Taken by Fire

by Sydney Croft

  “Because I’m your sister. Our father deprived us of a life together. Give me a chance.”

  Stryker, still braced against the wall, looked like he was trying to keep his temper in check, and she got the feeling he wanted to yell at Dev, tell him not to believe her shit. “Did you give Akbar a chance?” he spat.

  She summoned tears. So easy. “I was following my father’s orders. I didn’t know about my brother at the time … and if I could take it back … I’m so sorry.”

  There was a shuffling of feet, and then Dev was at her side with a tissue, dabbing the tears off her cheeks. His voice was soft, understanding. What a sap. “Our father is a very powerful psychic, isn’t he?”

  She sniffled. “Very.”

  Dev’s hand shot out and clamped around her neck. “So am I.” His lips peeled back from his teeth as he got right in her face. “So don’t fuck with me. I know when you’re lying.”

  With a shove, he released her, and she resisted the urge to tell him how much she was going to enjoy killing him. Because she would. That idiot Maurice had been wrong—Alek might be grooming her to take over Itor, but what she really desired was ACRO. The organization was bigger, better connected with legitimate governments, but most of all, she wanted to take what her brother had. And she always got what she wanted.

  Speaking of which, she slid Stryker a sensual smile. “Thanks for recharging me, by the way.”

  Stryker stiffened, and Dev scowled. “What are you talking about?”

  “I normally don’t tell people this, but since Stryker already knows … yes, my power runs down. And your helpful agent over there—”

  “Shut up,” Stryker ground out, and Phoebe feigned an innocent look.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. Dev doesn’t know that you’ve been fucking me? Tsk-tsk. You people really don’t communicate at all, do you?”

  To his credit, Dev’s expression didn’t change, didn’t give anything away, but she sensed strong emotion brewing in him. He was, no doubt, wondering what the hell his agent had been thinking.

  Dev returned to his chair. “What are the extent of your abilities?”

  “Duh. I can burn things. I can also sprout wings and fly, walk through walls, turn into a leprechaun, travel through time and space—”

  “Enough!” Dev slammed his fist on the desk. “Are you psychic?”

  “Maybe.”

  “She isn’t,” Stryker said, a little testily, though she had no idea why. “Paranoid fucking Ender told you I’m compromised, didn’t he?”

  Dev gave Stryker a sharp nod, and Stryker cursed but didn’t say anything else.

  “Let me talk to Melanie,” Dev demanded.

  “Ask nicely.”

  “I have no problem stringing you up until she surfaces, so you might as well save yourself pain and me time.”

  “And you should know that I have no problem with pain.” She leaned forward in her chair—as much as the blanket and chains would allow anyway. “You don’t scare me.”

  A long, tense silence stretched as Dev watched her, and as much as she hated to admit it, his stare unnerved her. It was so like their father’s, and she wondered if Dev possessed the same tendency to go suddenly, unstoppably insane with rage.

  “Does Melanie know about me?” he finally asked.

  Oh, now here was where things would get really fun. “I don’t think so. I hope you plan to tell her, though.”

  Dev’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “Because our father hates her. I hate her. It would crush her little world to know that her only other family, her big brother, hates her too.” She grinned. “How funny. Even funnier if you order her torture or execution. Priceless, really.”

  “You sick bitch!” Stryker’s fists clenched. “Let Mel out. Now.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Suddenly, the room began to shake. Panic wrapped around her like a steel band, and she clenched her teeth, fought hard to stay calm. She couldn’t let these fucks know about her one fear. Don’t give in, don’t give in …

  The room shook harder, and a crack formed in the wall. She heard Dev’s voice, Stryker’s, and then it all became too much for her. She closed in on herself, but she’d be back. With a vengeance.

  Alek fucking hated sheep. Whether they were the animal kind or human kind, sheep were stupid as shit. He spurred his Waler stallion through the middle of the flock, kicking at one that was a little too slow. Dumb animals. The sheep station’s resident animal whisperer, Barry, hadn’t made the pea-brained things any more manageable, and Alek still cursed the day they’d lost the most powerful animal whisperer on the planet to ACRO. Kira Donovan would have been more than just someone to handle the sheep and dogs; she would have been an unbelievably powerful weapon.

