Luke heaved himself to his feet and staggered to her, dropping to his knees and punching the drywall until he’d broken enough of it to tug her out of the hole.
He sagged to the floor beside her, his face wet and clammy. That glass shard stuck into his guts hurt like a motherfucker.
She gasped at the sight of his bloody hand, clenched around the jagged glass.
He braced himself, grimacing. “Gotta…get this…out.”
“Wait!” she said urgently. “No!”
He yanked on the glass with a hoarse cry, pressing his hand down against the rush of blood that followed it. Willing it to clot.
Through the fog of pain that followed, he saw Dani rummage in a kitchen cabinet and then dash back with a roll of paper towels, flip-flops crunching over broken glass and crockery. She spun the roll to tear off a bunch, wadding them against the gaping wound.
He howled. God, that hurt.
“Hold that right there while I call an ambulance,” she said. “Push down on it. Don’t let up.”
“No,” he whispered. “No ambulance. Just…gimme a minute.”
“You need help,” she said firmly. “I’ll be real quick. You just hang on, OK?”
He clasped her wrist. “Please,” he whispered. “Look at me. Into my eyes. It helps.”
She did. Those big green eyes, wide and worried, held his like a touchstone as the world dissolved into cold darkness and emptiness …
And then came slowly back to a murky haze of light.
* * * *
Dani was done gazing soulfully into his beautiful dark eyes. The guy needed a trauma surgeon right fucking now.
“Can you hear me?” She kept her voice neutral. Calm.
He muttered something that could have been a yes.
“We have to get you to a hospital. That means I’m going to let go of your hand now.”
“No.” He dragged in a ragged breath, and shook his head. “Can’t…call for help.”
She tugged at her wrist. “Let go of me now,” she said gently. “Let me help you.”
But his clasp, though not painful, was like a steel shackle. “Dani,” he whispered.
It occurred to her how weird it was that he knew her name. She hadn’t been wearing a name tag at the hospital.
“I’m here,” was all she said. “What’s your name?”
And who the hell are you? She could take a few educated guesses. With a body that fine and fighting skills like that, he had to be military. Or ex-military.
And to think she’d had the pleasure of riding all that. Before all hell broke loose.
“I’m Luke,” he said.
“What’s your last name?”
“Just Luke.” His voice was hoarse. He was huge. Massive shoulders and arms. Wearing body armor, like her attackers, and sliced and stabbed all to hell. He’d swept in to save her like some heroic dark angel. Chiseled face, despite the swelling lump on his forehead. Gorgeous lips. Dark beard-scruff on his strong jaw.
Whoa.
Shut it off, LaSalle. She was a professional with a job to do. One that involved freely flowing blood for Christ’s sake. “OK then, Just Luke,” she said crisply. “What the hell just happened?” Maybe he’d forgotten about the crazy wild kissing interlude in the laundry closet. He’d taken at least one hit to the head.
“Came here…to protect you.” He huffed the words out with some difficulty.
Right. You were getting into that before you kissed me. Dani shook her head, bewildered. “I don’t understand. Who sent you?”
“Can’t explain,” he whispered. “We gotta get out of here. This instant.”
“Tell me about it,” she said fervently. “Straight to the hospital. First, let’s get that armored vest off. So I can—”
“What?” His grip on her wrist tightened as her voice trailed off. His eyes flicked up to hers, piercing through his pain-fog. “So you can do what?”
Dani hesitated. For starters, check the vest pockets for ID and find out exactly who the hell you really are, and fuck the educated guesses. You could be my hero. Or you could go totally buckfuck crazy on me any second.
This would be her second 911 call of the night. She could hear the question like someone had just asked it, hanging in the air. What is the nature of your emergency?
She looked down at the female attacker lying still on her kitchen floor. Still unconscious, but for how long?
Yes, hi. It’s me again. Same address. OK, now I have five homicidal freaks in my house who tried to kill me—but I think that at least two of them are dead. And there’s a new guy bleeding out on my kitchen floor. Yeah, same floor. Not a killer, no. This one’s a hero.
She’d convince the operator somehow. One thing in her favor: the hero seemed unable to get up. He pulled on her wrist to get her attention again. “So you can do what?”
“I need to check your abdomen, Luke. I have to slow down the bleeding before the ambulance—”
“No ambulance. No cops. We have to run away, Dani. Now.”
He was ranting. Not good. Dani made mental notes. Brief loss of consciousness. Uncooperative. Intermittent delusions. Possible head trauma. Just that lump, no visible blood. Then again, his short hair was awfully thick.
“Not gonna happen, Luke. Calm down.” If she could get free somehow …
But that didn’t seem to be happening either.
“Gimme more paper towels,” he said.
That meant he’d have to let go of her. “Good idea,” she said.
She tugged. He tightened his grip. “No, Dani. Forget it. Don’t call. No time for that.”
Dani’s calm façade finally snapped. “Be quiet and listen to me,” she said. “I happen to be a nurse, if you haven’t figured that out, and in my professional opinion, you’re committing suicide if you don’t go to the hospital right now!”
