Karina Cooper - [Dark Mission 05]

by One for the Wicked

  Psychology at its finest. If he wouldn’t respond to pleasantries, he’d damn well respond to provocation.

  Kayleigh raised her chin. Met his eyes and didn’t dare look away as he closed the distance between them. “How much are you asking for?”

  For a long, tense moment, he stood over her, features shrouded in shadow. Unreadable but for the glint reflected in his eyes.

  Kayleigh held her breath.

  “It may surprise you,” he finally replied, voice a dark rumble, “that I am not trading you for money.”

  It did. It must have showed, because his mouth twisted.

  “You little snob.” Annoyance, sharp and cutting. “You think I’d kidnap you, go to all this trouble, for money?”

  “What am I supposed to think?” she shot back, stung despite herself. She’d started this. “You obviously don’t want me for my looks.”

  His arms folded over his chest, which only made him look broader as he loomed over her. “Narrow-minded, too.”

  “I am not. The evidence speaks for itself!” She wanted to stand, but there was no room to maneuver. If she tried, she’d have to wiggle between him and the wall.

  She considered that more than unnecessary.

  He ignored her argument. “You can’t be ignorant of your father’s role in the Church.”

  That stopped her. Her mouth fell open. “What? His role?” She scoffed. “Of course I know what he does. He’s brilliant.” Although how Shawn Lowe knew, she couldn’t begin to guess.

  If possible, his mouth got thinner. Harder. He didn’t bend, didn’t have to, but she suddenly felt as if he took up more space as he glared at her with such . . . such hatred. “He’s a killer. A butcher.”

  The word slapped her in the face.

  Your father is butchering people. . .

  She lashed back. “He is not!” A weak counter, and she knew it. Damning caution, she pressed her shoulders back against the rough wall and struggled to stand.

  To her surprise, to her consternation, he caught her elbow, lifted her with less effort than he should have, given his injuries.

  It put her suddenly all too close.

  As she found her feet, the oddly helpful gesture stealing some of her spark, he straightened. Folded his arms across his chest. “Your sainted father,” he said quietly, “is holding on to friends of mine. Friends I want back.”

  “What friends?” she demanded.

  He misunderstood. He must have, because as he quirked an eyebrow, he pointed out evenly, “Believe it or not, I do have them.”

  Kayleigh shrugged that away. “That’s not what I meant. What does he possibly need with common street people?”

  Both eyebrows winged upward this time.

  In his silence, she replayed the tone, the words that had just come out of her mouth, and cringed. “I— That’s not what I meant, either!”

  “It’s exactly what you meant.” One hand palmed the brick by her head as he leaned down. Just close enough that she couldn’t escape his pinning stare. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.

  But he didn’t touch her.

  Her skin all but vibrated with anticipation.

  “You’re a spoiled little princess, Dr. Lauderdale.” His scornful drawl scored where his earlier silence had only aggravated; heat suffused her cheeks. “For all your studies and university smarts, you’re blind and ignorant, and you’re happier that way, aren’t you?”

  “That’s not true,” she whispered. It couldn’t be. Not knowing what she knew. “I just meant that my father has no need of outsiders.”

  His gaze slid to her mouth. Darkened, and lifted again to stare at her. Through her. “I know about the Salem Project.”

  Kayleigh opened her mouth. Caught herself.

  He’d called her father a butcher. The same words Parker Adams had flung at her from her interrogation chair.

  How did he know about the lab?

  If he did, how could he possibly think his friends were involved?

  Mouth drying, Kayleigh whispered weakly, “I don’t know what you mean.”

  He raised one hand, but when she turned her face, wincing, she realized he only meant to wipe at his grimy cheek with the back of it. His gaze never left her face. “You’re a terrible liar.”

  The chain between the handcuff bracelets rattled as she tucked her locked fingers against her stomach. “I . . .” She blew out a shaking breath. “How do you know about it? Are you friends with Parker Adams?”

  “No.” His lips curved, hard and—her chin jerked up—pitying. “You really don’t have a clue what you and your precious father are up against, do you?”

