For the love of—? Had she come on to the guard? Did he even care? He loved her.
Relief, warm and powerful, rose within him. With it came an unexpected sense of strength. They all underestimated him: Goddard, Viceroy, the Pakistani guards and, yes, even—and most especially—Zara.
Benjamin stroked the nonfunctioning Cloak. His sense of power grew. He was going to show them. He was going to show them all.
"Out," he ordered. The cold, determined sound of his voice pleased him. God help him, he was even pleased with its obviously unpleasant effect on Zara, who flinched.
They wanted to give him a guard? Good. They wanted him jealous of the guy? Even better. They wanted him at odds with Zara? Fantastic!
Benjamin opened the laptop and started it up. Hell if he wasn't going to use everything about this situation to his complete and total advantage.
~~~
The rope Colonel Viceroy had used to bind Aletheia to the wooden chair bit into her chest and shoulders. She fought down a sense of being suffocated. She could breathe. She knew she could breathe. Besides, Felix was here.
The man might be impossible, he might even then be blaming himself, as she suspected, for their present situation, but he was still Felix. He was the most capable human being she knew. If anyone could get them out of this, it would be he.
Struggling to even her breathing, Aletheia stole a glance to the side. Felix, tied up in a ratty easy chair six feet away, hadn't said a word since Viceroy had left them alone in the room ten minutes ago. He sat with his eyes half closed, staring straight forward. A lock of dark hair fell over his forehead.
Aletheia hoped to God he was in that dark place of his. She hoped he wasn't simply brooding over how he should have kept her safe from this.
She needed him.
Taking in another calming breath, Aletheia searched for something relatively neutral to say, something to test the waters. "Uh... Do you think Benjamin is going to come charging to the rescue anyway?"
Felix lowered his eyelids. "He better not, or we'll all be in trouble."
A large part of Aletheia relaxed. Good. Felix was thinking, then, and not merely brooding.
"On the other hand," she said, musing to herself, "what can he do? Going to the police is probably not an option, for all the reasons we already—"
"He'd better wait," Felix bit out. "He better damn well wait."
"Wait? But—for what?"
Felix threw Aletheia a very dark look. "You shouldn't be here."
Though she'd been expecting something of the sort, Felix's statement still frustrated Aletheia. "Right," she said tightly. "Only you should have been caught—after you ditched me at the drugstore."
"I did not ditch you at the drugstore." Felix spaced his words carefully.
Aletheia gave a dry laugh. "Not for lack of trying."
Felix pressed his lips together. "I wanted you safe."
"Yeah, well, I'm not safe, am I?" As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Aletheia could have shot herself. She was feeding right into his self-hatred orgy. Besides, that wasn't what she meant. She took a deep breath. "You didn't want me safe, so much as you wanted me gone. Just like you wanted me gone when you handcuffed my brother."
Felix's brow furrowed. "Right. I wanted you gone. So you could be safe."
"So you could be safe," Aletheia pointed out.
Felix's expression of confusion deepened. "What are you talking about?"
Did they really need a relationship discussion right now? Surely not, but the whole thing was burning Aletheia. "You want me away, in every sense. You want me to reject you."
After staring at her for a long moment, Felix looked away. "You don't know me."
Oh, the—utter gall. He didn't know himself. Icily, Aletheia replied, "Is that so?"
Instead of rising to the bait, he made an odd shimmying motion. The ropes around him shifted and then went slack.
"Oh, my—" Aletheia gasped.
Felix squirmed down through the slackened rope. In less than a minute he was free. He got to his feet and looked down at Aletheia. His brows rose in a chilly expression. "You do not know me."
Aletheia glanced down at the coil of rope on the floor, then back up at Felix. "H-how did you do that?"
He shrugged. "I believe it's a technique invented by Houdini. I held my breath and expanded my chest while Viceroy was tying me up."
Aletheia's jaw felt like it was hanging to her knees. He'd gotten out of the ropes. He was free. She'd known he would figure something out, he was Felix, after all, but still—to see him actually do it. It was— Wow.
