Freefall (New Reality Series, Book Three) by Bella St. James

by St. James, Bella

  A peace Nadine hadn’t felt for a long, long time spread through her with Mother’s unconditional acceptance. Maybe, she could have the life she’d dreamed of as a little girl, a simple family life with children of her own.

  She wiped the tears from her cheeks with her hoodie sleeve. If the future truly was hers to write, as Mother said, her fears weren’t going to hold her back.

  “Feel better?” A smile curved on Mother’s face.

  “I do.” Nadine was surprised how much lighter her spirits were.

  “Good. Now, I think a little sleep is in order.”

  Nadine followed the older woman down the hall and into a small but pleasant bedroom. The walls were painted a soft peach, the windows covered with creamy gauze panels. A pastel quilt covered the twin bed; a fluffy rug took up most of the polished hardwood floor.

  “Shower’s right in there,” Mother said, pointing toward a white door across the hall, “and there’s plenty of towels. Take your time. You’re safe here.”

  Safe… Nadine loved the sound of that.

  Clancy rarely dreamed, or if he did, he never remembered. But he awakened in the late afternoon with images as vivid as memories, the kind that made him want to drop back into that dream and never wake up.

  Nadine had been with him in a quiet, wooded place. They’d picnicked on a blanket on the sun-dappled grass, a simple meal of cheese, fruit and wine. They’d shared their food as lovers do, feeding each other grapes and squares of mozzarella and cheddar. They’d shared kisses as well until the last of the wine was gone, and their desire became electric. Nadine’s body beneath the jeans and tee of his dream was smooth curves and soft skin, responding to the lightest stroke of his fingers. He read vulnerability in her eyes and realized the trust she placed in him. He wanted only to give her pleasure and sought nothing but his own pleasure in return.

  He tensed when she explored him in return, hating the scars that marked his body. Her touch was tender, however, and he sensed her empathy and her sympathy. Her own flesh was unmarked, yet she carried her own barely-healed scars.

  Clancy almost told her she was beautiful, realizing just before he released the words that she’d probably heard them from every man she’d been sent to. He wanted nothing to remind her of the past, not even the most basic of compliments.

  “You feel like silk,” he whispered, his lips brushing her ear as they moved to the slim column of her neck. Her body arched as his mouth moved lower to capture a taut nipple. He slid his knee between her thighs as he sucked, his arms wrapping around her. Her moans heated his blood and intensified his need. Yet he resisted the urge to take her, instead pulling her atop his body.

  “Your turn,” he said.

  Nadine offered a sultry smile as she settled against his waist and leaned forward to kiss him. When he moved to place his hands on her back, she shook her head and laced her fingers in his, so control was totally hers. Pleasure warred with a desperate need as she toyed with him, driving him near the point of explosion before she finally slid onto his hard cock.

  * * * *

  Leaving Mother’s was never easy. He found it especially hard as night fell again. He’d slept all afternoon, trusting Mother to keep an eye on the Jezebel. He also trusted Mother to protect his secrets and find out hers. Mother was good with people in a way Clancy could never hope to be. Her interest and caring were natural, an extension of the woman’s personality. Spending the day there might have been better medicine for Nadine than any pill or potion.

  They were departing with more than they’d brought. Mother had put extra clothes in a large tote and packed a medical bag with supplies Clancy would need to care for Nadine’s wound. He also had a backpack of ready-to-eat foods and other items he’d taken from the supply room. They were trading cars as well; Mother had assured him the “borrowed” vehicle from the car lot would be returned by morning.

  He hugged Mother goodbye and led Nadine into the blackness.

  Something had changed. He realized it almost immediately. Nadine had changed. Maybe trading a hospital gown for clothes had kicked her need for survival into high gear. Maybe the drugs had finally worn off. Maybe Mother’s cooking had given her a hallelujah moment. Whatever it was, Clancy welcomed it.

