by Anise Eden
“Yes, I’m okay!” I managed to shout back before a security guard came up behind me and clapped his hand over my mouth.
“Congratulations! I hear that you and Ben got engaged. What happy news. And this is Asa, right? The real telepath. I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure. Two syringes,” he said to one of the security guards, who disappeared into the shed. “Phil radioed us that you’d managed to escape, but the story was so far-fetched, I didn’t quite believe it—something about you being rescued by his brother-in-law, who is also a muskrat trapper. And yet here you are, so it must be true. Don’t worry,” he said loudly, turning so that his voice could be heard inside the shed, “I have no intention of harming either you or Asa. We’ll just give you a little injection and put you to bed. You’ll wake up in the lodge tomorrow with no memory of any of this. Much more pleasant that way, trust me.”
“He’s telling the truth—and your reinforcements are coming,” Asa whispered into his com. But the guard holding him saw Asa’s lips moving. He spotted the device in Asa’s ear, dropped it on the ground, and crushed it under his heel.
Harris shook his head. He walked over and removed Pete’s com device, bending and crushing it with his hand. Then he returned to where Asa and I were standing. “Reading minds—that’s quite a useful gift, Asa. You could be a great addition to Team Forward.” He turned to address the Marines. “You four, on the other hand—I don’t give a damn what happens to you. Killing you and dropping you in the marsh sounds much cleaner than finding some way to keep you alive. At least you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you died trying to do something worthy,” he sneered.
Despair chilled me. I knew the Marines were itching to fight, but I didn’t see how they could. They were outnumbered and outgunned. And I’d heard Asa say reinforcements were coming, but I didn’t know what that meant, exactly—or if they’d make it in time. The security guards tied my wrists and Asa’s with plastic zip ties, then covered our mouths with wide strips of cloth, knotting them tightly behind our heads. Tank was down, and Ben was presumably still tied to a chair—in what shape, I had no idea.
Tears burned behind my eyes. Maybe everything would come to pass just as Harris had said it would. After all, if Mercier’s security team had got the jump on our unit, what was to say they didn’t also have Captain Abbott and his crew in their custody? Would they kill them, too? Or let them go, since they hadn’t actually seen Ben on the property? Or call the police and accuse them of trespassing? Or drug everyone into oblivion?
Panic tightened my throat as the tears began to fall. I turned to look at Asa. His eyes were moist too. But I was not going to stand there and just let everything unfold the way Harris wanted it to—not without putting up a fight.
I tried to yank myself out of the grip of the security guard behind me, catching Harris’s eye. The guard held my wrists tight, but Harris motioned for him to release me.
I straightened my back and walked quickly toward Harris. There was surprised amusement on his face as I approached. I stopped right in front of him, but when he reached out to pull my gag down, I used the only combat move I could use with confidence—one that I’d perfected over years of self-defense on the playground. I drew my leg back and kicked him squarely in the shin, as hard as I could.
“Ah!” Harris cried out, stumbling backward and grabbing his leg. I went to kick him again, but a guard grabbed me. I tried to kick the guard, as well, but he was too close for my foot to connect.
For a few seconds, all eyes were on us—and that was all the time the marines needed. They took advantage of the moment, attacking the nearest guards with body slams, martial arts-style kicks, and head-butts.
“Get them!” Harris shouted. A few shots were fired, and I screamed as I saw Pete fall to the ground. I tried to tear myself away from my security guard, but he held me fast. Hope began to melt away like a dusting of snow under the morning sun.
Then, in a flash, everything changed. It was like we were on the set of a war movie during the scene of an invasion. At least a dozen Jeeps and armored cars peeled into the clearing and skidded to a stop, surrounding us. We heard the chop-chop of a helicopter overhead, and it shone a blinding spotlight down on the yard as soldiers jumped from their vehicles and flooded the area. A loudspeaker sounded from the helicopter. “This is the United States Marine Corps! Drop your weapons!”