  Adjusting his wide-brimmed hat to shield his eyes from the hot sun, he put his losses to ACRO out of his mind, because ultimately, he would come out on top. The machine his scientists had just completed would ensure that.

  Ahead, what appeared to be a run-down feeding station stood against the backdrop of a rocky hill. As he eased his mount to a stop, he heard the low buzz of an engine, and a motorcycle topped the ridge and dropped down, arriving near the rear of the feed shack.

  Alek dismounted as Jordan, one of Itor’s most powerful excedosapiens, cut the engine. “Sylvia’s plane landed. She has confirmation from our contact in London. The operation is a go.”

  “Excellent.” Alek checked his watch. In exactly ninety-six hours and ten minutes, London would be rendered a ghost town, as the first phase of Itor’s plan for world domination went into effect. “Has Phoebe bothered to check in?”

  “No word from her.”

  Damn. She’d fallen off the grid, which wasn’t unusual, but right now, when Itor was so close to striking a major blow to Western governments, she should be here. Phoebe wouldn’t want to miss it. And truth be told, he didn’t want her to miss it. She’d put so much work into the project, had worked side by side with him, and it had felt … good … to share something this important with his daughter.

  He’d seen potential in her from the day he’d brought her home from Japan, but he’d despised Melanie and her weak, soft nature so much that for a long time, it had been hard to see through that to Phoebe. Eventually, Phoebe’s strength had broken through the wall, and gradually, he’d become fond of her. As the years passed, he’d learned to love her, and that was something he never thought would happen with anyone.

  A childhood spent in Ukrainian orphanages and on the streets had nearly sucked out his ability to care for anyone or anything other than himself. He’d once been diagnosed as a sociopath, and while he didn’t disagree, he also didn’t think the term should be applied so negatively.

  Being a sociopath had worked for him.

  “Put out the word through our satellite offices that she is to contact me immediately.”

  Jordan nodded. “Yes, sir.” Dismissed, he mounted the cycle, and Alek entered the shack, an open lean-to with a hidden wood hatch in the floor.

  He lifted it to reveal another hatch, this one metal, with a keypad. Quickly, he entered the code, and with a high-pitched beep, the door popped open. He took the ladder down the passage, where, at the landing thirty feet below, he had to enter another code into another door.

  Alek would definitely be happy when they no longer had to hide Itor headquarters from the world. He stalked down the tubelike halls, his cowboy boots clacking on the glossy floor. He passed labs, break rooms, offices, and though everyone nodded in greeting, no one messed with him.

  Finally, he made it through the maze of halls to the largest chamber, which housed the machine that would, very shortly, make Itor the most powerful entity on the planet.

  Mathis, the physicist in charge of the project, met him at the door. “Are you ready to see the finished product?”

  “That’s why I’m here. Have you activated the security measures?”

  “Not yet, sir. I was waiting for your permission.”
/>   Alek nodded. Once the security measures were in place, only he or Phoebe could activate or deactivate the machine, with a drop of their blood. “Do it.”

  Mathis opened the door and gestured. “This way.”

  Alek followed the tall German to the 2012 device. The thing was monstrous, filling a chamber the size of a football stadium. At its heart was the Izapa crystal, which Phoebe had procured as the last necessary piece. The thing was designed to capture the radiation that would be funneled toward earth on December 21, 2012, when the Milky Way’s dark rift struck the perfect position. The catastrophic effect of that radiation would be devastating to living things, but if the device could capture it, focus it strategically, Alek could destroy only populations he wanted to kill off. He would hold the planet hostage.

  He’d be a god.

  And now they were ready for a test run. The crystal had been absorbing and collecting the less powerful radiation that occurred naturally on a daily basis, and now they had enough stored to fire at one city. London had drawn the short straw.

  By this time next week, the world was going to be a very different place.

