by Jaime Rush
Amy’s heartbeat spiked crazily. Come on, come on.
They didn’t come.
Petra screamed at someone outside the driver’s window. Amy began to turn but the barrel of a gun against her temple stopped her movement.
“Out of the car, ladies,” a man said.
Amy saw his bandaged wrist. Oh, damn. Was he the one Eric shot? By the fierce snarl on his face, Amy guessed it was. She slowly got out.
He pointed the gun toward Petra, obviously adept at using either hand. “You, come out this way, too.” He opened the door and trained the gun on her as she climbed out.
“Walk toward the building. And please, give me a reason to shoot you.”
He wouldn’t need much. Petra slid her hand into Amy’s as they walked together.
CHAPTER 28
Lucas shouted, “Back away from the door! I’m going to shoot out the lock.” He aimed the shotgun and pulled the trigger, angling himself away from the metal door to avoid a ricochet. The shot dented the lock. Two more rounds and it exploded, throwing the door open a few inches.
He pushed it farther open and found a bruised Rand eyeing him with suspicion. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m Lucas. I—”
Lightning crackled along the crevices in his brain. No, not now! Images flashed: Amy with a gun to her back! Amy falling. Shot. Blood.
Was it happening now or was he seeing the future? The images kept repeating in sequence. Fear was as strong as the pain. He couldn’t get his thoughts together, couldn’t get his body to move. He fell to the floor.
The guard opened his eyes. Red hot pain radiated from his shoulder. He didn’t know what was happening to the once-escaped prisoner. He was on the floor, clutching his head and groaning. The door to the other prisoner’s room was open. He had to do something. The shotgun was only a few feet away. With a grunt he used the floor to pull himself over to it and secured the shotgun. Pain made stars fly, but he pushed past that and grabbed the guns in the prisoner’s waistband, too. He pointed his gun at the other prisoner, who was poised to flee.
“Don’t move.”
The alarm stopped, though the sound still throbbed in Eric’s ears. He aimed the gun at the locked office door. He only needed two minutes to grab the laptop on the desk and get out.
“Drop it!”
He swung his gun around to aim at the voice—and stopped when he came face-to-face with Amy and Petra held at gunpoint by the man he’d shot the day before. By the hatred in his cold, blue eyes, the man remembered him well. His mind scrambled for options.
“Drop the gun now or the girls get it,” the man growled. “And what you have in your other hand.”
Eric set down the gun as his fingers blindly groped for the ring that would release the tear gas.
“Drop the canister,” the man barked.
Eric had been about to pull the pin when he realized he didn’t have his mask anymore. He’d be incapacitated, too. He dropped the canister. He had only one backup weapon, but it was a hell of a backup. “Burn, you son of a bitch,” he muttered.
A tingling sensation crawled up Eric’s spine. Petra had described something like it when she was being remote-viewed. He tried to shake it off and train his gaze on the man. It persisted.
You’re going to die, Aruda.
What the hell? He heard the voice in his head, but it wasn’t his thoughts.
It’s over. Give it up. Give up and die!
He felt a strange pressure inside his head. Someone was in his head. Hell, someone was in his head! He couldn’t focus his energy on anything but getting him out.
The shadow of fear had left the man’s eyes. He lifted his gun.
Rand raised his arms as the guard pointed the gun at him. He nodded toward the guy on the floor. “Hey, man, are you trying to make me crazy in here? Alarms, gunshots, fire, and now some whacked dude barges in and then goes into a seizure.”
The guard grimaced in pain as he got to his feet. “This guy’s psychotic. That’s all I know.”
He heard someone banging on a door down the hall. The guard looked confused. Get help and leave Rand there? Take Rand with him but leave the crazy guy on the floor?
“Don’t leave me here with this guy,” Rand said, injecting panic into his voice. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
The guard’s eyes were hazy with pain as he tried to focus. He blinked, weaved on his feet. “Help me get him in this room.”
