The Protected

by Shiloh Walker

  “And how can you use it?” Gus continued to stare at her. “How does your . . . talking . . . thing make you at all useful?”

  “Pair me with a telepath who can receive as well as send and the two of us can go infiltrate damn near anything without having to worry about being spied on or caught because we had to reach out and make contact with the unit. For that matter, I can always be in contact with my unit. My range is pretty much limitless.” She smirked at him and added, “Just in case you’re thinking you can use me for hostage purposes or something. It’s a bad idea. I can reach out and touch somebody, so to speak, anytime I want.”

  One black brow arched fractionally as he studied her face. “Anybody?”

  “I have to have had a connection with them. Even if I’ve just seen them face-to-face one time . . . that’s all I need. If I know them personally, the contact is stronger.” She didn’t mention that distance could be a factor. No point in making her ability look less impressive. Sending a message to Jones in D.C. from here wasn’t an issue. She’d be in debilitating pain for a long, long while afterward, but if the need was extreme, she could do it several times over as long as adrenaline kept her going. She’d just pay for it afterward.

  “So you have to have seen the person,” he said slowly.

  “Yes.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Did you see the men earlier? Those who came to attack us?”

  Ahhhh . . . I see. Smiling a little, she inclined her head. “Yes. I did.” Then she shrugged and turned away. “But I’d rather not reach out and make that connection blindly, so don’t go asking me to play messenger girl.”

  “Why?”

  She shot him a look. “Because they tracked your boy. If I send a message without knowing just how capable they are, it’s entirely possible they can track me. And my job is to keep him safe. I can’t do that if I’m leading his attackers to his door, now can I?”

  Any answer he might have made was cut short. She saw him stiffen at the window, watched as he pulled out that deadly Sig Sauer he liked to shove in her ribs every few hours.

  “Somebody just pulled into the parking lot,” he said quietly.

  Vaughnne pulled out her phone.

  Gus continued to stand there, watching. “They are just sitting in the car—”

  Her phone chimed with an incoming message.

  You asked for a house call? –Grady

  * * *

  “IF I had to guess, without doing any kind of lab work, I’d say a UTI.”

  Gus stared at the doctor like he thought she was going to chop off the kid’s hands and feet and feed him to alligators. Vaughnne carefully kept her body between them, although Dr. Grady was probably used to working around temperamental, pissed-off people. She didn’t even seem perturbed at being called to come to a hotel in the middle of the night.

  “A UTI.” Gus spat the words out like somebody had shoved his mouth full of horse shit.

  Vaughnne glanced over at him. “A urinary infection. Somewhere in the kidneys or bladder.”

  “I know what it is,” Gus said, giving her a withering look. “But how would he get one? He is a healthy boy.”

  “Anybody can get one,” Dr. Grady said gently. “He’s also a preteen boy. Boys his age are often too busy to slow down and drink as much as they should. That can predispose you to a UTI. Sometimes their body hygiene starts to slip.”

  Something flashed in Gus’s eyes, and as he took a step forward, Vaughnne slammed a hand against his chest. “Throttle back, big guy,” she warned. “She’s not wrong. I’ve known more than my share of kids his age. You tell them to get in the bath ten times before they do it and they are out in the blink of an eye. They barely have time to get wet, much less really bathe. She’s not saying you’re not taking care of him and she’s not calling him a sloppy little heathen, either. So chill out.”

  Dr. Grady’s brows had arched up high over her eyes by the time Vaughnne was done. “Exactly so, Vaughnne. If he’s not drinking adequate fluids, if he’s not using proper body hygiene . . . that could do it. Is he circumcised?”

  Gus’s face went tight and harsh flags of color rode on his cheeks. “No, I don’t think he is.”

  “Good grief.” Vaughnne rolled her eyes and turned to the doctor. “Gus has only been his guardian for a few years. The parenting gig is a new thing for him. I think some of this is making him uncomfortable.” She shrugged as she tossed it out there and gave the doctor a look that hopefully conveyed . . . guys, what can you do?

