Critical Intelligence

by Critical Intelligence(lit)

  “Wilson, I presume you know which button on the panel will open the wall to give us a view of the interrogation chamber. And we’ll need you to hit the audio button. Do not allow for two-way communication just yet. In the event of an emergency Eadan can direct link to the agent.”

  Wilson glanced at Lukian and waited to see what he should do. Lukian nodded and Wilson went to the wall panel. He hit the button and the wall began to retract slowly, revealing a two-way mirror.

  “Gentleman, meet the agent you will be aiding,” the General said.

  It took a second for Roi’s mind to register what his eyes were seeing. The room was full of supernatural muscle. In the center of the room was a tiny, waif of nothing strapped to a chair with her head down. “Melissa!”

  Roi fought with all his might to break free of the Fey’s hold on him but made no headway. He watched in horror as a man punched Missy across the face hard, snapping her head back and making blood flow from her mouth.

  Instantly, the rest of the I-Ops went to aid her. Eadan put his hand out and pinned them all in place. “I know it’s hard to watch but you need to know you can trust her. The things she’ll do and say and the people that she’ll call friends will make you think she’s playing for the other team. She’s not. None of you can question that or you’ll get her killed.”

  Roi watched helplessly as another man approached Missy. The bowie knife he held seemed to reflect the light of the room and make Roi’s gut tighten. “Let me go,” he said in a low rumble.

  “Roi, if she senses you, she’ll worry about you and not her own life. That’s why they were able to inject her with the chemical they did. She’d been too focused on keeping you safe to worry about herself.”

  For a split second all eyes went to Eadan. Wilson laughed. “Umm, Blondie, no one needs to worry about Roi’s safety. He’s a ruthless bastard when he needs to be and an asshole the rest of the time. Hell, sometimes he’s both.”

  The General stared at Wilson. “Yes, but has Melissa ever seen him in true battle form? She knows that one I-Op died less than two weeks ago. She understands that you are not as immortal as she once believed you were. Can you see why she’d worry?”

  Jon gasped and Roi looked towards the two-way mirror. When he saw the man with the knife, taking it and dragging it down the arm of Missy’s black turtleneck, his body stiffened. The minute blood began to drip to the floor Roi growled out. “Let me go! I trust her. Hell, I’m so in love with her I can’t fucking see straight. Let go of me. I need to go to her. I can’t just stand here. She needs me!”

  General Newman gave him a slight nod. “I understand, son. Trust me. I do. But who is the first person the enemy will attack to distract all of you?”

  “Melissa,” Lukian answered softly. “We can’t take her with us.”

  Eadan laughed. “Excuse me, but the I-Ops were brought in to go with her not the other way around. Either you accept that or she goes in alone, again.”

  They all gasped.

  Missy cried out, the sound filling the room through the speakers in the wall.

  The man with the knife drug it down her arm again. “Tell me how it is that you can heal this so fast.”

  Roi wanted to kill him. He would kill him. No one harmed his wife. Ever.

  Missy mumbled something that Roi couldn’t make out. The man apparently had the same problem because he leaned in closer. “What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The man slashed out fast and caught her cheek, slicing it open. Missy winced and closed her eyes, clearly in pain. A second later, the wound was healing before their very eyes. That amazed everyone, including Roi.

  “Tell us how you know so much about the enemy and this will stop.”

  Missy just stared at the man as tears streaked down her face. Her lip quivered and Roi wanted to hold her close while he killed the bastards who dared to do this to her.

  “Sir, she’s hardly competent to be in the field. She’s sitting there in tears. She’s not doing anything,” Jon said.

  Eadan let out a soft laugh. “And what would you do while you’re tied to a chair with silver coated rope and surrounded by a team of twelve men who are as powerful as you are?”

  “Kiss my ass goodbye.” Wilson shook his head and looked back at Roi with wide eyes. “Know that the minute that ass lets me go, I’m gutting him.”

  Roi’s nostrils flared. “Only if you beat me to him.”

