“Of course I know that,” I replied. “I also know we might not have the proper backup from Section during the mission and that Henrika will probably set some trap for us.”
“But?”
“But if there is even the smallest chance I can get close enough to her to get information about the mole, or especially where Anatoly is hiding, then I have to take it. The risk is worth the reward.” I straightened up. “Besides, I’m a cleaner. One of the best in all of Section. I can handle Henrika and her bodyguards.”
“Careful, Dundee,” Charlotte replied. “Your arrogance is showing.”
I grinned. “It’s not arrogance if you can back it up.”
She rolled her eyes. “Is this all the information you have?”
I frowned at the abrupt change in subject. “What do you mean?”
She swept her hand out over the counter again. “Is this all the information you have on Henrika and Anatoly?”
“Yeah…” I replied, not quite sure where she was going with this.
“Can you get me more? From Section? Files that I can’t normally access?”
“Yeah. I have level-seven clearance, thanks to the General. But why?”
“Because I need more—more reports, more files, every scrap of information Section has on Henrika, Anatoly, and every agent who ever had anything to do with you, Graham, the Blacksea mission, or could remotely access the mission info through the Section databases.”
My frown deepened. “For what?”
Charlotte leaned forward, her eyes and aura both burning a bright, determined blue. “So we can pull off the Redburn mission, and I can help you get to Henrika.”
Every word she said only confused me more. “Why would you want to do that? After everything I’ve just told you?”
She leaned back and shrugged. “Because the sooner we get to Henrika, the sooner we find out who the mole is inside Section.”
Understanding flashed through me. “You want to know who sent those cleaners to kill you.”
“Absolutely. You want revenge. Well, me too. And like it or not, we have a much better chance of getting revenge together, especially since you’re the only one I can trust.” Her face hardened. “Besides, they should have known better than to screw with a Locke. I might not be a cleaner like my father was, but nobody tries to murder me and gets away with it.”
Ferocity was something else I hadn’t expected from her, but I liked it—far more than I should have.
Charlotte’s gaze flicked over my body again. Her aura burned even brighter and hotter than before, but it was nothing compared to the cruel grin curving her lips, one that did those very surprising and uncomfortable things to my anatomy again.
“Go get dressed, Dundee,” she purred. “We have work to do.”
Chapter Fifteen
Charlotte
Desmond disappeared into his bedroom and emerged twenty minutes later, after showering and donning another light gray suit. His watch was nestled in his vest pocket as usual, and he was once again wearing a bold, rebellious tie, this one a beautiful royal-blue that brought out the lighter, more electric blue of his eyes.
He laid his suit jacket over one of the kitchen barstools, moving with that innate grace I found so strangely hypnotic. I was still sitting at the island, and the scent of his fresh, clean, pine-scented soap wafted over me. I couldn’t decide which version of Desmond I found more appealing—all slick, coifed, and buttoned up, or how deliciously messy, rumpled, and casual he had looked when he had strolled into the kitchen earlier, his pajama pants slung low on his hips, his paper-thin T-shirt stretched tight across his chest, accentuating all those glorious, rippling muscles…
My heart quickened, as did other parts of me, and I had to shift around on my stool to ease the sudden ache between my thighs.
I was such an idiot.
Being attracted to Desmond Percy was one thing. I could easily handle that hormonal reaction and admire his gorgeous lethality from afar. But I was actually starting to like him, just a little bit, which worried me.
Despite the fact that we had agreed to work together, and the promises we had made to each other, we each had our own agendas and would do whatever it took to accomplish our own disparate goals. I couldn’t let my emotions cloud my judgment—not if I wanted to survive.
“Find anything yet?” Desmond’s low, husky voice sent a shiver zipping down my spine.
“Nothing so far,” I replied, pushing away my lustful thoughts and gesturing at my laptop, which I’d cracked open while he’d been in the shower. “My work isn’t classified, so anyone inside Section could have accessed my reports on Henrika Hyde. But your Blacksea mission was classified, so when I get to the office, I’m going to start cross-checking and see who looked at both files. Maybe that will at least give us a smaller pool of suspects.”
“Good,” Desmond said. “You do that, and I’ll download every report and personnel record I can find about Henrika, Anatoly, and the agents involved in the Blacksea mission.”
He strode over to the refrigerator, opened it, and started pulling out food—apples, carrots, pineapple chunks, even some spinach leaves. He carried everything over to a blender on the back counter, then grabbed a knife and started cutting up the fruits and veggies.
His knife work was as quick and skillful as a professional chef’s, and I found myself strangely mesmerized by the way he maneuvered the blade up and down, and back and forth…
I shook my head. Get a grip, Charlotte! He was cutting up produce, not offering to use those quick, skilled fingers on me.
“What are you doing?” I asked, mostly to distract myself from my continued lustful thoughts.
“Making my morning smoothie.”
Desmond dumped everything into a blender, added some fresh-squeezed lime juice, along with diced ginger and a generous drizzle of honey, then turned on the appliance. A minute later, he flipped off the blender and poured the resulting dark green liquid into two glasses. He slid a jaunty, red-and-white-striped straw into one of the smoothies, then handed it to me.