  Mel came to in a room that was shaking. Stryker was next to her, teeth bared, that familiar expression of hatred on his face.

  “Stryker,” she gasped. “Stop.”

  He blinked, and almost instantly, the shaking ceased. “Mel?”

  She tried to stand … but she was wrapped like a mummy and chained to another seat. “Guess you had to scare Phoebe?”

  “Yep.”

  The man sitting at the desk scrubbed his hand over his face. “Couldn’t have done it without bringing the building down?”

  “It’s still standing.”

  “Fuck,” the man muttered. His gaze cut to hers, and she got the same eerie feeling of familiarity she’d experienced on the plane. “You’re Melanie.”

  It wasn’t a question. “Yes. Are you … Dev?”

  He nodded. “I need to ask you some questions.” His words were clipped, hard, and she had a feeling Phoebe had pushed him to his limit of tolerance.

  She glanced at Stryker, who inclined his head, reassuring her. “You might not have long. Phoebe will want out soon.”

  “That’s fine,” Dev said. “I’m having you transferred to a fireproof cell in a few minutes. It’s basically a big stone chamber. That’s where you’ll stay while you’re here.”

  “Sounds lovely,” she muttered.

  “Your comfort is the least of my concerns.” He flipped open a file of handwritten notes. “While you were sleeping on the plane, Stryker filled me in on everything, well, almost everything”—he shot Stryker an annoyed look that Mel didn’t understand—“that happened in Rome, and all he knows about you. So let’s cut straight to it.”

  “Um … okay. But did he tell you that I didn’t kill your agent? You have to believe me—”

  Dev cut her off with a sharp slice of his hand in the air. “I don’t have to believe anything. We’ll get to the truth, and Akbar will have justice, but right now I need to hear everything you know about Itor and Alek Kharkov.”

  Mel’s sense of self-preservation kicked in, and she steeled herself for negotiations—which she really wasn’t good at. “I’ll help,” she said slowly, “but I want something in return.”

  “You aren’t in any position to make demands.”

  “I have something you need,” she pointed out.

  “And I have people who can extract information against your will. So this can go easy or hard. Your choice.”

  “Dev.” Stryker’s voice was calm, reasonable, and it made her stomach knot, because it was the kind of tone one would use when trying to talk down a vicious dog. “She wants to help. This isn’t Phoebe—”

  “If you can’t handle this,” Dev said sharply, “you can wait outside.”

  No! She couldn’t be stuck in this office alone with a stranger who seemed ready to start pulling out fingernails to get what he wanted.

  “Mr. … um … Dev.” Her breath shuddered out of her as she summoned her best argument. “Please. I just want a chance. You have that Rik person who is living here with her other half. I was hoping you could help me. Itor developed a drug that keeps me or Phoebe suppressed … so what if you could modify it? Make it so gradually I have control all the time. Or most of the time.”

  “You’re serious.”

  Stryker slapped the two syringes on Dev’s desk. “She’s serious.”

  Mel swallowed, wished she had some water. “Like I was saying, I’ve been wanting to find you ever since the jungle …” Wrong thing to say. Dev’s eyes darkened, and storm clouds rolled in on Stryker’s face. “Um … I just thought we could help each other.”

  For a long moment, Dev sat there. Finally, he nodded. “Okay, I’ll play. We’ll see what we can do for you. Now, where is Itor’s main base?”

  Oh, not so fast. She didn’t doubt that Dev would research the suppressant drug, but she did doubt that it would be a priority, and she was pretty confident her life was still in jeopardy once Itor was gone. Somehow, she had to make sure she was safe, and the way to do that was through Stryker. He was her one ally, and if she could stay close to him, she might have a chance to convince Dev and everyone else that she wasn’t a danger to them.

  “I’ll tell you, but I’m not telling you everything. Not all at once.”

  “We don’t have time to fuck around,” Dev snapped, “and I won’t play games with you.”

  “All I want is to not be locked in that cell.”

  “Not negotiable.”

