Dark Lessons

by Julia Sykes

  “Looks like they’re early,” I said calmly. “Do you want a ride out of here or not? My van’s parked in the alley out back. We have less than a minute to get out.”

  He hesitated a few seconds, then grabbed my arm with a snarl. He began dragging me toward the emergency exit, shouting for his friends as we went. Two equally large men joined us as we hustled to the back. The cops were held back from us by a sea of panicked people.

  “Who the fuck is she?” one of the new men demanded.

  “Our ticket out,” Carlos said. He glowered at me. “She’d better be.” His tone was harsh with a clear threat.

  I didn’t deign to reply, instead hurrying along with them.

  An alarm sounded when we burst out into the cool night air.

  The way wasn’t entirely clear. Two policemen and an agent in a suit were waiting to block our escape, guns drawn. My black van was at the mouth of the alley, idling and ready to go. The men at my side drew their own weapons.

  “Don’t shoot!” the agent and I shouted at the same time.

  My heart stopped, and the world fell away around me. Bright green eyes stared at me, wide with shock.

  Then they narrowed, and Jason advanced on me.

  “Who—?” he began, reaching for me with barely restrained violence.

  I acted in blind panic. Dodging him with lighting speed, I slipped to the side and behind him, wrapping my arm around his throat. Gunshots rang out on either side of me, and the cops dropped.

  My heart swelled, straining against my ribs as I applied pressure on Jason’s carotid artery. My training overrode my shock and fear, making me act on instinct rather than emotion. Nothing could get in the way of my mission. And I couldn’t even begin to face the horror of what I was doing, as my body acted of its own accord. I had to get away from Jason.

  He dropped to his knees with a grunt, and I followed him down, not letting up the pressure.

  “I’m sorry.” The words left my lips as though issuing from someone else’s mouth.

  “Natalie,” he groaned. I knew he was capable of fighting me, but he didn’t. I wasn’t sure if it was because shock had given me the upper hand, or if he wasn’t willing to harm me.

  Hot tears leaked from the corners of my eyes as he sagged in my arms, slipping into unconsciousness. I dropped him with a harsh cry.

  Carlos grabbed my arm and began dragging me toward the van. “Let’s go,” he barked.

  I followed him as numbness set in. I went on autopilot, my training taking over completely, blotting out all thought as my mind shut down. Somehow, I was in the driver’s seat, and my foot slammed down on the gas as I rammed my way into traffic and sped off into the night.

  Chapter 17

  Jason

  “Jason? Jason!” Small, delicate hands shook me awake.

  My eyes snapped open, and my hands shot out to grip the woman who crouched over me, my fingers digging into her upper arms.

  Sky blue eyes widened in shock.

  Sky blue. Not soft navy.

  “What the hell, Jason?” Sam demanded, jerking against my bruising grip. My new partner—Samantha Browning—was too green to fight me off. I didn’t release her.

  “Where is she?” I ground out, shooting to my feet and dragging Sam up along with me.

  “Who?” Sam demanded. “Let me go. You’re hurting me.”

  Forcing my fingers to unfurl, I shoved away from her. My eyes searched the alley frantically. The two officers who’d gone into the bust with me lay on the ground, groaning as paramedics hovered over them. They’d been wearing Kevlar, so they’d survived, but they’d be in pain after being shot at such close range.

  A medic approached me, but I warned her away with a glare.

  I growled my frustration when I didn’t see the woman who’d surely been a ghost.

  My neck ached. For an apparition, she’d been surprisingly solid.

  “Natalie,” I growled, jerking my fingers through my hair. She couldn’t have been real. My eyes had deceived me.

  I’m sorry. Her soft voice, rough with pain…

  It’d been her. Her gentle, floral scent had surrounded me, clouding my senses and wrapping my chest in agony as I’d been thrust back into impossible memories.