Rand reached down to pull up Lucas—and drove his elbow into the guard’s face. Lucas rolled to the side and grabbed the gun that the guard dropped with a gasp of pain. Rand could see that whatever had happened to Lucas, he’d recovered.
“Help me get him in this room,” Lucas said.
For a second Rand stared at him. “I know you. Wait a minute. I dreamed you!”
“My friends and I came to bust you out of here, but things went to hell fast.”
Rand grabbed the guard’s legs and the two of them carried him into the room, set him down, then Lucas locked the door and tossed the guard’s gun to Rand. There wasn’t time for Rand to ask questions, like why this stranger was rescuing him. Or why he’d dreamed about him. “What now?” he asked.
“We get the others.” Lucas ran down the hallway.
Rand followed. “How many are there of you?”
“Eric’s in the building. We’ve got two women outside in the car ready to get us out of here.”
Another guard was lying on the floor, groaning in pain. Who the hell were these people? No matter, he’d rather be on their side. He already knew what the other side was like. Now that he had a gun, he’d take out the head bastard with a shot to the forehead…right after he nailed him in the balls.
They took a left and came to a security gate. Lucas ran back to the guard lying on the floor and took the keys off his belt. After trying four of them, he unlocked the gate and paused to listen.
Rand heard a man say, “Drop the gun now or the girls get it.”
Girls?
He saw Lucas blanch. Hell, they were probably the women in the getaway car.
He and Lucas went through the security gate. The hallway split both ways and continued around the corner to the center of the building. The voice had come from the left. They pressed against the wall and inched their way in that direction.
Rand shot ahead ten seconds in his mind. It wasn’t enough. They were still here. He had a bad feeling, though. This wasn’t going to end pretty.
Lucas peered around the corner. Frustration and fear permeated his whispers. “He’s got Petra and Amy. They were supposed to stay safe in the car. Why didn’t they? Why isn’t Eric using his firepower?”
Rand projected ahead again. This time he saw a man sneaking up behind them with a gun: Peterson, the guy who’d given him the meal with drugs in it. Rand turned in time to catch him come around the corner. He raised his gun and shot at him, heard a gasp of pain as Peterson’s gun slid across the floor. Shit. He’d shot someone.
Another shot split the air. Both he and Lucas peered around the corner again. The shorter girl with the brown hair took advantage of the distraction his shot created and grabbed at the guard’s gun. The tall blonde joined in, wrestling the big guy for control. The guy with the Mr. Universe body—Eric, he presumed—was twitching his head as if he were surrounded by invisible bees.
Rand projected again. Oh, shit. “The brunette’s going to get shot in ten seconds! From the right.”
“Amy. No.” Not disbelief, but agony.
Lucas flew down the hallway toward the women. Three seconds left. He launched himself toward Amy. Two seconds left. Flew through the air, turning his body to the right, gun at the ready. He knocked Amy to the side, his body jerking when he pulled the trigger. Bizarrely, blood splattered from his chest. He fell to the floor. Lucas’s run sent Eric into action toward them.
Rand ran to the other hallway in time to see one of the doors open. He shot at the door and it slammed shut. Lucas had hit his target; a man
was sprawled on the floor. Rand returned to the front hallway and sprinted toward the open area. Eric was slamming the guy who’d had the women into the floor. “Get out of my head! Get out of my head!”
Amy and the blonde were screaming, Amy with her hands over Lucas’s chest, his blood streaming through her fingers.
The front entrance was within easy reach. Rand’s instincts said to haul ass. Take care of yourself, dude. No one else will.
But these people had. Lucas had. So he said to Eric, who was still beating the man even though he was unconscious, “Let’s get your friend out of here.”
Eric came out of his rage. “Petra, get the car.”
She ran out the door, her face pale.
He and Eric grabbed up Lucas. Amy’s face was wet with tears as she pointed toward the rear entrance. “More of them are coming!”
Rand shot at the rear entrance and then sent another bullet toward the door he’d seen open before. Glass shattered, falling like rain on the yellowed linoleum.