  Lukian growled. “I agree with Jon. Get her the hell out of there. She can’t possibly defend herself. We’d have trouble defending ourselves in that situation.”

  General Newman cast him a wary look. “Melissa is more than capable of defending herself. She’s just sitting there because she believes these men are on the level, that they’re loyal to PSI. She’s not permitted to reveal her status to anyone lower than her. To do so could expose her to the enemy and alert them that a new wave of hell is coming at them.”

  “Wait,” Green said, trying to move forward. “You mean to tell us that she’s taking the torture and will continue to take it until she’s told otherwise?”

  The General nodded.

  “They’ll kill her at this rate,” Lukian said.

  “If it comes down to that, Melissa will not fight back.”

  Missy cried out again as another man punched her with a clawed fist, ripping her neck and jaw open. Roi fought to keep from vomiting.

  “She’s only carrying cat breed DNA. She can’t heal….”Green’s protest was cut short when they all watched Missy heal the wounds. “How?”

  General Newman locked eyes with Roi. “Geoffroi, you and Green have known Missy longer than I have. You met her when she was just a baby still.”

  “Huh?”

  “Throughout the years, you have all assured the safety of the supernatural children and also human ones as well when you happened upon them while on assignment. Even when your objective was to get in and get out unseen you have all ignored that to aid a child.” The General didn’t look away from Roi. “About twenty, twenty-five years ago, one of you sensed something a moment before the demolition charges that you had all planted on a known paranormal hot bed in Asia were to go off. You, Roi, ran into the building without any concern for yourself. You found a…”

  Roi’s stomach dropped as he ran the countless times of seeing children to safety through his mind. The second he landed on the memory of the demolition day, he gasped. “Ohmygod, I found a little girl, she was pushing two at the time and in a,” his brow furrowed, “cage.”

  General Carter nodded. “Yes, I read that in your report. I also read that she was so incredibly sick that she couldn’t lift her head. At the time, none of you were sure what was wrong with her. It’s come to light since then that they were continuing to inject her with were DNA because of her inability to shift forms.”

  Green choked back a sob. “When Roi pulled her out he refused to give her to me to examine at first. We cleared the area, the building blew and after Lukian spent an hour promising we’d take her back to the States with us instead of depositing her at a local hospital, Roi finally let me look at her. The minute she was separated from him, she cried and bit me hard enough to draw blood.”

  Green’s face paled. “That’s why the strand of panther in Melissa is identical to mine. They had her on so many synthetic drugs that the minute my blood entered her system, she absorbed its genetic traits.”

  General Carter nodded. “Yes. And the reason she can heal lycan inflicted wounds is because…”

  Lukian stared at Roi. “Because Roi put his saliva on his fingertips and placed them over the open sores she had on her upper arms to help her heal them.”

  “Yes, that was the spot they’d been administering her injections. We still aren’t sure how she picked up Green’s DNA and not Roi’s but we assume that your saliva did trigger the ability to heal lycan wounds.”

  Roi couldn’t breathe as he watched his wife take another punch, this one to the chest. Images of her as a ba
by flashed through his mind. Something about her had demanded that he protect her and see her to safety beyond what he would normally do. “I called her doll baby because she was so tiny, so perfect and so…”

  “Amazing,” the General said. “Yes, I know. When you had to leave on your next assignment she was placed in a good home. And she grew up not only remembering the team of men who could do amazing things but obsessed with finding them. Melissa didn’t understand the burning need to locate the group of men that were thought of as only a myth. But she wouldn’t stop looking. She had one man in particular on mind in her search.”

  “She was driven because deep down she knew the minute Roi picked her up that they were destined to be together,” Lukian said, sounding as astonished as Roi felt. “And that explains why we had to sedate Roi to get him to leave PSI’s infirmary to come on assignment with us. He didn’t want to leave her when she was a baby.”

  “Gee, he hasn’t outgrown that a bit,” Wilson said, sardonically. “I wonder how many more times Jon will get to shoot him today.”