Emotion glimmered inside her, but emotion she didn't want any more. She didn't want to admire or care for him. She didn't want to love his sheer capability and strength. He was too difficult, impossible, in fact. And he'd just admitted he was trying to get rid of her.
But Aletheia couldn't prevent her unwanted emotion from tingling all over as Felix went behind her chair to work on the knots in her own ropes. "What are you going to do now?" she stammered. They had a chance. They had a chance!
She could feel him jerking on the knots behind her back. "Viceroy must have put a guard outside the door." Felix paused. "My plan is to kill him."
Aletheia glanced over her shoulder. Felix's eyes were on the knots, but she could see the energy around him as if it were visible light. He was jacked up in that focused place of his. Aletheia was certain that in this state Felix could kill Viceroy's guard, Viceroy himself, and anybody else he might consider a threat.
His eyes came up and met hers briefly, meaningfully.
Aletheia felt the glance like a blow. He wanted her to be disgusted by his willingness to kill. He wanted her to see him as a monster.
Anger swept over Aletheia. He was no monster. Thank God he was willing to do whatever necessary to save their lives. That made him—a hero.
The ropes around her loosened. Drawing them off, she stood and turned around. Felix was still kneeling on the floor by the back of her chair. He looked up at her, with both despair and determination in his eyes.
Emotion roiled inside Aletheia. She was not going to love him. She'd tried that route, and concluded it was an emotional dead end.
On the other hand, she refused to go along with the monster image. She wouldn't be complicitous if Felix wanted to demean himself. Besides, they had a common goal here.
"Okay, you plan to kill the guard," she told him, and lifted her chin. "Tell me how I can help."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Tell me how I can help.
Had Aletheia really said that? About killing the guard? On his knees, Felix stared up at her in disbelief. She stood inside the circle of rope from which she'd recently emerged, her hair mussed, her knit shirt pulling off one shoulder. Her eyes gazed down at him with clear determination.
A strange emotion swelled in his chest. Part of the darkness, no doubt. For the first time in his life, Felix was not merely allowing that part of him to escape, he was positively inviting it to spill forth. The incredible rush of long-repressed energy was causing unexpected side effects. He had to fight the reflex to battle it all back, get under control again. He needed the darkness and its power to get Aletheia out of here—and destroy whatever conspiracy Goddard and Viceroy had built.
But did he need Aletheia?
"Actually...you could be useful," Felix admitted. "Once I find some kind of a weapon." He stepped back to scan the room.
"The rope," Aletheia suggested.
Felix looked down. It was a logical choice. He could swing a length around the guard's throat, and then... And then Aletheia would see what he truly was.
"Right." He picked up the rope that had been used to bind Aletheia. Fresh determination surged through his veins. "You sit back in the chair. When I give the signal, make distressed noises, just loud enough to reach outside the door."
Aletheia nodded. She watched as Felix took up a position behind the door, then she sat in the chair.
Fe
lix tested the rope, pulling it taut between his hands. He thought about the man who waited on the other side of the door, remembered how he'd aimed a gun at Aletheia's head. Dark energy coursed through Felix. He could do this. No problem.
He took up a ready position with his knees slightly bent. His body felt full of power, perfectly able, almost superhuman. He glanced toward Aletheia, already seated in the chair, then nodded.
"Ooooh," she moaned, then when nothing happened yelled louder. "Aaaaah! Hel-l-p!"
The door to Felix's left cracked open. He tensed, every muscle ready. When the soldier opened the door the rest of the way and walked in, Felix let pure instinct take over. He looped the rope around the thug's neck and pulled.
It didn't take long. The guy struggled. He was big and he was strong, but Felix had the darkness working for him. He held steady, teeth clenched, while the other man clawed at the rope around his neck. Felix kept holding until the guy made dry choking sounds, then finally went limp.
Felix dropped him. The man in the soldier's uniform fell into a heap and sprawled, completely slack.