“Listen.” His voice was a growl of effort. “Let me tell you what suicide looks like. The guys who attacked you? That woman? There are more. Many more. They know your name, where you live, where you work. And they’ll be back. Wherever you go, they’ll find you. And you will die in agony. Slowly.”
“But…but I never had anything to do with—”
“No operative contact or response means reinforcements are coming. With a bigger team this time.”
“Fine. So we’ll tell the police that.”
His ultra-focused intensity was beginning to convince her—against her better judgment. Then again, getting slammed through drywall could cause concussion. A mild one could affect her reasoning. It was as good an excuse as any.
“No,” he said again. “You’ll get cops killed for no reason. Dani, I’m not crazy and I’m not lying. Run with me now, or die. It’s that simple.”
“You’ll die anyway if you don’t go to a hospital!”
“No, I won’t.” He sounded so sure of himself. “But we have to hide tonight. If they came at us now, I wouldn’t be able to defend you again. I’m too messed up.”
No shit. Every medical professional had to deal with mentally ill patients in the ER and the psych ward ranting about mysterious beings known only as They and Them.
“But you’re too weak to move on your own,” she said stubbornly.
He finally let go of her. Got himself up onto his knees, struggling to his feet.
He stood there, towering over her, panting. “Wrong,” he said.
They heard the muted, repeating hum of a smartphone in vibration mode. Muffled, but they both heard the sound coming from the direction of the living room. Not hers, she suddenly remembered. Her phone was smashed to pieces on the walkway outside.
“That’s coming from his jacket,” Luke said. “The asshole who hurt you. That’s his boss, wondering if the job’s done. Wondering why there’s been no update.”
The vibrations stopp
ed, after eight buzzes. So did her heart. Or so it felt.
The silence was absolute. “Convinced?” he asked. “Ready to go now?”
She stared at the woman sprawled on the floor, the wreck of her kitchen, the dark maw of her living room. The heavy, meaty stink of blood. She hesitated for a few more seconds before she answered him. “Yes.”
“One thing,” he said. “Bring Naldo’s capsule with you.”
She recoiled, seized by fresh doubt and terror. Staring at him.
He shook his head. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “I’m not like them.”
“Good to hear,” she said cautiously. “But whatever they wanted from me, you want it, too, right? And you saved my life so you could get it? OK. Fine. Whatever. I’m processing that. But I’m still grateful.”
“Good. Now get the package.” His voice was harder now. “So we can go.”
They stood there, him braced against the broken wall, gazing at her with that piercing urgency in his eyes. She could feel the power in him. On her skin.
“I don’t know if I should go with you,” she said slowly. “What the hell is this thing? And what did Naldo have to do with it all?”
He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Later for that.” His voice was a rasp of exhaustion. “If you don’t have it, let’s just leave. I don’t want you to get hurt. And there’s no time to fuck around.”
His words tipped the balance, overcoming most of her doubt. Not all of it. She reserved the right to remain sane, just in case he wasn’t.
She squatted down and started sifting through the mess scattered all over the kitchen floor, starting with the area near the door. She could still see Naldo lying there, near death.
Anger surged up, energizing her to concentrate. She felt along the baseboards, ran her hand over the vinyl floor tiles. In all the commotion it had gotten kicked to hell and gone. But it had to be here.
She finally spotted it in the corner by the recycling bins.
Dani held it out to him. “Here. You earned this.”
His fingers closed over it. He gazed at her without speaking. Something about looking into his eyes was like touching a live wire. She looked away, face warming.
“Thank you,” he said. “You ready?”
Yeah. For a lot of things I can’t have and shouldn’t want.
But all she said was “Yes.” She took his arm and edged past the sprawling bodies and out the front door. Then tensed, startled, as headlights flicked on outside. “What the hell?”
“My car. Remote ignition. You drive. I gotta shut down for a while. I’ll tell you where to go.”
She pulled open the passenger door of a shiny black Porsche SUV, trying without much success to keep him from falling into the seat like a ton of bricks.
She hurried around the front of the car and slid into the driver’s seat. “Where to?”
“Highway,” he said thickly. “Going north. Drive fast.”
Chapter 7
Warehouse District, Seattle waterfront …
Zade felt a gentle but persistent shake against his shoulder, but it was Simone’s sensuous, velvety voice that reached him.
“Zade…come back. Come back to me, babe …” Repeating it, over and over.
It was a long trip back up from the data dive. It took a while, flipping off this switch, switching on that one. He could’ve done it faster if necessary, but he preferred to take his time. Float up gently rather than jump up screaming, ready to destroy shit.
That never went over well with Simone.
Her name boosted him up over the top. Simone. His love, his bride. He opened his eyes to her beautiful face. Her long, thick blond braid coiled up against his chest as she bent over him. His senses opened up to take in more of her warm, sweet scent.
“Hey,” was all he could croak.
“You stayed down too long,” she scolded. “You promised six hour stretches, and that’s still too long. I was at Asa’s for ten hours, and I stopped for well over an hour at Hannah’s on my way back, so you’re cheating. What gives?”
Zade shook his head. He had nothing to say for himself. He’d been diving deeper and deeper into hacked databases of all kinds in his search for his brother Luke. When he was in it, it was hard to remember the promises he’d made to her. Time had no meaning in a data dive.