  The doctor studied Vaughnne consideringly and then turned away. “If he isn’t circumcised, that’s more of an issue, then. It’s even more important that he’s cleaning himself properly. I need a urine specimen.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a cup, as well as a little square packet. Holding them out, she looked back at Gus. “We need to wake him and you need to get him to void.”

  If the kid hadn’t been so damn sick, if the entire situation hadn’t been almost painfully serious, Vaughnne might have laughed at the look on Gus’s face. He stared at the cup like it was about to bite him.

  Sighing, Vaughnne said, “If you can’t do this, Gus, I’ll do it. But I suspect it will be easier if it’s his uncle helping him, not some chick he barely knows.”

  Gus nodded shortly. “Leave us for a bit.”

  Vaughnne met the doctor’s eyes and the doctor inclined her head. “I’ll wait on the patio,” Vaughnne said.

  The doctor could cover the hall. If Gus was going to try to escape, it would most likely be this way . . . closest route to the car.

  And if he did go through the hall, the doc could send her a message. Vaughnne wasn’t terribly friendly with Grady, but she knew her. Jones had sent one of the doctors from the Bureau. She didn’t practice medicine much, but Grady knew her stuff.

  And she carried a weapon, so if Gus tried to intimidate her, he’d be in for a surprise.

  Of course, if he pulled the methods he liked to use on her . . .

  Stop it, she told herself as she slid out onto the patio. She had to stop it and preferably now.

  The last thing she needed to be thinking about was Gus using that damn near overpowering sexuality of his. Especially on another woman.

  * * *

  IT took a good twenty minutes to get Alex to wake up enough to get him into the bathroom, and by the time they were done, Gus wasn’t sure who was more embarrassed. He’d bet on himself.

  If Alex wasn’t so miserably sick, the boy probably would have died from mortification.

  It was a shame that when Gus looked in the mirror, he saw a man who was red-faced. A simple fact of life and he couldn’t handle it without feeling like he needed somebody to walk him through it. Consuelo, could I mess this up any more? he wondered as he made sure Alex washed up before they left the bathroom.

  They’d have to deal with that embarrassing hygiene thing, too, he realized. Things Consuelo would have handled with grace and calm and ease, and he was all but tongue-tied just trying to figure out how to even approach it.

  It took another five minutes to get Alex situated back in the bed. “I’ll bring the doctor back in.” He brushed Alex’s hair back.

  Alex’s eyes opened wide and panic flared across his face. “Doctor?”

  “Yes.” Sighing, he cupped the boy’s face. “M’hijo, you are sick. She thinks it might be an infection in your . . .” He grimaced. “They call it a UTI. It’s all the parts that lead up to where you make the urine, then empty it out. She thinks there is an infection and they can get serious. Your mother had them a lot as a child.”

  It occurred to him, then, perhaps he should have mentioned that to the doctor. Did that run in families? He didn’t know. He wasn’t used to handling sick children. He hadn’t ever been prepared to handle children period.

  You must do this . . .

  The ghost of that voice danced through his mind and he shoved it out. Bad things to think about when Alex was so ill and likely to be less in control than normal. “You needed
a doctor. We have a doctor.”

  “But what if—”

  There was a knock at the door and the boy went white. So pale and white and scared. Gus’s heart twisted in his chest and he rested a hand on Alex’s shoulder. “It’s okay, m’hijo. I’ll take care of you. You know that.”

  He rose and headed to the door.

  He was two feet away when the patio door opened.

  Vaughnne came inside, sleek, dark, and silent, her eyes moving to linger on the boy. Alex stared at her as she came to kneel by the bed. “You can look in my head again,” she said quietly. “I won’t hide this time.”

  The look of shock, shame on the child’s face was another blow to Gus’s heart. He’d put too much pressure on the boy, he knew. But when you were fighting an unwinnable war, fighting to protect a boy, you used whatever weapons you had. Even if the boy was the weapon. “I think we didn’t have you as ready to face things as we thought, Alex,” Gus said quietly. “That is my failing. Not yours. You’re still young.”