“To our new partnership.” He clinked his glass against mine, then downed his beverage in one long gulp.
I sniffed the green liquid, which smelled mostly of lime juice, then took a small, cautious sip through the straw. It tasted like a mouthful of grass that was somehow sweet and tart at the same time. Blech. I crinkled my nose and set the glass down.
Desmond eyed me. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a person’s lips actually curl with disgust before. I suppose I can mark that off my bucket list now. You should drink up, Numbers. It’s good for you, especially that big brain of yours.”
I shuddered at the thought of willingly drinking more of that horrid green liquid. “Let me guess. You’re one of those cleaner health nuts who doesn’t believe in eating sugar, carbs, or anything else that actually tastes good.”
He grinned. “My body is a temple.”
Oh, yes, yes, it was. One that my hands and lips desperately wanted to explore. “Well, I learned a long time ago that life is too short to eat seeds and sprouts.”
“Ah, so that’s why you take home pie from your diner every night.”
I silently cursed. I’d totally forgotten about the cherry pie Pablo had given me. I must have dropped it after the car bomb had exploded. What a waste. Cherry pie made for a great breakfast.
“Not every night,” I said in a defensive tone. “Only when Pablo makes a flavor that I like.”
Desmond arched an eyebrow. “Is there any flavor of pie you don’t like?”
“Coconut cream. Blech. And pecan. Double blech. Pecans taste like dirt. So do walnuts. Why do people always insist on ruining sugar with nuts?”
Desmond kept staring at me, an amused expression on his face, and I actually found myself smiling back at him.
Despite the friendly, companionable silence, the smile slowly slipped from his face, and his eyes flashed a bright silver-blue. Something that almost seemed like a spark of inter
est, or perhaps even hunger, flickered across his face, although it quickly vanished.
Suddenly, the silence wasn’t so friendly but rather charged with a current that hummed and snapped between us. At least, that’s how it felt to me, and I didn’t even have his galvanism magic. Then again, I’d just been mooning over him chopping vegetables, so there was no telling what I might be projecting. Desmond was probably about as interested in me as he was in a cactus.
Either way, I needed to concentrate on who wanted us both dead—not on how surprisingly charming Desmond Percy could be. So I nudged my smoothie glass a little farther to the side and focused on my laptop again.
“The mole has to be someone here in the D.C. station,” I said. “Someone who knew I was digging into Henrika, and who wanted to bury my reports before anyone else besides Jensen paid too much attention to them or I discovered her connection to Anatoly. Henrika might be on Section’s radar, but once it came out that she had dealings with Anatoly, well, that would put her at the top of Section’s target list, especially given all the agents who died during the Blacksea mission. The Section higher-ups might not negotiate with terrorists, but they definitely make examples out of people who murder their agents.”
Desmond nodded. “I agree. Then, when I came to town and showed an interest in you, the mole decided to try to kill both of us last night.”
“The mole might even be someone involved in the current Redburn mission,” I said, still thinking out loud. “A supervisor, a member of the strike team, even one of the IT techs. It could be anyone. But since the mole hasn’t managed to kill us yet, their next move will probably be to sabotage the mission. To figure out some way to turn it to their or Henrika’s advantage.”
Desmond shrugged. “It’s possible. Blacksea was the first time I ever even suspected there might be a mole inside Section, and everyone involved in that mission is dead, except for me.” His voice took on a flat, hollow note, his eyes dimmed, and he dropped his head, as if he was remembering the horrible events of that tragic day.
Sympathy flooded my heart, and a strange urge seized me to reach across the counter and squeeze his hand, to try and…comfort him. My fingers flexed and stretched out, but I forced myself to curl them into a tight fist instead. I wasn’t here to comfort Desmond any more than he was to soothe me. We had been thrown together by circumstance, bound by blood and our families’ twisted, tangled legacies, and that was the extent of our relationship now and going forward for the duration of this mission.
Desmond let out a tense breath, then raised his gaze to mine. “I’m sorry if I woke you last night. I suppose our run-in with that car bomb reminded me of…other things.”
“The IEDs on the beach in Australia?”
His jaw clenched, but he answered me. “Yeah.”
I probably should have dropped it, but my curiosity got the better of me. “How did you survive the blasts? Your magic?”
He shook his head. “No. I might be a galvanist, but there’s a limit to how much energy I can absorb at one time. There were too many IEDs, and all that force and power would have overwhelmed my magic and burned right through me, along with the physical fire that would have scorched my body. But Graham…” Desmond had to stop and clear his throat. “But Graham was closer to the blast zone than I was. He realized what was happening, and he threw himself on top of me and buried my body in the sand an instant before the bombs exploded. Brave, stupid fucking idiot.”
Yet more sympathy flooded my heart. I wanted to point out that Desmond had protected me the same way last night, but I kept quiet.
“Graham took the brunt of the blasts,” Desmond said, his voice much lower and softer than before, although pain rasped through each and every one of his words. “Even though Graham shielded me, the fire and shock waves crashed over me too. Graham’s leg was blown off, and we were both burned, blistered, and dying. Until…”
His voice trailed off, so I gently asked the obvious question.
