The Protected

by Shiloh Walker

  SIX

  PSYCHIC skill, in Bruce Watkins’s opinion, really wasn’t as uncommon as people thought. Not everybody was going to be able to read minds, that was certain, and he knew the average Joe wasn’t going to be able to float candlesticks across the room, either.

  But if more people listened to their instincts, if more people paid attention to what that still, quiet voice in the back of their head tried to tell them . . . well, people would be amazed at what they could accomplish.

  Refined instincts and psychic skill weren’t the same, by any means. Psychic ability was the next step up. But there were some people out there who thought they just had really good intuition, and what they had was a rudimentary psychic skill they just never bothered to improve upon.

  He wasn’t a particularly strong psychic, but he knew how to listen to those instincts, and he’d worked to improve his skills. He made his living listening to those instincts, selling his skills in an odd sort of manner.

  It wasn’t always easy to come by work, but when he did, he tended to hit a windfall.

  His skill wasn’t anything special. He could feel the abilities of others. Basically they just exerted a pull on him—their rampant energy tugged at him and drew him in.

  That was why the ad on the site that operated on the dark web was so appealing to him. He read between the lines pretty damn well, although the initial posting hadn’t given him much to go on. But then somebody had asked for more information just a few hours ago.

  The response:

  This item is something that should appeal to certain people here. It’s very valuable to me.

  There was a wealth of unspoken information in those cryptic words.

  The question was . . . just how much money were they offering?

  So that was the question he had to ask. If he liked the answer, he’d offer his very valuable services.

  If not?

  Too bad. Their package could swelter and rot in Orlando for all he cared.

  He typed out a reply, keeping it every bit as vague and obscure as the initial message was, asking for more information, hinting as his experience, his special skills.

  The final few words danced around the issue of money, and he hated to be so crass, but it was an issue that had to be addressed.

  * * *

  LOCATING such an item can come with expenses.

  He smirked as he read the final few words and then he rose, pacing around the office as he pondered his own response. It had been three days since he’d put the ad out there on the web, and this was the first time anybody had shown any real response.

  There had been more than a few fishing expeditions, which he had expected, and somebody had asked for more information. But nobody had shown promise. A couple of quacks had suggested they meet so they could show how they could use his aura to help locate his missing item. Others had told him they could use divination.

  All nonsense and he knew it. He’d been prepared for some nonsense, though, so that was fine.

  Three days.

  It had taken three days to get a serious inquiry.

  Nervous tension ripped through him, but he finally got it under control and started to figure out just the right way to answer.

  * * *

  AN item.

  “You’re sure they are talking about a person?” Tucker asked as he climbed into the car. He had the phone on speaker, which was annoying as hell, but it was easier to talk to Nalini that way than to try and juggle the phone and drive. Plus, his first stop was going to be Starbucks. He needed coffee like he needed to breathe.

  It had been raining all damned day and that was a good thing. Rain altered the current in the air, which made him steadier, and he needed to be just then.

  Talking to Nalini, even if it was just on the phone, left him damned off balance. He’d been so unsteady last night, he’d ended up jacking off in the shower. Normally, that wasn’t a problem. Thanks to his issues with touching people, he had a good relationship with his hands, sad to say. But this time, he had actually let himself think about having somebody else involved.

  Nalini.

  That hadn’t been wise. It was like everything inside him had exploded, including the raw, chaotic energy that he absorbed and it had surged out of control. That led to him frying the electrical shit in the house and tripping the circuit breaker.

  So rain was good.

  He didn’t have to deal with the wild electricity rippling through the air, and he didn’t have to worry about toning things down.

  “If he’d lost his address book or his car keys, I doubt I’d be this worked up over things, Tucker. I was drawn to this for a reason and I don’t get pulled in on things. It’s people . . . always people,” Nalini murmured, her voice distracted. “There hasn’t been an answer to the reply yet.”

  “If they are seriously looking for somebody to grab, they’ll probably be extra cautious, especially after the shit that went down here recently.” Tucker jammed the key into the ignition and turned it. It didn’t start. Sighing, he glared at the engine. The damn car was old.

  Tucker loved his car. Flat-out loved her. It was the first thing that had ever been his, and he planned to keep her going as long as he could, but she was contrary at the best of times.

  Today wasn’t the ideal time.

  Closing his eyes, he let himself check things out and then he tried again, using his own energy to trigger the dead battery.

  “Are you okay?”

  He grunted as the engine rolled over. “Yeah. Dead battery. It’s good now.” If only the rest of the car’s problems were that easy to fix.

  Nalini was quiet a moment and then said, “Well, if you’ve dealt with the car problems, can we discuss how we’re going to locate this item?”

  He shot the phone a dark look. “We, sugar? I hate to tell you this, Nalini, but we aren’t doing anything. I’m looking for this item. You’re wherever you are, doing whatever you are doing, and jumping when those FBI boys tell you to jump. I’m only doing this because I hate to think about somebody being hurt in my neck of the woods.”