That was what made them dangerous.
“You need some sleep.” Simone sank down on the bed next to him, putting a bulging tote bag on the bed next to his feet. “You haven’t slept since we finished the kill-code scrub. Your brain needs to shut down periodically. You’re still healing. And I feel like I’m talking to a goddamn wall.”
“I rest. I do sentinel sleep,” he protested.
“Sentinel sleep, my ass. It’s not the same and you know it.”
Zade sat up and ran his hand through the buzz-cut brush that covered his scalp. He still couldn’t get used to such short hair. Simone had shaved off his mane when they scrubbed out the kill-code, right after their recent wild adventures, and he still didn’t recognize himself in the mirror. That tight-assed military look was not his vibe.
On the up side, it made his diamond stud earring really pop.
He feasted his eyes on her. So damn pretty. A good stimulus to drag his brain back into normal mode. He’d amped up the search for his brother Luke using their new leads shortly after the code-scrub procedure. Too soon, according to Simone, but Luke couldn’t wait.
Neither could he. He’d been diving for hours a day, every day. Still no results.
Every day that passed ratcheted the tension inside him higher. Simone got it, and she was supremely patient with it, but the strain was never-ending. She deserved better.
He noticed the bag she’d set by his feet. “What’s that stuff?”
“Hannah and Sisko’s latest passion project,” she said. “I got roped into doing product testing for them. They’re designing sexy spy-style tech gear for women.”
“Such as?”
“Useful gadgets. You know. Stun weapons, tracking devices.”
“Who are you going to track?” he asked innocently.
She tilted an eyebrow. “Back to the subject. Deep diving. Too much isn’t good for you, Zade.”
“I have to do it,” he told her. “We tried a physical search. We combed every square inch of that whole area. If Luke had been there, we would have found him. We didn’t. My job now is to keep trawling the entire fucking internet until I find a sign of him.”
Simone slid off the bed and went over to the computer table by the window, where she’d left two steaming cups of coffee. She carried them back. “I know you have to find Luke,” she said. “And I understand that you can’t rest until you do. But you’re not doing him any favors by hurting yourself. Your dives are too long. It’s dangerous. And it makes you crabby.”
“When was I crabby today? Yesterday doesn’t count,” he said, defensive.
She passed him a cup. “You’ve been in a nonverbal trance state for fourteen hours,” she observed. “You haven’t had time yet. But you’ll get there. Maybe I’ll go out to a movie. Without you.”
She settled down next to him, fluffing pillows behind her and extending her legs, sipping her own coffee, laced with brown sugar and cream. He didn’t get the preference, but liked the taste on her lips when he kissed her. Creamy sweet and sensual.
Zade figured he was only seconds away from advice he didn’t feel like hearing. “Whatever, Simone. Just deal, OK? Luke saved my skin more times than I can count. I’m sorry if it stresses you out, but I can’t stop.”
“Don’t be defensive,” she said softly. “I’m not telling you to stop.”
He looked her over hungrily as he drank his coffee. Usually when they were alone in the house and she was working on her research, she wore a loose draped sweater over leggings and a silky
camisole, barefoot, no bra, her long blond hair hanging loose. Today she wore jeans, a waffle-weave sweatshirt and a quilted vest. Hair all braided back. Windblown wisps, rosy cheeks. She’d been doing something outdoors.
It still blew his mind that she was here with him. In his bed, his house, his life.
His wife. So beautiful and smart. Heroically badass. And she could make him combust with a single sultry glance.
“What the hell were you doing at Asa’s all that time?” he demanded.
A smile twitched her lips. “Follow-up checks on Brenner, obviously.”
“Obviously,” he echoed.
Brenner had been part of an attack force several weeks ago, led by Mark Olund, a Midlander gone bad. The attack had almost destroyed them. But Brenner had survived, and fought back against his Obsidian programming. It nearly killed him—but not quite.
Mark and the others had all died, but Brenner hung on in a coma for weeks—until the day that he’d come out of it with a vengeance. Psychotic and screaming.
That was when Simone had performed her first ever improvised code-scrub on the poor guy’s brain and brought him back somehow. Brilliant as she was.
Brenner seemed OK, from what Zade could see. These days he was working with Asa, the pain-in-the-ass brother of Noah and Hannah Gallagher, two more of Zade’s fellow Midlander rebels. And Brenner gave them good info about current Obsidian research and protocols, being one of Obsidian’s relatively late models. Midlanders like Zade and his band were just rough drafts in comparison to Obsidian’s current cutting edge bioengineering design.
Simone followed Brenner’s progress like a hawk. She felt personally responsible for his mental health and welfare, so she was often out at Asa’s lair to check on him. Too often for Zade’s comfort level, if he was being honest. But he tried not to be a jerk.
“Today we did some cyber-synch testing on the Obsidian weapons in Asa’s cache,” she told him.
“With you there?” Zade sat bolt upright, appalled. “That’s dangerous! That stuff could trigger Brenner into a relapse, and there you’d be, in the crosshairs! What the fuck?”
In My Skin Page 6