Revolutionary

by LeAnn Mason

  We needed to make it happen.

  Immediately.

  I forced myself to take deep breaths and shook out my limbs, trying to rid myself of the cloying worry and the adrenaline that accompanied it as we moved back toward the nurse’s station where I’d left Jade earlier. There were a few chairs set up along the perimeter of the space, so we congregated near a few along a back wall where Jade joined us after a moment.

  I wrote again: Make your calls. Enough talk. Action. Now.

  Another note, which I tipped toward Jade. Anything? A sadly-shaken head was my answer.

  I needed to do something. I needed to follow a trail. A lead. I needed answers, so I could get my woman back, or I’d go mad. I was already well on my way, as the broken wall could confirm.

  “I think we’ve gotten all we’re going to from here. Let’s go back to the hotel and regroup. Get a hold of the commander. The chief claims to know nothing about the situation, but that he’ll look into it. Let’s get packed and ready. We need to be able to move at a moment’s notice. Sound good?”

  Every head from our team bobbed in the affirmative. I’d go where pointed as long as it was toward Nathalee. I noticed a couple of our babysitters—Nat’s term—milling around and wondered why they hadn’t become alarmed, why they hadn’t approached us at all. They were probably trying to cover for Miller. Whatever. It was time to go, and they were our ride. I could ask once we were in a more suitable environment.

  I caught the eye of one of the ninny guards as our group moved as a unit toward the elevator bank where I had run into Devlin. He spoke to seemingly no one before falling into line behind us. A moment later, two more joined us and neither was Miller. Jade broke the tension riding us all with a carefully-delivered quip to our protectors. “Hey there, guys. Soooo nice to see you again. Did you know that Nathalee is missing?” Her eyes narrowed as she read the emotions wafting from the men. They became dangerous slits when they all answered in the negative.

  Interesting. She was detecting something from them. I’d need to keep an eye on them, see what their body language spilled for me. They very likely knew more than they let on and that lit my fuse—again.

  “Oh? So, if you guys are supposed to be our protection detail, where in the Hell were you last night? Why didn’t anyone notice if they were stationed outside Nat’s room? How is it that the hospital can and is claiming that they never admitted her?” Jade was a mess. Her makeup was worn, her clothes sported the same dirt and wrinkles all of ours did, and her wavy mane made her look like an electrocution victim, but in that moment, she blazed with a righteous fury that wouldn’t allow anyone to see those superficial flaws. Her hands were balled tightly into fists at her side, most likely to keep her from poking the guy in his chest as she spoke. She couldn’t stop the movement toward her target, those laser eyes focused on only him.

  “Jones was stationed outside the room. Jones says he had to pee and was only gone for a minute. Nothing looked amiss when he returned, and there were no added personnel in the area, no suspicious noise, so he resumed his post without worry and didn’t inform Miller of anything out of sorts. In retrospect, that was a mistake.”

  I lost it then. My arm shot out—almost of its own volition—and connected solidly with the asshat’s jaw. The force of my hit threw him backward into the metal siding of our box enclosure just as the elevator dinged our arrival on the ground floor. The doors began their yawn almost as if we were the opening act of a stage play. I moved to stand above the severely-dazed and completely-inept man, ready to deliver another strike as all my rage and fear bubbled back to the surface.

  Pain detonated across my temple before I could release my urges. My body was thrown sideways through the widening elevator doors, where I stumbled out into the small crowd of Non-Enhanced waiting patiently for the elevator. You’d have thought they were front and center for a blood match or something by the shocked gasps and girly squealing. My equilibrium was more than a little off, but that didn’t cut through the rage I aimed at Devlin. He’d stopped me from giving the guard a beat down he’d never forget, and that earned him my ire.

  I growled in angry frustration, my body heaving with the effort to not just tear forward and rip his head from his shoulders. His shoulders were quite meaty, so I’d probably not actually be able to separate the two, but I damn sure wanted to try. If he wasn’t going to let me pummel the ninny, I’d just have to settle for—

  Every ounce of fight fled from my body, my arms suddenly too heavy to lift—same as my head. My knees buckled, and I fell to them in a daze, still encircled by the crowd of bashful ninnies. What is happening to me? Only when I pitched forward, my face headed straight for the gleaming linoleum flooring, did I realize there was no longer pressure at my back.