  “Your neck of the woods . . . where are you from, Tucker?”

  He clenched his jaw. “Originally? Georgia. And what does that matter?”

  “Oh, nothing. That drawl of yours just gets to me. Right down in my lady bits.”

  He dragged a hand down his face and shoved the car into reverse. “Your lady bits. Nalini . . . do you want me to do this job or not?”

  She chuckled. “Of course I do. I just want you getting used to the fact that, at some point, I plan on testing that theory of yours on you and bare skin. I bet you can handle it better than you think.”

  He handled bare skin contact just fine as long as no stress was involved. But looking at her did something bad to the way his brain functioned—something he’d figured out already—and he suspected he’d go on overload if he spent too much time touching her. One slipup and she’d pay the price. He already knew for a fact what happened when he lost control. That wasn’t happening. Not with her.

  “How about we focus on the job?” he suggested softly as he whipped the car around.

  “You are just no fun, Tucker. How can you be so cool and controlled when I’m sitting here squirming and thinking about you and me and bare skin?”

  He disconnected the call. She’d call back in a second; he knew it. So he took the brief moment to drag a hand over his face and force his recalcitrant body under control. The leather of his glove slid over his face, smooth and worn from years of use. He’d had the gloves specially designed. He pulled them on first thing in the morning, and pulled them off right before he went to bed. He stripped them off for certain things, of course, but for the most part, those gloves were as much a part of him as breathing.

  They protected everybody in the world from the wild charge that lived inside him. It seemed his body was one big, giant conductor of electricity half the time, although it wasn’t that simple. He pulled the energy from somewhere, he
knew, and he could channel it out when he was focused. When he wasn’t focused, when he was pissed, he also affected the ebb and flow of electricity around him.

  Once, he’d unintentionally stopped a person’s heart because of it.

  Bare skin on bare skin. Terror pulsing out of him.

  Yeah. Control was pretty vital to him.

  And Nalini managed to shatter it.

  When the phone rang a few seconds later, he was as much in control as he could expect to be. After a ring or two, he answered with a curt, “Yeah?”

  “Wow. I must really be getting under your skin. Okay, we’ll focus on the job,” Nalini said, her voice heavy with amusement.

  The woman was bizarre. Most women get hung up on and they are irritated. He does it to her? She laughs.

  “Why don’t you just give me a better idea of what I’m looking for and then we can be done with the chatter?” Tucker said.

  “I already explained I’m not sure what you’re looking for,” she said, her voice low and soft. There was a long pause and he thought he heard a rapid series of taps. Like somebody firing away on a keyboard. “I . . . I just think there’s a kid involved. I’m almost positive the item is a child. I hear one . . . in my head, if you get my drift. He’s screaming. I think it’s him. And I think they are looking for him because he’s . . . well . . . unique.”

  “Drop the codespeak, Nalini.” He slowed at a stop sign and then turned left, taking the highway that would lead him into Orlando. He didn’t live in town. That just wasn’t smart for a guy like him. But his place was only a few miles out and already traffic was closing up around him. “You mean psychic.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I mean psychic.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s what this site is for. It’s where people go to find others, it’s where they go to connect . . . and I think others go to recruit. It’s bad news, though, because sometimes people disappear.”

  “Disappear.” He stared at the license plate of the car in front of him and tried to blank his mind. Wild, chaotic energy crackled inside him and he had no place to put it, no place to direct it. All he could do was focus and ride it out until it eased off. “And you think a kid’s the next mark?”

  “Yes . . . but this is different. Usually, they recruit here. This isn’t recruiting. It’s . . . hunting,” she said, her voice grim.

  Hunting—

  Just thinking about that had his hands tightening on the steering wheel and he wanted to hit something. Pound it bloody and then do it all over again.

  Seconds ticked away, and then softly, Nalini asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m just fine, darlin’.” Everything built to a screaming roar in his brain and he shunted it off, splicing that part of himself off until it was like two people rode inside his mind. Tucker who was in control, pressing on the gas as the cars around him started to move. Tucker who was ready to fry the next thing he touched. He could control it. He’d spent the past twenty years of his life learning how to do just that, and control it was exactly what he’d do.

  “How certain are you that your boss isn’t behind any of those disappearances?” he asked dispassionately. He knew more than a few federal types who’d tried to make people like him disappear. One had tried to make him disappear. Permanently. Not long after—

  The car shuddered around him and he cut that line of thought off. Couldn’t go there. Not right now.

  “I couldn’t be more positive if I had to. Jones and his unit are clean. I know you don’t have any reason to trust me, but they aren’t dirty. They aren’t behind any of this.”

  Nalini continued to talk, her voice soft and low, and even though he barely heard her words, he let himself focus on the low, soothing sound of her voice until some of that rage banked, until the energy surging inside him ebbed down.

  “So. You got any idea how to help me out here?”

  Tucker spotted a familiar sign up ahead and hit his turn signal. “Yeah. If the kid I’m looking for is psychic, I just go trolling. The human mind is an electrical construct, basically. And the mind of a psychic feels different. I’ll just keep circling and hoping I’ll find something.”

