“The old guy brought me something to eat last night before the two who grabbed me threw you in here. Can’t say I had much of an appetite, though. What do you think they intend to do with us?”
Dimitri was relatively sure they intended to kill both of them, but it wouldn’t help Jim’s obvious anxiety to share that little piece of information with him. Besides, Dimitri had no intention of going down without a fight, and he sure as hell wasn’t letting an innocent bystander lose his life over an addiction to romance novels.
“Jim, I want you to listen to me. Whatever happens, whatever you see or hear, try not to react. I warn you, some of it is going to seem pretty far-fetched, but you need to stay cool. I’ll get us out of here. Just keep your mouth shut, your head down, and follow my lead. No matter what. Got it?”
“I’ll try.”
“Trying isn’t good enough. No matter how shocked or how scared you get, if I get distracted by you, we’ve got big problems.”
“Because our lives depend on it?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“I have a hunch it’s exactly like that. I’ll try my best.”
“Good man.” Dimitri slapped him on the shoulder and a pained groan escaped Jim’s lips as the color drained from his face. “What’s the deal? I barely tapped you.”
“It’s my shoulder,” Jim bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. “When they pulled me into the van…I think maybe it’s dislocated.”
“Let me have a look,” Dimitri leaned forward as Jim shrank back, holding the injured arm stiffly at his side, slightly away from his body, and with the forearm turned outward.
“Uh, no that’s okay.”
“C’mon, man. I’m a doctor,” Dimitri reached toward the injured shoulder.
“You don’t look like a doctor,” Jim gave Dimitri’s long hair and leather-clad bulk a doubtful once over. “And if you really are a doctor, you should know all those steroids are no good for you.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot.” Dimitri grinned. “Now c’mon, let’s see what we’ve got.”
Supporting Jim’s forearm with one hand, Dimitri gently probed the offending joint with the other. The muscles surrounding the shoulder were tightly spasmed with obvious swelling around the joint. The joint itself was squared off as opposed to a normal rounded appearance, and Jim sucked in a breath while beads of sweat popped out on his forehead as Dimitri palpated the head of the humerus bone clearly protruding in front.
“Yep, dislocated. I’m going to have to reduce it before the spasms get any worse.”
“Reduce it?” Jim’s voice quavered.
“Put it back in place. I won’t lie. It’s gonna hurt. But the longer we wait the harder it’s gonna be.”
“Could you remove my belt please?”
“Well gee, Jim…not sure I know you well enough.” Dimitri grinned, attempting to distract and calm the man while he yanked the belt free of Jim’s khaki’s, folded it up, and shoved it between Jim’s teeth. “Ready?”
Jim bit down hard on the leather, turned even paler, and after taking a deep breath, nodded slowly.
Holding the injured limb tightly against the man’s body, Dimitri flexed Jim’s elbow to a ninety-degree angle and gently rotated the shoulder outward. Jim sucked in a pained breath through his nose and locked his jaw on the belt. Dimitri continued to support the arm while waiting to see if the muscles were going to cooperate enough to allow the shoulder to spontaneously relocate. When that didn’t happen, he gently lifted the arm above Jim’s head, grunting in satisfaction as an audible and palpable clunk indicated the head of the humerus had returned to its normal anatomical position.
Jim tore the belt from between his teeth, his eyes wide with the sudden relief.
“Wow that feels a lot better!” He almost smiled as he followed Dimitri’s directions to make a fist and wiggle his fingers. After ensuring there was no apparent nerve damage, Dimitri rolled up Jim’s belt and shoved it in his pocket.
“We’ll use this later for a sling. It’s not ideal, but it’s all we’ve got. For now, it’s better if no one realizes you aren’t in top form, so just hook your thumb in your belt loop to support the arm until we have another option.”
“Thanks. Whatever you say, but frankly, I’m not sure my form is going to be of any use to you whether it’s at the top or not.” Jim dropped his eyes as his lips twisted in a self-deprecating expression.