  “I thought Roi was going to kill you, Captain. When we got back from our mission and that little girl … er … Missy was gone.” Jon smiled slightly as he shifted his gaze to Roi. “I told you that you’d see her again.”

  “Yeah, see her get the shit beat out of her. Let me go!” Roi fought so hard to break free of Eadan’s magical hold on him that he began to shift.

  “Control yourself, Majors, or she’ll catch your scent.”

  “Good. She needs to know that we all won’t leave her at their mercy.”

  Nodding, the General touched Eadan’s shoulder. “Inform her that they are not friendlies and that none may be permitted to leave. Do not tell her that the I-Ops are near or that we are either. She’ll avoid doing what she can for fear Majors and the others will think less of her. And if she realizes you are near, Eadan, she’ll worry more knowing you will no doubt want to confront her about Majors.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Missy dropped her head down, waiting for the next blow. It came and she winced as pain shot through her jaw, radiating through her face. The man grabbed her by her hair and held her head back, his hazel eyes bore into her.

  “You’re in pain, aren’t you?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Why don’t you just tell us about each one of the I-Ops? Tell us everything you know about the six of them?”

  Missy stared up at the man not letting on that he’d just indicated that he didn’t know anything about them. There were only five I-Ops now. And if he was PSI that had been sent by the middle level heads there then they’d know exactly who the I-Ops were and that one had passed on.

  Another man came forward and shook his head, leaving his shaggy blond hair bouncing everywhere. “She doesn’t know shit. She’s been nothing but terrified of us from the moment we snatched her, Rex. She’s just some girl with special gifts. Hell, she’s probably one of the thousands who see the future. It’s looking like she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’ll teach her to leave a bar with a man she doesn’t know. I hope that fuck was a phenomenal one cause it’s got her mixed up in some heavy shit.”

  The big man holding her hair laughed. “Well, she’ll die even if she doesn’t understand what’s going on now. There is no way she walks out of here knowing our names and faces.”

  “Then kill her and get it over with. I’m sick of hearing her cry.”

  Missy bit back a smile as she continued her terrified little girl routine. It kept their guard down. The second Rex stepped back and nodded to another man, she knew what was coming next and welcomed it.

  “Cut the bitch loose and we’ll at least have some fun with her,” Rex said, laughing.

  “Aww, hell yeah. When do you think we’ll run across another piece of ass that fine again?”

  Melissa did her best to not roll her eyes. It was hard. She concentrated on looking terrified instead.

  A man with a shaved head dropped down before her, staring up at her with hungry brown eyes. He licked his lips and undid the cords tying her ankles, hissing as the silver coating began to burn him. “Mmm, you better be worth this.”

  He freed her feet and moved around to the back of the chair. Staying still, Missy kept her terrified expression and added some shallow breathing for effect. The smug look on Rex’s face said it was working.

  Two other men ran up and stood next to her. They stared at her like she was free for the pickings. In their minds, she was. Carefully, Missy recounted what she knew about each man so far. She’d been trained to keep mental notes on what known weapons each opponent had. It was easy to tell the ones who were packing because they favored that side of their body, just a hair more than the other. In her experience, men who were up to no good tended to treat their firearms like their dicks, when they spotted a woman they adjusted them. The two next to her had been adjusting for the last forty minutes.

  Instantly, the weasel who untied the cords wormed his way in front of her again. As he brought his head in between her legs she gripped the back of the chair tight, knowing it looked as though she was scared and trying to keep him away. She let huge tears fall from her cheeks. They were easy to pull up since her entire body hurt.

  Missy, they are not on our side. I repeat. They are not friendlies.

  Eadan? The sound of Eadan’s voice in her head was music to her ears.

  Yeah, honey, it’s me. The men in there are PSI but they weren’t sent by any of us. They’ve turned and they cannot be permitted to the leave the area. They already know more than they should about the I-Ops. If they’re freed then the entire team will be in danger. Are you good to proceed?