  “That . . . could take a long time.”

  He grunted. “Yeah. But there’s already been something around here moving. I’ve been ignoring it. Guess it’s time to check it out.” He got in line at the drive-thru. “Is that all?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  He didn’t say anything as he went to disconnect.

  “Hey, wait . . . you can really sense things just by the way our minds feel?”

  “Yeah.” He rubbed his brow.

  “And you can sense the minds of all the people around you, too. All the time?”

  “If I let myself.” He’d already lowered his shields a little and he knew, within a fifty-foot range, there were one hundred and fifty-two people. One of them had a pacemaker. He felt that as well.

  “Doesn’t that drive you crazy?”

  He pulled forward in the line. Softly, he said, “Yes.”

  SEVEN

  VAUGHNNE didn’t run because she liked it.

  She didn’t hate it, but she sure as hell didn’t love it, and in her expert, professional opinion, all of those who talked about a runner’s high were just deluding themselves. The only time she got high off exerting herself was after a bout of particularly good sex.

  Which she hadn’t had in so long, she could be delusional.

  No, she ran because she knew it was necessary.

  Keeping her body in top physical form was just part of the job.

  It was the same reason she lifted weights and the same reason she trained in a variety of fighting styles, ranging in everything from standard tae kwon do to kickboxing to muay thai. Even though she’d spent so much time on the streets, she couldn’t rely on street fighting to get her everywhere, and she didn’t. There was always room for improvement, so improvement was what she pushed for.

  After the shit way she’d felt ever since the last job in Orlando, she’d been knocked down to where she could barely manage three miles on average, and the first few times she’d run, she’d been hard-pressed to make two.

  She was back up to five now, and today, she planned on going for six. It was annoying as hell, having to do it in this neighborhood. Pounding it out on the busted-up pavement wasn’t much better than running on a treadmill in the gym. She preferred the park back home, but she wasn’t leaving this area unless she had to, and she definitely wasn’t leaving it to run.

  Right now, it was just after six; Gus and Alex weren’t home. According to the tracker, they were at the grocery store, just a mile away, and although she didn’t feel right not being there, hiding just out of sight, she hadn’t followed them that day.

  She couldn’t explain why, but she’d felt the need to stay here. Instinct, she knew. Still, her gut was a wild, tangled mess, and she wished there was a way she could have planted a tracker on the damn kid.

  She felt almost glued to this place, though. Thanks to the wonders of technology, she had the video feed coming to her live on her iPhone and she kept checking it every few minutes as she ran. At their house, everything was calm, everything was quiet.

  For now. But it wouldn’t last.

  Something was going to go down. The knot in her belly, the tension crawling through her. All of it added up to something, but the question was what. Yet again, she found herself checking the video feed . . . nothing.

  Nothing unusual had activated the alarm sensors that fed into the program she’d set up, either.

  It wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough.

  She was less than half a mile away at the most and could be over there in no time.

  Stop it, she told herself. She was working herself up—

  The camera feed caught the image of a car. It cut between the cameras she’d set up at her place and the house directly across from hers, rolling down the street slowly. Slowly, but not too slow.

 
Everything about it set her hair on end.

  The camera feed on her phone wasn’t good enough for her to be able to make out anything about the driver, but everything inside her was already screaming. Long and loud.

  It wasn’t screaming danger, danger, danger.

  But the warning alert was bad enough.

  Wheeling around in her steps, she laid on the speed and hauled ass back.

  Son of a bitch.

  She’d expected things to make a shift soon. Just not this soon.

  The question was . . . is this for the better . . . or the worse.

  * * *

  TUCKER eyed the house.

  Somebody who lived in that house was a problem. Whoever it was, they weren’t home now and all Tucker could pick up was a weird little buzz, kind of like an echo.

  One hell of a strong echo.

  If it was this strong and the person wasn’t even here, then how strong was he?

  A kid. Assuming Nalini was right, and it was a kid involved. She seemed to think so, though, and he wasn’t inclined to dispute her gut feelings. People like them, they lived and died by those feelings.

  Sighing, he cut around the corner and headed north, trying to decide what to do. He’d told Nalini he’d take a look around, see if he could find this item. He’d be willing to bet this kid was the item—and if so, that kid was a walking, talking hazard. If anybody in the entire town could possibly be drawing the absolute wrong kind of interest, it was the person living in that house.

  Absolutely no idea how to control what he had in his head, very little control period, and more power inside him than Tucker had ever sensed in his damn life.

  Swearing, he arrowed the car over to the curb, and under the pretense of making a call, he pulled out his phone and punched in the phone number for his house. He didn’t have an answering machine and Lucia was there only a few days a week, so all it was going to do was ring. And ring. It would buy him a few minutes so he could think. That was all he needed to do. Take a minute and think.

  Sighing, he held the phone to his ear and stared straight ahead, focusing on the vibrant energy still riding in the air as he tried to think up a plan.