  She walked beside him as they covered the short distance to where their new ride was hidden. This time, Clancy had the keys, and it was clean. If anyone bothered to check, the car was registered to a social work agency in Omaha. If anyone took things a step further, someone at the agency would confirm it was being used by one of their employees on official business.

  The Underground had come a long way since the Cold War of the 1960s. Clancy knew about as much of its history as anyone else, considering that history was lore passed from person to person. The movement had begun in the military itself by a handful of people who loved their country and hated what the government was doing. It existed to protect those the government would use then destroy.

  Clancy glanced over at Nadine, who walked silently beside him. It protected people like the Jezebels. Sex and violence were two sides of the same coin, both useful to those with power.

  “Over there.” Clancy spoke softly, sweeping his arm toward a decaying barn. Nadine held her own as they struggled through the high, damp grass, nearly falling a time or two but always catching herself before Clancy could.

  The car was as nondescript as possible. Small, beige and moderately aged, it wouldn’t draw attention. Clancy ordered Nadine to stay outside while he fired it up. If there was an ignition bomb, he couldn’t see any reason for them both to die.

  It started without problems and ran as smoothly as a new one. Clancy leaned forward as he drove down a rutted trail, sighing with relief when the trail ended on a graveled road.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To sanctuary.” Clancy reached for Nadine’s hand. “It does exist, you know.”

  She smiled but didn’t answer, and he kept silent. Her fingers laced with his were enough for now. Positive human contact was rare in his life. The people he met came only for his services and left as soon as it was medically safe. Except for Nate and Vince, he only had acquaintances.

  Nadine stared through the windshield as the car barreled down the road to their unknown destination. The connection made by Clancy’s large, warm hand wrapping around hers comforted her and bolstered the tiny bit of courage she possessed. Knocking on that warehouse door had erased her past. The implant gave her a blank slate. She could be anyone now. A teacher, maybe. She’d always liked kids, and her math skills were good, or maybe she could be a nurse.

  The very thought of being free to choose where she lived and what she did with her life filled her with an unaccustomed excitement. She felt as though someone had thrown open the doors to a wonderland and told her to choose anything she wanted, over and over again. No more men in suits accompanying her every moment of the day. No more drivers taking her to “appointments” then to a debriefing session afterward. No more shots, no more treatments to ensure her maximum beauty, no more forcing away the memories so she could sleep at night.

  On the heels of her exhilaration came a darkness. She drew her hand from Clancy’s and curled against the edge of her door.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on, you can tell me.”

  “I already did. I’m fine. I’m just tired.”

  Clancy slowed, studying her in the brightening light. She was closing up again. More questions would simply dissolve the bit of connection he’d felt.

  He dipped into her mind, one quick in-and-out. The answer was right there, easy to grab.

  Sex and guilt. Guilt over sex, more precisely. The government had done an excellent job of brainwashing Nadine. It was too bad for them, very good for her, that her moral foundation had been well-established before she’d been sent off to school. And if Clancy was being honest, good for the Underground, too. In the hands of a skilled deprogrammer, Nadine would assuage th
at guilt by spilling what she knew of the Jezebel program.

  “So do we keep driving all day, or do you have a destination?”

  There was no impatience in Nadine’s question only honest curiosity.

  “We’re going somewhere.”

  “And then you’re leaving me alone with a stranger.”

  Clancy winced. It sounded cold put that way.

  “I’m a stranger, too,” he reminded her.

  She grinned and shook her head. “You’ve had your fingers on my insides and seen me half-naked in a hospital gown. That tends to speed up a friendship, you now.”

  The lady had a point. He wasn’t even supposed to know her name, let alone haul her anywhere. It couldn’t hurt to share a few details.

  “There are Undergrounders in a lot of places the government doesn’t expect,” he said. “Kind of a ‘hide in plain sight’ sort of thing. There’s a hospital in North Carolina with one of our friends on their neurosurgical staff. She’s going to take a look at you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you need someone with skill. I’m just a tech. I cast broken bones, suture cuts, things like that. I’m not a surgeon.”

