by Milly Taiden
Hamel saved her from herself and spoke first. “How about we start from the beginning and you tell me how you came across this new virus.” That she could do.
She opened her laptop, logged into the network, then turned to him. Damn, he was standing close. She hadn’t noticed in the awkward moment spent trying to find something to say. He smelled different, a good different. Woodsy, fresh, like he just came in from a run in the forest. Her favorite smells.
That was another thing she loved about where she lived. Before when she thought of Africa, two things came to mind: dense jungle with monster snakes that squeezed you to death, and desert sands that went on forever, unmercifully killing anyone stupid enough to get lost.
But surrounding Africa’s largest lake, trees and cleared land dominated the populated areas. Waves gently lapped against the shore on Entebbe’s public beaches. As soon as the narrow swaths of sand ended, forests sprang, giving shelter from the sun. Town sidewalks and parks roamed the lake area, letting tourists and natives alike easily dip their toes into the warm water.
Her balcony at home faced the water, always catching the cool winds. At night, she usually sat outside, listening to the waves come in. Sometimes a radio played pop hits in the distance, and happy screams of children chasing the retreating water, only to be caught by the incoming deluge, floated in the air.
Shit. She realized why he was so close to her. Not because she was alluring or exotic. No, he was close so he could watch her type in her network password. Damn. She’d have to change it again. It was time, anyway. She was sure administration wouldn’t be happy if they found out “fuckingpassword1” belonged to their lab technician. It fit the criteria: more than eight letters, number included, and she wouldn’t forget it. Worked for her.
“Melinda.” The nerdy man stepped closer, bringing her back to reality. Damn, he smelled ever better. Tingles ran up her arms. Fortunately, her lab coat covered them. A low, intoxicating grumble reached her ears. It penetrated her senses. Her heart raced. Sweat beaded on her upper lip.
Her eyes popped open, looking for the source. Dazzling golden irises met her gaze, just inches away. Ohmigod. She sucked in a breath and tried to step back, but she was against the table. She wanted to put her hand on his chest to move him away, but she was afraid of what touching him would do to her.
He cleared his throat and stepped to the side. “Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to invade your personal space.” He walked to the other side of the table, hand brushing his buzzed hair. Shit, she thought, he could invade her anytime he wanted. A mental slap reprimanded her. Stop that thinking. He’s Oversight.
Once again, she stood speechless, remembering they had started talking about something. What was it?
CHAPTER 3
Hamel took in quick shallow breaths so as not to breathe her in. Fuck. Why now? Why did he have to find his mate in the middle of his tour of duty? He was ecstatic to have found her finally, but during duty he wasn’t allowed to touch her. Not to mention she was his ward for the next several weeks. At least until intelligence reports came back saying the threat had been neutralized.
How would it look on his record if he was caught sleeping with his assignment? Well, there wouldn’t be much sleeping going on. It took everything he had not to set her on the table right now and slide in balls deep. Fuck. He had to keep his identity covered for her safety. And that wasn’t going to be as easy as originally thought.
She was fucking smarter than shit. He wouldn’t be able to get away with laziness on this job. In a way, that made him proud. His mate was a tough adversary; no pansy for his family.
Right away in the meeting room, she suspected something. He’d smelled it. He should’ve never worn the damn glasses. She could tell he wasn’t comfortable in them. Her file said she’d worn thick lenses her entire life. Only someone like that would pick up on the facial nuances that gave away his secret.
And now, standing so close to her to peek at her password—which he thought was hilarious; he wouldn’t forget it, that’s for sure—she smelled so freaking good. He was about to say screw the job. He’d whisk her off this continent and to a secluded island where he would be sure to put babies in her stomach.
Well, fuck. His balls ached thinking about it. He turned his back to her and walked away. Anywhere, just not so close. He rounded the end of the table and spoke across the gap between them. “You were telling me how you found the virus.”
“Yes, the virus. Of course.”
He hadn’t missed her reaction to him. Heart suddenly racing, chills on her skin. She probably had no idea what hit her. His jaguar wanted its little mate, and it would have her, no matter what. He only needed to remind his animal they were on duty to protect her first. No sex. All they got was slapping the monkey, and that would have to wait.
Melinda continued with her story. “The wildlife reserve not too far away called us about three baby monkeys that died for no apparent reason. The workers had noticed strange things happening, also.”
“Strange how?” he asked.
“Like things being moved from where they placed it. Food disappearing. They thought they had a prankster spirit. I saw a witch doctor last time I was at the animal medical facility. I’d heard about him, but never saw him until then.
“So, anyway. The three babies were ready for testing. I took blood, saliva, all the normal stuff. Then I noticed a stream of dried blood in one of the babies’ ears. We brought that animal back to do cranial scans to see if it had any head trauma. What we discovered was this.”
Melinda turned her computer around to show him images of what looked like the top view of a brain. The only time he’d seen anything like that was on TV crime shows. He scowled. What the hell was he supposed to say? He was a soldier, not a doctor. Though, he played one undercover. He scoured his head for something that didn’t sound idiotic. “Really? Did you rescan to make sure there were not imaging errors?”