  She glared.

  “Tell me one thing,” he growled. “Just one thing and I’ll let it go.” She doubted that, but he didn’t give her time to say anything as he demanded, “Where does your outside DNA come from?”

  “What are you—”

  The hand by her head clenched into a fist. “Don’t bother with the bullshit, Doctor. I know. I know about the witch factories and I know enough basic science to know you can’t just combine the same crap from the same source and get a working model. So where do you get it?”

  She stared into his face, her eyes wide and burning. Her cheeks felt clammy, but all she could say was, “Missionaries.”

  Not the answer he expected, obviously, as his features went harder than the stone that had pinned him; darkened with rage she saw reflected in the glittering depths of his near-black stare. “You’re lying.”

  Kayleigh shot off the wall. “I am not— Oh!” His hand flattened against her chest, pushed her back against the surface, but a red haze licked at the corners of her vision. Her neck craned as she hissed, “I’m not lying to you.”

  “Wrong.” He thrust his face close to hers, the hand by her head white-knuckled. “Your sainted father takes people off the street. He goes searching for his favorites, did you know that?”

  Impossible. He didn’t know what he was saying. She knew where the DNA samples came from; she headed the operation! She sucked in a breath to argue. The hand between her breasts flattened hard, tightened against her body, locked her against the wall.

  Her mind went blank. “I . . . You’re wrong . . .”

  “You, Dr. Lauderdale,” he said evenly, anger a seething boil behind the taut lines of his face. So hard. Unforgiving. “You are wrong. You choke down whatever excuse Daddy gives you and I bet you never even question that bullshit the Church taught you to spew, do you?”

  “No—” The cuffs clinked as she wrapped both hands around his wrist. “I mean, yes! Of course, I’m a scientist. I question everything!”

  His eyes glittered, mere inches away. “I. Don’t. Believe. You.” Every word a terrible punctuation to the disgust she read in his stare. Heard in his voice.

  Felt in her stomach, acid and fire.

  Weak. She had to stop playing at weak!

  Kayleigh’s grip tightened against his wrist. Forcing her shoulders from the wall, a whip of grim triumph licked through her as surprise flickered under his so-superior scorn. As he took a step back at her shove. “You talk so big,” she retorted. “But all you are is a kidnapper and a bully.”

  That surprise guttered to something Kayleigh swore looked like humor, then edged over to unreadable again. Just like that.

  And just like that, he let her go. Jerked his wrist out of her hands and put space between them. “I’m saving lives, Dr. Lauderdale.”

  “Ha!” She didn’t even bother looking for her equilibrium. Far as she could tell, she’d left it topside with the rest of her life. “Easy for you to say. All I can see is a grown man sulking because his life sucks.”

  Shawn stilled.

  Never talk about my parents.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she sneered, “did I hit another nerve?” She took two steps from the wall, jerked her bound hands at him as if she could wave the truth into existence. Slap him with it. “You kidnapped me, Shawn. You felt me up in the front seat of my car knowing who I was
, what you intended, and then you betrayed me.” Another hard shove at his chest, but this time, he didn’t budge an inch. “You’re trading me for some criminal friends of yours who got caught—” Her harsh crack of sound wasn’t a laugh. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she cringed at her own nastiness.

  Why couldn’t she stop?

  Because he’d started it. Because he flung cruel daggers at her and her father, and he thought he was so perfect.

  Shawn took a step closer.

  She raised her face, met his eyes, and said flatly, “Whatever your friends did to get caught by the Mission isn’t my or my father’s fault. Pick better friends next time.” The heat in his eyes congealed, froze to a solid bank of ice. His jaw set hard enough to cut glass, and had she cared, she would have stopped there.

  She couldn’t.

  He’d called her father a butcher and she wasn’t positive that he was wrong.

  That she wasn’t a butcher, too.

  “Maybe,” she said softly, all too aware of her perfect aim, “you should try friends who aren’t criminals. Then the Mission wouldn’t take them away from—”

  He moved so fast, Kayleigh couldn’t place more than a lunge, an impression of motion detailed by raw strength as a hand curled in her jacket collar. He lifted her off her feet like she weighed nothing, dragged her nose to nose with him so that she had no choice but to stare into his eyes.

