Uncontrollable (Beyond Human)

by Nina Croft

He was expecting shock, but Pete nodded. “When I was in special ops, I’d heard rumors. And I’ve seen you guys together. Sometimes, it’s like you’re carrying on a conversation we can’t hear. Can you read us? Or maybe the question should be, have you read us?”

  “Only when we believed we needed to.”

  “What made you leave?”

  “One of our people died—others had before, but Sam was only seventeen. He was Kaitlin’s brother. Before, we’d believed that the deaths were from natural causes. But Kaitlin wouldn’t accept that. We discovered that Sam and the others had been killed as part of experiments to try and control our telepathy, make us mere drones.”

  “I’m sorry. That must have been hard.”

  “We trusted them, and they betrayed us. We found out later that control had been taken from the government and our group was being run by a private organization. But that came later. At the time, we just knew that we had to get out of there, before any more of our people died.”

  Liz was thinking it through, a little frown between her eyes. “So now the government is after you? They shot the plane down?”

  This was where things got complicated, but he didn’t want to go into too much detail. “No. I mentioned a private group. It’s actually a huge global organization with members in every walk of life, military, politics, big business. They want to control us, but we know too much. So, they’d rather eliminate us and start with a new…untainted batch.”

  He wouldn’t go into the whole power play within the Conclave, or the fact that their leader was now working with them. It would complicate matters.

  “Can’t you go to the government? Surely they would help you now.”

  No way would they put their trust in the government again, not until they had found a way to weed out all the corruption. Which shouldn’t be impossible, once they could stop running for a few minutes. Of course, there was also the complication of Kane’s “mission” and his goddamn time machine. He certainly wasn’t going to get into that. “We don’t know who to trust. We can check out anyone we come into contact with, but not the whole world.”

  “So why have you decided to tell us this now?” Pete asked. “Are you going to kill us after all?”

  He looked Pete in the eyes. “You don’t believe that for one second.”

  “And of course, you know that for sure?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Pete shook his head. “Seriously freaky stuff. So, what happens now?”

  Quinn exhaled, while he decided the best way to put this to them. “The idea was to drop you off somewhere, at a point where it wouldn’t matter so much what you told anyone.”

  “But?”

  “The problem is, we believe that someone will come after you. It might not matter what you tell them, but the methods they use to make you talk could be less than pleasant.”

  “They’ll torture us?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  “Are you trying to scare us?”

  “Yes.”

  Pete gave a short laugh. “I presume you have an alternative suggestion.”

  “We do. Rose will take you to an airport, provide you with false papers, new names, and put you on a plane to London.”

  “What about our families?” Liz asked.

  “We’ll get word to them that you’re safe, but for now—no contact. They’ll be monitored. We hope to sort out the problem…permanently, in the not too distant future. After that, you’ll be free to return.”

  “And what will we do in London?”

  “We have a contact who runs a large organization. He’ll set you up with a job, a place to live. You’ve helped us—we’re grateful, and we repay our debts.”

  “Are you the good guys?”

  “We try to be.” They were silent for a few minutes. “Take your time,” he said. “It’s a lot to think about.”

  “I don’t need time,” Pete said. “I was bored flying commercial flights. I’m guessing I won’t be bored working for your friend.”

  “Not if you don’t want to be.” He looked at Liz. The decision was clearly harder for her to make, but she caught his gaze and gave a nod. “I’ll go. Though right now, boring sounds good to me.”

  “Boring it is then. We’ll get it organized.” He looked away. “Rose?”

  “I heard. I’ll contact Stefan and get him started on the paperwork.”

  They were silent for the rest of the drive. The sun was warm, and he closed his eyes—he hadn’t slept much the previous night. At some point, he slid his hand down and found Mel’s, and wrapped his fingers around hers.

  “Aw.” Kaitlin’s chuckle echoed in his head, but he ignored it, cleared his mind and dozed.

  He woke as they were pulling into the airport. Rose drove around a couple of times until they found the charter section. She’d spoken to someone on the phone about half an hour ago and had been assured that everything was ready and waiting for them. “Ethan organized it—so remember to say thank you,” Rose said.

  He jumped out of the back, then held his hand out to help Mel. Not that she needed it. She was the toughest, most competent woman he had ever met, outside the Tribe members. She took it, though, and jumped down. Martin climbed out of the front and came to stand with them. This was goodbye for now.

  Quinn hugged Rose. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure. It’s always fun to spend time with you.” She cast a pointed look at Mel. “And watch your heart, lover boy. I have a feeling your little FBI agent is more than she seems.” Funnily enough, so did he. He just had no clue how, or why, right now. But he’d be on his guard.

  Rose turned to Mel. “Don’t break his heart, or I’ll come and kill you.”

  Mel frowned. “I’ll do my best.”

  Kaitlin was lying in the back seat and he opened the door.

  “I won’t get out,” Kaitlin said.

  “You can’t get out, you mean,” he replied. He leaned in and kissed her on the forehead. “Keep safe.”

  “You, too.”

  He nodded to Pete and Liz in the back and then he, Mel, and Martin started walking away. He forced himself not to look back. He’d see them again. They would go find the tribe, get them away, take them home… What could go wrong?

