.
Fuck, he thought. Of all the times to actually give a shit about someone, this was the worst possible time.
He needed to get her out of his life and fast, before unwanted emotion made it impossible to do so.
* * *
Mick had been expecting the call from Edwards. It came while he was on his way down to the Wardwell facilities. He held the phone in his hand, tempted to answer and rattle Edwards’ cage, but he held back.
He needed to save any shock and awe tactics with Edwards for when they would be most effective. Luckily the call had reminded him of one thing – to silence his phone.
Half an hour later he reached his destination.
Caterina had traveled for miles after escaping the Wardwell labs and finding refuge at the Music Academy. He guesstimated it was only about a mile from the roadside rest area where he had stopped to the woods nestled against the Wardwell complex. The woods were one of the farthest most edges of the Pinelands. Because of the complex’s location close to that National Park and on top of the state’s largest natural aquifer, the construction of the Wardwell facilities had generated a bit of controversy amongst local environmentalists.
The protests had resulted in quite a number of public meetings which in turn had created lots of information about Wardwell, including various iterations of the physical layout of the facilities in relation to the nearby Pine Barrens, making it easy for him to find a back way toward the labs through the woods.
The ground was muddy.
Not good. It would provide too much evidence that someone had been there.
Not t
hat I should be here, Mick thought. He should have ignored the responsible side of him – the honorable side of him – that said he had no choice but to go back to Wardwell for the inhibitor drug.
He was about two hundred feet away from the first Wardwell building when he noticed tracks in the soil. Booted footprints. They were all the same type and size so luckily that meant only one person had been there, possibly reconnoitering the area.
Given Franklin’s warning, he had an idea who it was.
Mad Dog might be keeping an eye on those places connected to Caterina until he had a better lead on where she might have gone. He might even have guessed that Mick was now possibly working for the other team and would need information from the lab to clear Caterina.
Easing on the night vision goggles, Mick perused the perimeter of the buildings.
Nothing registered, although he picked up the faint signature of a night watchman in the guard booth at the gate to the complex.
Turning his attention to the woods, he caught a sign of motion close to the edge of the broad manicured lawn that formed a barrier between the woods and the edge of the building holding the medical complex where Caterina and the other patients had been kept.
He hunkered down, training his attention on the area. Another short rush of movement came, confirming that someone else was out there in the woods.
A telling flash erupted in the darkness only a second before chips of wood flew off the trunk of the tree beside his head.
Shit, he thought and hit the ground hard. He pulled his Glock from the holster tucked into the small of his back, but he suspected he was out-gunned. The shooter had a rifle with a silencer. A weapon with much greater range than his pistol.
The shooter had also clearly been waiting for him. Maybe he had even known that he had already paid a visit to the Wardwell facilities since he had positioned himself close to where Mick had been checking the area the afternoon before.
He crawled forward hand-over-hand, cautiously propelling himself toward his attacker. The soil was wet and cool against his body. The soft ping of another rifle shot traveled across the night, but the harder thunk against wood which followed sounded far from his current position.
Whoever it was had lost track of him, but that wouldn’t last for long.
He pushed ahead more quickly, his night vision focused on the blob before him that was a person, kneeling in a sniper’s practiced stance. When he was about fifteen feet away, it was time to act.
He dragged off his goggles and reached into his satchel where he pulled out a flare, ignited it, and immediately tossed it forward and away from him.
The shooter rose, clearly following the movement in order to squeeze off a shot, his back to Mick.
Mick charged, plowing forward like a fullback, body low. He connected with the shooter mid-spine at full force and the man flew forward hard, losing his grip on the rifle. The weapon skittered off into the underbrush.
Mick jerked his gun toward the man, but his opponent half-rolled to his side and snapped off a quick chop to his wrist that deadened Mick’s hand. He lost his grip on the weapon and his opponent took advantage to sweep his one arm across and send Mick’s gun flying away.
Exerting force, he once again got the man lying flat beneath him, but the man followed up with a sharp jab toward his face.
Mick avoided it by rolling off and coming to his feet, but so did the sniper, who rose slowly from the ground, hands outstretched in a sign of surrender.
“Should’ve known you wouldn’t be an easy kill, Carrera,” Mad Dog said and took a step toward him.
Mick did a quick look for his gun. It was a few feet away and out-of-reach.
“No need for bloodshed, Mad Dog. I just have to get something from the lab.”
“Guess you found Shaw. She must be really good in the sack if you’re willing to sacrifice the bonus to bag her.”
Bonus? The original check had possessed enough zeroes to tempt a saint and now there was a bonus?
Neither he nor Mad Dog were saints.
“Haven’t found her yet, but thanks for the heads up about the bonus,” he lied, but Mad Dog clearly wasn’t buying it.
“You want something from the lab don’t you?” he said and with a slow careful motion, Mad Dog reached into his pocket. Just as cautiously, he pulled out some kind of card. As the moonlight illuminated the plastic, Mick realized it was a key card like the one he had used the day before to enter the facilities.