  “Then why did you operate on me?”

  Now there was the million-dollar question. He’d lied about being a med student to make her feel better. His training had come in battle, assisting real physicians in field hospitals. He had an excellent memory and learned quickly. If he saw something done once, he could duplicate it.

  He’d never seen an implant put in. But he had seen wounds so extensive that the soldier’s entire back was blown up, watched surgeons delicately reconnect what they could. Since he’d joined the Underground, he’d seen an implant or two taken out to create a double agent for the cause.

  “If you’re not a surgeon, why operate on me?” Nadine pressed.

  “Because you gave me no choice.” Clancy decided she deserved to know the truth. “There’s a good chance a channel between you and another telepath exists, one you don’t know about. If I didn’t block your ability, what you saw and heard could have been passed along without your knowledge. I wasn’t about to let our operation be exposed.”

  Nadine stared at him, eyes wide with shock. For the first time since she’d tumbled into the warehouse, pleading for help, he realized how innocent she truly was. She honestly didn’t realize how valuable she was to the agency that had controlled her or that she was a gear in a plot far larger than she could imagine.

  Pierced by the agony he saw in those blue eyes, regretful that he had to be the one to shatter her illusions, Clancy realized he’d also become nothing more than a cog in another machine. He knew if he handed her over like he was supposed to do, eventually her implant would be removed, and she’d once again become a spy, this time for the Underground.

  She deserved better than that. She deserved to live the great American dream, spending her days in a routine job and her evenings in front of the television with her cat. Trouble was, no one would give that to her. Unless…

  Jerking the wheel hard, he made a U-turn in the middle of the road and headed back the way they’d come. Back to the intersection that would take them west instead of south. Back to the road that would carry them to an unknown destination and into uncharted lives.

  Chapter Three

  Somewhere in West Virginia, Nadine began to dream. The dreams unrolled in her mind like big-screen movies, vivid and detailed, one after another after another. Unaware of her companion and the steady drone of the wheels as they pushed toward the Midwest, she laughed and whimpered and mumbled as the images continued.

  Her awakening was abrupt, her fantasy interrupted by Clancy’s hand shaking her and his mutter to wake up and let him do the talking. Like a good soldier, she obeyed. She sat quietly, hands in her lap, when the uniformed man walked up to Clancy’s window. She kept her eyes forward as Clancy laid on some good old boy charm, reached in the glove compartment and pulled out the license, registration and insurance card.

  When the officer said, “How are you doing today, ma’am?” she turned toward him and smiled.

  “I’m doing fine,” she said, “although I can hardly wait to get home. You know what they say, it’s great to get away but even better to get home.”

  When he laughed, she allowed herself to relax slightly. For the first time since she’d sought sanctuary from the Underground, she realized what she’d done. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t tap into the man’s mind. She couldn’t discover whether he’d honestly stopped them for a bad taillight or if he had orders to detain them for someone more powerful.

  Her chest tightened when he stepped away from Clancy’s window to examine the documents, and she felt the slight beginnings of a headache. Every instinct screamed at her to run, while Clancy’s warning to let him handle things replayed in her head. Terrible scenarios filled her mind when the officer stepped over to his patrol car. Maybe Clancy wasn’t an almost-doctor and a supporter of the Underground. Maybe he was a double agent, looking forward to a huge reward for turning her in.

  “Everything’s fine, sir.” The officer leaned down and handed the paperwork to Clancy. “There’s a repair place about ten miles down the road. You might want to stop and get that taken care of.”

  Nadine couldn’t hear Clancy’s answer over the pounding in her ears. They were several miles away from the officer before her hands ceased their trembling and her body relaxed.

  “God, it’s hard,” she said.

  “What, not talking?” Clancy replied with a smile.

