Absolved

by Marnee Blake

  She’d dropped the ball. “I’m going to fix this.”

  Whatever Martins saw on her face made him nod his head. “As you were, then, doctor.”

  In those words was an understanding. He was putting his faith in her intellect, in her integrity as a person. He trusted her to figure out this drug and find a way to neutralize it.

  She wasn’t going to let him down, and she wasn’t going to let any more people die like the victims in the folder on her lap.

  Nodding, she made eye contact with the rest of them, one by one. Seth, whose face gave away nothing, as usual. Kitty, whose eyes radiated sympathy.

  But Luke? He looked angry.

  She offered Martins a nod, and left.

  There was no time to lose.

  …

  Oh, hell no.

  Luke bounded out of his chair. “This isn’t her fault.”

  Martins studied him for a moment. “I know. It doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what she thinks. And Beth feeds on challenges.”

  “You’re going to let her carry all that around because she performs better that way?” His incredulity—no, his anger—oozed out of his words.

  Martins didn’t respond. Luke stared him down. When the other man said nothing else, he sneered. This was wrong. Beth, with all her idealism? She didn’t deserve this.

  Without excusing himself, he spun and followed Beth.

  Beth would suffocate under the weight of this. If she failed, it would crush her.

  Outside, she was nearly to the end of the hall, her head down. But he recognized the set of her shoulders. She was on a mission.

  “Beth,” he called as he trotted after her. “Wait up.”

  Her steps faltered, and she turned to face him. Her oversize sweatshirt swallowed her. Her hair was a mass of tousled curls, held back from her pale face by her glasses. She braced herself, her chin hitched up. Everything suggested she was prepping for an argument.

  He paused, her prettiness again taking him by surprise. Her eyes were wide and smart, full of alert intelligence. Her chin was pointed almost too sharply, hinting at a stubborn streak he was familiar with. And her mouth… God, her mouth.

  The same mouth that was pinched into a thin line.

  “What was that?”

  “What was what?” She wrapped her arms around her folder, clutching it to her like a shield.

  “In Martins’s office. What were you doing?”

  She sighed, and the sound was full of fatigue. “My job, Luke. I was doing my job.”

  “How is it your job to act like a martyr?” She flinched. He scowled. “We all work on this team. What’s happened, all of it, it’s not your fault.” There were too many factors at play here. She had to see that her piece was only part of it. “You’ve never met Parker; you don’t know how he thinks. The break-in? Our top military security people put the systems in place in our headquarters, and Parker and Jack still figured a way around them. And those people?” He motioned to the folder she was holding. “You didn’t kill them. Parker and Jack did.”

  “I didn’t figure out how to stop their deaths, either.” She glared at him. “It’s my job to find a cure for Solvimine, or at least to figure out how to counteract it. I’m the huge brain, the forensic scientist, the one who knows more about drug science than anyone else on this team. And I failed.” Though her voice was barely above a whisper, it rang with conviction.

  She actually believed that shit.

  “No.” He gripped her shoulders. “We all did. Give yourself a break. We aren’t sociopaths. We don’t think like they do. Maybe you’ve studied how the chemistry works, maybe you even get the psychology behind it. But you’ll never be as fast, as quick to kill. Because you care about human life. They don’t.” He bent the slightest bit so he could hold her green gaze. “You need to cut yourself some slack.”

  Her guarded stare met his. He resisted an overwhelming urge to pull her against him, to let her lean on him.

  It surprised him how much he wanted to be the one she turned to, the one she leaned on.

  Beth was brilliant, no doubt, but she was still twenty-one years old. He didn’t know what it was like to be the huge brain she was, but he knew what it was like to be twenty-one. To not always have all the answers. To not always be able to understand.

  When she finally responded, it was at a whisper. “You’re one to talk, Luke.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t cut yourself any slack, either.” The words held no accusation, but they cut through him like a sword.

  His breath was coming fast. “I don’t deserve any slack.”