  “Let the doctor in, Gus,” Vaughnne said softly.

  He watched for a moment as she caught Alex’s hand. Then he turned away. He needed to get the boy better. Then he could figure out where to go from here.

  * * *

  “I gave him an injection. It should help him if it’s a UTI. It was a broad-spectrum antibiotic, so even if it’s not a UTI, it may give some coverage. I’m betting on the UTI, though. I did a finger stick and got enough blood to run a blood count, although I wish I could have talked his guardian into letting me draw enough blood for blood cultures.” Grady sighed, a disgruntled look on her face as she met Vaughnne’s eyes. They stood out on the patio, and through the window, they watched as Gus sat on the bed with the boy. “I’m leaving you some antibiotics, too. If it’s not a UTI, they aren’t going to help much. I’ll run some tests on the urine . . . I’ll have a better idea within a day or so.”

  Vaughnne nodded.

  “You’ll leave a number?”

  “Jones has it.”

  “Okay.” Grady nodded, a concerned look on her face. “He needs rest. He’s pretty sick and everything in me tells me that he should be in a hospital, preferably hooked up to an IV for a day or two. He’s getting dehydrated, and if he gets any worse, he’ll have to go into a hospital, Agent MacMeans.” She paused, studying Vaughnne’s face. “Am I understood?”

  “Yes.” Rubbing the back of her neck, Vaughnne looked up at the sky. “If I thought it was safe, I’d try to talk them into going now. But I don’t think it is. I can’t risk him, I can’t risk the casualties that might come up if I took him to an unsecured facility. We’ll head north. If he has to go into the hospital for a day or two, I’d rather it be closer to where Jones can provide more protection.”

  “Taking him to D.C.?”

  Vaughnne snorted. “I don’t think that will go over well, although that might be where he is safest.”

  “How much trouble is he in?”

  Sliding the doctor a look, she said quietly, “My gut tells me you’re better off to forget you ever saw them. They have that much trouble trailing after them.”

  Grady pursed her lips for a moment. Then she nodded and pushed a small plastic bag into Vaughnne’s hands. “I brought the basic meds with me, just in case. An antiemetic in case he starts having issues with nausea, one of the better antibiotics for a UTI. I’m leaving a setup with you to collect another urine specimen in a few days.”

  “I don’t know if we will be anywhere to get it tested.”

  Grady waved a hand. “I’ll take care of that. But if it’s a UTI, we need to know it’s clearing up. It doesn’t do you any good to keep his neck safe if he ends up with a kidney infection that could kill him, now does it?”

  Vaughnne closed her eyes. “Shit.”

  “Yes.” The doctor touched her arm. “Head to D.C. Be close to there, if for no other reason than so you can get him medical treatment if he needs it, and if the antibiotics don’t kick in, he’ll need it. Jones has people who owe him favors. If he had to, Jones could put the boy up in his home and I’ll take care of him there. I could use a few days off. But we need to keep him healthy if we want to keep him alive, right?”

  * * *

  TUCKER’S brain felt too wired.

  Trying to lock on the wildfire that was the boy’s erratic ability was almost impossible right now.

  Crashing in a hotel five hours north of Orlando, he tossed a ball up in the air over and over, letting the repetitiveness of the motion calm the ragged edges of his mind. Or that was the plan. And the plan was failing.

  Swearing, he jacked up into a seated position and grabbed the phone. He jabbed in a number and it wasn’t until Lucia’s tired voice came on the line that he realized how late it was.

  “Shit, Luce. I’m sorry. Ah . . . I just wanted to make sure you remember to feed Heywood.”

  “Mr. Collins, I’m hardly about to let the cat starve,” she said, sniffing a little. “I might let you starve, but not the cat.”

  He laughed a little and then reached up, rubbed the back of his neck. “You’ve got the alarm and everything set, right?”