  How could she be alive? I’d watched her die. And if by some miracle she had survived, how could she have left me and allowed me to believe she was gone forever? My sweet kitten wouldn’t have done that to me.

  Rage burned through my veins, driving away disbelief.

  “Natalie?” Sam said with shock. “You mean, your Natalie? But she’s dead. I read all the files on it.”

  I glowered at her at the reminder of how the tech geek had hacked into my life, prying into my darkest, most painful secrets. She knew me better than anyone, and I hadn’t given her permission to access that knowledge. It had only been recently that she’d accidentally confessed to breaking into my psychologist’s notes on my trauma.

  My rage burned impossibly hotter.

  “If you read all the files, then tell me how the fuck you didn’t know that she survived.”

  Sam’s eyes widened, and her cheeks paled so her freckles stood out starkly on her delicate face.

  “That’s not possible,” she said faintly. “I watched the feed from the body cams when she died.”

  “She’s not dead!” I roared. “I just saw her! She fucking attacked me.”

  I pressed my hands to either side of my head, as though I could stop my pounding brain from cracking my skull apart.

  How could she do this to me? How could she let me live without her?

  How could she live without me?

  I wouldn’t have imagined it were possible. But then again, I’d never imagined her survival to be possible.

  And she was with Moreno’s men.

  What the fuck was going on?

  Sam raised her hands in a gesture meant to calm me. “Let me get back to my computer. I’ll look into it more. There has to be something buried in her files. Something I didn’t think to look for. If it really was her you saw—”

  “It was her!” I shouted, knowing it deep in my bones. I’d recognize her striking eyes and sweet scent anywhere, even after all these horrible, painful years.

  “I want to know where the fuck she went, and why she was with Moreno’s men,” I continued, my mind racing. “There was a van at the mouth of the alley. I want traffic cam footage. I want to know where the fuck she is.”

  If my Natalie were alive, I wouldn’t stop until I hunted her down. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take her in my arms and claim her body all over again, or if I wanted to punish her for the hell she’d put me through. Probably both.

  I’d sate my needs and get the answers I craved. And then I’d never let her out of my sight again, no matter what it took. I’d bind her to me and never let her go.

  After I made her regret ever leaving me.

  “The traffic cams were disabled,” Sam told me, watching me warily. “I can’t track her.”

  “You’re supposed to be the techie geek genius,” I snapped, looming over her where she sat hunched at her desk. She shrank down under the weight of my maddened rage. “Recover the feed.”

  She ran a nervous hand through her fiery hair. “There’s nothing to recover,” she insisted, no longer able to meet my eye. “They didn’t record anything.”

  “Then someone hacked them. Who did it?”

  Her hands twisted in her lap. “I don’t know. But I can look into it. I will look into it. I’ve got this. I mean, I can figure it out. I promise.” She took up her frenetic pattern of speech that was her default when she was intimidated.

  I couldn’t rein in the rage that still rode me hard, mingling with agony that ripped at my insides. Over and over again, I watched Natalie die in my mind. Memories I’d buried deep spilled out from where they’d been locked in a dark corner of my brain. I hadn’t suffered a panic attack in years, but I could feel my chest beginning to seize. I threw myself into my fury. I
t was my only protection from the horror and grief.

  “What’s going on? Why are you yelling at Sam?” Agent Dexter Scott appeared behind my partner, his considerable bulk increasing as he drew himself up to his full height. His ice blue eyes glowered at me.

  Sam flushed crimson and appeared to shrink into herself more. For months, she’d hardly been able to bear his presence, but he seemed oblivious to the fact that he’d broken her heart when he found his soul mate, Chloe. I suspected that heartbreak was a major factor in Sam’s decision to transfer from analyst to field agent. She was trying to make a change in her life. Or maybe she was trying to prove something.

  Whatever was going on with her, I couldn’t bring myself to give a shit. All I could think about was getting to Natalie.

  “Stay out of this, Scott,” I warned Dex. “My partner and I are discussing a case.”