  Jade.

  “I’m sorry, he’s not slept for days and apparently it’s caught up to him. Dev, could you help me get him back out to the car, so we can take him home to rest up?” Jade laughed, rather convincingly, to who I assumed was the gawking crowd I’d just plowed through. She apologized again before I fell into a deep void of nothing, losing my connection to the waking world.

  Damn, that girl was good. Thank God she kept me from doing more damage—to the detail agent, to myself, to each of them. To the Enhanced as a whole.

  Rhythmic swaying was the first thing to register as my mind crawled back out of the darkness. The next was that my neck hurt, and my mouth was dry. The deep rumbling of a large engine and several voices came next. The fact that I was uncomfortably squished between a couple of other bodies finally pulled me above the fuzz that still lingered. Devlin and Jade. Those were the bodies I was sandwiched between. I pulled my head up from where it had been tipped backward in my superficially-induced sleep. That explains the neck, I thought as I brought a hand up to rub out the soreness.

  “Glad to see you awake, Princess,” Devlin smirked from my right. “You were drooling, in case you were wondering.”

  I rubbed self-consciously at my mouth where there was indeed a little spittle leaking from the corner. Because that was not embarrassing at all. Not only had I been knocked out because my self-control was shot, but they all watched as I fucking drooled a puddle on myself. Awesome.

  “Jade sure put the whammy on you, man.” Trent was sympathetic, but I could see the corners of his lips fighting not to curl up. “But it knocked her out, too, in case that makes you feel a little better about it.”

  I decided taking stock of my surroundings would be a better use of my time than beating the rest of my team into submission if they continued to poke the bear. They did not want it waking up again, after all. I looked around, groping at all my pockets for writing paraphernalia. My search was obvious enough that Trent passed me a small notepad and pen, the same ones I had grabbed at the hospital.

  Man, this freaking vehicle was crammed with… military personnel.

  No. No, no, no! Frantically, I pushed Devlin and another uniformed man away from the window to stare disbelievingly at the barren desert landscape whizzing by in a blur. Anger clouded my senses as I scrawled nearly unintelligible words onto the notepad and flipped it at the wary eyes tracking my every move, of which there were ten sets. Where are we?!

  Dev cleared his throat self-consciously. “We’re on our way back to Minefie—”

  I began thrashing before he finished. I could not believe we had left. We left her! I needed out. I needed to get back to the city! I needed to find Nathalee! Not only was she alone and scared, she was wounded already. I had—we had—already failed her once, and we were just leaving?!

  “Holden, calm down, or else I’ll have to pull you under again… I’m not sure either of us could handle that,” Jade pleaded from my other side. All of the soldiers surrounding the vehicle's interior had their automatic rifles in hand, finger poised just a hair’s breadth above the trigger pull, ready to do what was necessary to ensure their own safety. I noticed the narrowed gaze of Perez, the soldier who we’d established wasn’t fond o
f us during our ride into town. He would not hesitate to put me down if needed. A gunshot in these close quarters was not advisable in any circumstance, but he would take the hit if needed. I forced myself to regulate my breathing, to hear what they wanted to say.

  After a curt nod where my eyes never left Perez’s—I didn’t trust him—Devlin continued his run-down of the situation. “The chief and mayor feared for our continued safety within the city, as did your uncle.” He paused there, letting it sink in that they had apprised our commander of the situation and he had apparently called for us to return to Minefield.

  Should I then point my anger at my uncle?

  “There were too many holes in our security. With two lapses already, both aimed at Nat, he called us back to the CP.” I peeled my stare from Perez to look at Devlin. His eyes blazed with a burning conviction when he continued. “We are not giving up. We are not done, brother. We are going back to where we are safest and where we can trust our intel and manpower. We will get her back. There is no other option, Holden.”

