Unstoppable

by Long, Heather

  His glittering black gaze clashed with hers. “She turned me over to them.” Accusation resounded within his tone and, behind Rory, Amanda released a harsh breath.

  “Yes, she did—but not by choice. She was a prisoner, just like you. They futzed with her brain, Ronan. Just like you. She was a tool. Just like you.” They’d had this conversation a hundred times, and they’d have it a hundred times more, if necessary. “It wasn’t her fault.”

  Taller than her, and broader of shoulder, Ronan shuddered and it was as though the giant stepping on her heart finally relaxed his grip. Withdrawing a step, the Dark Angel shook his head slowly, as though trying to clear a buzzing sound. “I’m so screwed up.”

  “Welcome to the club,” she said, spreading her hands. “If you think that makes you special, you’re going to have to look elsewhere.”

  Fists clenched, Ronan scowled and the protrusions of regrowth, which marked where his wings had been, flexed. Pain rippled through his expression, and Rory didn’t try to pretend she understood the torment of his situation. What had once been black feathers seemed to be covered in a white fuzz—had they gone white from the trauma or for some other reason?

  “Well, at least you’re still a stone-cold bitch.” Ronan’s comment lacked any malice or heat. For the first time in what seemed like forever, Rory laughed.

  “All the better for kicking your ass.” She grasped his hand when he extended it. He tugged her to him even as he held his other hand out to Amanda. Rory didn’t blame her best friend for hesitating, but the moment lasted only a split second before she joined them. The three of them held tight to each other. Although Rory hated to admit it, she needed the comfort of their embrace…maybe more than she needed to offer comfort.

  Two of her teammates—friends, dammit, because she’d loved them like family—had turned out to be traitors. They’d participated in the capture and torture of Amanda then Ronan. A former teammate and madman was also in cahoots with them, along with who knew how many others.

  She’d begun to see enemies everywhere. Head against Ronan’s shoulder, Rory closed her eyes. For a few precious seconds, she could pretend the whole world hadn’t gone to hell in a time-travel delivered handbasket. Loving Michael sucked. She wanted to hate him. Meeting him had upended her world, turned everything she believed inside out, and rocked the foundation upon which she’d built her life.

  All that had been in the first week they’d been together. “I’ve missed you Ronan,” she said, relying on her training to modulate her tone.

  “Not as much as I missed all of you.” They stood there, united, for several long heartbeats. Gradually, Ronan’s breathing slowed and the tensed muscles in his arms relaxed. It had become easier to talk him down from his episodes, each one less violent than the last.

  The scorch marks on the walls, coupled with the dents and chipped paint, demonstrated how bad they could be. “Just glad you hear us now, and we don’t have to knock you out and start at zero anymore.” Amanda’s rueful grin softened the words. Extracting herself from their group hug, she paced a circuit of the room. She could easily have been discussing herself. It hadn’t been all that long ago that she kept trying to go into meltdown—and damn near took some of the team with her.

  “Drink?” Rory gave Ronan another squeeze before releasing him. She’d never been into the touchy-feely crap, but she needed the contact as much as he did at the moment.

  “Is alcohol still off the list?”

  Not that they couldn’t all go for a stiff drink, but their doctor, Ilsa, had strictly forbidden it.

  At least until we’re sure how screwed up in the head they are.

  Ilsa’s words amused Rory on a very base level. She knew exactly how screwed up she was and all the alcohol in the world would undo it. “You’ll have to live with water or lemonade or…whatever the hell that fruit drink was that you loved so much.”

  “Five Juicers?” He gave her a bland look. The expression was so like the Ronan she’d known and loved for so many years, it actually gave her heart pause. “If you have that on hand, then the question of what I want is a stupid one.”

  Amanda chuckled, and the lightness of her humor had Ronan’s lips twitching. Soon, Rory allowed herself to smile. They needed to embrace the triumph in small victories. They seemed to have so few. Rory got the drinks then waved them all over to what passed for a sitting area in the oversized room.