  She snorted. “Pot and kettle.” She made to brush by him, but he grabbed her arm.

  “I’ve made mistakes. To fix those mistakes, I made other mistakes. I’ve screwed up so badly, I might never be able to set it all right. You aren’t like me.”

  She was kind. Honorable.

  They weren’t anything alike.

  If he could stop Parker and Jack, then maybe he’d earn some forgiveness. Maybe he’d be able to forgive himself.

  “This isn’t the same. We aren’t the same.” He dropped his hands, unable to touch her anymore. Her, with all her good intentions and her good heart. Never had the difference between them been so stark.

  She reached for him, then, placing her hand on his sleeve.

  “There is no one in our group who is more committed to finding Parker Sinclair and Jack Barnett than you, Luke. You work all the time. I know. I work all the time, too.” She offered him mercy he wasn’t entitled to. “You drive yourself so hard, worried every moment that we won’t be able to stop them. No one feels the weight of what we’re doing as much as you do.”

  The compassion in her eyes almost hurt.

  “You don’t know…” he whispered, shaking his head as his words died. He almost said she didn’t understand what he’d done, but he didn’t want to talk anymore about what had happened with the soldier in La Junta. The extent of his mistakes reached beyond what he had explained. He stated a fact, instead. “You don’t know me.”

  “No. I suppose I don’t,” she conceded. “I’m not very good with people.”

  The matter-of-fact declaration gutted him. It held all the distance between her and everyone else. Her loneliness… It wasn’t fair.

  She deserved a friend. But he wasn’t the friend for her. He’d let her down, the same as he had the rest of them.

  Scowling, he shook his head. “You don’t like me, anyway.” Rightfully so. He didn’t like himself most days.

  She opened her mouth—to argue, he assumed—so he cut her off, determined to make his point. “You were upset with me, just yesterday. After the stairwell and the basement.”

  “What?” Her head cocked, her brow furrowed.

  “I upset you, yesterday.” Reaching for her, he gripped her arms, refusing to step away. “I’m a jerk a lot of the time. You were being nice to me, and I was an asshole.”

  Why was he pressing this? At this moment, it was more important for her to think he wasn’t worth caring about than for her to assume she wasn’t likable.

  Because she was too damn likable.

  “That’s not what happened.” Her voice was softer, and her eyes wide and guileless.

  “Of course, it was. I get so angry. I lose my cool. I’m hard to be around… I hurt your feelings.”

  “Luke.” She lifted her hands, gripping his wrists. “Stop. You were fine.” She inhaled, lifting her shoulders as if bracing herself. “I was acting weird because I’m attracted to you.”

  He must have misheard. His hands dropped away. “What?”

  She exhaled. “You. I’m attracted to you.” One corner of her mouth tilted up, but the half smile was cheerless. “That’s why I was acting weird. Not because you upset me.”

  The revelation stole his breath. She had to be joking with him. Why the hell would anyone be attracted to him? He was a hot-ass mess.

  As the moment stretched, she
dropped her hands and turned from him.

  Only then did he realize he should have said something, and now that the moment was gone, he’d done something much worse than convince her that he wasn’t likeable: he’d proven it to her.

  What kind of asshole doesn’t respond to something like that?

  She strode toward the glass door out of this wing. Grasping the handle, she turned, her face a sad smile. “I just wanted you to know. You’re not a jerk.”

  “Beth…” He called after her, but she was already through the door.

  Chapter Seven

  Jack found Parker exactly where he always was: staring out at the DC skyline, letting Jack do all the real work. He got straight to the point. “These guys are idiots.”

  “They need training. You’re meant to train them.” Parker didn’t even turn from the window.

  Jack gritted his teeth. “These guys are too stupid for training. Why they lived through the change, I have no idea.” They fit the age range. Most of the people who survived Solvimine were between sixteen and twenty-five. But all of the new guys were geeks. Hardcore gamers. One guy was into LARPing. What the fuck? Jack had nothing in common with them. Even the kids from Glory weren’t this dorky.