  He frowned. “Sam shouldn’t be looking at traffic cam footage. She’s not an analyst anymore.” His lips twisted in disapproval as he said it, but otherwise he made no comment on his opinion regarding her choice to move into the field.

  “She’s the best tech analyst we have,” I countered. “I’m not trusting anyone else with this. And that includes you. Go mind your own business, Scott.”

  “I don’t think—” he began, but Sam cut him off softly.

  “Just go, Dex. Please. I need to talk to Jason.” She was looking at her computer screen, reading something I couldn’t understand.

  “What did you find?” I asked quickly. I shot a glare at Dex when he didn’t walk away immediately. “Leave,” I snapped.

  He blew out a heavy sigh and finally gave us some privacy. I turned my attention back to Sam.

  “What is it?” I urged.

  She looked up at me, her eyes cautious. “I did some research into Natalie’s old files. There was a heavily redacted document. I never thought anything of it before.” She had the grace to blush. “I just wanted background information on you. I didn’t do any digging into her. Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to pry. I was just curious. I mean, I—”

  “Stop,” I barked before she could start babbling out of nervousness. “I don’t care about you spying on me. What about this redacted document?”

  “Well, I just found the original,” she said, still watching me as though I was a particularly unstable bomb that might detonate in her face if she breathed the wrong way. “The day Natalie died, after the shootout. The bodies weren’t recovered. They were all missing, except Agent Thurman’s body. There was a brief investigation, but when nothing was found, it seems the Bureau decided it was best to suppress the information.”

  “What?” I exploded.

  Without waiting for her to respond, I tore off toward Director Parkinson’s office. Parkinson had been transferred from Quantico to the Chicago field office three years ago when the previous Director, Franklin Dawes, had been killed. I suspected my father had sent her here to keep an eye on me. He’d always trusted Dawes to keep me in line, and Parkinson had proven to be a formidable replacement. She knew all my dark secrets, and I’d never dared to step a toe out of line under her watch.

  But now, I knew one of her secrets. How could she have kept this from me for all these years? I would have torn apart anyone who stood between me and Natalie if I’d known there was even the slightest chance she’d survived.

  And now, Parkinson fit into that category. She’d kept me from my kitten for five long years. Rage blinded me, and I kicked my way into her office, the door splintering on its hinges as I stormed in. She stood quickly, her dark eyes flaring in alarm.

  “Harper!” she gasped. “What are you doing?”

  “How could you not tell me?” I roared as I advanced on her.

  She stood quickly, dropping into a defensive stance. All my muscles vibrated with barely suppressed violence as I restrained myself from physically extracting answers from her.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked with surprising calm. The woman was ice cold, unfeeling.

  “Natalie!” I raged. “There wasn’t a body. You let me go to her fucking funeral, and she wasn’t even there.”

  A horrible memory of that day assailed me: Natalie’s family and friends weeping over her casket while I watched from a distance. Daffodils had been strewn on top of it, perversely cheery as they followed her into the dirt.

  Parkinson’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you asking about Simmons?”

  I ground my teeth, unwilling to tell her I’d seen Natalie with Moreno’s men. I didn’t understand what was happening, but I couldn’t betray Natalie to the Director. If she was going to be punished, it would be by my hand and no one else’s.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I countered, not answering her question.

  “Because you would have reacted just like this,” she said coolly. “You were a loose cannon and a liability. You have no business being in the Bureau at all, and you’d have been fired that day if I’d had my way. I didn’t need you tearing your way through our investigations in an attempt to find a dead body.”

  I tensed impossibly further, seething. I bit the inside of my cheek, the slight pain helping center me. I couldn’t tell Parkinson that Natalie was alive, not until I had answers about what the fuck was going on. Where had she been for the last five years? And why the fuck was she with Moreno’s people? They’d shot two cops, and she’d attacked me.

