Twelve Shades of Midnight:

by Liliana Hart

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She waved the scalpel at him.

  “Are you saying you don’t have any powers?”

  “Yes, that’s what I’m saying,” she insisted. “Now, tell me the truth. Is my concussion making me hallucinate that you’re glowing and on fire?”

  The man glared. “Not even close, sweetheart. I’m real, right down to the lightning bolts.”

  He stepped closer and the heat warmed her cold skin. Her cold, naked skin.

  “Where are my clothes?”

  The flames flared hotter. “I’m asking the questions. Who are you and why did you come out here with those men?”

  “What men?”

  He cursed and pointed to the monitors. “Those men. The dead ones from the SUV that blew up. I assume you arrived with them, since the assassin tried to kill you, too.”

  Bile rose in her throat and she held her hand to her head, which suddenly pounded. “Someone tried to kill me?” She kept the knife enclosed in one fist as distorted images tumbled through her mind. Bodies in the snow. A masked man with a gun. A weapon in her own hand.

  “I shot him.” Incredulity colored her voice. “Why?”

  “He’d killed the others.”

  “I emptied my gun into him, but…he didn’t die.” Confusion gave way to terror as she remembered her assailant raising his weapon again. “He wore a Kevlar vest….”

  Her captor nodded. “Yes. Do you remember anything else?”

  “He…gut shot me.” She glanced down. “How can I be alive? I was shot three times.” Even as she clutched her stomach, where the faint evidence of the bullets wounds still marred her skin, she remembered the lightning. The fire.

  Then, the ungodly screams of the man who died.

  “You were there.” She staggered back against the counter behind her. “You killed him with lightning.”

  “I saved your life.” He motioned to the screens again. “The assassin hit your SUV with a mortar shell. By the time I arrived, he’d already murdered the others and shot you. I heard him say into a phone that he’d been told to look for you specifically.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know. So, let’s start again. Who are you and why did you come here?”

  She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

  “Well?” he prompted.

  “I don’t know,” she said, suddenly more frightened than before. “I don’t remember anything before waking up in the snow. Everything afterward is fragmented.”

  “Convenient, but I’m not buying it.”

  She stared at the monitor screens, wondering what was bothering her about them. “Are these security tapes?”

  “No, they’re live cams.”

  She turned to him. “How can that be? The bodies are strewn out there, as if the little I remember just happened, but I’m almost healed up.” She ran her fingers over her abdomen. “I should be dead from those gunshot wounds. I don’t understand.”

  The man’s anger lessened. “We need to talk.”

  “You’re right. None of this is making sense. How long have I been here?” she demanded. “It takes months of hospitalization and several surgeries to recover this much.”

  “Lady, sit down.”

  “When did that fire happen?”

  “Half an hour ago.”

  She blanched. “Oh, my God. You’ve lost your mind.”

  That was not what Alex needed to hear. Her words were too close to the truth. He lifted her bodily and plunked her butt hard on the metal table. “Stop the games.”

  She slammed her feet into his groin, and when he doubled over, she stabbed his arm and brought her joined fists down on the back of his neck, nearly sending him to the floor.

  He remained bent over, colorful curses filling the room. Blood flowed down his bicep, but it stopped almost immediately.

  He straightened slowly. “Well, whatever you are, it’s not a wimp.”

  She stared at his arm, obviously shaken. “Your bleeding stopped. The stab wound is healing.”

  He exhaled in frustration. “Don’t you get it? You can’t hurt me.”

  “I can try,” she threatened, waving around the stupid scalpel.

  The sparks around his hands came back. “I’m trying to help you. Just sit there and don’t move.”

  “No. I want out of here. Right now.”

  The man moved closer. “When would you like me to point out that you’re nearly naked and it’s only twelve degrees outside? Temperature notwithstanding, you’re in an underground missile silo and have no idea how to get out. At this moment, you are totally dependent on me.”

  “I’m your captive?” she said. “Are you going to experiment on me?”

  He stopped, hating every second of this conversation. “I’ve already experimented on you.”

  “What?” Panic flared in her brown eyes.

  He stepped forward, whipped the scalpel from her hand, and lightly drew the blade across her palm. A line of red appeared, then started to bleed.

  Shocked, she yanked her hand back, only to watch in disbelief as the shallow wound closed before her eyes. The blood dried in seconds, just as his had done.

  Her gaze whipped up to his.

  I can’t be like him. It’s a nightmare.

  He stiffened, her abject terror reminding him of his mother’s whenever his father went on a drunken tear. “Yes, it’s a nightmare, but you’re not asleep,” Alex said quietly. “Every part of this is real. We’ll talk more about it when I get back. I’m sorry I scared you.”

  Her eyes widened. “You read my mind?”

  “Just like you did mine before. Believe me, I’m not any happier about it than you are.”

  He approached her, but kept out of kicking—or slicing—distance.

  She grabbed a pair of scissors off the cart and gripped it tight.

  “You’re going to have to stay here while I go back to clean up the murder site.” Weariness tinged his voice. “Maybe there’ll be some information there that will help us figure out who you are. IDs or something before I have to torch the evidence.”