  Those stiffs… Luke, Blue, Kitty…they were all with the military now, with a bunch of soldiers who survived the drug. Him? Stuck with a bunch of tools who won the superpower lottery.

  Parker sighed. “You’re too concerned with outside appearances. These people survived the change. They are like you.”

  He snorted. They weren’t like him. They were starry-eyed, full of idealism. Like they were going to get capes or something.

  Jack had seen too much. He was no hero.

  Worse was the idea that these guys survived and his family didn’t. The girls? If these guys deserved to live, so did his sisters.

  “It’s not our place to decide who makes it and who doesn’t,” Parker added mildly.

  Jack snorted. “Please. It was our choice to give them the drug in the first place. These douches wouldn’t have ever come in contact with Solvimine if it weren’t for us. Don’t pretend you’re not playing the role of God here.”

  Seriously, that shit wasn’t a costume you could wear one day and take off another. Not after what they had done.

  “I’m not a god.” Parker spun, his brows lifted in challenge. “If the world is full of people who use arbitrary things as power—wealth, fame, property—then we will give the world people who are legitimately powerful. We will allow the truly gifted among us to craft our reality. Because whatever we offer will be better than what is already out there.” He waved his hand toward the window. Jack assumed he included all of Washington, DC, but maybe he meant the entire world.

  He couldn’t argue with that. Jack didn’t keep up on the news or what was going on in the rest of the universe, but his family had worked hard to get by. If he hadn’t gotten a football scholarship, he’d never have been able to afford college. And when he’d gotten to college in California, some of the kids he went to school with had been so clueless. Rich, pampered, light-years from the desperate and overworked people he’d grown up with. The people in Glory worried about money like it was a part-time job they didn’t get paid for.

  Did that have to stop? Sure. Since being on this roller coaster with Parker, he’d been all over the country and into Mexico. He’d seen rich, powerful corporations destroy people who couldn’t fight back. He’d seen Armani-wearing assholes in DC driving overpriced foreign cars, talking too fast on their overpriced cell phones about issues that they obviously didn’t have to worry about. They didn’t get it. They didn’t get him, his family, or any of them.

  But did these new guys? Just because they managed to live through Solvimine didn’t mean they were better able to run anything than the idiots he currently saw in charge.

  Who was he to say?

  “Enough, Mr. Barnett.” Parker’s face had gone stormy, like it always did when he was pissed. “This was what we planned, was it not? We would change those who were worthy, and you would train them. You relished the challenge, wanted to be on the front line of the development of the new order.”

  He was right. When Parker sold him this plan to begin a new wave of evolutionary progress, he’d wanted a role in that vision.

  That hadn’t included babysitting.

  “These guys are a mess.” Jack rolled his shoulders, crossing his arms over his chest. “You need to get me better recruits.”

  “Well, you’ll soon have your chance.” Parker moved to the table where his notes were fanned in a messy heap. The guy was physically unable to stay tidy—said that disorder was the mark of a creative genius. That sounded like an excuse. More, it drove Jack nuts. “We’re going to schedule a few more meetings.”

  Jack’s stomach roiled. Unwelcome images from the last gathering boiled up. They’d had to wait after they administered the drug. To see who lived. He hadn’t paused to consider that waiting for some to live would mean watching while others died.

  He shook his head. “A few?”

  “Five.” Parker glanced up from his pages. “You need to sort through the recruits, come up with the ones who are most likely to motivate others. We’ll need them to take the lead on some of the meetings.”

  “You want me to christen some of them leaders?” That group of idiots might have one or two leaders. Enough to man five meetings? Enough who would have the stomach to stand by and wait for survivors? Doubtful.

  “Yes.” Parker’s gaze pierced him. “That’s your job, Mr. Barnett. To train the new recruits. That’s what we agreed.”

  “This is a mistake.”