“What do you want, Mad Dog?”
A cold smile crept across his face. “What I’ve always wanted, Mick – a piece of you, but I’ll settle for splitting the bonus with you.”
“A piece of me? Some other time Mad Dog. As for the bonus, I have no intention of turning over Shaw until I know what’s really going on.” Besides, considering how many mercenaries Edwards had sent out on this job, Mick suspected that none of them would ever live long enough to get the bonus after returning Caterina to Wardwell.
“You always were too honorable,” Mad Dog replied and with a quick snap of his wrist, he suddenly held a small knife in his hand.
Mad Dog had cut him off from reaching his gun, the knife held out in front of him. With the repetitiveness of a pendulum swing, Mad Dog slashed back and forth, but Mick avoided the razor fine point of the knife, his steps quick-footed and sure. Dodging each feint of the knife as he sought an opening to reach Mad Dog.
Finally Mad Dog pushed him back toward the edge of the lawn with a swift lunge and Mick stumbled on a tangle of roots, but quickly got his feet back under him.
But Mad Dog immediately seized on that minute slip, swinging his hand in a wide arc that caught Mick on the forearm with the knife.
Heat erupted where the blade skimmed across his skin, but he didn’t let that deter him.
As Mad Dog’s arm swept by and he reversed the blade for another swipe, Mick moved in closer and grabbed hold of his opponent’s wrist. He jerked it against his knee and the blow loosened Mad Dog’s grip on the knife.
Mad Dog slapped out with his free hand, trying to get a hold on Mick’s head, but he yanked away. Slipping beneath Mad Dog’s arm, he delivered a punishing blow to his ribs.
His ex-colleague grunted and doubled over.
Mick drove up with his knee, connecting with Mad Dog’s face. Immense satisfaction filled him at the crunch of bone which followed.
The satisfaction was short-lived.
Mad Dog retaliated with an elbow that caught him close to his liver, driving his breath from him. He stepped back to avoid the blow he knew would come next.
He wasn’t fast enough.
A hard jab connected with the side of his face and Mad Dog followed with an upper-cut that had him staggering backward.
“Slowing down in your old age,” Mad Dog taunted and assumed a traditional fighting stance, bouncing on the toes of his feet, his fists upraised. Clearly ready for action despite the blows Mick had landed.
But he was ready as well.
Mick assumed a similar position and when Mad Dog charged, he easily dodged the attack and engaged him in earnest.
The night became peppered with their grunts as fists or legs connected. With the slap of a deflected blow and the scuffling sounds of their boots along the underbrush and fallen leaves in the woods and along the edge of the lawn.
Mick bided his time, waiting for the perfect opportunity. He would have to win the battle to get the key. He knew Mad Dog would only consider it a win if Mick ended up dead.
The moment came sooner than Mick expected.
Sins of the Flesh: Chapter Nineteen
Mad Dog lashed out with a high roundhouse kick, but missed badly and lost his balance on some slick leaves.
Mick took advantage.
He drove an elbow sharply into Mad Dog’s kidney as the missed kick sent him stumbling by.
Mad Dog groaned and dropped to the ground, grabbing at his side. Mick seized that arm, twisted it upward and Mad Dog sagged even further.
With that opportunity, he drove his knee into the middle of his opponent’s back and flattened him against the ground.
“Ready to say uncle, Mad Dog,” he asked, leaning close to the other man.
Mad Dog glanced up at him sideways, one part of his face plastered against the wet leaves and mud. “You know me better than that, Carrera.”
Sadly Mick did know him that well. Some day he would have to kill Mad Dog if was ever going to have any peace of mind.
But not tonight.
With two quick punishing blows to the side of Mad Dog’s head, he knocked him out, and then trussed him up with the cable ties in his jacket pocket. Whipping the key card out of Mad Dog’s front pocket, he retrieved his gun, and headed for the Wardwell facility.
* * *
With Caterina’s permission, Liliana had taken a second sample of blood for a two-fold purpose.
The first was to find out if the abnormally speedy gene replication was still ongoing.
The second was to determine if they could somehow recreate the parameters that her medical file indicated for the plasmapheresis. With that information, they could prepare the cell separator so that they could filter Caterina’s blood.
As Liliana hurried down to the pathology lab during her break, she hoped the latter could be delayed until they had the time to prepare it properly. That Mick would come through as he always did by getting the inhibitor drug.
At the door to the pathology lab, she paused, peering through the glass in the door to see who was inside.
Only Carmen once again, pulling another late shift, head bent over the microscope at the back of the lab.
She walked in and her friend’s head popped up. A welcoming smile blossomed on her face as she approached.
“Girlfriend! Are you going to make my day again?” she asked excitedly.
Liliana shot her a puzzled look. “What did I do?”
“That last blood specimen – major league interesting. High tech stuff. Those GFPs, or should I say, YFPs and other amazing stuff.”
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