“I let myself get used.”
“That’s it. That’s all you got?”
“Yup. I believed the wrong people and spent a long time clawing my way back to the truth. I hurt you. I hurt Addy. The boys. When I figured it out, I shut down the parts of it that I could, as I could. I ordered Holbrook’s death, ending the abuse on the cubs. I got you out here to discover the testing happening via the Friendship tithes. I got Hope into the White Kingdom Brotherhood to find Lion.” He shrugged. “Those were small victories, but they don’t make up for what I didn’t do.”
“Or what we could have done, if we’d stayed working together.”
“Yeah. It’s why I brought Nick back to you. Same deal with him. We need you and you need us. This fight’s a long way from over. And I’m afraid the worst part is yet to come. The top layer we just cut down was merely a veneer covering what’s really happening inside the Omnis.”
“The Ratcliffs told us these human modifications have the potential to shift the global balance of power, at best, and could be a human extinction event, at worst.”
Jax nodded. “Glad they didn’t sugarcoat anything.”
“Okay,” Owen said after a long silence. He held out his hand. “I’m putting my trust in you.” Jax took his hand. Owen’s grip turned painful. “I don’t trust lightly anymore.”
“Good. Now quit fucking breaking my hand. I need it to walk Addy down the aisle.”
Owen released him. “Sorry.”
Jax shook his hand out. “No, you aren’t. You just got to it before I did.”
They both laughed at that.
“You know the Legion’s not going to leave you alone,” Jax said. “Not now that they’ve found you.”
“I know.” They stood in the cold, staring into the distant woods. “Addy wants more kids.”
Jax looked at him. “You think that’s a good idea, after everything she’s been through?”
“That’s why she was hoping the Ratcliffs were coming back with you. She wanted to consult with them.”
“We can talk to them about that tomorrow—unless that’s something for a private call?”
Owen gave that some thought. They were all facing the possibility of undergoing the modifications. His team was young and would likely want kids sooner or later. They needed to know how all of this could affect them or their women.
“I guess having the team there is a good idea. It could be an issue for them at some point in the future.”
“Right. You sure you have time for a meeting tomorrow?”
“We’ll make time,” Owen said. “See you in the morning.”
Selena was exhausted. In the weeks since Max and Hope’s wedding, she’d been walking a thin line between belief in herself and pure paranoia.
The stress was taking a bite out of her.
She had thought, for a short while, that she’d banished Bastion from her mind. She refused to think of him. And since no further anomalies had shown up on the cameras around Blade’s, she’d begun to hope that whatever that experience with him had been, it really was nothing more than her imagination.
Until the night the girls planned Addy’s fuckfest, when he had come into her room and held her in his invisible arms.
Since that night, sleep had been elusive. She’d thought about taking over-the-counter sleep meds, but she couldn’t risk being incapacitated if he tried to take her over again.
What little sleep her weary mind found was shallow. Every time she woke to change positions, she’d wake fully, checking her room, checking her phone for security alerts, which was stupid. Greer had written some code to send alerts when the cameras were mucked with. No point checking her phone if the alerts weren’t sounding.
But Bastion didn’t need to physically prowl around anymore, did he? Not when he could use her mind as he wished.
He’d been absent now for weeks. The wait for his next appearance felt like a timer that was slowly ticking down to zero. He was coming soon. She could feel that.
When she woke next, it was still dark outside. She quickly took inventory of her senses and surroundings. All was quiet, but she wasn’t alone. She opened her eyes. Bastion was there next to her, sitting up against her headboard. Fully clothed, his legs crossed at his ankles, his feet bare.
She scrambled out of bed, instantly alert.
“You are extraordinarily stubborn,” he said.
Selena’s gaze darted around the room. She grabbed her phone, checking first for alerts, though none had gone off. Before she could text someone for help, her phone went haywire. Apps flickered on and off, sliding sideways across the screen, and then it went dead. She reached for her panic alert necklace, but it wasn’t around her neck.
She tossed her phone to the ground and pressed the heels of her wrists against her temples. What to do? What to do? If she walked out of here—if he even let her—to go alert the guys, what would he do to them?
She lowered her hands. She needed her gun. She could pretend to be reaching for the light and grab her pistol at the same time.
The light came on before she even took a step.
“Go ahead, shoot your bed.” Bastion disappeared then reappeared in the same place. “I’m not here, so you won’t be shooting me.”
Fuck. Selena rubbed her forehead. “I asked you to leave me alone.”
“I tried. It would seem I have a weakness I did not anticipate.”
“Oh? What would that be?”
“You. Come back to bed. We need to talk. I don’t like it when you block me from your mind.”
“Too bad. My mind, my rules.”
“I would honor that were so much not at stake.”
“Where are you? I mean the physical you.” God, did that sound crazy.
“I am not far. Just a few hours away.” He gestured to the half of the bed he wasn’t occupying. “Please, let us talk. I will not touch you.”
“Get out of my bed first.”
He disappeared, then reappeared standing next to her. “Is this better?”