  Missy stared down at the man between her legs and let a slight smile splay over her lips. There was no way these assholes were going to jeopardize any of the men’s lives. Oh, I think I’ll be fine.

  Be careful.

  I always am.

  The man drew in a deep breath. “You have the sweetest…”

  “I’m sick and fucking tired of hearing her cry,” the man to her direct left said as he swung out a clawed hand at her face.

  Her natural instincts and training kicked in automatically. She caught his wrist a second before it would have struck her and jerked it hard to the left. The bones cracked and the man bent forward fast. Missy stared into his now swirling eyes and stopped pretending to cry. Instantly she was emotionally stable and smiling at him. “Yeah, and I’m sick of pretending to be afraid of you assholes so I’d say we’re close to being even. Once you’re all dead I’ll call it a day.”

  Taking the man’s clawed hand she raked it over the side of the bald head between her legs, slitting the man wide open in the process. Letting go of the hand, Missy grabbed hold of the back of the metal chair. She shoved her body down fast, hitting the bald man between her thighs’ face a second before she dropped to the floor. Swinging the chair up and over her head, she kicked off the man’s body and slid backwards on the tile as she slammed the chair into his head. It hit so hard that his head split.

  Jerking it up fast, she caught the one who had punched her repeatedly in the face. Turning ever so slightly as she kicked the chair up with all her might, it caught the man’s neck and sent him flying backwards.

  Missy twisted fast, sweeping the legs out from another man that had run up next to her hoping to get a free screw. As he fell, she took hold of the handgun he’d been so keen on toying with while he’d watched her being beaten. Seeing a flash out of the corner of her eye, Missy kicked the chair up and caught it while still lying on her side.

  Instantly, a large mass was on her. Looking up, Missy found herself face to face with a partially shifted werewolf. The only thing that prevented it from biting her was the chair that was now lodged between them. She lifted the semi-automatic pistol and fired a shot between its eyes while simultaneously thrusting the chair up, pushing the beast off her.

  Her senses warned her that someone was about to start shooting
at her. The shot went off and time seemed to still. Hearing the direction it came from, Missy used her inhuman speed to roll fast the other way. The bullet grazed her arm. Pain radiated through it but she ignored it, knowing it would heal.

  “Damn it, shoot her!”

  “I’m fucking trying! She’s too fast!”

  Holding tight to the handgun, Missy charged at one of the two long tables in the room as bullets whizzed past her head. She did a fast run-jump and vaulted off the table using only one hand. As her legs moved above her, she aimed and fired a shot into a man moving in on her, scoring a direct chest hit.

  Extending her body out, she then landed and stood straight up. The second she saw the whites of another attacker’s eyes, she fired a direct shot at his head a second before he fired at her. Time seemed to slow again as she twisted to the side and seized hold of the dead man before he could fall to the ground.

  Bullets continued to come at her only now she held the dead man as a shield, allowing his body to absorb them. Reaching quickly to his side, she yanked his handgun out of his hand a moment before his fingers loosened. Letting the man fall away, Missy instantly began firing with both weapons as she ran at the men head on.

  Two dropped from direct chest hits. Another lost a hand as she shot the weapon out of it a second before aiming at his head and pulling the trigger.

  One of the men foolishly tried to meet her head on. As he turned ever-so-slightly she knew what he was planning on--he was going to try a front kick. As he drew his leg into his body and went to extend it, Missy aimed at his exposed groin. Pulling the trigger, she smiled as he dropped like a ton of bricks. His screams filled the room. Aiming at his head, she put him out of his misery.

  “I don’t like to be kicked, asshole!”

  A huge shadow came at her from above. Lifting the pistols, she fired. One discharged a shot, the other didn’t. Tossing the empty weapon side, she dove forward a moment before a huge grey wolf fell down to the floor. She hit it. It was hurt but it wasn’t a fatal shot. She went to fire at it and discovered her only weapon was now empty as well.