  She gasped. “The bodies, too?”

  “Yes. Thanks to you and your friends, I have to keep more people from finding this place before I can pack up these experiments. They’re irreplaceable.”

  Alex went to a concealed cabinet, grabbed a sweater, and yanked it over his naked chest. He almost pulled his jacket back on, but then remembered he’d wrapped her in it when carrying her.

  The dark gray lining revealed still-wet blood stains. She could probably smell the coppery stench from here. He tossed the jacket on the couch and headed to the elevator.

  Dear God, it’s real. Every damn bit of it is real.

  He turned to see her touching the jacket, then looking at the blood on her fingers.

  “More than you even know.”

  A soul weariness flooded him. She’d try something as soon as he left, and he couldn’t blame her. He’d do the same.

  He blocked her view of the security system as he accessed the panel for the elevator, then turned to her once more. “I’ll be back soon. You’re under surveillance. Touch anything or try to escape, and you’re dead. I have no reason to trust you, and even less to keep you around. Remember that.”

  Chapter Four

  The piercing wind whipped snow through the smoking vehicle. Alex searched everything possible—the bags, the pockets of the dead men—then he ripped out the charred panels in the SUV.

  After throwing most of it in a pile, he moved onto the snow mobile he’d found in a gully not far from the murder site. Systematically, he destroyed every communication or tracking device he found. And there were several.

  He checked the height of the barely visible sun. Late afternoon already. Too much time had passed since the assassin had checked in. That would not go unnoticed. Company was surely on its way.

  The faces of one of the dead men matched the FBI badge Alex foun
d on them. Everyone else would need DNA analysis to prove their identities.

  As expected, the cremated remains of the assassin yielded nothing. Nor the guy’s snowmobile, but Alex recognized the mortar rocket and handgun the killer used as U.S. Military issue, the type only given to the elite divisions.

  Alex walked the ground, spotting one last item, a frozen, half-scorched ID folder nearly hidden beneath the snow. The leather cracked as he opened it, then he stared at the photo of the woman he’d saved. Another FBI agent. Great.

  Then he scanned the name and his heart shriveled.

  Special Agent Samantha Gennaro.

  What was the chance of her being innocent, when she shared the last name of Dr. Gennaro, the geneticist whose experimental serums had started all this? The newspapers said he died in the lab explosion.

  Alex knew that wasn’t true. His memories of that night were confusing, but he remembered the pain all too well.

  He looked at the ID again. He should have seen the similarities. The dark, brown eyes were the same on them both, but on her, similar features were softened and feminized. She must be his daughter. She’d been sent to find Alex, and probably to kill him.

  And he, being a gullible chump, had saved her life. Not only saved her life, but made her damn hard to kill. What a joke.

  And yet, he didn’t want to believe the evidence. What kind of tricks was his drug-impaired mind playing on him? Why didn’t he want to believe she’d played him as her father had done? They both worked for the government, and Alex was sure now that she’d been treated with serum before today.

  Alex looked at the crimson staining the boulder and the snow around it. She hadn’t faked her injuries. She could be telling the truth about her amnesia.

  Then again, she could have suckered him in with some great acting skills. He had no doubt if she’d had a gun, instead of a scalpel, she’d have used it on him in the lab.

  Of course, so would he.

  Especially now. He’d lost his faith in people.

  He looked around the explosion site. It was time. He concentrated on his frustrations, worries and anger, and the furious emotions welled within him, building into fuel for his so-called gift.

  He extended his outstretched arms toward the vehicle and other debris strewn around the site. Seconds later, sparks, flames and indigo bolts of lightning flew from his hands, torching everything. Crackles and explosions rent the air as trees, vehicles and the bodies near them were reduced to ash.

  He shook with aftermath, the uncontrolled anger taking him over. He sucked in deep breath after deep breath, struggling to maintain some semblance of humanity.

  At last, his knees gave way. He knelt on the scorched and snowless ground. His clothes hung in charred tatters, sweat dripping from his exposed chest, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t feel any pain from the cold or the fire.

  He was the damn fire…and the lightning.

  A destructive force that should never have been created.

  Alex wanted to kill the people who’d done this to him.

  As of now, Samantha Gennaro was nothing but a tool for him to use to find the perpetrators. If she died betraying him again, so be it. Her father had caused this. Alex’s SEAL team had merely been collateral damage of an experiment gone wrong.

  But good men had died.

  Others had turned into monsters.

  Alex’s father had been a monster, too. A murderer unable to control his temper.

  Alex looked around at the devastation. What irony. Alex had become his worst nightmare. Like father, like son.

  He had no idea what Samantha Gennaro would turn out to be.

  The elevator doors slid open, but the pulsations of furious energy coming from the man knocked her back a step.

  His scorched clothes, what little there was left of them, gave testimony to the anger she’d seen him release on the monitors. He stalked straight toward her.

  She moved fast, nearly knocking over the microscope she’d been studying. “I didn’t touch anything. I’m just peeking at what’s on your slides. It sounds crazy, but they seem…familiar to me and I don’t know why.”