  If a gaze could cut, she’d be bleeding at his feet.

  “Shut up,” he growled, his breath hot against her cheek. “Shut up, or I swear to God, you’ll go back to your father in pieces. Which is more than he ever gave me.” She gasped for air, but he’d left her no room to breathe, one hand in her lapel and one tangled in her hair, forcing her head still. Every gasp thrust her chest against his, and her toes barely held her weight against his raw strength.

  He held her effortlessly, gave her nothing to work with—no leverage, no momentum. Nothing but the rapid-fire beat of her heartbeat.

  Her wide, straining eyes pinned on his face, taut and twisted. His teeth bared inches away, his eyes blazing.

  Don’t cry. She didn’t dare give him the satisfaction.

  She didn’t get a say. A tear slipped over her lashes. Fear, anger, frustration.

  His furious gaze fell to her cheek. Blanched.

  Slowly, his soundless snarl eased, lips softening. The grip in her hair loosened, until the knotted waves slid over her shoulder and his thumb tracked a damp line down her cheek.

  He hadn’t hit her. Even after she’d been so cruel. She’d all but demanded he do it, knew she provoked him, but he hadn’t done it.

  The knowledge settled into her skin and simmered, a slow, uncurling certainty.

  Shawn Lowe wasn’t the stone-cold killer he made himself out to be.

  He stared down at his fingers. Regret shaped his mouth, his features. The set of his shoulders. Something harsh and painful and so bleak, she shuddered. “Stop talking about it,” he said raggedly. “I’m trying fucking hard, Kayleigh—I can’t . . . Don’t use it like a weapon.”

  Her breath shook as she took it in. “I’m not a butcher. I don’t want to be.” It came out on a rasped whisper, a tattered plea that she wasn’t sure he’d heard. Or that she’d meant him to.

  But his eyes lifted, bitter. Wary and veiled. “Sixteen years ago yesterday,” he said quietly, barely more than a rumble of sound, “missionaries came for my father.”

  Another tear followed the first. Again, his thumb grazed her skin. Wiped it away.

  “Laurence Lauderdale was with them. He—” His throat worked, golden skin tightening as he swallowed hard. “They spoke, my parents were gunned down.”

  She couldn’t hear this. Wouldn’t. Closing her eyes blocked out the sight of him, but did nothing to erase the bleak words from the air, from her mind.

  “Your father was there. Kayleigh—”

  Her sob fractured through her chest.

  He let out a muttered curse, a hard sound that only made it all the worse as he rasped, “I’m sorry.” Carefully, he let go of her jacket. Eased away until she found the ground with her own feet.

  She didn’t fall. Somehow, despite the queasy hollow scraping out her insides, through the dull ringing of doubt and dismay in her head, she didn’t keel over on the spot.

  “I didn’t know,” she whispered. She couldn’t even be sure. Sixteen years ago? All she could think was that he’d been studying missionaries for the program, shadowing them to find the best of the new recruits. That her father had his reasons. He always had reasons. “Shawn, I-I’m sorry. I won’t bring it up again.” No matter how badly she wanted a response.

  He turned away, once more cast into shadow. “Just for the record,” he said over her, over whatever useless apology, vapid explanation she wanted to give, “I don’t hate you, either.”

  People had killed his parents—her father was there, she repeated silently, dizzy—and he didn’t hate her? Her laughter sounded sick. Wan. “Maybe you should.”

  “Maybe.” His shoulders moved, a powerful slant that told her nothing. “Maybe it’s not about you anymore.”

  Kayleigh stared as he strode from the pocket of light. His footsteps, marked by the crunch and clatter of rock and grit and debris, faded within moments.

  Trembling, she allowed her knees to bend. Allowed her back to slide against the wall until her tailbone hit the ground.

  Missionaries weren’t supposed to kill civilians.

  Then again, maybe they weren’t civilians. Maybe Shawn knew less about his parents than he thought.