“Well, not being a hindrance is its own way of being a help, okay?”
“Okay.” Jim leaned back against the wall of the cell with a relieved sigh as Dimitri’s head whipped around toward the metallic grating of a key being turned in a lock somewhere down the corridor. Given Jim’s earlier observations and the fact that Dimitri felt no electrical shocks racing up and down his spine heralding the presence of evil, he assumed their imminent visitor could only be one man. One man he very much wanted to strangle with his bare hands.
Putting a finger to his lips, he moved stealthily toward the door as footsteps approached. The visitor had no sooner slid back the panel in the upper part of the door, revealing an opening to a hallway outside, than Dimitri’s hand shot through and grabbed him by the throat. The tray of food clattered to the floor as the man clawed at the iron bands of the angel’s fingers obstructing his windpipe.
“Please,” the older man begged in a strangled whisper.
Dimitri stared impassively at the bug-eyed and quickly mottling face of John Gatewick, realizing for the first time in his many years of existence, he could take a human life with no remorse whatsoever. On some level, he realized it should bother him, but remembering what this man had put Elle through made it nearly impossible to feel guilt.
“Uh, hey. Doc? If you kill him now, we’re still stuck in here and his friends won’t be too happy to discover the body cooling outside the door,” Jim offered in a calm tone.
“Yeah, good point,” Dimitri acknowledged, loosening his grip just enough to allow Gatewick to gulp in a breath. “Okay, asshole, let’s talk about your daughter.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Have you lost your damned mind? It’s out of the question.” McAllister’s tone of voice alone would have made most people back down, even without his dark frown and aggressive stance. But Elle had never been most people.
“I wasn’t asking permission, McAllister, I was outlining my plan.” Elle leaned toward the mirror and continued to apply the heavy layer of make-up which altered her appearance completely. Anxiety for Dimitri and fear of being caught in her nightmare ensured a long, sleepless night with plenty of time to think. With a final swipe of the brush over her cheeks, she bent to rummage through the bag Galen had been accommodating enough to retrieve from her apartment, earlier. Pulling free a long, black wig, she turned back to the mirror, tugging the wig down firmly over the flesh-tone skullcap currently concealing her natural brown locks. When she’d adjusted it to her satisfaction, she rose from Kat’s vanity and turned to face the occupants of the room.
“What do you think?”
“You look like an Adams’ family reject,” McAllister grumbled.
“As long as I don’t look anything like myself, Morticia’s much younger and more attractive sister works for me.” Elle sighed at the expression on Kassian McAllister’s face. He wasn’t happy and was making no attempt to pretend otherwise. She really didn’t want to antagonize her best friend’s husband, but no one else had been able to think of a way into the compound, and the longer they debated, the greater the risk to Dimitri. “So which one of you big strong Earthbound wants to be my baby daddy?”
“I told you, you are not doing this. First of all, Dimitri would kick my ass if I allowed you to put yourself in danger this way, and secondly it will never work,” McAllister replied in a tone that didn’t invite debate.
Elle’s nostrils flared as she stalked across the room, bringing herself toe to toe with the much larger man. She planted her fists on her hips and looked up at him through the thick coat of mascara ta
ngling her lashes like spider’s legs. Combined with the heavy layer of eyeliner, she ran a real risk of sealing her eyes closed every time she blinked.
“Sorry to burst your macho bubble, but I’m not asking your permission. If we don’t get him out of there, Dimitri won’t be around to kick anyone’s ass.”
Swallowing the palpitations climbing into her throat, she firmly ignored the churning nausea swirling in her gut ever since the men had returned with the news they’d found Dimitri’s sigils indicating he’d been taken.