  The man backed her up against the counter, his hands caging her in. “Maybe I can enlighten you, Samantha. When were you going to tell me who you were? After you contacted your father, or were you holding out for someone higher up the food chain?

  “You found out my name? You know my father?”

  “Oh, yes.” He slammed a partially burned leather folder on the counter. “FBI Special Agent Samantha Gennaro. You’re very good at lying. I almost believed your amnesia performance. Very well done.”

  He practically growled at her. She backed farther away. Panicked breaths sawed in and out of her lungs. The intense heat surrounding his nearly naked body and the sparks emanating from his hands terrified her.

  “I’m not pretending. I really don’t—” Pain lanced through her head and she rammed her palms against her temples. She doubled over. “It hurts.”

  His laugh held no humor. “Spare me the theatrics. You’re lucky that I just don’t kill you now.”

  “Stop it, please.” She fought the agony to straighten. Pictures flashed in her mind, but too quickly for her to capture. “May I see that folder?”

  She picked it up and stared at the scorched picture and the blackened, tarnished badge, then pushed past him and made her way to the metallic chrome surface of the fridge. She looked closely at the blurry image reflecting back. She could be the woman in the photo, but with her hair filthy and her face distorted, she couldn’t tell for sure. “You’re positive this is me?”

  “No doubt at all.”

  She frowned as her earlier memories flashed through her mind. Clearer this time. The gun in her hand. Whirling around and firing at her attacker. Hitting him center mass. Every one a killing shot. “If I’m an FBI agent that explains how I knew to fire that gun.”

  She looked up at her captor. “But, why am I here with you?”

  “Question of the day. Just stop the bullshit and explain why you came after me.”

  “I don’t even know who you are.”

  He got right up in her face. “Well, let me introduce myself, since you’re still playing your stupid mind games. I’m someone who, along with my Navy SEAL team brothers, underwent government genetic experiments without our knowledge. It didn’t work out so well. So someone attempted to massacre half of my men in a laboratory fire.”

  “Wait. A lab fire at Coronado?”

  His lips twisted, his smile full of distain. “Yes. I came to while the building was still burning, and escaped with some of the serum that remained in the refrigerator.”

  “What is this serum?”

  “Your father’s magic potions that change people. Changes their genetics in terrible ways.”

  “That doesn’t feel right.” She frowned.

  “Well, pardon me for not meeting your expectations. Nothing about this is ‘right.’ According to the military, I’m dead. Well, that works for me. At least until I find some answers. Or you give them to me.”

  She could tell he wanted to grab her, to demand answers or shake them out of her, but instead, he dropped his hand and clenched his fist, fighting his instincts.

  “I don’t know any answers.” Another sharp pain speared her temple. “Trying to remember anything hurts.”

  “Oh, please. While you’re coming up with your next lie, I’m getting us out of here. I wasted a lot of getaway time saving your butt, so now we have none to spare.” Alex grabbed a duffle bag and stuffed the contents of the medical cart into it.

  He carried the supplies to the far side of the room and pressed his hand against a recessed steel panel. After a series of beeps, part of the wall opened up revealing a metal tubular tunnel. A large Hummer blocked the entrance.

  Alex threw open its hatch and the rear doors. He continued to pack up the microscopes and serums into padded boxes that he gently placed next to the bags. He turned to find her sitting on the f
loor, holding her head in her hands.

  He clenched his teeth. “If you’re trying to stall, I’m not biting. If you really don’t know what’s going on, you’ll want to be come with me. Or the next wave of assassins will finish the job.”

  “There’s an image trying to form in my mind.” She struggled to concentrate. “I don’t know if it’s real or I’m making it up.”

  “Try me.” He continued packing the lab equipment. “I’m breathless with anticipation.”

  “Oh, back off,” she snapped at him. “My head is splitting in two and you’re cracking jokes.”

  “Believe me, Gennaro. I find nothing about today funny.” He yanked bottled water, and a container of pills out of a metal cabinet, then thrust them into her hands.

  “Take two pain killers, then pack them,” he said, adding more of the contents of the medical cabinet to the half-full bag.

  She fumbled with the cap marked childproof.

  “Give it to me.” With a twist, he opened the cap, then shook the tablets into her hand. “When was the last time you ate?”

  “Let me check my blank memory.”

  He cursed, tossed her a protein bar, then shoved the bottle back into the bag and carried the duffle over to the vehicle. He positioned the canvas bag between the crates of flasks and vials. “Grab something and help.”

  She packed one lab section into a box. “I really am starting to remember things. I’m not sure what they mean, but they feel important.”

  “Fine. Try me.”

  “The images are fuzzy, but I think I received a text on my phone.” She hesitated, fighting back a rush of nauseating dizziness. “There were a bunch of numbers listed.”

  “What kind? Telephone numbers? Computer code? Bank accounts?”

  “No.” Suddenly, the memory came clearer. “They were coordinates, I think. For here.”

  “That’s it?”

  She carried the small box of microscopes to the trunk. “No, the text message said, ‘Find Ice Man, then me.’ I think there was more to it, but I don’t remember.”

  “Well, I’m Ice Man, so you succeeded. Congratulations. Now, who is hell is ‘me?’”