The Protectors Series Bundle (A superhero romance anthology)

by Nana Malone

  Symone frowned, and he picked up on the instant sorrow. “Sorry for your loss. I’m still not going back with you. I’m taking you to see Cassie. She can figure out what to do with you.”

  “You still don’t believe me. I’m not trying to take you back. I’m trying to get you to safety. That’s my only goal. The moment you’re safe, I’m going back to kill Reaper.”

  She leveled her dark brown gaze on him. “Why would you care about keeping me safe?”

  “Because I don’t like being lied to. For the last year, I’ve pulled off missions to find people, or information, or technology that was supposed to save the world. With you, I discovered I’d been lied to. They told me you were a techno-terrorist who hacked her way into secure military bases.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “The hacking thing’s not far off. But I hack systems to show companies how to strengthen their security. I’m not a government threat.”

  “I already figured that.”

  “And just how did you do that?”

  “I’ve been watching you for a while now. The way you dedicate yourself to the Youth center. You stop and feed a homeless cat. You put yourself in danger for that redheaded street kid. You’re no terrorist.”

  “And just like that, you’re on my side.”

  “I hate liars. Worse, I hate being used.”

  “You realize I can’t let you go. No matter how much I’d love to believe you.”

  She crouched in front of him, and he rememorized every inch of her face. “I don’t want you to let me go.” He grinned. “I want you to take me to your leader.”

  Chapter Nine

  Symone drove quickly, barely following the standard courtesy rules of driving, let alone any actual traffic laws. She had to get back to the Lair. She’d cut out Garrett’s tracking chip, but who was to tell if he had another? She certainly couldn’t take his word for it.

  From the trunk, she could hear him banging around. No doubt trying to get free so he could kill her. The memory of his scorching lips on hers slipped into her consciousness, and she shook her head to clear the memory. Why the hell had she let him kiss her? More than once. Of all the stupid, idiotic moves. Worse, she’d been ready to let him make love to her. Like an idiot, she’d been ready to give herself over to the enemy.

  A thought niggled in the back of her mind as she downshifted to pass a tractor trailer on the freeway. Why did the only person she could physically touch in the last four years have to be a Tracker? Talk about the irony. She finally felt a physical attraction to someone, someone she could touch, and he was trying to kill her. Fantastic.

  Swerving around a slow-moving, late-model Ford she screeched onto the exit for the back roads. The freeway would have been faster, but Symone had to assume Peter’s Trackers knew what she was driving. And she didn’t want to be easy to spot from above if they had air support.

  Peter Reeser had possessed government connections before they had defeated him, and clearly, even though Symcore publically disavowed any knowledge of his wrongdoings, they were still working with him. So she had to act like anything was possible. She still had a good hour and a half before the woods, where the Lair was hidden.

  She drove for another thirty miles, like the devil was on her tail. It wasn’t long before the gas gage read ‘E’, and forced her to pull off the two-lane road into a gas station. Leaving the pump in the gas tank, she sprinted into the convenience store, snatched up what they needed, and bolted out, tossing two twenties on the counter before letting the door swing behind her. The cashier yelled behind her, but at the end of the day, he wouldn’t call the cops. She’d paid after all.

  Popping open the truck, she avoided Garrett’s gaze and tossed in a water bottle and a bag of chips. She quickly inspected his bonds again. They’d hold for now. He wasn’t getting out of those knots for at least another little while, unless he had a knife on him she hadn’t seen. Maybe time was on her side, and she’d be at the Lair by then.

  “Symone, I keep telling you, you don’t need to time me up. I’m not—”

  “Trying to kill me. Yeah, you said that already. Only problem is you’re a Tracker, and you flew into my apartment all kamikaze-like and tried to kill me, so I don’t believe you.”

  “Shit, I wish you’d listen—”

  Symone slammed the trunk shut. Quickly, she put the pump back and closed her gas tank. Hopping back in the car, she checked her elapsed time. Less than five minutes. Get a move on. You don’t need to be a sitting duck. Revving the engine, she pealed out of the gas station and drove like she’d just broken out of jail.