Rand and Eric carried Lucas to the door, and Amy ran ahead to open it for them. He saw a sedan screech to a stop. “You’ve got to be shittin’ me. No way are we all fitting in that.”
The glass on the front door shattered.
“Okay, maybe we will.”
Amy grabbed the gun from his hand, now that he was carrying Lucas, and sent a wild shot back into the building. Petra jumped out of the car and opened the doors, whispering over and over, “Not again, not again.” They slid Lucas onto the backseat. Eric jumped into the driver’s seat, Amy sat in the back with Lucas’s head on her lap, and as for him…well, hell, he didn’t have time to debate. He jumped into the passenger seat, and Petra climbed in the back.
Eric tore out of the lot. One car sped out from behind the building after them. Another car raced down the road toward them. The driver turned it to block them. Eric drove onto the shoulder and around it. The dude had a fierce look on his face; veins stuck out at his temples and neck, mouth in a snarl, right hand cut and bloody.
Rand said, “Amy, give me my gun back.”
God, she was wrecked, whispering Lucas’s name over and over. She handed him the gun without taking her eyes off Lucas. Rand leaned to the side of the headrest and squeezed out two shots through the open window. The tire shredded, and the car swerved violently and spun out.
No time to pat myself on the back. Here comes another one.
But before he could get off another shot, their rear window shattered, crazing into pieces. Amy and Petra screamed and ducked. Rand shot again. He’d used a gun but had never shot at a human being before today. The pursuing car’s windshield crazed. The driver stuck out his head. Rand shot again, hitting the metal just inches from him. The guy slammed on the brakes.
Rand said, “We got a lead. Lose ’em, dude.”
Eric took a two-lane road that seemed to go nowhere, but his resolute expression showed that he knew where he was going. He turned again ten minutes later, cutting through an old neighborhood before getting onto a major highway. Rand kept his gaze trained behind them. Only when they’d gone for a while without anyone dogging them did he drop his gaze to the backseat.
Amy had taken off her shirt and was pressing the fabric against Lucas’s chest. He’d lost a lot of blood already. Rand had a feeling taking him to the hospital wasn’t an option. “Oh, man, he doesn’t look good.”
Amy lifted her reddened, streaked face. “He’s going to die because of you! He had to go back and get you!”
He lifted his hands. “Hey, I never asked him to. I don’t even know him.” Except in his dreams, but that sounded hokey so he wasn’t going to say it. “I also got him out of there.” Hell, he did feel bad. Being accused by a pretty, half-naked woman in distress wasn’t helping.
She was looking at Lucas again, and Rand wasn’t even sure she’d heard him. Man, love and grief poured out of her. It hurt just to look at her. Petra was nearly as torn, squeezed into an awkward position in the tight backseat, not taking her eyes off Lucas.
He sat back in the seat. Eric was staring ahead, his jaw still tight. “So,” Rand said to him. “You want to tell me who you people are?”
“What the hell just happened here?” Gerard thundered. His two subjects stared at the carnage. He ran to the residence’s door and opened it with the code. Olivia stood there, her face pale.
“They’re all gone,” Robbins said, coming down the hallway.
“Even Brandenburg?” Gerard asked. This couldn’t have happened. It was a bad dream. A nightmare.
“Apparently he’s what they were after. Our guys are on them.”
Olivia screamed when she saw the two men on the floor, but she gathered her wits and crouched beside Carl to check his pulse. His head was a bloody mess. Next she ran to the other guard. “They’re alive. Has anyone called an ambulance?”
Robbins waited for an order. Gerard said, “Call Pope. Tell him we’ll need medical assistance as well as a clean-up.” That was his only option, but he didn’t like using it. He turned to the others. “We need to check on the other officers.”
The uninjured scrambled to help the injured. His protégé took in the two injured guards with anger and shock on his face. “We have to shut these traitors down.”
Gerard found a small bit of pleasure in the young man’s fierce attitude. “Good job on derailing Aruda. You kept him from torching anyone.”
Gerard’s phone rang. “We lost them, sir. They shot out our tire. They shot out Kaiser’s windshield, and he lost them, too.”
