by Brenna Lyons
*
Sarah watched Baker pacing. It figured. Jonas and her family were here, and she couldn’t touch them physically or with talent.
Baker checked his watch as he did every minute or two. The bastard is still cocky. He’s still— She could feel him. Sarah searched. She didn’t have anyone else, no one outside, but she had Baker in here. She nodded to the camera, letting Jonas know that she understood, and rose to her feet, leaning against the wall.
Baker turned on her, his confusion etched on his face. She felt his touch on her shield and pushed back. Baker stumbled back, shaking his head.
“What the hell was that?” he demanded.
Sarah shrugged. “What does your file say?”
Baker sent a spike, and Sarah sent it back. Working with the kids had given her plenty of practice. She shifted to the side, placing the table between them as Baker landed unceremoniously on his butt and clenched his temples between his hands.
Sarah took a deep breath and moved from foot to foot, evaluating her position and the emotions that leaked through Baker’s shield. “Get the door open, Jonas,” she screamed. “Force it if you have to.”
Baker looked up at her, his eyes burning in the fury that built like a tsunami in him. “You want to play with the big boys?” he growled. He pushed back to his feet, his shoulders bunching. “I’ll play with you.”
His next attack was telekinetic. The force of the return wave knocked him back, and his head cracked off the wall behind him. His expression clearly announced that the games were over.
Baker squinted his eyes and rubbed the back of his skull, fisting his other hand as he stepped toward her. “I don’t need talent to take you out. What can you do about that, Sarah?”
Sarah’s mouth went dry. “Afraid?” she bluffed, praying the muffled sounds outside the doors meant Jonas was close.
Baker stopped. “What did you just say?”
“Mr. DoPT himself is afraid to take on a barely talented woman? People you want to intimidate are watching, Drew. How will you control them if you can’t even take me on?” She motioned to the camera and cocked her head in mute question.
He glanced at the camera, safe behind its electric field wires and psi wave. Sarah could feel his confusion. She had to push him further. She didn’t know if she could take Baker with talent, but she’d last a lot longer than she would taking him hand-to-hand.
“I guess it doesn’t matter how you kill me. I mean, Jonas will kill you either way, right? Unless your troops get to him before he gets to you, but then— You still have to lead those people, and you can’t even fight me. I expected more from the head honcho. Bet they did, too.”
Baker turned back to her, his eyes burning. Sarah stifled a laugh. She had known his ego was his weak spot the first time she met him.
He nodded in challenge, his jaw tight as he fired up for an attack. “I would hate to disappoint you, Sarah.”
Sarah buffered her shield, glad that she carbed up when she knew her family was coming, lots of complex carbs that were still circulating her system, waiting for her to tap them. Sarah wasn’t sure she could beat Baker, but she didn’t have to beat him. All she had to do was hold her own until they broke through.
The spike in her shield was tentative at first. Baker was trying Danny’s strategy. She’d handle him the same way she handled Danny, but Sarah wouldn’t back off like she did with Danny. This was full steam ahead.
Sarah let the spike build, let him get confident. When she sent it back, Baker was unprepared for the blow. Like Danny, his scream of pain and frustration was ear-splitting. Like Danny, Baker refused to back down, certain that he was powerful enough to crush her. Unlike Danny, Sarah wasn’t sure Baker was wrong in that assumption.
Her mind burned as Baker stepped up his power. Concentrating became difficult, and sweat ran down her face and stained her shirt. Her muscles were taut. Baker kicked it up again, and Sarah stifled a cry of pain behind her clenched teeth.
Baker grinned, panting out a cocky response. “Still so sure of yourself? He won’t break through in time.”
“I haven’t even started yet,” she lied smoothly. Sarah mirrored the spike he sent and chuckled at his grunt of pain. “See what I mean, Drew?”
His eyes narrowed. “I tried not to hurt you too badly, but you’ve left me no choice.”
Sarah staggered back a step under his assault. Her vision blurred. She couldn’t fight at this level for long. She concentrated on one ditch effort, on something that she played at when Danny attacked her. Instead of deflecting his spike outright, Sarah created a maelstrom, letting the power grow with each second Baker continued to unload his stores at her.