The darkness was still running high. Felix could sense its currents flowing through him. Yet when he looked down at the lifeless human form, instead of triumph, he felt sick.
He hadn't expected that. How could the darkness allow an emotion like...compassion?
Queasy, he glanced toward Aletheia.
She didn't look sick. To Felix's utter surprise, she looked deeply sympathetic. In her eyes was a shocking understanding.
"It's okay," she told Felix. "You had no choice."
The strange emotion that had assailed Felix earlier, when she'd asked to help, swung back again, ten times as strong. The darkness was supposed to give him power, but he felt helpless in that moment, helpless against his need for Aletheia.
She must have known. Aletheia sailed straight into his arms. He folded himself around her, rubbing his cheek in her hair, closing his eyes, and completely surrendering to the moment. He wanted her. All of her. His want was so great that he didn't even feel scared or guilty about it. He just...wanted.
His fingers pressed into the knit material of her shirt while the emotions within him continued to expand. "God, Aletheia," he moaned. "I can't believe I—"
"It's okay." Her open palms stroked his back. "We're going to be okay now."
Her voice nearly took him over the edge. The many emotions inside him rose to a crest. From that lofty vantage point, he could see he needed to get past what he'd done to the guard. That had only been the first step. There was more to the job. Besides protecting Aletheia, he had to free any remaining captives, and then destroy Goddard and Viceroy's operation.
With a shaky breath, he released his hold on Aletheia. "I'm going to track down Viceroy."
"How?"
"Carefully." Stifling a surprising surge of remorse, Felix made himself kneel beside the guard. "First I'll see if I can get myself armed here." The guard had fallen on top of his dropped gun. By rolling the body, Felix was able to work the gun free. He hoped he could figure out how to use the damn thing.
"I'm going with you," Aletheia said.
Still kneeling, Felix shot his gaze upward. "The hell you are." Shots might get fired where he was going.
Aletheia's hands clutched each other. "I'd have to be safer with you than waiting around here for some other thug to come along and tie me up again."
Holding the revolver carefully, Felix frowned at her. The darkness was screwing up his thinking in ways he hadn't predicted. For example, right now Aletheia's argument actually made sense. She wouldn't be safe waiting here alone, would she? Or did he simply want to depend on her steadiness for whatever trouble was coming down the pike? Yes, deep in the darkness, he was definitely needing her. Was that good?
He stood there a moment, unable to figure it out. Hell, he thought. He'd committed to working on the dark side. He'd have to think as best he could under its distortion.
"Fine," he told her, and felt good about the decision, even though he still wasn't certain it was the right one. "You stay with me."
~~~
"So you're going to fix that cloak thing?" Zara asked. She injected all the scorn she felt into the statement.
Benjamin didn't even look at her, let alone answer. He sat hunched over his laptop at the one grouping of furniture in the warehouse room—a high table and two stools. Goddard and Viceroy had departed, leaving behind old Beetle-brow, who stood before the doorway with a visible smirk on his face.
Zara's initial embarrassment had faded, to be replaced by simmering anger. Oh, she was boiling. Here she'd waited for Benjamin. She'd believed in him. And he'd come through!
But he was wasting the whole experience by thinking the worst of her. Just because that jerk who owed her about a million chips of paper in poker had manhandled and kissed her in order to put her in a bad light, Benjamin thought she'd traded her virtue for unknown favors. Anger bubbled like an overdone stew.
The hell with him. That's what she should say. But Zara was too stubborn to give up on Benjamin even now. She'd only just decided she loved him, and she was discovering that when she actually loved a man, it was no longer possible to shrug and walk away.
Nor was it possible to watch him do something so wrong. "You know that if you fix that, they'll only use it to kill people."
"I'm only concerned they don't kill me." Benjamin stopped to give her a narrow-eyed glare. "Instead of standing there like a high-fashion mannequin you could help, you know."
Zara's eyes widened. "Oh, really." As if she had the training or knowledge to help with his cutting-edge Cloak.