  “Of course.”

  She had the alarm set. He’d gotten the notice on his phone. And if he knew Lucia, which he did, she’d also have her weapon handy. He and Lucia understood each other well. She was one of the few people he allowed around him with a weapon, because he knew she’d kill for him. Just like he’d kill for her. She was one of the few people in this world that he actually trusted. He might even almost love her, if he understood how to love anybody. She was definitely one of the few people he’d call a friend. He didn’t like being here and her there, with all of this going on.

  “Is everything well, Mr. Collins?” she asked softly.

  He closed his eyes. He didn’t know if he could answer that without lying, without worrying her. Lucia worried was a bad thing. People had died because Lucia worried. Not often, and he couldn’t say the people hadn’t deserved to die. He’d been flat on his back, dealing with one of the attempts to . . . return him. It had also been the last attempt. Something about the fact that he’d fried a half dozen of the men who’d been involved and Lucia had gone after the others . . .

  There was something to be said about having a former mercenary as your housekeeper, he guessed.

  Not to mention the fact that she was a killer cook.

  “I’m not sure, Luce,” he finally said. “I’m doing a job. Involves a kid.”

  The silence between them went strained. Seconds ticked by and finally Lucia said softly, “You didn’t agree to harm a child, Mr. Collins.”

  He suspected if he answered in a way that displeased her, she might decide to come hunting his ass. Lucia had lived by few rules in her life as a hired killer, but one of them had been hard and fast. No children harmed. Ever. The reason she’d gotten out was because her handler had decided to try and push that line. When she’d refused, he’d sent people after her.

  That was when Tucker and Lucia had met up.

  She’d been bleeding out in an alley while he’d been working his own job-collecting information on a drug runner that he’d planned to sell to whoever wanted to pay the most money for it.

  He could have walked by. Probably should have.

  But when he’d paused by the older woman and looked into those defiant eyes, he’d been sunk.

  That had been fifteen years ago. She’d moved out of the life and for a while had acted as a “security” specialist and she and Tucker had often exchanged information, or sold it, depending on the job. But problems from her past life had continued to emerge, and after one of them had landed her in a bloody heap at Tucker’s door, she’d confessed to him that she was tired. All she wanted was a quiet, normal life.

  She’d never have one, but Tucker could hide like nobody’s business when he had to. He didn’t mind having somebody around to watch his back, either.

  They were a good pair, all in all.

  As long as he didn
’t cross her lines, and she didn’t cross his.

  Her lines were kids.

  He smiled a little. “You know me better than that, Luce.”

  “Naturally.” Her voice had thawed and Tucker slumped back on the bed, staring up at the cracked, water-stained ceiling over his head. The bed was miserably hard but he’d slept on worse. Hell, he’d spent more than a few years without a bed. This was almost paradise.

  “So what is this situation that may or may not be a problem?”

  “People after the kid. I stopped the immediate problem, but . . .”

  Again, he lapsed into silence. Lucia picked up the ball. “You don’t know if the problem will return.”

  “Oh, no. I’m positive it will. Right now, I need to find the kid and my brain feels like it’s been hot-wired.”

  “Then perhaps instead of waking me up, you should go find a way to burn the excesses off and clear your mind, focus. So you can do your job.”

  “If it was that simple, I’d do it,” he muttered.

  “It’s only complicated if you choose to let it be complicated, Mr. Collins,” she said, her voice unconcerned. “Is there anything you need me to do, or may I go back to sleep?”

  He blew out a breath. “I think we need to plan on shutting up things here locally and moving on. You think you can handle it?”

  There was a long, tense pause. Then, Lucia said, “Do we have . . . past issues aggravating matters, Mr. Collins?”

  “No.” Lights flickered. He couldn’t think of those past issues and stay calm, but the flicker was quick. He only saw red for a second. “But I had to give a fake ID to a cop and you know how that goes. So once this is done, we’ll have to move on anyway. You might as well head on out and set things up at the new place.”