  But her efforts were futile. She only got another mile down the road when she noticed the large black SUV pulled over to the side. She couldn’t see any Trackers, but her senses went on alert. She could feel them. Heard their heartbeats. There were three. Hidden eyes trained on her car.

  Cursing, Symone jerked the wheel and spun the car around. Maybe she could out run them if—

  “You’ll never make it. We’re going to have to fight.”

  She gave a squeak of alarm. Garrett had shoved through the back seat and lay crouched, holding the back of the driver’s seat for support.

  “Shit. How the hell did you get out?” When she saw the lone Tracker in the middle of the road five hundred meters up, holding something that looked like a rocket launcher in his hands, she slammed on the brakes “Fuck me.”

  “I tried that, remember.” He flashed her a grin, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “We’re going to have to fight our way out of here.”

  She snapped a rein on her temper. She couldn’t think when she was angry. “They want you back, they can have you back. You’re not worth my trouble.”

  He scoffed. “They’re not after me. They came for you. Me, they’ll just kill. You don’t want to know what they’ll do with you.”

  She darted him a quick glance. She could use him to get out of this, or she could try and fight it alone. And she only had one gun. Damn it. She didn’t have much of a choice. “Fine. But I only have one gun, and if we come out with it, they’ll shoot us on the spot. It’ll have to be hand to hand.” She stripped off her gloves.

  He stared at her hands. “Somehow I think the odds are on our favor.” He held up his wrists. “If you want my help, you have to cut me loose.

  She sneered, but slipped her knife out, making quick work of the knots at his hands and feet. She re-sheathed the knife, then slipped the magazine out of the gun and handed it to him. “If you hold this on me, we’ll be more believable. It’ll get me close enough to do some damage. How many are there? I hear three heartbeats, but Peter might have someone who can cloak themselves.”

  Garrett took the gun from her and didn’t ask any questions. “We usually go in three-man teams. So two others besides the one in the road.”

  She shoved her gloves in her pockets and placed a hand on the driver’s door handle. “Just remember, you double cross me, and you’ll get more of what happened back in my apartment.”

  He grinned. “I might like that.”

  She shook her head but didn’t say anything. Right now she needed him to survive. She’d slap him upside the head later.

  ***

  With a gun trained on Symone, Garrett stepped out of the car. Symone walked straight with her hands up. And he had to admire her strength. “What took you guys so long?” he shouted.

  “CO said you’d gone rogue. Orders are to bring you in with the girl.”

  The Tracker with the rocket launcher spoke, and a chill made Garrett’s hairs stand on end.

  He nodded, putting up his gun-free hand. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to keep the gun on Little Miss Give Me The Slip. She jumped me before I could even reach the warehouses. I finally got things under control. Bring me in, but there’ll be hell to pay with Reaper when we get back.”

  All the while Symone stood silent.

  As the Trackers moved forward, Garrett recognized them. Jason and Will. They’d been recruited shortly after he had. T
hey approached carefully, guns drawn. When the other Tracker with the launcher stood, Garrett studied him, but he didn’t look familiar. Maybe he was new or came from a different division. He’d been on the road two weeks trying to track Symone. It was possible that they had a new team. It was more likely they sent the newbie to keep an eye on Jason and Will to make sure they didn’t show favoritism. Three Trackers against the two of them. He liked their odds. They just needed to be a little closer.

  The moment his ex-comrades were in combat range, they holstered their weapons. Immediately, there was an almost imperceptible shift in Symone. As if her whole body had tensed and was ready for anything. They only had a few seconds once the third Tracker was in range.

  Quick as a flash, Symone sprang into action.

  She reached out to the guy Garrett didn’t know and Garrett wasted no time dealing Jason an immediate blow to the nose with his elbow. Blood spurted, spraying Garrett in the face as Jason staggered back. Not waiting for his inevitable fall, Garrett sprang into full tackle of Will, who was more ready for the attack than Jason had been. Will blocked Garrett’s initial jab with his forearm and countered with a sledgehammer move aimed for Garrett’s throat. Garrett spun in the same direction of the incoming blow, snatching Will’s arm and using his own force to bring him to ground. Once Garrett had him face down, he applied pressure to Will’s shoulder joint with his knee and yanked his arm backwards. The resounding crunch and pop made Garrett shudder.