  How could she do that? How could she do this to me? My life had been empty, hollow for years. I hadn’t gone through with my suicide attempt, but I’d died inside the day I lost her. Everyone who knew me now had no inkling that the carefree persona I projected was nothing more than a mask, a way to hide from their concern. If no one knew I was a dead man walking, they couldn’t remind me of my loss every day with their looks of pity.

  But now, I was coming apart at the seams. And if I stayed close to Parkinson for one more minute, I wouldn’t be able to contain the violence that simmered just beneath my skin.

  “I won’t forget this,” I ground out. Gathering up my willpower, I jerked my limbs toward the door and stiffly strode out of her office.

  “Neither will I,” she warned as I retreated.

  I hurried back over to Sam. She peeked up at me timidly.

  “I have to find her,” I said, my voice rough with the effort of suppressing my emotions. “I need your help.”

  “Of course,” Sam said, her face pale but determined. “I’ll try to figure out who hacked those cams.”

  I nodded. “I’m going to set up surveillance on every one of Moreno’s known associates in Chicago. I’ll need you to work up a file on them.”

  “But I’m your partner,” she countered. “I’ll come out and run surveillance with you. One of the analysts can work up a file. You shouldn’t be alone with this.”

  Her concern should have been touching, but I couldn’t focus on anything but my task. “No,” I refused. “I’m doing this on my own. I need you to sit behind your computer and do what you do best.” She opened her mouth to protest, but I spoke before she could. “I need your help, Sam. Please.”

  She pressed her lips together, considering for a moment. “Okay,” she finally said. “I’ll be on desk duty. But you’re going to wear a tracking device. I want to be able to find you if we lose contact. I don’t like you being out there by yourself.”

  I won’t be alone for long, I thought, dark anticipation racing through my veins. I’d find Natalie and get the answers I so desperately needed, by any means necessary.

  Chapter 18

  Natalie

  I wandered lonely as a cloud

  That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

  When all at once I saw a crowd,

  A host of golden daffodils;

  Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

  Fluttering and dancing in the breeze…

  And then my heart with pleasure fills,

  And dances with the daffodils.

  The familiar poem flowed through my brain withou
t conscious thought, calming and focusing me.

  My encounter with Jason was utterly absent from my mind. All that existed was my task, my mission.

  Carlos and the other two men I’d rescued spoke in hushed but angry tones as they huddled together in the entryway of the nondescript brick townhome. It wasn’t the most reputable area, but it didn’t strike me as a place where lower-level dealers distributed their product.

  I shifted on my feet, uneasy being exposed on the sidewalk while they blocked the door, clearly debating whether or not to let me in. I knew Alex would have seen to the traffic cams around Aqua Lounge being disabled so my movements couldn’t be tracked, but my instincts told me to get to cover as quickly as possible.

  “Are we going in or what?” I asked in English. The men were speaking Spanish, but I wasn’t ready to reveal that I could understand them. It would be so much easier to gather intel if they thought I didn’t have a clue what they were saying.

  As it was, they were speaking too softly at the moment for me to hear, but as we’d driven here, I’d caught their barked curses and heated argument over who the fuck I was and whether or not they could trust me. Carlos seemed to have convinced them that I was a dirty cop, but they still weren’t letting me into the building.

  Putting on my most confident persona, I hustled up to them and got right in their faces.

  “We can’t just sit out here all night,” I said acidly. “Let’s get inside.”

  Carlos gave me an oily smile I didn’t trust for one second.

  “Okay, chiquita. Let’s get you inside.”

  I kept a carefully relaxed demeanor as I sauntered across the threshold, but my senses were on high alert. The men had come to a decision, and it wasn’t in my favor. If they made a move against me, I’d be ready for them.

  A low groan of tormented pleasure greeted me when I entered the townhouse. The sound made the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and unpleasant memories stirred.

  Strapped down. Helpless. Forced pleasure. Pain.

  And then my heart with pleasure fills,