“Get back here as soon as you can. We’ve got men down. Any injuries on your end?”
“No, sir. We’re good.”
This was a battle, and the enemy had gotten the upper hand. It burned through him, the way losing always did. You’re nothing, Gerard. Always was, always will be. He shook away his father’s voice. This wasn’t about proving himself to his father, the craggy son of a bitch. So much more was at stake here. He had a mess to clean up, literally and figuratively. He’d lost his prisoners. It was shameful.
Robbins returned, still looking pale. “Pope is on his way. He wasn’t happy.”
“I’ll bet. And that’s nothing compared to how I feel.”
Robbins walked over to Carl and crouched down beside him. “Help’s on the way. Hold on, buddy.” Carl wasn’t responding. “What happened to him?”
“Aruda went nuts on him.”
“The guy’s a psycho.”
Gerard had to smile at that. It wouldn’t be long before his star Offspring could do more than fill Aruda’s head with words.
Olivia returned. “Peterson’s shot in the hip. He’s conscious. Another man is down, bullet to the upper chest, lost a lot of blood but his pulse is steady. I can hear two men banging on locked doors in the east wing. We need to get them out.” Robbins handed her his keys. She looked at both men. “Is help coming?”
Robbins said, “We’ve called Pope.”
“Who’s Pope?”
“Oh, I thought you knew.”
She looked at Gerard, who said, “He cleans up messes to preserve the classified status of top secret projects.”
Her voice grew shrill. “Is he sending medical help?”
“Yes.”
She ran to the medical supply closet.
Robbins knelt over Hanson, the man Lucas had shot. He was also unconscious, bleeding from a bullet in the shoulder. He tore off his shirt to stanch the flow, then looked up at Gerard. “For God’s sake, why are you smiling?”
“We lost a small battle here, but we will win the war.”
CHAPTER 29
Amy thought her heart was imploding. Lucas’s breathing was becoming shallower. Now that Eric wasn’t driving like a madman, she could check his pulse. Hardly there. This can’t be happening. I can’t go through this again.
“We have to get help.”
Eric said, “We can’t take him to a hospital. They’re kinda funny about bullet wounds, wanting to call the police and stuff. Do yo
u know anyone with medical training who would be willing to treat him and not tell anyone?”
Amy shook her head. She looked at Rand, feeling bad for screaming at him but unable to apologize just yet. It wasn’t his fault, not really. Lucas had insisted on going back for him. Now she understood why Eric was so angry when Lucas had risked his life to warn her.
Rand said, “Wish I did.” He meant it, too, as he looked at Lucas. “Why did you risk your lives to rescue someone you didn’t even know? Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”
Eric said, “We do know each other. Years ago our parents were involved in a classified project together. We”—he nodded to indicate those in the backseat—“spent our days together. Your mom took care of us.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. “You have a psychic skill, or maybe you see it as an extraordinary ability.” He looked at Rand expectantly.
Rand’s face was a mess, covered in cuts and yellowed bruises. He had some kind of a spike through his eyebrow, which was torn and bleeding. Traces of a blond goatee showed through the stubble on his face. “I can see ten seconds in the future.” He nodded ahead. “That yellow car is going to cut over in front of the red car. The driver is going to stick his hand out the window…no finger.”
They watched as just that happened.
“The a-hole back at the hospital was trying to get me to use it to see even further ahead.”
Eric asked, “Did he do that to your face?”
“No, the guys at the casino did most of this.” He gave them a sheepish smile that looked a bit gruesome with the green bruises. “My, ah, skill comes in handy at the roulette table. Casinos don’t like guys who win too much.” He narrowed his eyes. “How’d you know I had an ability?”
Amy looked at Lucas again, tuning out as Eric filled Rand in. She felt so damn helpless. Were they just supposed to let Lucas die? She wanted to scream, to cry, but she held onto her grief. There was something she could do, something small. She unclasped Lucas’s necklace and put it on him. He needed all the help he could get.