“Until what?”
Desmond stared down into his empty smoothie glass as though the green dregs were tea leaves he was trying to read. “Until…Graham told me to take what little strength he had left.”
My stomach dropped, and my mind spun at the awful implication of his words.
“All energy is different, you see. Electrical, chemical, kinetic. It all has different properties, different purposes, different reactions. I can manipulate any energy I encounter, but I can only use some of it in certain ways.” Desmond stopped and cleared his throat again. “Human energy—the power in a person’s blood, the electrical charge that makes their heart beat, the synapses constantly firing in their brain—that energy is the best for healing.”
He paused again. “After the IEDs went off, there was no more energy, no more power or electricity, anywhere around us. Even the fish in the ocean were dead. The only things left were the faint sparks of life that Graham and I still had.”
He drew in a deep breath, then let it out in a rush, along with his words. “So I took what little energy Graham had left and used it to heal myself. I used my magic to kill my best friend,” he finished in a hoarse, broken whisper.
His confession hung in the air like an invisible thundercloud, crackling and sparking and spitting out bolt after bolt of guilt, grief, misery, and pain.
My heart clenched. Thanks to my father’s work for Section, I’d been through a lot of bad things, but I’d never been faced with a choice like that—kill my friend to save myself or die right alongside him.
I couldn’t help myself. This time, I did reach out, grab Desmond’s hand, and squeeze his fingers tight. “I know it might not feel like it, but you did the right thing. Graham knew what he was doing, what he was asking. He knew there was no reason for both of you to die.”
Desmond stared down at my hand on top of his, a dull expression on his face, as if he were a thousand miles away instead of standing right across from me. “Do you really think so?”
“Yes,” I said in a loud, firm voice, squeezing his hand again. “And Graham knew something else.”
He raised his weary gaze to mine. “What?”
“That if you lived, you would track down Adrian Anatoly and make him pay for what he did to the two of you as well as everyone else who died. I’ve seen your determination and skills firsthand. I don’t doubt them, and neither should you, Dundee.”
I added the nickname in hopes of lightening the mood, maybe even coaxing a small smile out of him. For a moment, it seemed to work, and his lips twitched upward. But then the expression dropped from his face, although his features turned more thoughtful than melancholy.
“Did you know that every person has an aura?” he said. “A color that reflects their moods, emotions, and personalities? I can see that color, that energy, with my galvanism, just like you can see mistakes with your synesthesia. Your aura is blue, Numbers.”
Breathe in the blue. That’s what he’d said when he’d been thrashing around on his bed, caught in the throes of his nightmare. When I had placed my hand on his ankle, and he had calmed down. Had my aura…soothed him? Could auras even do that? I didn’t know, and I was suddenly too shy to ask.
Desmond kept his gaze steady on mine. I wondered what he saw. If he was staring at my aura, then it must have been pounding as hard and fast as my heart was right now.
“Blue, huh?” I drawled, once again trying to lighten the mood and ignore the treacherous feelings cascading through my body. “Good to know. I’ll have to match my wardrobe to it.”
“Blue definitely looks good on you,” he said, nodding at me.
I glanced down. Somehow, I’d forgotten I’d thrown on my favorite navy cardigan this morning. Real observant, Charlotte, I chided myself. Some spy you are. You can’t even remember what color you’re wearing.
Desmond continued staring at me. My hand was still on top of his, and the heat from his skin began burning into my own. Or perhaps that was simply my imagination running away with me again. Either way, I
gave his fingers another firm squeeze then removed my hand from his. The heat of him lingered on my skin, though.
“We should get going,” I said. “Gia Chan sent out an email late last night. We have a mission briefing at ten.”
Desmond nodded, turned away, and started cleaning up the kitchen. As I watched him, my inner voice started whispering danger-danger-danger.
But unlike before, Desmond Percy wasn’t a physical threat. Not to my body.
No, my fragile heart was the thing that was suddenly, unexpectedly, in peril.
* * *
Desmond and I gathered up our things, then left the apartment and rode the elevator down to a sub-basement. Desmond led me through a variety of corridors, and we ended up in a parking garage two blocks over from where we’d started in the Touchstone Building. No one paid any attention to us, so we headed to work.
We stepped into the Section building and scanned our keycards. Evelyn Hawkes was sitting behind the front desk as usual, and I waved to her. She looked back and forth between Desmond and me. She winked, then waved back at me. She probably thought we had spent the night together and that this was our mutual walk of shame. To my surprise, I didn’t mind the idea nearly as much as I would have yesterday.
Desmond and I stepped into an elevator, which floated down to the third floor.
“Be careful,” he said as I got off.
“You too.”
He nodded at me, then the doors closed, whisking him down to the fifth floor. I went into the third-floor bullpen and headed over to my desk to grab some more files I had on Henrika Hyde—
“Charlotte! There you are! In my office! Now, please!” Trevor Donnelly was standing in front of his glassed-in office. He waved at me, then retreated inside.
A Sense of Danger Page 18