  It really hit me in that moment, just how much Nat meant, not only to me, but to the others on the team. She had become the glue of us, doing whatever she could to keep us together. Hell, she’d even attempted to bring Steve into the fold. They all needed her back as badly as I did, even if not for the same reasons. I hung on to that conviction for the rest of the drive back to Minefield.

  About an hour later, the scenery became familiar—even if it didn’t really change—as we rolled past the outer barriers of the military base and alongside the railroad tracks. As if the thought of the iron beast conjured its very existence, I heard the mighty bellow of a train whistle as it approached. It was going at a good clip, so I assumed it was not making a stop at Minefield. It used to be that it was scheduled like clockwork to bring supplies to our town, but they seemed to come a bit more often, and no longer as predictably since there were things that the Non-Enhanced world needed to have established within the Enhanced communities. So that we would “integrate successfully and function outside our communities.”

  After our disastrous outing, I was losing faith that we could ever be a truly unified people with the world. One big, happy family seemed very far-fetched at this point. We had been naïve to think the transition would be easy, that there wouldn’t be casualties. Hell, we’d seen casualties even within our own small community. Dane, for example. Thinking of him pulled my mood even further into the gutter. He had been the best of us, the one always ready to accept the challenge. Whether it was a new operation or learning to do the job with some little Sage females, Dane had taken it all in stride. Not to mention, he had been a hell of a tracker, and we desperately needed one.

  The vehicle slowed, bringing me from my thoughts as we pulled up to the guarded perimeter gate. It creaked open slowly as our driver was waved through by the attending soldier. Pulling into a slotted parking space off to the side of the guard shack, I let go of a huge breath I did not know I was holding. My uncle was waiting for our arrival, his stance rigid and face determined. He had been advised of the situation and no doubt had some sort of plan in the works. At least, that was what I needed from him—a plan of action.

  It killed me knowing that we’d left Nat behind, God-knows-where and with God-knows-who to do God-knows-what to her. The fact that my own uncle—our commander—had ordered us home ratcheted my tension up to eleven. He knew what she meant to me, hell, to all of us, even him. The only thing keeping me from the ledge—or his throat—was knowing that our being back here did not signal the end of our search. I itched to get out there. To bring her home.

  As we filed out of the Humvee, the prickly soldiers gave a quick salute to my uncle before piling back into the vehicle and backing out, leaving Minefield’s confines like their asses were on fire. I could not blame them. I had just gotten a taste of being very outnumbered by those different than me.

  A heavy hand clapped me on the back before pulling me in to a bone-crushing embrace. Fiercely, my uncle whispered his vow into my ear. “We will get her back, Son. We’ll bring her home.” I nodded, but the nagging voice in my head noticed what he did not say. He did not mention what condition she would be in. There was no mention of safe, unharmed… or alive. Those were things he could not guarantee me, so he made sure not to.

  Pulling back, he directed a quick greeting to the rest of our team before waving us forward and into our trusty van. “Come on, guys. Let’s get a move on, so we can set this plan I have in motion.”

  Yes, let’s.

  When we walked through the enforcer’s entrance at Sam’s Gym, also known as the “Command Post,” I couldn’t help the awe that took over my face as my eyes lit on all the papers littering every visible surface of the space. The walls, whiteboards, and conference table were all strewn with pictures and information. That was not unusual, as we always kept pertinent or ongoing case information at the ready, but what I could not believe was that it was all seemingly connected to Nat and her disappearance.

  “Guys, you remember Tanner and Aimee.” Belatedly, I noticed that two new people had trailed our group into the large room. In fact, if my uncle hadn’t mentioned it, I am not sure I would have. I was too consumed with absorbing all the information in this room.

  The squirrelly astral-projecting Sage stood next to a woman who looked remarkably like Dane—with smooth, brown hair and chocolate eyes framed by long, black lashes and sculpted eyebrows. She was stunning, and it seemed I was not the only one to notice.

  “Get a good look?” she asked Devlin with a hand to her hip that was cocked and loaded.