  Desperation was a buzz in her head, and she felt her icy gift start to spread through her marrow. Calm down. The last thing she needed was to drop a display of uncontrolled power, which would only reinforce Dev’s position.

  “If I use the suppression drug, I can promise you that Phoebe won’t come out. I could use it during the day, and then at night go to the cell and release her. That’ll mean she’ll only be using our body at night, and she’ll be exhausted, so she’ll sleep for a lot of it, which means you won’t have to deal with her as much.”

  “I said no.” Dev’s voice was tight, the set of his mouth even tighter. He wasn’t going to budge, but she couldn’t stop pushing.

  “Stryker could keep track of me. Phoebe is terrified of his power, so you’d never have to worry about her somehow breaking loose. I just … if you lock me up, you could forget about me. Not bring me food. I can’t do it.”

  Dev shoved to his feet. “This goddamned conversation is over.”

  “Please.” She couldn’t be stuck in a tiny little cave made of stone, with nothing to do and no one to talk to while she sat around waiting either to be tortured or to die. And what if she got hungry? Stryker said they wouldn’t use what she’d said against her, but … God, she’d been stupid to say anything.

  “What part of no are you having trouble with?”

  “The no part,” she snapped. “Even Itor let me have an apartment.”

  He went taut as a bowstring. “Do not compare us to Itor.”

  The battle was lost, and she knew it. With nothing left to lose, she didn’t bother to contain her temper—or her power. The temperature in the room dropped at least forty degrees.

  “Why not? You’re going to keep me in a stone cell, force information out of me, and probably kill me when you’re done. From where I’m sitting—all tied up—the comparison is right on.”

  Dev hit a button on his desk. “Security team, get her out of here.” He jabbed a finger at Stryker as men burst through the door. “You. Take a seat.”

  Melanie didn’t fight the men when they hauled her from the chair and out the door. She should have known that Phoebe would poison Dev against her. Maybe Stryker was still on her side, but at this point, she was afraid to hope.

  Devlin remained standing—as always—and Stryker tried not to squirm in his chair like an errant schoolboy.

  The first time he’d been summoned to this office, the pose had been the same
, only it had been Devlin’s father looking at him sternly and Stryker had been seven years old. His temper had set off a minor earthquake that managed to swallow up a small auditorium, which, thankfully, had been empty at the time.

  Stryker now knew that the man had been Devlin’s adoptive father. A fact that shook him to the core, only because Devlin was nothing like Itor’s leader. It certainly proved the nature-versus-nurture theory Devlin was always so ferociously preaching.

  He wondered how long Devlin had known about Alek, wanted to ask him, but Devlin wasn’t in the mood to answer Stryker’s questions. No, Dev had crossed his arms in his I’m-waiting-so-let’s-give-this-your-best-shot-at-an-explanation-before-I-rip-you-a-new-one pose.

  God, this was going to hurt.

  Some guys got off on being in constant trouble. Stryker wasn’t one of them. “I like Mel.”

  There, nice and goddamned fucking lame.

  “Gee, I hadn’t noticed,” Dev said.

  “You never said sex was off-limits on this job,” he snapped, and then realized with a stunning clarity that he’d slept with the boss’s sister. See, that was almost enough to make him light-headed, if the anger at being kept in the dark about the exact nature of this mission didn’t break through. “And how long have you known that your father is the head of I?”

  Devlin’s stance didn’t change, nor did his expression. “I didn’t think you needed a checklist before a mission this dangerous. You didn’t have the clearance to know about Alek—and the information you’ve learned goes no further than this room.”

  “How are you going to keep Phoebe’s mouth shut?”

  “Since you seem to know Mel so intimately, I guess that’s your job,” Dev snarled.

  “You have to make sure Phoebe doesn’t come out. Don’t you get it, Dev? I still want that bitch dead. But Mel …” He shook his head. “No one deserves what she’s been through.”

  “Is it true Phoebe’s afraid of your power?”

  “Yes. She ran away from me in the Amazon after I started an earthquake. She got so scared she retreated her personality and let Mel come out. That’s when I first met her, although at the time I thought she was just a damned good actress.”