  “What the hell is going on, Rory?” How Ronan managed to sound both defeated and furious in the same breath baffled her. “Where are we? And who the hell are those guys out there?”

  Sighing, Rory slumped down onto a chair and put her feet up on the table. Twisting open the bottle cap, she took a long drink of the beer. It didn’t matter what time of day it was, if she’d had liquor handy she’d probably do shots. It had been that kind of year. Fortunately, her metabolism let her burn through alcohol swiftly, or maybe not so fortunately. When a person couldn’t get drunk, it made it very difficult to drown one’s sorrows.

  Still, the beer tasted great. “Do you want the long story? Or the abbreviated version?”

  “I want the fucking truth.” Ronan drained his juice. “I don’t care if it’s long, short, or spoken in Swahili. What the ever-loving fuck is going on?”

  It was definitely the right question as far as Rory was concerned, but she only wished she had all the answers. “Cliff’s Notes version, the men in the other room are the ones who helped to rescue you. Simon and Garrett—as well as Drake, who is on assignment currently—are part of the five-man team who traveled back in time to prevent a horrible future from happening.” No matter how much she believed Michael, Rex, and the others, she couldn’t help but think how stupid it sounded when she said the words aloud.

  “The fuck, now?” Ronan scowled, finally stalking over to lean against the back of a chair. The Rock Isle mansion they currently occupied looked like some Gothic throwback, from the stone walls to the heavy wooden floors and thick throw rugs. Even the furniture seemed designed to intimidate the comfort right out of them.

  “Time travel.” Amanda landed lightly on the sofa and sprawled. “As in, they were born and raised a century or more from now, and they traveled back in time.”

  Ronan’s pained expression would have been funny if they weren’t deadly serious. The sooner he got on board with the concept, the easier it would be for all of them. “Time travelers. Check. What the hell do they want?”

  “To save the world,” Rory sighed the words. “They’re more military than hero. Freedom fighters I guess would be a better description.”

  Would you like us to explain? Simon’s quiet question invaded her mind and Rory frowned. They might be able to give Ronan all the technical details, but based on his troubled reactions to those he should already trust…

  No. She focused her thoughts so her intentions as well as her meaning would be clear to Simon. He’s one of us; he needs to hear this from us. In fact, I would appreciate it if you would kill the surveillance altogether and leave us alone unless Drake reports in. If she couldn’t be out there hunting down Michael’s captors, she would work with Ronan.

  The irony of the situation left her stomach churning. She’d met Michael when she’d been desperately trying to locate Amanda and Ronan. Now she had them back, but Michael was gone, and Rex along with him. All thanks to her so-called friends.

  Josh’s betrayal stung even more than Curtis’s. Fizz? Him she’d kill the first chance she got. They didn’t rely on killing, normally. They’d been raised to be better, or at least that was what her parents drummed into her as soon as they realized what she was capable of.

  “If you’re so talented, then you can do better than the rest of us. You can take out opponents without killing, they’d told her. It had been a mantra in her youth—a mantra they’d used to determine her future. But did they use it because they really wanted me to be a hero who could eliminate opponents or for some other reason?

  “Rory,” Ronan said, drawing h
er to the present. “Freedom fighters? Time travelers? You believe that crap?”

  “I didn’t,” she admitted, and drained her beer before rising to retrieve a second from the bar. “Not at first. But they have biometric chips in their brains and they knew things…know things. They describe our world going to a very bleak landscape, and it doesn’t take a genius to look around and see how on track for that we are.”

  “So, what the hell do they want with us?”

  Hard truth time. “They didn’t want anything with any of you. They were after me.”

  Amanda rolled to a sitting position. “Ronan, do you know a Hans Geiger?”

  The blank look on the Dark Angel’s face answered the question for them. The muscles in his arms and shoulders bunched as his damaged wings flexed. Pain rippled through his expression, but he shook his head. “No. Another time traveler?”