  “Aimee! I’m so happy to see you,” Jade interrupted as she rushed Dane’s sister, nearly jumping into the taller woman’s arms. They embraced like old friends, which, I guess they were. In Aimee’s hold, Jade’s tears began to flow. I did not know if it was the presence of another woman or because she was the sister of her deceased boyfriend or what, but they stood together for a while in an attempt to overcome Jade’s emotional state. The rest of us milled around, trying to find a way to distract ourselves.

  With my uncle there, I could once again fall back into signing rather than writing everything down because Nat… was not around. I gestured to him, asking about Tanner’s presence and tipping my head his direction in a sort of shorthand version for everyone else in the room.

  “You remember that Tanner can project his mind outward via meditation? Well, I called him in and asked if he could project to find Nathalee.” My uncle almost beamed, though he tried to contain it. He did not want to seem happy—even if he was—while Nat’s fate hung in the balance.

  I signed again, I take it he could? At my uncle's nod, a shot of excitement pulsed through me. Everyone else started talking at once, including the girls who had joined our group at some point in the last minute. Well? The impatience was written all over each face that was now wholly focused on the ginger Sage in our midst, causing him to shrink back a step. I would give it to him, because we were intense on a good day, and Lord knew, today was not a good day.

  “Well, I was able to find her, but it was difficult, and the connection was fuzzy—”

  My hands flew around in accusation, not waiting for the full account while my uncle did me a solid. Translating as I signed to keep everyone in the loop. Why, what happened to her? What have they done to her?

  “She’s been under sedation. I can’t really tell if it’s to keep her compliant or for the pain in her shoulder. She looked to be in some sort of medical facility.” Voices erupted in concern, all of us forgetting that calm and collected was the way to move forward. We knew that. Our job depended on the ability to stay cool and objective, but damn, it was different when it was one of our own.

  I crowded into the skinny male, my eyes blazing and jaw clenched. I really was trying to hold it together, but it was getting harder with every new piece of information.

  “Holden, give the man some breathing room and I’ll fill you in on the plan,” my uncle, my command
er, advised coolly. He had a plan. “Let’s talk about how to go get our girl.”

  CHAPTER 20

  NATHALEE

  I roused from a heavy and fogged slumber to the sound of a rhythmic beeping to my left. Searing light seeping through my closed eyelids was enough to make me squirm to escape its invasion. As I wormed my body, attempting to tuck under the sheet that I knew must be on me, my left shoulder knocked against my bed and caused a pained hiss to escape my lips. My eyes flew open as I remembered why. I’d been fucking shot!

  “Holden?” I called out with a raspy croak as I searched the room for his presence. My throat felt dry and unused, a definite case of cottonmouth clinging to my tongue.

  The room looked… different than the one I fell asleep in… I think? “What happened?” I groaned, pulling a hand to my forehead in hopes of quelling the pain that throbbed behind my eyes. A tug at the back of my hand alerted me to the presence of an IV tube inserted there. As I traced the tubing to its origin, I found a saline bag hanging from a metal stand just in front of the machine making the annoying beeping sound. It looked to be a heart monitor with the lead attached by a clamp to my index finger—also on my left hand. Sheesh, it seemed they were heavy to the left here. I shook my head in mild amusement. Hospitals were so predictable in attaching all kinds of crap to the body in the bed.

  “What the…?” Further inspection produced sensors attached to my temples as well. I wasted no time yanking those off, causing another machine just behind me to kick into a screaming fit. My entire left side from neck to hip was sore and aching. My shoulder and chest ramping it up to make sure I qualified their pain as “burning” instead of throbbing as I set about removing the wires. Something was wrong. Where was Holden? Everyone? Hell, I’d even take Steve! I thought dismally. “Hello?”

  The room was too large to be a regular patient room, but that was the biggest difference between it and the one I’d gone into after being shot. Had they moved me further from other patients? Was my telepathy leaking? I gasped. Did I do something while under the influence of the pain medication that made them need to move me? I certainly didn’t remember doing anything… How long had I been out? “Where the Hell is everyone?” Again, that thought pervaded my mind. They wouldn’t leave me, would they?