Selena’s eyes moved up his chest, wide neck, and hard, bearded jaw, to dark eyes that were so enthralling she couldn’t look away. She caught a faint hint of his scent, more memory than anything else. Of course he smelled delicious. He was a figment of her imagination—why would she create an illusion with an unpleasant odor?
Bastion laughed. “It is my own scent you are enjoying. My pheromones trigger a chemical response in you, as yours do in me. It is distinctive, addictive.”
“Except you aren’t here, so I can’t be smelling you at all.”
“You have a clear memory of my scent.” He gave her a half-grin. “I wish you could know what you smell like to me. In a sea of a thousand sweet-smelling women, I would find you with my eyes covered and hands bound.”
“Just what I wanted. My very own bloodhound.”
He laughed again. His teeth were big and white and straight. She couldn’t pull her eyes from his smile. He gestured again toward her bed. “Please. I have said I won’t touch you.”
“And you always keep your word.”
He sighed. “Not always. I’ve failed more times than I’d like to admit. I won’t fail you, however.”
Selena adjusted her pillows then sat on her bed. When she looked up, Bastion wasn’t where she left him.
“I’m here.” He was now sitting on her dresser, across from the foot of her bed.
“So, since we’re having this awesome convo, let’s start with your real name,” Selena said, figuring she might as well glean some actionable info from him that the team could use.
“I’ve had many names over many years. I shed them like a snake sheds his skin, having grown out of what he was. So call me what I am. I am the walls that protect you. I am your fortress. I am your Bastion.”
“I don’t need protecting.”
“You do, but you don’t know it yet. All of you here need protection.”
“Someone purporting to be my bastion would not harm those I lov
e.”
“Have I harmed your team? I could have, at any point, eliminated them, killed them gently in their sleep, leaving their women to wake next to dead partners. They are as defenseless as infants to me. Your men are not my enemies, that much I’ve learned.”
“So what do you want?”
“The Ratcliffs.”
Selena shrugged. “I don’t know where they are.”
“Find out and tell me.”
“So you can kill them?”
“No.”
“Why, then?”
He flickered out. Bastion! Damn you. I will not let you use me.
* * *
Selena took the elevator down to the bunker. It was early, but she was hoping to find Greer on duty already. She crossed through the weapons room to ops. Max looked up and smiled, but his expression quickly faded.
He got up and shut the door to the hallway. “Jesus. What’s goin’ on, Sel?”
Selena met his look a little defensively. “Um. Glad you’re back.”
He waved that off. “You look like hell.”
“Great. Just what every woman wants to hear.”
“You aren’t a woman; you’re a fighter.”
“No.” Selena glared at him. “No, Max. I am a woman.”
Max put his hands up and gave her an odd expression. “Right. Got it.”
Selena sighed. “I’m having problems with my phone. Can you check it out?”
“What’s it doing?” He took it from her.
She lifted a shoulder. “Just started acting funny. A whole bunch of apps flickered, then it shut down.”
Max frowned down at her phone. “Yeah. It’s outta juice. Helps if you plug it in now and then.” He handed it back to her.
“Huh. Thought I’d just charged it.”
“Sel, talk to me. What’s goin’ on?”
“Nothing. I’m fine. Have a good honeymoon?”
“Best ever.”
“Great.” She stormed out of the room.
Max was solid. Real. Unafraid.
All the things she used to be.
6
Owen’s father and Jax joined them in the basement. They made small talk for a little while, waiting for Selena, the last of the team to join them. Greer had called her, but no answer. Perhaps she was suffering from her migraines again, which made Owen edgy; she’d first gotten sick with them when Bastion had been near over the holidays.
Perhaps their infiltrator knew Jax and Nick were with them again and was coming back around. He looked at his watch. If Selena didn’t make an appearance in the next few minutes, he’d have Kit send Ace up to check on her. He didn’t have a lot of time to waste; his and Addy’s wedding was tomorrow afternoon. He couldn’t stay in work mode very long. He wanted Jax and Nick to update the team while they were here. Better to get started.
“I asked my dad and Jax to join us today to share the information they have about Bastion,” Owen said to the group. “As I understand it, what’s known about him came to the Ratcliffs from peers who visited the researchers running the study Bastion was involved in. Both their friends and the study’s organizers have been killed, so this is all we have at the moment, and it’s all we may ever have. The Ratcliffs are using their network of friendlies within the Omni World Order to quietly appeal for more information. No clue if or when more detailed info will be found.” He looked at his watch. “We have a call with them shortly, but I thought Nick and Jax could get us started.”
“We know that Bastion was recruited for a human modification study,” Nick said. “He and all the men in the study had military backgrounds. They were between thirty and forty-five, all from different educational and socioeconomic backgrounds. Different races, religions, and nationalities. All very different on paper, but they weren’t selected in a haphazard way.”
“They underwent intense psychological and physical examination,” Jax said. “It’s unclear exactly what experiments were conducted during this study. What we do know is that the newly changed men were sent to serve with a private military contractor in various shit holes where extra security was needed.”