  The dislocated arm should have put Will out, but the soldier rolled over with enough force to dislodge Garrett from his position of power. Will straddled him, something clutched in his good hand while his other arm hung limp by his side. The two of them might have been evenly matched, but Garrett had no plans on dying today.

  Like his own power, Will’s was a passive and kind of useless one. He could see events in the past. He couldn’t do it on cue, nor did it work for everyone, but when it did work, man it was like he was a living tape recorder. To make up for the shitty power, he’d learned to fight and fight well.

  Garrett didn’t need to worry about how Symone was faring. Rocket Launcher guy had already gone down like a sack, and she was engaged in hand to hand with Jason.

  Instantly, pain seared through Garrett’s body as his shoulder burned so much, a part of him wanted to lie there curled in a ball, howling. But that wasn’t an option. Today was a bad, bad day to die.

  Garrett forced his whole body to go limp, he waited while Will tried to get a better leverage position, then Garrett picked his head up with all the force he could muster and slammed it into his fellow Tracker’s nose and chin area.

  A crunch filled the air, and Will fell back. Garrett flipped his opponent over. He wrapped one arm around Will’s windpipe and applied pressure to the larynx. It took several moments, but eventually Will stopped twitching.

  Lifting his head, Garrett watched in relief as Symone searched Jason’s pockets. She snatched up Jason’s cell phone, tossed it on the ground, then smashed with the heel of her boot. She was okay though. Not a scratch, just a mask of gritty determination of her face. She’d survived. He had a feeling that he should have been less worried about her than he was about saving his brother. As relief washed through Garrett, his shoulder continued to throb. He frowned. It wasn’t the shoulder Symone yanked his tracking chip out of.

  It wasn’t until Symone whirled and gaped at him that he knew something was wrong. He risked a glance at his shoulder. Shit. Dark liquid oozed out of a hole in his shoulder, along with a milky green liquid. He’d been shot. Worse, he’d had a nisulin chaser dart stuck in his arm. With his good arm, he yanked the dart out of his shoulder. There was still a drop of milky green liquid on the sharp end.

  A gunshot rang in the air, and Garrett felt something hot slice across his forehead quickly followed by something warm and sticky. He swayed.

  Symone swore as she pounced on Will, planting both hands on his face. He twitched for several heartbeats before he stopped moving.

  Symone ran his side. “Garrett?” Her voice was barely a whisper. “Let’s go. I can help you, but we have to get to the Lair.”

  He coughed as the pain of the burning reregistered. Lair? As darkness crept around the edges of his vision, he wasn’t certain he’d heard her incorrectly.

  ***

  After dragging Garrett into her car, Symone continued to drive like she had a future in Formula One. As soon as she pulled up to the Lair and zoomed the car up the sloping driveway, a shirtless, shoeless, Jansen yanked open the front door to the main house and tore down the steps.

  She barely waited for the car to stop before she jumped out. “Jansen, get the doc, he needs help.”

  At first she was worried he hadn’t heard her. “Are you fucking kidding me? First you bring a Tracker here. To the Lair, where he could be followed? Then you expect him to be treated by Lisa. You must be out of your God damn—”

  His rage distorted his normally handsome face to one she didn’t recognize. Jansen never screamed at her. Not even when she needed it. While taken aback, he was not her biggest priority. She cut him off to shout at the pale blonde who’d followed him out of the house. “Morgan, get Lisa! He’s been hit.” Morgan didn’t waste time, but from her expression, she didn’t look pleased about missing the fireworks.

  Jansen didn’t let up. “You finally come home after nine, goddamn months, and what do you do? You bring a mother fucking Tracker to our door. Have you lost your ever-loving mind? Is he the reason you didn’t want me to come and get you?”