  “Not that I know of,” Rory admitted. “They thought he was my father.” To the best of her knowledge and research, neither of her parents were related to a Hans Geiger nor did either have any German ancestry. “Look, short story. Michael thought I was this Geiger’s daughter. He planned to assassinate me to draw him out. Since I’m alive, you can tell he didn’t succeed. Michael is a very skilled and gifted sniper. He missed on purpose, though it took him a while to admit it. We fought, he won, they locked me up, I escaped, they caught me again and, well, he’s hot and there’s something between us I can’t really explain. Without them, I would never have found either of you or learned about Josh and Curtis’s betrayal.”

  “Or Fizz.” Amanda’s tone hardened. Fizz had participated in her capture, and he’d been the one to instigate her torture. As much as Rory hated him, Amanda had way more of a beef.

  “So, this Michael and his friends tried to kill you. In retaliation, you take their side. They don’t kill you. They help you rescue Amanda then you find out that our friends—our teammates—they’re the actual bad guys, but in doing so, you lose Michael and the other dude…”

  “Rex.” Amanda supplied.

  “Right, him.” Ronan’s knuckles whitened where he gripped the back of the chair. “They helped rescue me, so now we’re trying to track down our friends to rescue the guy who tried to kill you.”

  “More or less.” Though it had only been a short time since her own rescue, Amanda’s mental stability coupled with the return of her upbeat attitude, largely due to her own relationship with Simon, made Rory happy.

  “You two are both cracked.” Ronan practically growled. “And I think we should all get out of here.”

  “Look, I get it’s hard to swallow—”

  Their Dark Angel cut her off with a sharp slice of his hand. “No, it’s not hard to swallow. It’s utter bullshit that you, one of the smartest people I know, let yourself get sucked into someone else’s mad tea party. Amanda, I believe…”

  “Hey!”

  Ignoring Amanda’s protest, he continued, “But you, Roar? I expected more from you.”

  The disappointment curling around every word dug into her flesh like so many barbs. “I don’t need your approval. More, I don’t want it.”

  “Of course you don’t, because you always know best.” Anger laced his tone. “But this time, you’re not thinking with your head…”

  “You go there, and I will kick your ass.” He might be stronger than she was, but she was by far meaner. They both knew it.

  “Fine. But what the ever loving fuck? Really. You meet five guys with abilities and some tech, they spin you some bullshit about being from the future, and you believe you?”

  “Yes.” Ronan wasn’t the first to challenge her faith in the Boomers. It didn’t matter. She believed Michael. Her gut told her he wasn’t lying. His conviction to save the future, which had given birth to him, remained steadfast, even if the very same dedication rendered him piss-headed stubborn about their plans.

  Still healing muscle and tendons stretched as Ronan flexed his wounded and still regenerating wings. No matter how much Rory wanted to flinch, she contained the reaction. If it hurt her to see it, she couldn’t imagine the pain he endured. “Do you have any idea how stupid it all sounds?” He didn’t wait for her to respond. “Time travel? You can’t prove they are from the future, and they can’t prove they’re from the future. Even if you could prove it. Even if they could, their very presence here can dramatically alter the timeline or be the catalyst, which makes their world, come about. Ever thought about that?”

  As Rory saw their current situation, she had two options. She could debate the quantum mechanics of time travel—not her best subject—or she could follow her gut and let him rant. To be honest, neither option offered much in the way of settling their disagreement. At the end of the day, Ronan had to make up his own mind as she had, as Amanda had, and unfortunately, as Josh and Curtis had.

  Just don’t let him become my enemy, too. Something of her thoughts had to have shown on her face, because Amanda reached over to touch her arm. “Ronan, we can’t pretend to know the future. We can’t pretend to know their experiences. I know what they’ve shared with us and, like Rory, I believe them.”

  The perfect calm in her tone proved her hard-won battle in taking back her mind and restoring her sense of self. If Rory’s loyalty to the Boomers hadn’t already existed, she’d owe Simon to the end of time for his contribution.

  Rolling off the sofa, Amanda stood. Her bright blue hair had continued to grow, and it curled around her shoulders. Where she once worn colors as vibrant a shade as her dyed locks, she’d taken to more monochromatic choices recently—black yoga pants and a white tank top. They both emphasized a healthier physique and a sturdiness where her physical health mirrored that of her mental landscape.