He’d stormed out of his apartment thinking she believed the worst of him. She’d been a fool to discount everything her heart and soul told her to be true before she’d discovered the painting. And she would tell the big lug that very thing right to his face. Just as soon as she found him. Her plan would work. It had to. She needed to believe it, even if no one else did. Failure was simply not an option. She lifted her chin a fraction higher before continuing in a tight voice, “Look, if Galen is right about this microchip in my wrist, I’m our ticket in. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me sooner, but that has to be what it is. I never had to enter any kind of code or anything when I came home from classes or when I moved about between the living quarters and the lab. Yet, it stands to reason there has to be some kind of security in place, right? And if we’re wrong? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Besides, I don’t see anyone else coming up with a better plan. I can’t just sit around here doing nothing while Dimitri is in danger.”
“I would do the same thing if it were you, Kassian,” Kat said quietly, laying a hand on her husband’s visibly tense forearm and stroking it soothingly with her fingertips. “You know I would.”
“If you think reminding me you have the capacity to be just as reckless as your friend is going to help matters, Katrina, you’re sadly mistaken.” McAllister glared at his wife, the first time that Elle had ever seen him look at her with anything other than complete adoration. “And there isn’t a man here who would let you risk yourself like that.”
“There isn’t a man here who could stop me if your life was on the line, any more than anyone could stop you if I was the one at risk,” Kat shot back, silver eyes flashing dangerously.
“One has nothing to do with the other,” he growled.
“Oh?” Kat arched a brow. “I know you aren’t going to say it’s because you’re a man and I’m not. You aren’t going to go there are you, McAllister?” McAllister continued to glare down at her from beneath lowered brows, shaking his arm free as his wife’s eyes narrowed to slits and golden sparks spurted from her fingertips. Elle wrinkled her nose as the stench of burnt hair rose into her nostrils.
“Okay, enough.” Elle stepped between them, holding up her hands. “Look, I appreciate where you’re coming from McAllister, but turn your boiling machismo down to simmer for a sec and look at this logically. You said yourself something is blocking all of you from getting a read on what’s going on below ground, and whatever it is also prevents you from fading in. I know that place like the back of my hand. I know the layout, I know the way the operation works, and I likely have the key to unlocking the door planted right here in my arm. I understand you don’t like the idea, but I’m the best chance we have for getting Dimitri back. Now, I can do this with your help, which is probably the safer and smarter route, or I can do it solo. Either way, I’m doing it. So what’s it going to be?”
“You knew the layout several years ago.” McAllister scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “What if you’re way off base? Anything could have changed since then.”
“Possibly. But if we don’t try, we don’t know. Right?” Turning to Galen, she held out her hand. “Were you able to hack in and get the consent forms and the FAQs so we have some idea what the hell we are supposed to be doing?”
“Piece of cake,” the shiny-domed giant replied, opening a manila folder, extracting several sheets of paper and handing them to her. Elle barely glanced at them, gripping them tightly in her trembling hands and blowing out a long, slow breath. “Not only that, but just as I’d hoped, their closed circuit security cameras have remote access capability. Whoever set up the system didn’t even bother to change the factory defaults for the username and password. I mean, you’ll find that to be true about seventy percent of the time, but I would have expected someone with Gatewick’s agenda to use a little more caution.”
“Bottom line, Galen. Were you able to hack in so the cameras can be set on a loop?”
“Piece of cake,” he repeated. “Once you’re inside, I hit a button and instant déjà vu. Hopefully, I got them all.”
“Hopefully. Okay, then. The only thing left is to decide who’s volunteering to be the lucky sperm donor?”
“I’ll do it,” Alec said at last with a shrug. “I mean, I’m the most logical choice, right? You’re known in the city Kass, and if they’ve been watching any of you for any length of time, it’s possible they’ve seen Galen, too. Luca and Michael won’t be here in time, and if Elle’s suspicions are correct, we can’t afford to wait. I’ve been out of the country for months. I’m the one they’re least likely to recognize.”
“I still don’t like it,” McAllister bit out, snaking an arm around his wife and hauling her against him. Kat’s wide eyes were fixed on Elle. Given her empathic gift, Kat was probably the only person in the room who realized Elle’s cocky bravado was an act and the prospect of stepping back onto Gatewick’s turf nearly paralyzed her with fear. Kassian McAllister might not like the idea, but he couldn’t possibly like the idea less than Elle.