Asa was right—reinforcements! My guard let go of me, presumably to follow their orders. With everything in me, I wanted to run to Ben. But out of shock or fear—I didn’t know which—I fell to my knees, unable to stand. A group of medics swarmed around Pete, and more Marines than I could count ran into the shed.
I turned to check on Asa. He was standing, wide-eyed, talking to a Marine who had removed his gag and was working to free his wrists. Then the soldier took off into the woods with a few others. Asa turned and caught my eye. “They’re getting Tank!” he shouted.
I tried again to stand, but failed. I can walk on my knees, I thought, and started to crawl towards the shed. It was slow work, because the clearing had become a chaotic obstacle course. The air was thick with dust. Everywhere I looked, Marines were holding security guards on the ground, handcuffing them and barking instructions. Harris was there too, his face pressed into the dirt. I heard Reedy before I saw him, pleading his innocence as he was dragged into the courtyard by a quartet of soldiers.
Tears wet my face, but this time it was from the sheer intensity of the hope I felt. I was still forty feet or so from the entrance to the shed when two large boots blocked my path.
“Miss Duncan, are you injured?”
Captain Abbott’s voice was gruff, but genuinely concerned.
I looked up at him, and his eyes widened. He reached down and pulled the cloth off of my mouth.
“Thanks,” I said in a small voice. “No, I’m fine—but Pete?”
“Just a flesh wound. He’ll live. Why are you walking on your knees?”
Pete was okay. Thank God. I said a silent prayer of gratitude and weakly smiled up at the Captain’s frowning face. “I’m just tired, I guess.”
He bent down and put his hands under my shoulders, lifting me up as though I weighed nothing at all. He put me in a standing position but kept his arm around me, holding me up as he pulled a knife from somewhere and cut the tie off of my wrists. “Now?”
I put weight on my legs, but my knees still wobbled.
The Captain huffed. “Let’s go.” He lifted me into his arms as though he was about to carry me over the threshold—and so he did, right into the shed.
Ben had described it well. The rickety shed looked like an old garage that had been out of commission for twenty years at least. My eyes scanned the room and found a large group of Marines gathered around one spot.
“Make way,” the Captain said. At the sound of his voice, the sea parted.
Ben lay on a stretcher, eyes closed. A medic was dressing his head wound, a cut several inches long. Ben’s shirt had been torn open, and it was clear that Reedy had roughed him up. Ben’s stomach and chest were covered with red marks, some of which were already darkening. There were new bruises on his face, too, and one eyebrow was cut and swelling badly. His knuckles were bleeding, which meant that at least one of his kidnappers hadn’t escaped unscathed.
Seeing him like that made everything in me hurt. I tried to roll myself out of the Captain’s arms to get closer to Ben, but he held me firmly, apparently not yet trusting my ability to stand on my own.
“Benjamin,” the Captain barked.
Ben’s eyes flickered, and my heart opened like a flower.
“I have Cate here.”
In response, Ben forced his eyes open. “Cate,” he said softly. He tried to push himself up on his elbows, but couldn’t quite manage it. The medic lowered him down. “Are you hurt?” Ben demanded, his voice getting stronger.
“I’m totally fine,” I said, smiling so wide that my face hurt. “I’m only being carried because the Captain insi
sted.”
“It’s not safe for civilians to be walking around,” Captain Abbott declared, winning my eternal affection. “It’s dark, and there’s debris everywhere.”
Ben squinted up at me, looking as though he was wavering between disbelief and confusion. “You’re really okay?”
“Yes, really!”
“Are you questioning my assessment, MacGregor?” the Captain barked.
“No, sir,” Ben said, his words starting to slur. “I just want to get up,” Ben growled at the medic, trying again, and failing. “Why can’t I get up?”
“We gave you a sedative,” the medic said. “I guess you’re both getting carried out of here.”
“In that case,” I suggested, “can we be carried out together?”
The medic looked skeptical.