“That’s the first thing we did. You’re looking at the third rendition. All are identical.”
He crossed his arms, pretending to be pondering. His job was to protect her from the perceived threat his agency knew existed, not challenge her mental abilities or work theories. He should’ve kept to the original plan of helping with “paperwork” and such. But when he discovered she was his mate, he wanted to be closer to her. Know more about her and what she was doing. Now he had her thinking he was a doctor. Well, fuck. Now what? Think, think, think. Had to be real. “Uh, this is good, but let’s get to the bottom line. What are your conclusions?”
She raised a brow, but continued. “My conclusions are these three babies had highly developed nervous systems.” She paused, looking at him. Like he had a clue what the fuck she just said. The babies were nervous all the time. So?
Melinda pointed to the center of the image. “As you see here, there are many more synaptic connections than normal.”
He tried to sound unimpressed. “Of course. Go on.” She paused a second before continuing.
“Therefore, I believe the babies overly developed in the womb and were born with extrasensory . . . abilities.”
He scowled at her again. “Extra what?”
She hurried away from the laptop. “I know that sounds ludicrous. But what else can occur when you have a trillion more synaptic connections firing all the time?”
Beat the hell out of him. What?
“It’s like having another brain smashed in with yours to make it twice of everything. The brain is extra strong. And with the additional fiber links, the brain can process tremendous amounts of information, taking it to the next level, per se.”
“Next level? As in . . .” Overly ADHD?
On the other side of the lab, she opened a cage on a countertop and pulled out a little white mouse. She grabbed a handful of treats and put them into her coat pocket.
“I’m going into the next room and calling you.” She poin
ted to a phone attached to the wall. “You answer and we’ll go from there.” She left, closing the door behind her.
What the hell was going on? What did all this have to do with a virus? And the biggest question: Who the hell would kill to get their hands on an unknown biological weapon?
The phone rang. He picked it up. “Yeah.”
“Okay. After I hang up, count to five and watch what the mice do. Ready? I’m hanging up.” He ticked off a handful of seconds, then the mice went berserk in their cage. The phone rang. “Did you see that?”
“The mice made a lot of noise and stuff, but that’s it.”
“Okay, after I hang up count to ten and watch.” He placed the receiver in the cradle and did as instructed. Same thing with the mice. They went nutso for a few seconds. He waited for the phone, but Melinda came through the door instead.
“Wasn’t that exciting?” she asked.
“Overly. What’s your point?”
Her expression turned harsh. Maybe he needed to back off on the asshole-doctor shtick. “I apologize if I sound a bit skeptical.”
She softened. “I understand. Here’s the point.” She turned her back to the far side of the room, where the small animals were. She held a treat in front of the mouse she held so it could smell it. The others immediately erupted into a scuttle. She repeated the process after waiting a few seconds.
Holy living fuck. “Are you saying those mice in the cage know when this one here is given a treat and they get fussy wanting one, too?”
Her smile blew him away. So warm and inviting. Her eyes twinkled with happiness at sharing this with him. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. The additional brainpower gives the animal clairvoyant abilities.”
He put his hands up in supplication. “Whoa, here. Let’s back this train up.” He held his hand out. “May I hold the mouse?”
She started to hand it over, but when she got close to his hand, the mice exploded into screams and began bashing the sides of their cages on the other side of the room. The one in her hand wriggled, trying to get away. He snapped his hand back and they settled down. “Huh, guess they don’t like me.” More like they didn’t like his big bad kitty smell. He forgot about that. “Okay, I don’t need to hold it. I see the correlation. I’m not seeing how this relates to dead monkeys or viruses, though.”
Melinda turned toward the other side of the room. “Hold on a second. There are several working parts to this.” She put the mouse into a cage and gave them all treats. Returning to the table and her laptop, she brought up another image, which looked identical to the other one, but the center of the brain was dark, where before it was light. She pointed to the midsection again.
“This is the same image of the brain, but in its original state. We had to lighten it so we could see all the synapses that are hidden by the shadow in this one. We don’t know what we’re looking at. Why they are all black.”
Good, he didn’t feel so stupid that he didn’t know, either. This doctor gig was not going to work much longer if she expected him to sound intelligent. He was so screwed.
CHAPTER 4
Melinda loved this part of her work. Showing the data she’d collected and the logical hypothesis based on that information. And when the other person really understood it, that made it so much more fun.
On her laptop, she brought up the slide of the blood samples. She turned the screen so she and Hamel could both see it. In her excitement, she’d forgotten her body’s reaction to his. She’d have to ignore it because if she moved away, he’d know she was somewhat attracted to him. Which she totally wasn’t. Just her stupid body.
“Look at this first blood sample on the left.” She tapped the screen with a pen. “You see the erythrocytes, leukocytes, right?”
“Absolutely, all right there, plain as day.”
She clicked the mouse pad and another image came up on the right side of the screen. She watched his reaction. His brows drew down. He asked, “What are all those squiggly things floating around?”