  A man in a dark gray suit was waiting at the charter desk. “Mr. Sutherland?” Quinn nodded, and the man held out his hand. “A pleasure to meet you. I’ve organized your charter flight. I believe you will be flying the plane yourself.”

  “I will.”

  “You will?” Mel said from beside him, a note of disbelief in her voice. “Can you fly?”

  “No. I’ll learn on the way up.”

  For a second, he was sure she actually believed him. “Ha.”

  “All the paperwork has been filed, and you have a departure time of thirty minutes.”

  They followed the man through the gates and out on to the tarmac. Quinn’s gaze was drawn to the prettiest little plane he had ever seen. Small, she was a four-seater, sleek and silver. He thought he might be falling in love. He’d always loved flying—at least when he was at the controls.

  He’d learned to fly from the best—the British RAF—when he was eighteen. Small planes and helicopters. It was a useful talent to have in their line of work.

  “She’s a Cessna TTX, has a range of 1,250 miles, which means you’ll need one refueling stop. The flight plan has been logged.”

  “Thank you.”

  The man nodded and walked away without another word. The perfect employee.

  As they were approaching the plane, a small group hurried toward them across the tarmac. Three men in business suits, and another in a pilot’s uniform. They intercepted them and came to a halt. The man in the front did not look happy. Quinn delved into his mind.

  “That’s my goddamned charter plane,” the man said. “Organized, paid for, then half a goddamned hour ago, I get a message that it’s canceled. What the fuck is going on and who the hell do you think you are?”

  Before Quin
n could speak, Mel stepped forward, pulling her FBI badge out of her pocket. If he’d been able to read her mind, he would have warned her not to.

  “This is FBI business, could you please stand aside, sir.”

  The man stared at the badge, then opened his mouth as if to argue some more. Quinn reached into his mind and suggested he back off. A look of confusion crossed his face, but whatever words he was about to speak were cut off. He stepped back, shaking his head as they walked past. Finally, he found his voice again. “Special Agent Lyons, you’ll be hearing from me.”

  That was exactly what Quinn had been afraid of. If someone was looking for Mel, this would flag her presence at Jacksonville. He went into the man’s head and suggested he forget Special Agent Lyons, but he didn’t think the compulsion would hold once they were away.

  “Let’s go,” he said. Something told him time was running out. If they didn’t reach the tribe first and get them to safety, everything would change. They’d be at a disadvantage, and right now, they could really do with things going their way for a change.

  Martin took one of the back seats, Mel the front one beside his. He helped her with the harness just for an excuse to touch her. Then he climbed into the pilot’s seat and strapped himself in.

  He’d learned to fly in a Cessna, a different model, but the controls were familiar. He switched on the engine and within minutes they were taxiing along the runway. He spoke to the control tower and received clearance for takeoff. He loved this moment of acceleration, the second they parted company with the earth.

  “What are our chances of someone shooting us down?” Mel asked as they rose into the air.

  “Fifty-fifty.” He grinned. “Only kidding. I think we lost them. Now, you might as well get comfortable. We’ve a long way to go.” And what would they find at the other end?

  The tribe. The mysterious group who had been found in the Mountains of the Moon, nearly a hundred and fifty years ago. The link to their past. While not related in any conventional sense, these people were the closest thing he had to “real” family. Suddenly, he was curious.

  “Tell me about them,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Martin.

  “The tribe? What do you want to know?”

  He thought for a moment. He wanted to know everything, but maybe he needed to be a little more specific.

  “We all come from their DNA—I know that much. But do you know specifics? Am I going to meet my mother or my father?” He knew that he came from one “normal” human and one tribe member, but no more than that.

  “Do you want to?”

  Shit, he’d never really thought about it. Not for years, anyway. Growing up, he’d had so many conversations with his sister about who their real parents were, why they’d been fostered. Shanna had been fascinated by the whole idea of finding her family, of discovering their backgrounds, who they really were. Christ, she would have loved this.

  “What’s the matter?” Mel asked from beside him.

  “I was thinking about my sister.”

  “You have a sister?”

  “Had,” he replied. “She died nearly five years ago. She was killed by the same people who murdered Kaitlin’s brother.” Though that wasn’t entirely true. Kaitlin had actually killed her own brother, although he’d begged her to do it. She’d had no choice, though Quinn was sure that hadn’t made the decision any easier. Could he have done the same for Shanna?

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “So am I, Quinn,” Martin said. “More than I can say. Shanna was a wonderful woman. So many times, I’ve tried to work out what I could have done differently. If I’d come to you all with my concerns, would you have gotten out sooner? Before any of you died?”