She flicked her eyes to Baker’s belt. No pouch. That was good. He couldn’t recarb in here.
Sarah needed every ounce of her strength to force the energy to circle. She had one shot. If her return fire didn’t incapacitate him mentally and physically, she was cooked. She released the crushing wave on him, and Baker collapsed to the floor. Still, he was funneling energy at her. Sarah grumbled a curse as she leaned on the table, sweat pasting her hair to her head.
She amplified the power flowing back at him. Desperate to end Baker—Desperate to choke the life out of him if that was what it took to stop him, she clutched the edge of the table to find her balance.
Baker’s eyes widened, and he started to push back to his feet. Sarah sucked in her breath and increased her amplification. She had to stop him. He’d kill her if he got his hands on her. Baker tried one last spike, one designed to incapacitate her and end her attack.
Sarah screamed in rage as she sent it back. Baker’s head rolled back, blood flowing from his nose and his eyes glassy. He crumpled to his back with one leg folded under him, his eyes locked on the ceiling.
She watched him for several long moments before Sarah realized she was holding her breath. She had intended to match her breathing to his, to count his breaths to gauge his condition without touching him. Baker wasn’t breathing.
Sarah ran a shaking hand over her forehead. She took two steps, lurching toward the door, before she sank to her knees. Sarah sobbed, wrapping her arms around her baby and curling to the cool linoleum. She killed him. She actually killed a man. Breathing became difficult as the shaking increased.
Chapter Thirteen
Jonas punched the wall beside the monitor in frustration. “She’s shock-state. We have to get this open.”
Evan threw down the pry bar. “How? We can’t get to the power source or the circuitry for the mag locks. Breaking his code could take us all day. How the hell can we get in there?”
Steven put a hand up. “I’ve almost got it.”
Jonas met his eyes. “Got what?”
“Dammit. I need your help, Jonas. Link with me and help me break this.”
“Break what?”
“The psi wave is basically a shield. We can break it. I’ve almost got it, but it keeps slipping away.”
Jonas linked to him hastily and reviewed the manipulations in Steven’s mind before snagging a strand of the complex net. “Katie! Evan! Get the hell in here.”
They both turned to the doors and linked in.
“What are we doing?” Evan asked aloud.
“It’s four intertwined strands, each with its own modulation and coding. We’ll each take a strand, and I’ll take out the power source when we’ve broken them.”
Each individual strand was easily broken, and Jonas spiked the power sources for the overall psi wave and the mag locks. He stepped forward, concentrating a solid burst of telekinesis at the doors, as Evan reached for the pry bar again. Flynn and his troops scattered as the doors jerked halfway open.
Jonas slid between them. He had Sarah gathered into his arms and his cane out before the others reached their sides. She was pale and in a cold sweat, her shaking severe. Jonas popped the first of the cubes in her mouth and touched her cheek, murmuring encouragement to her.
Evan snagged her hand without Jonas asking and checked her
level. His groan was answer enough for Jonas. “Flynn,” Evan shouted. “Use that passkey to get a glucose IV down here.”
“No,” Jonas corrected him. “Not here. Alice, show us where her room is. We’ll do it there.”
Jonas popped a second cube in Sarah’s mouth, noting the faint sucking motions that announced her body’s attempts to cooperate. He stood, lifting her easily and following Alice through the hallways in the direction they came. Evan reached around his shoulder to administer another cane cube when her sucking stopped.
Flynn beat them to her room. Jonas locked his jaw. Max-Sec lockdown wing. After all this time, she was still in Max-Sec, and of all places, in the room that was most often Jonas’ room while he was at Clinton.
“You should have known he’d pull that one on you,” Evan growled.
Jonas nodded and settled Sarah on the bed. He took over on the cubes while Evan handled the IV. At the first sign of her stirring, Jonas sighed. “Flynn, we need a Coke.”
Flynn scowled and reached into a small fridge in the corner. He tossed over a sixteen-ounce bottle of juice. “Danny, take a few of our new friends and convince Fuller’s chef to make one of those chocolate shakes she likes so much.”