“Get another stretcher, soldier,” Captain Abbott said. “For these two, we can make that happen.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Miraculously, no one had been killed that night at the shed, and Pete and Ben were the only ones injured badly enough to need a hospital. I’d ridden in the ambulance with Ben, while Max went with Pete. Asa stayed behind to tell Kai, Vani, and Eve what had happened—and to call Dr. MacGregor, fill her in on the night’s events, and warn her about Dr. Morgan.
By the time we reached the hospital, I had regained my strength and could walk on my own again. Pete was put on a fast track. He’d been shot in the side, but Captain Abbott was right—the bullet had ricocheted off of his rib, taking a chip out of the bone, but no organs or arteries had been hit. He would be in pain for a while, but he would make a full recovery. I could tell where Pete was by listening for the grousing: “I’m a medic! I’ll tell you what I need!” I reveled in the sound.
I was allowed to stay with Ben in the ER until he’d been fully examined, including X-rays, a CT scan, and an MRI to check out his paintball injury. The doctor said he might have internal bleeding from the beating he’d taken, so they wanted to keep him overnight for observation. Pete was staying the night too.
By the time they were admitted and settled in their rooms, the rest of our group had arrived. Pete had been heavily sedated and was already asleep, so everyone piled into Ben’s room. There was some crying, and everyone took turns holding Ben’s hand or squeezing the life out of me. I spent a long time talking to Kai, who was beside himself. There was the terror of Pete getting shot, compounded by the fact that Kai hadn’t been allowed to join the fight, but instead had waited helplessly at the lodge until he got the awful news. One minute, he was crying; the next, cursing about how much he wanted to go kill everyone at Mercier; and the next, scolding Ben for letting himself get kidnapped and beaten up. Vani and Eve stayed on either side of Kai, each with a hand on his shoulder or his arm.
Not wanting to ruin the surprise for Ben, Asa subtly pulled me aside, whispering that Tank was okay and resting at the kennel. Then he took center stage, describing what happened after we were taken away. Apparently, there were four or five times more Marines there than we had seen, along with the FBI, who raided the lodge and made several arrests. Max had also been listening in on Ben’s radio frequency and recorded the whole conversation between Ben and Harris. That gave law enforcement enough evidence to bring in every one of Mercier’s founders on suspicion of treason, not to mention a whole slew of other crimes. They were even able to get an arrest warrant for Dr. Morgan at the Smithsonian. Thanks to the watermen keeping watch on the yacht and hemming it in, Tucker, Hencock, and Skeet had been taken into custody, as well. Asa said that by morning, I would be Mercier’s only owner who wasn’t behind bars.
That news seemed to cheer Ben considerably. “I wish I could’ve seen their faces. I guess we’ll all get to see them in court.”
“That will be one awesome day,” Asa agreed.
Eventually the nurse came in and told us that everyone had to leave—except for Kai and me, of course. She said we could stay overnight in the reclining chairs in our fiancés’ respective rooms.
I sucked in my cheeks and looked at the floor as several stares landed squarely on me. After the nurse left, Kai arched a well-groomed eyebrow. “Your fiancé’s room?”
Ben and I exchanged a glance. He was trying to smile, but his face was too messed up. “Go ahead, Cate,” he said, “tell them.”
Of course I wanted to set the record straight that we weren’t actually engaged, but Ben had enjoyed the ruse so much, and there he was, lying in the hospital bed, looking like hell… I bit my lip.
“Uh, yeah,” Asa said, “I wasn’t going to say anything, but did I hear Harris congratulate you on your engagement?”
“Oh my god!” Eve exclaimed, grinning. “And the nurse knows, too!”
No. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let everyone get excited for us over nothing, whether it put a damper on Ben’s mood or not. But I would try to be gentle. “Look, the dinner on the yacht was owners and family only, so we told Skeet—”
“You told Skeet you were engaged,” Kai said, counting on his fingers as he spoke. “You told Harris you’re engaged. You probably told your hairdresser that you’re engaged. You just didn’t see fit to tell us.” He flipped his hair back.