  “It’s not your fault.” He’d wanted to blame someone for so long. But really, the blame lay with the Conclave. Which was why he’d found it so hard to stomach working with Ethan. Well, maybe not just the Conclave. The colonel had to take a big part of the blame, as well. He’d known them all their lives, and yet he’d presumably signed off on Shanna’s death. Okay, maybe he hadn’t known she would die from whatever experiments they had performed, but he’d placed her life in the hands of people with no conscience. “You know Shanna came to me not long before she died. She said she had this feeling that everything was going to go wrong. She wanted us to leave, all of us. I told her she was being paranoid, that we were working with the good guys. But maybe she wasn’t paranoid. Maybe she had some glimpse of the future.” He turned to Mel. “Sadie, another of our people, can see the future. We’ve all been getting these extra…talents since we broke away. They were giving us something to suppress our powers before. Once the drugs cleared our systems, all sorts of things started happening.”

  “Can you do anything else?”

  “I can do lots of things,” he murmured.

  “Other than read minds, I mean?”

  “Coercion. I can…convince people to do things.”

  “Really?” Did she think he’d used some sort of mental powers to get her to sleep with him?

  “Not you,” he said. “For some reason, you’re immune to all of our powers. And I would love to know why.”

  She glanced away. What was she hiding?

  “Anyway, we seem to have gotten off the subject, but to answer your question, I would like to know.”

  “Then, yes,” Martin said. “You’ll meet your mother.”

  Hell, he had a goddamn mother. A real one. His relationship with his foster parents hadn’t been close. They’d been okay but had kept themselves at a distance. They’d never tried to pretend that they were a real family or anything. He’d never worried about it, though. He’d always considered his childhood to be a happy one. Maybe he hadn’t had a real mom, but it was hard to miss what you’d never known. And he’d had Shanna and later Jake and then the others. They’d been all the family he needed. “Does she know about me?” he asked.

  “Yes—in theory. It was one of the conditions I made. But not the specifics. Just that her DNA was being used. The colonel sold them on the world with no more lies idea. They had a meeting and agreed. But it was decided—by the colonel—that it was best if they didn’t get to know their offspring.”

  No, it wouldn’t have done to get fond of them. Or allow them to have anyone to go to, other than their controllers. “Are all the people alive—the ones Malcolm Rayleigh found in Uganda?”

  “Most. They seem impervious to age and to all the usual sicknesses. One drowned on the trip to Scotland and another was killed in a climbing accident about thirty years ago, but the rest are all still alive. Or they were when they left Scotland.”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Mel said, breaking into the conversation. He turned to look at her. Her brows were drawn together in a frown. “Are you saying we’re going to meet the actual people from 1878? They’re still alive?”

  Shit. He’d forgotten she didn’t know that bit. But he supposed it was bound to come out when she met them. “Yeah. Did we forget to mention—we live a long time.”

  “How long?”

  He shrugged. “We’re not sure, but none of us have ever died of old age that we know of.”

  “Wow.”

  That about summed it up. It was something they’d learned since they’d been out on their own, and he was still coming to terms with it. “What about children?” he asked Martin.

  “There have only been a handful in all the years since they left Uganda, five in all. Kane has a sister—Jolene, she’s the youngest, about my age. I suppose she’s Jake’s sister, too. His parents always believed Kane was dead.”

  That sounded like Kane, willing to let his own mother and father believe he was dead. He was a ruthless bastard. Maybe he believed he had to be, but Quinn wasn’t going to forget everything and be best buddies with the guy anytime soon.

  “What are they like?”

  “Hard to know. Very private. Of course, they talk among themselves so there’s always this feeling of exclusion. They’re very…
passive. I think certain traits were intensified. They were a small group.”

  “That’s how Kane described them. Non-aggressive. He’d told Jake that any of their people who showed aggressive behavior became guardians. There were three of them at the time Malcolm discovered the tribe.”

  “Guardians of what?” Martin asked.

  Quinn realized that they hadn’t spoken of Kane’s time machine or his mission since they’d broken Martin out. He would know nothing about it. And something kept him quiet now. Maybe he didn’t trust Mel. Not completely. He gave a casual shrug. “Just some weird tribal legend. A load of crap, according to Kaitlin.”

  He cast Mel a glance. Her eyes were narrowed in thought, but she didn’t ask more.

  They were above the clouds now, floating in the blue sky. And soon he was going to meet his mother.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It was nearly ten hours later that they arrived at their destination. They’d had a short stopover about halfway through the journey, while the plane had been refueled. They’d all gotten out, stretched their legs, had something to eat. Mel hadn’t even noticed what she was eating. Her mind had been going over everything she had learned. This group—who were they? Where had they come from? Quinn and his friends caused no beeps on her alarm system—they belonged in this time. But as telepaths, they shouldn’t be here. Not now. Not for more than a thousand years.

  But the similarities between them and the Tel-group of her time were unavoidable. The physical similarities alone would have raised alarms. The telepathy was impossible to ignore. And while no one knew the truth of it, the Tel-group was rumored to be long lived. There were too many similarities, but she couldn’t work out the connection.

  And it appeared that there were still others back in Uganda. Maybe she should have gone there, after all. Some instinct was telling her that she wouldn’t find the answers here, that they were back where this had begun. Quinn had got that closed-up look—the one she now knew meant he was hiding something from her—right when he had mentioned this Kane and the guardians and the secret they were protecting. Did that secret hold the answers? But Uganda was so far away, and she was more than halfway through her allotted time.