  Thank you, Simon. That the telepath didn’t answer Rory’s mental call out earned him another point. She’d asked for privacy and the camera lights remained off and he kept his mental distance.

  “Here’s the sitch—it doesn’t matter if we believe them or not. Their experiences shaped them as our experiences shaped us. We aren’t the people we were before captivity. I can’t imagine the hell you underwent, just as you cannot begin to fathom what they did to me. Not to mention the guilt I feel knowing that, even if it was against my will, I am responsible for you being there.” Power wreathed her, the air warming to ripple visibly around her. Rory didn’t respond to it. She neither told her to cool it nor tried to get away.

  Like her, Ronan held his ground. His damaged wings stretched again, the muscles flexing across his shoulders, causing his biceps to bulge. Each day he spent free of his captivity helped restore his natural physique, though he was a long way from the bulk he once possessed. “It doesn’t answer the question of whether we are participating in madness by even being involved with them. Has it occurred to you that maybe the blind faith you’re exhibiting in them is a part of the problem?”

  “You do realize that you are taking the side of the argument of the team who held you in captivity and experimented on you?” Keeping her tone as neutral as possible, Rory met Ronan’s defiant gaze and refused to be the one to look away first. “Or maybe the trauma you experienced is making you act without thinking?”

  “That’s low,” he said, his voice a third octave above a whisper. The roughness in his voice stabbed her in the gut, but she didn’t back down even as the temperature seething around Amanda cooled.

  Shrugging, she refused to let the guilt consume her. “I can only act on the information I have at hand and what my gut tells me.”

  Their Dark Angel paused to consider her before he looked away and paced the length of the room. The agitation marring his motions reminded her that he was still recovering. Sometimes, she could be a real bitch, but she embraced it when necessary.

  “You expect us to trust your gut?” The open challenge, so raw in the face of the hell he’d been through, was nothing less than she’d expected from Ronan.

  Abandoning her seat, Rory walked across the room to join him. Standing in front
of him, she placed her palm on his chest, ignoring the sweat slicking his skin and the heat rising from his flesh. “Trauma affects everyone differently. We all have our own paths to walk. I began this one because I had to get you two back. I have you back. Your life is yours again.” The Boomers would hate her next sentence, but Rory didn’t give a damn. “What you do with your life is your choice now. You go where you want. You do what you want.”

  “So, that’s it?” Ronan had gone very still under her touch. His heart thudded with brutal intensity, like a hammer striking a gong over and over. “I’m free to go?”

  “You were never our prisoner,” Rory corrected him, trying for gentle even though grief might have leaked into her tone. “All I ever wanted was for you to be safe, Ronan. I want you to have your life back. So, yes. If you need to hear the words, you’re free to go.”

  Amanda’s shoulders stiffened, the faint motion hardly worth mentioning except Rory didn’t doubt that her worry and fear would bleed over to Simon. If he hadn’t already determined Rory’s course with the conversation, he would know soon enough.

  “No one is going to force you to stay, and I will fight anyone who tries to keep you captive.”

  “Just like that?” The doubt and suspicion twining in Ronan’s voice wounded her. Once upon a time, he could have said jump from a skyscraper and she wouldn’t have hesitated. She’d known he would catch her. The same was true for him. If she’d given an order, he wouldn’t have questioned her. He would’ve simply executed it.

  Those days are long gone. Of all that she lost in the last several months—which included her team, her friends, and now her lover—the loss of their faith and trust hurt like steel wire being driven beneath her nails. “Yes, Ronan. Exactly like that. You’re not a prisoner and, while you may not trust them or me or anyone else at the moment, that doesn’t matter. I trust you.”

  Narrowing his eyes, he studied Rory with so much doubt it wounded her. Even his pupils seemed to drown out what color remained in his irises. What the hell had they done to him? More than just the shredding of his wings. The only thing she knew for certain was he possessed no biochip in his brain. Thank God for small mercies.