Elle offered Alec McAllister a grateful smile and began shuffling through the papers Galen had provided. Waiting until Alec shrugged on one of his brother’s sport coats, she handed him half the sheaf. He scanned the top one quickly, his dark brows drawing together in a frown.
“I hope you’re a quick study. These are some of the questions couples looking to transfer their embryos from one facility to another might ask. Those who’ve struggled with infertility and suffered through a gamut of tests and procedures to get to this point are extremely protective of those little vials containing their best hope for a family. They’ll have done their homework. If we’re going to pull this off, we need to make sure it looks as though we’ve done ours.”
“Got it.” Alec glanced up from under his lashes and flashed his dimples in what should have been a reassuring grin, but Elle didn’t relax one iota. Was it really mere days ago she believed she was strong enough to walk away from everyone and everything? Yet even as she’d mourned the impending loss of her life, her career, her best friend, even then, before she’d realized exactly what he meant to her, somewhere deep down she’d wanted Dimitri to stop her. Wanted him to want her. And he did. And how did she repay him? She’d thrown his love in his face and accused him of using her. She’d pushed him away and right out the door into the clutches of the enemy. One hand curled into a fist at her side while the other absently massaged her sternum, trying to ease the dull ache that had been a constant companion since the moment she’d felt Dimitri’s absence. The white silk blouse shifted softly against her skin, reminding her of the brush of Dimitri’s hair and the whisper of his lips caressing her flesh and the ache became even more pronounced. For him, she willingly walked back through the gates of her own personal nightmare. For him, she would risk everything because now, without him, everything else was emptiness. Hell no, she couldn’t relax. Knowing the consequences of failure, there were moments she feared her heart would actually stop, moments she could barely breathe.
“Elle?” Kat said quietly. “Honey, are you sure about this? You don’t have to go back there. We can find another way.”
Surprised to realize she’d been lost in thought and they were all watching her closely, Elle’s head snapped up. She swallowed hard, flipped her temporary identity’s black hair over one shoulder, and straightened her spine. She stared each of them directly in the eye in turn.
“Thanks, Kat, but you’re wrong. I do have to go back there
. Now, if you’re ready, Alec, let’s get this freak show on the road, shall we?”
****
As Gatewick gasped out his story, Dimitri’s fingers loosened until they were barely tight enough to maintain a grip on the man.
“Do you honestly expect me to believe that load of shit?” Dimitri spat.
“It’s the truth, I swear,” Gatewick croaked. If the fool was to be believed, everything he’d ever done had been to protect Elle. Well, hadn’t he done a bang up freakin’ job?
“Drop your shields and I’ll decide whether it’s the truth or not,” Dimitri demanded in a steely voice. Gatewick nodded painfully and opened his mind. As Dimitri explored every thought and memory, every hidden fear, his grip loosened completely and his fingers curled into a fist as the man collapsed to the floor gasping.
“Do you have any idea what she’s suffered because of you?” He growled.
“Better she hate me and escape,” Gatewick whispered hoarsely. “Chen will never give up trying to eradicate the Earthbound. Procrastination was the best I could do to keep us both alive as long as I have. He’ll figure out the truth eventually, but at least Arabella won’t be here to suffer his wrath. I’m resigned to paying for my stupidity with my own life but I’ll be damned if I’ll sacrifice hers.”
“Why didn’t you just tell her the truth?”
“Considering you were about to kill me on her behalf, I assume you know Arabella fairly well.” Gatewick coughed, massaging his throat and climbing slowly to his feet. “If that’s the case, surely you realize if I told her the truth, she never would have left. She would have believed she could outsmart Chen and save me.”
“So instead you let her believe she was created in vitro to serve as a guinea pig? Well, you might have succeeded in making her hate you, old man, but you made damn sure she’s spent the last years hating herself just as much.”
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