“Because we’re not, that’s why.” I felt the need to defend myself, but I tried to pick my words carefully, knowing that Kai was very fragile at the moment. “Seriously, you guys, we just met a couple of weeks ago; we’re still getting to know each other. I promise, though, that if we do get engaged, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Make it official whenever you like—or never, if you don’t want to,” Vani said, glancing between Kai and me. “But I just have to tell you, the words coming out of your mouth do not match your aura.”
Sometimes I didn’t know whether to love Vani’s blunt honesty or hate it. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she said, “those men believed you when you said you were engaged because it’s already true on some level. Your aura is like a big, blinking neon sign that says, ‘I’m getting married!’ and Ben’s already clearly states, ‘I’m a married man.’”
Kai threw his hands in the air. “There you go.”
No one was going to rush me into marriage, least of all my aura. “I don’t just do whatever my aura tells me to!”
“She doesn’t get it yet, does she?” Kai murmured to Vani, who shook her head. “You do whatever you like, honey,” Kai said, patting my hand. “You just might want to pick a different excuse, at least around us. We all know you and Ben have submerged into each other, so even though you’ve only known each other ‘a couple of weeks,’ you already know each other better than most people who’ve been married fifty years.”
I couldn’t argue with him there. I had empathically submerged into Ben my first week of training to help heal his phobia of eating in front of others. And even though he wasn’t an empath, thanks to the ritual Vani had designed, Ben had been able to submerge into me the previous week as part of the effort to unparalyze me. I had entered his consciousness, and he had entered mine. We’d spent time exploring one another’s innermost selves. As a result, we knew all of the important things about each other. But that wasn’t the point. I wasn’t sure what the point was, actually, but I knew that wasn’t it.
Before I could come up with a reply, though, the nurse popped her head in the door. “It’s nice that you want to be here for your friend, but it’s time to go, everyone!”
“Okay!” Eve seemed eager to escape the tense conversation we were having. “Let’s leave these two lovebirds alone. See you tomorrow!” She grabbed Asa and Vani by their jacket sleeves and dragged them out the door.
Kai stayed just long enough to toss me a conspiratorial look. “Cate, I guess it’s time you and I were each with our fiancés.”
“Right,” I said, smiling. “Go be with Pete. We’ll see you in the morning.”
“Goodnight, you two.” Kai closed the door behind him.
My shoulders slumped with relief. Finally, it was just Ben a
nd me—safe and sound.
“Hey.”
I turned at the sound of his voice. He patted the bed next to him, but I hesitated. He looked like one big bruise, and I was afraid that even the slightest touch would hurt him.
“Come here,” he said. “Lie down with me.”
“But there’s no room,” I objected.
Ben painstakingly shifted over a bit, grimacing as he did so. “Now there is.”
Well, I couldn’t disappoint him then. Ever so carefully, I lay on my side next to him and slid into the narrow space between his body and the bedrail. I tucked one arm under my head, but I didn’t know what to do with the other one. I held it aloft, trying to figure out where to put it.
Ben’s body shook with silent laughter. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
He reached up and took my hand, then guided it gently down until my arm lay across his stomach. He moved it up a little, then down a little. “That’s a good spot.”
“Okay,” I whispered, blinking back tears.
“Hey, no crying,” he said, trying to inject some command into his exhausted voice. “I’m going to be fine, remember? Full recovery. They’re just keeping me for observation—and I really like who they’ve chosen to observe me.”
I smiled weakly. Having Ben so close to me was heaven. I could smell him, touch him, watch his chest rise and fall, even feel his heartbeat. Every second, I had some way of reassuring myself that he was there, that he was alive, and that no one was going to disappear him to some secret facility and make me believe that he was dead. My stomach clenched at the thought, but I forced myself to take a deep breath and relax.
Ben’s usual scent was masked almost entirely by a chaotic mess of other smells: antiseptic, chemicals, the harsh detergent they used to wash the sheets and Ben’s blue hospital gown. But it was still there, clinging to him, just barely. I drank it in. My body felt content only where it touched Ben’s. Every other inch of me ached with longing. I had to keep telling myself to be patient, because Ben would never be able to touch me everywhere at once.