  The words left his mouth before he could consider the consequences. Jack had gotten into the habit of checking his internal monologue since he’d signed on with Parker. The guy could read his thoughts, and Jack preferred some things to remain his own. When he figured out the extent to which he could be manipulated by Parker’s ability, he’d taken greater pains to keep his innermost thoughts to himself.

  Maybe he’d gotten so good at burying what he thought that he even kept it from himself.

  “A mistake?” Parker’s tone was deceptively mild.

  Time to pay the piper. “I don’t trust these guys to lead meetings. Hell, I’m not confident they can tie their own shoes. They’re a bunch of geeks and dorks. They don’t have the stomach for this, and when they fail, they’ll turn us in, call the cops. We don’t need that kind of trouble.”

  That was a start. It still didn’t begin to cover the fuckery that was going on here.

  “Then you better work harder to get them there.” Parker rounded the table, stepping closer. His voice remained low, patient. Chilling. “I’m surprised I have to remind you that you’re too far into this to back out now.” As he closed the distance between them, Jack was surprised again that Parker wasn’t really that tall. Nowhere near his own six and a half feet. But his personality was huge, and what he could do… It made him imposing in a way that Jack couldn’t ignore.

  He wouldn’t deny that he was afraid of him.

  “You are wanted by the federal government. You’re linked with deaths, Mr. Barnett. Do you believe that if you left, you’d be able to escape punishment? Do you think you’d be able to run and hide now?” Parker chuckled. “Maybe you could run to the beach in Mexico last year, but you can’t do that now. They will find you.” He paused, meeting Jack’s gaze. “And if they don’t, I will.”

  He turned then, purposefully giving Jack his back, as if to prove that he wasn’t afraid of him. He could hear Jack’s every thought, every move, after all. His behavior said, again, that Jack couldn’t do anything to stop him.

  And he was right.

  At the table, Parker glanced at his notes, letting that all settle over Jack’s skin. After a pregnant pause, he said, “Get them ready. Pick the most promising, and have a care with it. If the recruits fail, law enforcement will find us.” He lifted an eyebrow. “And if they do, keep in mind th
at one of us is more likely to go down with the ship than the other.”

  With that, he returned his gaze—and presumably, his thoughts—to his notes, dismissing Jack entirely.

  Turning, Jack left, pulling the door closed. He strode down the hall of the building Parker had rented for their use. Parker had a way of hiding whatever he wanted to hide, including the fact that they hadn’t paid a cent for the place.

  As Jack descended into the pit of the building, he took in the group of men—and one woman—that had survived the drug.

  Parker was asking for a miracle, and Jack wasn’t sure it was something he could give him.

  He was sure, though, that even if he could, he didn’t want to. Not anymore.

  …

  The screen in front of Luke blurred. He’d gotten so used to reading the metadata of the internet that he almost couldn’t see it anymore, but tonight he was having a hard time concentrating. Countless times he’d gone back to reread something because the information hadn’t stuck in his head.

  Rubbing his eyes, he leaned back, blinked hard, and stared at the fluorescent lights above him for a long moment. He kept hearing Beth’s voice from yesterday.

  I’m attracted to you.

  Verbal bombs like that were hard to forget.

  He hadn’t seen it coming. How had he not noticed? She’d never let on, that’s how. Which led him to the only possible conclusion as to why she’d never given him a clue: she knew she shouldn’t be attracted to him as well as he did.

  Because he was a grumpy asshole.

  The old him? That version of him had cared for his hermit father, a computer hacker who lived by his own laws. Luke had been proud of that guy.

  He used to have a sense of humor. Now, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed. Not much of a catch.

  Glancing down, he tried to see himself through her eyes. He’d finally filled out his six-foot frame. Where he used to be gangly, he had become muscular. All those late-night runs, probably. After his change, he’d stopped needing his glasses. Whatever pathways that opened in his mind had also fixed his eyesight. One of the other guys had even stopped being color blind.