Danny’s smile spread. “Gladly.” He grabbed two of Griffin’s finest by the arms and pulled them along to the hall with him.
The adults looked at Griffin in confusion but left with the boy when their boss nodded his agreement.
Jonas raised an eyebrow as he cupped Sarah’s head up and brought the juice to her lips. “I take it this means something?” he asked pointedly.
Flynn shrugged as he pulled out a plate of bananas and plums and added a Ziploc of cheese cubes for the protein stabilizer. “We know her favorites. She doesn’t do caffeine. The baby.”
Jonas nodded stiffly. It was another rude reminder of how much he missed. “She’s done this before?” he asked.
“No. She’s needed recarb, but never shock-state.” Flynn smiled weakly, setting the food on the bedside table. “We’re easy pickings for her. She called us untrained kids. Not even Danny was stupid enough to push her that far, not that he could have lasted half as long as half-baked did.”
By the time the juice was gone, Danny was back with a forty-ounce cup with a spoon standing straight up in it. “Extra chocolate, extra thick,” he announced.
Jonas nodded his thanks as he accepted it and started feeding spoonfuls to Sarah. He felt the spike of calming from Steven and Katie. “Thanks, guys. She needs that.”
Katie smiled and waved a hand at him. “She’s halfway there.”
Steven nodded. “She’s confused and scared, but the link is helping.”
Alice paled. “You’re inside her mind?” she asked.
Steven glanced at her in confusion. “Of course.”
“Who are you people?”
Evan cracked a smile. “Sarah never told you what was really going on here?”
Danny snorted. “Course not. You’d think our lives depended on not knowing.”
“It might have.” Evan’s voice lost all humor. “What did she tell you?”
Flynn laughed. “That she didn’t want to be here any more than we did—and her name.”
Steven scowled at him. “And that didn’t tell you anything?”
“Why should it? I’d never heard of Sarah Paige before. No idea why, though. Power like that and balls of steel— She should be a legend.”
Jonas brushed his knuckles over her cheek. “Thank you, Flynn. Thank you for that.”
“Jeremy. Sarah believes in calling a person by name. Why don’t you fill us in before the bad guys get here? We have a few minutes.”
Jonas fished out his ID folder and tossed it to Jeremy. He fed Sarah another spoonful, noting that her shivering had all but stopped. Jonas leaned to brush his lips over her forehead before he fed her another bite.
Jeremy cursed fluently. “What is this? Some sort of civil war? I know you. You are a legend. But why is the Alpha One trying to take down the DoPT?”
“Former Alpha One. I quit.”
“Is that why Sarah was here? To blackmail you?”
Jonas nodded, his jaw tight.
Evan sighed. “We have to meet the incoming troops in a few minutes. We’ll discuss this later. Everyone who’s handing themselves over to fight their way out of this legal mess better head for the doors.”
Sarah pushed the spoon away and tried to roll away from Jonas. He pulled her back to his chest, pressing the spoon to her mouth. “Eat. The IV isn’t enough,” he pleaded with her.
Jonas noted the flurry of telepathy between Steven and Sarah.
Steven groaned. “You’re going to have to force this on her, Jonas.”
He nodded and slipped past her shield to place a class seven hold on her and force her compliance. The milkshake was gone, and Sarah had eaten a banana and some cheese before he felt her fighting his hold. Jonas sucked in his breath. He’d seen it on the monitors, but he never would have believed how strong she was until he felt that push for himself. He released her, feathering a touch on her mind as he pulled back.
Sarah darkened and wouldn’t meet his eyes. “What happens now?” she whispered.
Jonas looked to Katie and Steven in confusion. “We go home.” He looked back to Sarah. “We go home,” he repeated with more confidence.
Sarah squeezed her eyes shut. “I killed him. They won’t be letting me go anywhere.”
Evan groaned. “Baker was the renegade. You used allowable defense. Between the security disc, everyone’s testimony, and Baker’s brief file—”
Jonas startled. “The scrubber will have destroyed that.”