“Those squiggly things, Dr. Hamel, are the virus. This is the infected blood sample compared to a similar, normal blood sample.” She turned toward the screen. “Interesting thing with this virus, like several Zika cases, is that the carrier doesn’t appear to have any physical symptoms. No sickness or tiredness or anything else we would associate with a virus.
“Seems the effect is only to the offspring, advanced brain development giving sensory abilities beyond normal scope. I’ve dubbed it Espee.”
Hamel shifted around. “That’s appropriate. ESP as in extrasensory perception.”
“No. As in Emily, Steven, and Paul,” she said. She sighed at his baffled look. “Those are the three baby monkeys who died with this virus. I could’ve called it SEP, but that’s too close to ‘septic.’ The only other option is PES and we couldn’t have kids walking around saying ‘pes,’ too similar to ‘piss.’ But doesn’t matter what I call it. The powers that be will name it when we release the data to the WHO.”
“To who?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, pulling a small flash drive from her laptop’s side and sliding it into a pocket. “We do the grunt work and they take the credit. Which is fine by me. I don’t need my name in lights. Just pay me a fair wage. I love what I do, so it’s not really work.”
They had both relaxed a little, being together for a while now. With nothing to say, she looked at him a bit shyly, realizing she was getting into the personal side of things.
Hamel cleared his throat and shoved his hands into his pockets. “So, the mother carried the strain with no obvious signs of sickness, and the children had special connections. Could the children be the answer to the weird things the medical facility mentioned?”
She shrugged. “Could be, but it sounds more like they have someone playing tricks on them. Halloween is this weekend. They’re getting an early start on their scaring.”
“They have Halloween in Uganda?” Hamel asked, his brows snapping up.
“It’s just another reason to stay up late and drink beer for most of the population. Lots of clubs have costume contests and fun stuff. Nothing big.”
“Do you like Halloween?”
She frowned and thought about it for a second. “I love paranormal movies and over-the-top scares. I do have a hard time believing any of it, but it’s all for the fun of it, you know?”
He grinned. “So you don’t believe in ghosts, vampires, werewolves, or anything paranormal?”
She raised a brow. “Come on, Dr. Hamel. I’ve spent my life studying facts. I believe what I see, not what anyone else tells me. I learned long ago that people have wild imaginations. So, no, I don’t believe in ghosts, vampires, werewolves, or anything that goes bump in the night. I’m sure there is an explanation for everything.”
“I guess that means you won’t be watching The Exorcist on Halloween, huh?”
His smile made her blink and realize he was kidding with her.
“Maybe. I do like that movie. The creepy factor is out of this world. It was one of the first movies I watched when my parents let me go to a sleepover. Let me just say, there was little sleeping and lots of lights on for the rest of the night.”
He chuckled and nodded. “Back to the virus strain. What did you do after you discovered the wiggly lines in the blood?”
Wiggly lines? “I isolated the virus to create a serum for testing with the mice. We stumbled upon the clairvoyance accidentally when we were separating and running the maze.”
“Running the maze?” he asked. “Is that for the mice to find the end?”
She hiked a hand onto her hip. “Dr. Hamel, I’m so glad they’re teaching you something over there. It surely isn’t hematology.”
His eyes narrowed. She might have pissed him off. Darn. Maybe he’d leave. “My job isn’t to know—” He cut off abruptly and she waited for him to finis
h, but he didn’t. She decided to help.
“Your job isn’t what?” She held his eyes, refusing to back down. She would not be intimidated by this or any man. She’d grown up cowering to those stronger than her, those who yelled at her. In college, her BS degree wasn’t only a Bachelor of Science, it was also Balls of Steel. In a male-dominated laboratory, she’d learned to hold her own or get run over.
Hamel sighed and leaned against a cabinet. “Look, Melinda. I’m not here as a threat to you or anyone. I just need to get the lay of the land and an idea of what we’re dealing with. I won’t get in your way. In fact, I’ll even bring you coffee in the morning. How about that?”
Her own personal secretary with a body she bet would make any pair of undies shrivel into nothing, at her beck and call? Sounded too good, but she’d take if for now. “Okay, but I don’t drink coffee. I’ll show you how I make tea.” Then take all your clothes off, she wanted to add.
She pulled a beaker from the sink and partially filled it with water from the filtered tap. From her coat pocket, she pulled out a six-inch packet, ripped the top off, then poured the powder contents into the beaker. She shook it, making a brown liquid. “Voila. Tea. Now we just need sugar.” She dug through her lab coat pockets, pulling items out then shoving them back in.
“Melinda,” Hamel started, “why is there a label with ‘ESP’ on the beaker you have your tea in?”
Oh, she’d forgotten about that. “Long story.”
“I’ve got time,” he said, the corner of his mouth quirking up.
“It’s not a big deal. I’m the only one with access in here.”
“What’s not a big deal?” Amusement shone brightly in his eyes.
Fine. He was going to make her admit to being an idiot. “I set up everything for the serum last week, including putting a label on the beaker with the virus name I gave it. Well, when it came time to need it, I couldn’t find it. Somehow it walked away. I don’t know. But the beaker was too big anyway, so I pulled a test tube and used it.