  “Not being able to hear what someone else is thinking. I’ve done it all my life, as natural as breathing or walking. I feel so… strange. Incomplete, almost.”

  “Yeah, it’s handy even if you hear things you’d rather not.”

  Nadine’s pulse kicked up a notch, and her chest tightened again.

  “You can do it, too?” she asked. “You’re a telepath?”

  “Not by my own choice.”

  He fell quiet, his features shuttered, and Nadine suspected he’d gone someplace inside himself with which she was all too familiar. It was hard being different. It was harder to meet someone like yourself and realize the risk of being discovered had multiplied. Listening to someone else’s thoughts meant having to be careful of what you said, so you didn’t slip up. Having someone else listen to your own was even more dangerous.

  “I was twelve when they sent me to the Haverton Academy,” Clancy said after several minutes of dead silence. “I was all into the being a soldier thing. Once I found out I got to fire guns, you couldn’t have kept me away.”

  “So they took you for your abilities, too.”

  Clancy shook his head. “I scored well on their personality tests. They knew I’d become the perfect soldier that I’d obey commands without asking why. The telepathy was a side effect of some clinical trials. I was a guinea pig for some enhancement drugs. They were supposed to make me function at a high level for days without sleep. Didn’t work at all. The guys in the lab coats wrote the experiment off as a total failure. I never told them about the side effect.”

  Out of the frying pan and into the fire. That old saw ran through her mind as she wrestled with his revelation. The Underground was supposed to be her refuge from danger. Instead, she’d wound up alone in who knew where with a man who could read her thoughts.

  And she’d lost the ability to read his.

  Or, more precisely, he’d taken away that ability. The soul-deep relief she’d felt right after the surgery, the joy at not being able to silently connect with others, had been short-lived. Now, she could only gauge him by his actions and his reactions.

  She jumped as a chiming began to fill the car. Clancy reached into his pocket, pulled out a cell phone and issued a curt “What?”

  He held the phone close, and his head turned, so she wasn’t able to hear the caller’s voice. But she knew when Clancy said, “Been to Mother’s. Heading south,” that he had no intention of telling the my
sterious caller the truth. They were going northwest.

  “Don’t worry, I will.”

  A click ended the call, followed by a slowdown and swerve to the shoulder of the road. Nadine watched through the open driver’s door as Clancy stepped out, dropped the phone to the pavement and smashed it with his boot heel. When he was satisfied with the destruction, he took the pieces and tossed them into the high grass.

  “Reach in the glove compartment and see what’s in there,” he asked as he pulled the sedan back onto the road.

  Nadine complied. She found a rather nasty-looking black gun, some packages of cheese-filled crackers and three disposable cell phones still in their theft-deterrent plastic wrapping.

  “Open one of those.” Clancy fished in his pocket and pulled out a small folding knife. “I always forget how thorough Mother is until something like this comes along.”

  Nadine would have loved to know what “something like this” meant. Was he talking about going on the run with her? Or was there something bigger and badder brewing on the horizon?

  She pushed those questions away, trying to blank her mind in case he came poking in. The flip side of the psychic coin was learning to keep others out as well as honing the ability to seek others’ thoughts. She took a deep breath and allowed her favorite Bach music to flood in. If Clancy was coming for information, she’d treat him to a concert.

  “Here.” She handed him the phone.

  “Hang onto it. As soon as I find a safe place to stop, we’ll activate it.”

  “So you want me to watch for someplace secluded?”

  Clancy shook his head. “The opposite. Lots of noise, lots of people.”

  They found their destination a few miles down the road. Nadine noticed the sign after they crossed the border into Kentucky. Clancy took the turn a little too fast for her liking and soon parked at the edge of a mass of farm trucks, SUVS and other cars. He held her hand as they walked up to the man with the change apron. Two minutes later, their admission was paid, and they joined the throng walking the midway and display buildings of the county fair.