“This unit was made up of thirty men,” Nick said. “Ten died only months in to the experiment, presumably due to complications from the modifications. Another five died in violent encounters with others in their group. The group became polarized with two factions vying for supremacy and eventually turned on itself. Seems it was of no consequence to the study’s organizers what happened to the participants within the group. Life was no holds barred in their world, like a group of gladiators fighting each other and their environment for survival.”
“We don’t know Bastion’s civilian identity,” Jax said. “A man who was given the name Liege seemed to get squared away early in the trials. He was one of the first to access the new skills their modifications gave them. He led his corps in their discovery of their specific skills. They made him a leader of their group. He kept them alive and fostered their skill growth.”
“When did all this happen?” Kit asked Nick.
“Started a decade ago,” Owen said.
“So how old is this Bastion?” Greer asked.
Nick shrugged. “Age isn’t the qualifier it once was. It’s not a determinant of appearance, mental acuity, or physical skill—the modifications they received made sure of that.”
“The Ratcliffs said it’s believed that these men are among those whose modifications were used to regen their bodies and rewire their brains,” Jax said.
“Meaning?” Owen prompted.
“Meaning they have extraordinary mental capabilities,” Nick answered. “We’ll be talking to the Ratcliffs shortly, so save your questions for them. We wanted to give a high-level introduction to what we’re dealing with.”
“It’s true these mods were early in the game,” Jax said, “but they were the top of the line. Their creators designed these nano agents to get inside their hosts, do their function, and exit, leaving their patients improved without a continuing need for refreshing the nanos.”
“And now they’ve sought us out. Why?” Blade asked.
“My guess? They’re after the Ratcliffs,” Nick said.
“It’s time,” Greer said. He dialed the Ratcliffs. The phone speakers were on conference mode, so the whole room heard the phone ringing.
Selena joined them while the phone was ringing. She looked unwell. Shadows were heavy under her red-rimmed eyes. Her skin was paler than usual. She didn’t look at anyone when she grabbed a seat at the table. Owen wondered if she was fighting a bug, but she wasn’t coughing or sniffling.
Before he could ask if she was feeling well, Nathan Ratcliff picked up the call.
“Nathan—Owen Tremaine here. You’re on speaker. I’ve got my team here, along with Jax and Nick. Thanks for giving us a few minutes.”
“Not a problem,” Nathan said. “You know we owe you for keeping our girl safe. I’ve got her mom here with me.”
“Morning, Team Tremaine,” Joyce Ratcliff said.
“There are two things I wanted to cover today,” Owen said. “The first is about Bastion. I know Jax and Nick have talked to you about him.”
The phone was silent a long moment. “Be very careful with him,” Joyce said. “We try to document as much as we can about every changed human we discover. But we lost track of him and his study peers.”
“Do you know what was done to them?” Owen asked.
“Not entirely. Jax asked us to find and secure the research surrounding their trials,” Joyce said. “We haven’t yet been successful. We are familiar with the team that was running it, however.”
“And?”
“It wasn’t just superior warriors they were trying to craft. They wanted a psychological Red Team, a force they could use to infiltrate anything—other armies, corporations, research labs, you name it.”
“How would they do something like that?” Owen asked.
“They thought they could use their specially encoded nanotechnology to rew
ire the brain’s neural circuits, allowing it perform with extreme efficiency,” Joyce said. “It sounds supernatural, but it’s not. We’ve all heard of people who have prescient knowledge of one form or another—someone who knows who’s on the other end of a call before ever looking at their phone. Someone who appears to be able to read someone else’s mind. Someone who summons a friend just through their thoughts. Someone who knows when someone else is thinking about them. Mediums who can see through others’ eyes, who connect with someone, alive or dead, just from touching something that belonged to them. The list of psychic skills is endless. Those come from neural networks that are or aren’t active in any of us. These are natural skills that lie dormant in most of us. The researchers working on Liege’s group isolated certain neural networks and developed nanos to activate them.”
“Can you be more specific about what enhanced skills we’re dealing with from Bastion and Liege’s men?” Blade asked.
Selena coughed and lurched to her feet. Once there, she seemed lost for a moment, her eyes shooting around the room. She went over to a sideboard to pour herself a cup of coffee.
“Friends of ours were able to visit with the study’s organizers during the active years of their research,” Joyce said. “They were allowed to take notes, but weren’t given much detailed information. We have their notes—I am making some assumptions and may be overstating things, but it’s my understanding that Bastion and his group may have developed extreme psychic skills.”
“Such as?” Owen prompted.
“They might be able to access minds that are open to them. They could potentially induce hypnosis—even over long distances—or impose trance states. They could have the ability to manipulate physical things via telekinesis. They could alter energy around them, interrupting electrical currents—in humans and things. The notes from our friends suggest these abilities developed differently in different participants. Beyond purely psychic abilities, they have enhanced physical abilities. Superior strength, endurance, senses, cognition, memory, motor skills.”
OWEN and ADDY_A RED TEAM WEDDING NOVELLA_THE RED TEAM, BOOK 14 Page 6