Evan laughed heartily. “I disabled it after I saw the message. They haven’t erased anything from my recorder. A modified version is being distributed with Griffin’s evidence. There’s also a link to the Pittsburgh Police database. Guess who is on Mac’s wanted poster?”
Jonas shook his head, at a loss to guess this one.
“Mac got a great shot of Pendle coming out of Sarah’s apartment.”
Jonas cracked a smile and nodded his thanks. “You see?” he asked Sarah. “Everything is fine now.”
She shook her head. “Nothing is fine. I killed him.”
*
Jonas carried Sarah to the iso chamber with Evan at his heels and the shielded soldiers surrounding them. He ground his teeth as the psi wave closed behind them. To calm himself, Jonas played at one of the internal strands. He could do this. Sarah needed him to do this.
Evan settled in one of the chairs set up around a conference table, and Jonas sank into the one next to him, pulling Sarah further into his lap.
The Colonel in charge of the military unit sent out raised an eyebrow at the move but didn’t comment. He was afraid to. Jonas had been keeping tabs on what the soldiers were thinking. They thought Jonas had gone mental on them, despite his calm demeanor.
It started when the first squad made it to them. Jonas had calmly informed them that he didn’t care where they locked him as long as Sarah was with him. Because she was still being fed the glucose solution, he had been allowed to stay there, locked down with E-shielded guards outside the door and full visual and audio surveillance.
It only got worse when he and Evan were summoned before the debrief committee. They hadn’t questioned Jonas when he calmly stood with Sarah in his arms and started walking. The grunts decided to let the big boys make the waves. No one wanted to take Jonas on unless it became necessary. As long as his demands and actions weren’t dangerous, it was deemed unnecessary.
The colonel cleared his throat. “I’m Colonel Carter Pruitt. These are my council aides, Majors Allen Timmons, Derrick Williams, and Robert Lewis. You face some very serious charges, but by DoPT directives, I am forced to debrief you before I make my report and recommend charges in your case.”
Sarah shuddered.
Jonas nodded and rubbed her back. “After they see our evidence, it will be okay,” he assured h
er.
Pruitt scowled. “Baker reported you as renegades this morning. Baker, Childress, and Bryant are all dead now. The video we have shows them killing each other and Baker running after Ms. Adams. We have no audio to go on. The wiring was cut. Were Childress or Baker under control of your group?”
Jonas nodded. “Only Childress.”
“Who ordered Childress to kill Bryant?”
“No one. Steven ordered him to incapacitate Bryant to keep Bryant from shooting Sarah. I’m sure you saw that he intended that on the video. The shot was a shoulder hit.”
Pruitt cast a sidelong glance at Lewis, who was busy taking notes and running the recorders. “Steven Randall?” he asked for clarification.
“Yes. It was done in defense of Sarah, so it was justified force.”
“What connection does Steven Randall have to Sarah Adams?”
Sarah stiffened. “Sarah Paige,” she insisted.
Evan sighed. “Sarah Angelique Randall.” He slid a copy of her birth record across the table to Pruitt.
Pruitt scanned his eyes over it and passed it to Timmons to add to the mounting file in front of him. Pruitt’s eyes narrowed as he scanned them over Sarah. “Why are you using the name Paige?”
She didn’t look at him. “I would be Paige already if it weren’t for Baker.”
Jonas nodded. “She’s my fiancée.”
Williams snorted. “A Randall married to a DoPT operative? That’s rich.”
“Former operative. Baker broke trust when he kidnapped Sarah to force me to continue my contract.”
Pruitt tapped on the table. “And just how does a DoPT operative get close to a Randall?”
Jonas darkened. “He’s ordered to do it by Baker, Bryant and Childress. And he’s good enough to pull it off.”
Timmons looked at the swell of their baby pointedly. “I’m sure they didn’t order you to get that close,” he noted dryly.
Evan leaned forward. “You’re wrong. Paige resigned rather than use doctored condoms with her. But that’s what they handed us, and that’s what they ordered him to do.”
Williams shook his head. “If he refused— How did this happen?”