"Sit down," Benjamin ordered, turning back to the screen of his laptop.
She should walk away, Zara thought, bristling at his tone. She should go cuddle up to Beetle-brow, after all. She'd probably have a better chance of getting out of here alive.
But she wasn't ready to give up even now. The will to fight was high. She'd get through this man's thick skull.
Doing her best to preserve a very battered dignity, Zara strolled over to the stool placed next to Benjamin's. The move was worth it. She sensed him tense. He couldn't hide his sexual response to her.
Stifling a satisfied smile, Zara settled more comfortably onto the stool. Sex was her old, reliable resource.
Though she quickly discovered it only worked up to a point with Benjamin. "Watch the screen, would you?" he snapped. "Tell me if I'm making any mistakes.
"Right." Zara turned her sarcasm to the max. As if she would know. "I'll watch carefully."
He shot her a poisonous look, then turned back to his screen. His fingers worked madly over the keys, though they paused briefly to attach a cable from his computer into a pile of gray material sitting on the table. He went back to his keyboard. Not knowing what else to do, Zara looked over at his computer screen.
The screen was filled with letters and symbols that made no earthly sense. Then, suddenly, all mixed up in the gobbledygook, she saw real words.
I love you. Can't you get that through your head?
Zara blinked. When she opened her eyes again, the words were gone. He must have erased them. Or maybe they'd only been a figment of her imagination. If he loved her, why was he acting all pissy?
"Are you watching?" Benjamin snarled.
Zara blinked. "I—I'm trying to."
He snorted, as if completely disgusted. But Zara felt her heart slam into gear. Maybe he had typed those words.
Carefully, she slid a glance toward the door. Beetle-brow was standing there with his feet spread, his arms crossed, and a big smile on his face. He was pleased that he'd created a problem between her and Benjamin.
Her gaze swept just as carefully back to Benjamin, whose concentration on the computer screen was accented by the blackest of scowls.
Zara tried not to hyperventilate. Was it possible Benjamin was acting a part? Trying to put their guard into a state of complacence?
Excitement beat a happy rhythm in he
r chest. If Benjamin had a plan, and was acting it out— Oh, she'd be so proud of him, so thrilled to be with him—
"You know you're an ass, don't you?" Zara declared, putting every ounce of pique she owned into the statement. She tossed her head. "You think I care about your opinion?"
Typing briskly, Benjamin raised his eyebrows. "I haven't the slightest concern for your thoughts, but I could use some help here. Will you pick up the Cloak for me?" He asked this in a snide, you're-so-useless tone, as if even that small task might be too much for her.
Zara gazed at the mass of gray, thick material sitting on the table. It didn't look like much, and certainly not like a piece of sophisticated technology. But her heart skipped. Holding the Cloak must be what Benjamin actually wanted of her.
"Why should I do a thing for you?" Zara wanted to know. She shouldn't appear too eager to comply.
Benjamin turned to give her a volcanic look.
It's just an act, Zara reminded herself. At least, she thought it was an act. Her heart did a tap dance in her chest. She'd probably find out once she picked up the Cloak—which she didn't dare do quite yet.
"I'll tell you why you should help," Benjamin told her, enunciating carefully. "Because they plan to kill us if I can't fix this thing."
Zara heaved a deep and long-suffering sigh. "Fine. And I suppose you're going to make me hold it up for you forever and ever while you fiddle with this and with that?"
"Maybe." A wicked smile flirted with his mouth. "Pick it up, Zara." He paused. "Or maybe I'll tell the guard over there to make it worth your while, huh?" He tilted his head.
Zara's outraged huff didn't take much acting ability. She threw a glance toward ol' Beetle-brow, stolidly planted before the door, then gazed back toward the gray mass of material. "Fine. I'll hold it for you."
"Hold it from the top," Benjamin instructed. "Where all the wires come together on the inside."
"Like this?"
"Yes, only higher." Benjamin turned back to his laptop. His fingers flew over the keyboard. "Even higher."
I Gotta Feeling Page 24