  She buried her face in her upraised knees.

  Maybe . . . maybe it was Kayleigh who didn’t know as much as she thought she did.

  Chapter Twelve

  What the hell was wrong with him?

  Shawn glanced up as a droplet of icy water splattered against his scalp, frowned when more followed it. High overhead, where the paved ceiling covering Old Seattle gave way to New Seattle’s foundation, a mass of twisted pipes drained collected water from the city base.

  It was the only kind of rain the ruins ever saw, and the reason for all the rot infesting the moldering carcass.

  That and neglect.

  He stopped on the edge of the pool of light, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. One throbbed, painful reminder of the real damage he could have caused his captive if he’d lost his temper completely. He’d almost slammed her against the wall behind her. Almost allowed his rage to overwhelm whatever decency he had left, a thin little thread.

  That couldn’t happen again. Ever.

  So the question stood. What was wrong with him?

  “I don’t hate you?” he muttered, glaring up at the shrouded black ceiling again as another flurry of fake rain splattered to his shoulders. Of course he wanted to hate her!

  Her father was responsible for the murder of his parents. He was there.

  The man had watched it all. Instigated the damned order.

  The chaos, the screaming as Shawn’s mother fought off the men who’d come to take away her husband.

  Shawn had killed a man that day. The first of a handful over the next years, but at seventeen, all Shawn remembered was fear and rage. So much rage.

  His dad had been a union laborer, just home from a brief hospital stay after minor injury. His mom had been . . .

  His heart twisted as it always did.

  She was beautiful. Stubborn, loving, determined to make a good life for her family. Eager to have her boys to herself for a few days before both went back to work.

  God, she’d been so pleased.

  Then Lauderdale had come with his offer and . . .

  He knuckled at his eyes.

  May had rescued Shawn from the Church orphanage only days later.

  Kayleigh’s father was the reason for everything.

  But God damn it, Shawn didn’t want to hate her. He wanted to like her.

  “Based on what?” he snarled, kicking aside a loose stone with sa
vage frustration. It rebounded off a hunk of rusted metal, scored deep enough to light a spark in the darkness.

  Because she was pretty? Because she gave up her body so easily to a few rough words growled in the dark?

  No, that wasn’t fair.

  Because she had guts. Her bargaining chip, big enough to leave his shoulder aching where it had pinned him, proved she wasn’t just some delicate little flower out for a good time. She was smart, resourceful. Intelligent.

  It also proved she had enough presence of mind to lie to him, if she wanted to. And why wouldn’t she want to?

  He ran a hand through his hair, shoved it back from his face as the fake rain gathered momentum.

  Another storm must have rolled in. Several hours ago, probably. It took time for the runoff to collect from the upper streets, pool to the lower, gather in the lowest pits, and seep through the twisted mass of haphazard aqueducts.

  Now, it dripped to the abandoned city and saturated everything. Each plink as drops hit metal, each muted thud, grated.

  He had a plan. A solid one. Although the coordinates he’d given Lauderdale now pointed to little more than rubble, Shawn had picked enough of a vantage point in the reshaped landscape to watch for the Church’s agents.

  Experimental ones, he’d bet. No simple missionaries to rescue Lauderdale’s darling little girl.

  Shawn wasn’t without his own training—every one of May’s soldiers learned how to fight. Some, like Stone, were shit on the street, but the things the tech could do with a keyboard stymied most.

  Shawn knew the streets, the hard places in New Seattle. He knew the dives, the back-alley shortcuts, the unforgiving places where the wrong body wearing the right clothes was more likely to see a shiv than a friendly smile.

  And he knew Old Seattle. Bits of it. Just enough to know how to get around.

  None of old man Lauderdale’s operatives could claim that.

  Shawn crouched, flicking through a pile of stones in absentminded interest. He palmed two, but it wasn’t the rough edges he saw, or the solid weight he felt.

  Her eyes. He hadn’t seen them under anything but fluorescence and battery-operated light, but he found himself wondering what they’d look like under the sun. Pale and cold like diamonds?