  Symone held her ground and glared. She wasn’t some wayward child to be yelled at. She was a grown woman, and he had no right. “Now would be a good time to back the hell up, Jansen. Unless you’re looking for a little electric shock therapy to help you sleep tonight.”

  He blinked at her rapidly, as if not believing her words. Then wisely, he took a step back. But that didn’t stop the berating. “What the fuck did you just say to me? Do I need to remind you of why you left the Lair in the first place?”

  Symone staggered back as if he’d hit her.

  Cassie stepped between them. “That’s enough, Jansen.” She turned her attention to Symone. “Lisa’s on her way down. What happened? I expected you an hour ago.”

  Symone’s voice wobbled as she yanked open the door to the backseat. “Long story short, he found me after I talked to Jansen. I had him secured and was bringing him back when we got ambushed by Trackers.”

  “No doubt coming for their man,” Jansen ground out.

  She shook her head, sending her hair spilling over her shoulders. “No. They want me. He came to warn me.”

  Jansen squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  Cassie put a hand on Jansen’s chest. “Jansen, this isn’t the time or place. Symone could have died. We have a Tracker to treat and get answers from.”

  Worry etched over Jansen’s features. Symone told herself he was worried about her and that’s why his inner moron had come out to play. He’d personally pulled her out of that building they’d blown up. He’d taken of care of her, helped nurse her back to health. She’d known how upset he was about her leaving. This wasn’t the way she’d wanted to come home.

  Cassie turned back to Symone. “Okay, where did they find you?”

  “A few miles out of Mylands. They’re alive, but pretty badly down. In case they had cameras, I double-backed and took the freeway.”

  “How many were there, did you cut the tracking chip out of this one?

  “There were three. And yes, first thing I did before I left my place. I don’t know how they found us.”

  Cassie frowned. “How did he find you in the first place?”

  Heat suffused Symone’s cheeks. “That was my fault. A bullet grazed the kid I was trying to save. I got her out of town, but her blood was all over me. He followed that right to my place.

  Jansen groaned. “I thought I taught you security measures.”

  The
thread of Symone’s patience snapped. “And they were in place. I got forewarning, but he didn’t attempt to use the door or the fire escape. Moron rappelled in from the roof.”

  Jansen blinked, then glanced at the open door where Lisa knelt with Seth. A brief look of respect flashed over his face, and Symone resisted the urge to hit him with something. She scrubbed a leather-clad hand over her face.

  Grave-faced, Cassie pulled her aside. “Symone, we need to talk.”

  Symone tried to breathe evenly as Cassie walked with her to the main house. Garrett was in good hands, but she didn’t want to leave him behind. She didn’t trust Jansen with the Tracker, and she still needed some answers from Garrett before any of the guys got bright ideas to tune him up. Mostly she needed his assurance that he wouldn’t blab about kissing her. That was the last kind of shit storm she needed.

  The moment she was inside with Cassie, she carefully constructed her mental walls. She told herself it wasn’t a deliberate lie but more of an emotional protection.

  Cassie stared at her long and hard, then said softly, “You don’t have to do that, Symone. I wouldn’t deliberately read you without your permission.”

  Symone narrowed her eyes. “Then how can you tell I’m blocking?”

  “Because your barrier is actually intruding onto my mental space. I feel like I’m being shoved backwards.”

  Immediately ashamed, Symone ducked her head and dropped some of her shields. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget what it’s like to be around other people.”

  Cassie’s eyes were kind as they misted over. “You don’t have to stay away. This is your home any time you want it to be.”

  Symone sniffed. “I know. Just after the last time, keeping my distance is easier.” Nine months ago she’d almost killed one of the younger kids Cassie had rescued from the Riddenwell Lab—Andrew. She’d fallen asleep in the tub upstairs and the damn thing had overflowed. When Andrew had come up to find out what was wrong, she’d accidentally sent a charge through the water, nearly electrocuting him. It had taken him a week to recover. She’d left the compound shortly thereafter.