He stepped out into the hallway, smelling the dank, musky stink of a place that had seen water invade its perimeter and not been properly cleaned up. Really, they should have knocked the mess down.
Ben walked like a man on a mission. Roman had said she was being held three doors down the hallway. How the Fury knew that, Ben hadn’t asked. Roman knew lots of things he shouldn’t and he was capable of doing things people, even Conditioned people, shouldn’t be able to. Like take away people’s memories.
“But does it make you want to lock him up?”
Ben froze where he walked. Slowly and deliberately, he raised his head to look at the person who’d spoken. Down the hall a distance was a man who hadn’t been there seconds before. He leaned casually against the wall with a smoking cigarette in his hand.
Okay. This was what everyone had worried about. Improvisation. Ben had to be able to think on his feet. He’d done it for years in court; he could do it now.
“What?”
“I asked if you thought, Mr. Lavelle, that Roman should be put behind bars for the rest of his life to conduct hard labor because he has the potential to do dangerous things. Is the potential to be trouble enough to keep him locked up?” Well, Ben was screwed and he knew it. But he didn’t feel out of control. This guy knew who he was, but he would still figure out how to get through this.
“Yes, I do know who you are. I can read your mind.” The man took a step off the wall toward him. “Do you think he should be locked up?”
“No.” Ben shook his head and took a step toward his unknown questioner. “I’ve spent the last five years working like a lunatic to get the people who were locked up let out. I do not feel that just because someone could do something means they will. I think with training, help and early diagnosis, the Conditioned could be taught to control their powers and even use them to help others.” He shrugged. “And if that makes me an idiot or naïve, so be it.”
“Really? We don’t frighten you?” The stranger threw his cigarette on the floor without putting it out. “Not even a little bit?”
“Sure, some of you frighten me, but that doesn’t mean that my fear gets to dictate everyone else’s life.”
“Interesting.”
Ben looked the man up and down. The stranger was taller than he was by at least three inches. He had red hair and green eyes. Dressed in his Fury uniform, he would have been the nightmare of every non-Institutionalized Conditioned hiding in the world.
“Yes.” The slight smirk plastered on the man’s face fell. “I’m the stuff of nightmares.”
“You look to me like a man stuck in a bad situation.” A thought dawned on him, but he pushed it away. He didn’t want the Mind-Reader to know what he thought. “It seems to me that you had two choices. Live in an Institution or have some semblance of freedom with just the occasional job of stalking uncaught Conditioned to bother you. Bet you never thought you’d have to handle anything like this?”
“No. I didn’t.” The man extended his hand. “Bryan Teege. I’ve been wanting to shake your hand for some time.”
Even as Ben shook his hand, he realized he had no idea what was going on. “Why would that be?”
“It’s not every day that one of you takes an interest in one of us to the point that they’re willing to risk their own life.”
Ben tried to find his patience. This was all fine and good, but he needed to get to Shiri. Another time, perhaps he might be more interested in discussing how the average American didn’t know or understand what was really going on in the Institutions.
“I love her.” What else was there to say?
“I know. Which is why you’re going to want to get into that room before they kill her.” Ben’s heart fell into his stomach as Bryan continued to speak. “Let good old Roman know that he’s not the only one who does his part to fight back when he can.”
“Where is she?” Ben swallowed. If Bryan wanted to help, he’d gladly take all he could get. There was nothing in the universe he wouldn’t do for Shiri.
Bryan pointed at the door to his left. “Not much time left.”
As quickly as Bryan had arrived, he vanished into thin air. Ben had no time to dwell on it. He ran toward the door as he pulled the key Roman had promised him would open any door in the Institution out of his pocket.
He stuck the key in the door, and for one second he doubted. Had Roman told him a lie? Did he possess some kind of agenda no one knew about? Would this prove to be all for naught?
Then the handle turned. Ben shoved the door open as he stormed into the room. Shiri lay on the floor, three Fury staring down at her.
“What are you doing to her?” Ben’s voice shook, and for a second the whole room seemed bathed in red.
“Who are you?” The tallest Fury turned to regard him.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Ben might not have been getting any answers, but he was getting Shiri out. He pressed the magnet in his pocket. Roman, whom he would never doubt again now that he stood in Shiri’s cell, had told him that it momentarily disabled the Fury. They would have only the same abilities as Ben. It would be three-on-one, but at least it wouldn’t be three super-humans against him.
He didn’t give them a chance to figure out what was going on. Instead, he pulled out his gun and pointed it at the tallest one’s head. Roman said the Fury saw no point in carrying weapons. They could do with their minds what most people couldn’t even do with a deadly device. In this case, it would work to Ben’s advantage.
“You might be able to subdue me. Maybe. But I’ll shoot two of you before you ever get the chance. So ask yourself, are you the one who’s going to live or are you one of the two who will die? It’s basic statistics.”
The one who stood to the right clutched his heart. “Oh God, what are you doing to us?”
The magnet was supposed to disable their powers, but Roman hadn’t mentioned anything about causing them pain. Not that their discomfort would have stopped him from doing it. Only Shiri mattered in this scenario. Still, it would have been nice to have been warned. Ben had had enough surprises to last a lifetime.
Maybe several lifetimes.
“You’re like me now. You don’t have your powers. So what’s your choice? Do we fight, or do I get out of here with my lady and you can say I subdued you?”
The tallest man’s eyes rolled to the back of his head seconds before he hit the ground. Ben cursed and jumped back, barely able to miss being squished by his dead weight before it slumped to the floor. The other two men looked at each other seconds before they bolted from the room. He dropped his gun to the ground, wanting both hands free and hating the damn thing anyway.
“Nothing like loyalty,” Ben muttered to himself as he rushed to Shiri. If they had gone for help, he had seconds at best. He had to get her to the elevator. Once he got into the mechanism, Roman had felt he could successfully whisk them out of the building using teleportation and still not get caught.
Ben bent down and scooped Shiri up in his arms. She weighed nothing. For a woman who reached his own height, he had to have had more than fifty pounds on her, and he wasn’t considered overweight. Didn’t they feed her on her island? She’d been this skinny when she’d been starved in the Institution.
She was out cold and didn’t stir even when he called her name. The device had obviously affected her, too, but he’d expected to be able to wake her. What had they been doing to her? He hoped Roman or one of his cohorts would know. She didn’t look as if she’d been physically assaulted.
Ben ran as fast as he could down the empty hall. He didn’t hear any alarms going off, but that didn’t mean there weren’t some going off somewhere he wasn’t aware of. And so far he hadn’t seen Madame, which was too bad, because he really wished she’d give him an excuse to shoot her in the head.
Shiri’s eyes flew open. She groaned, and he squeezed her tighter.
“You’re going to be okay, sweetheart.”
“No.” Her voice sounded h
oarse. “Not you.”
Ben couldn’t blame Shiri for not wanting to see him, not after the way he’d treated her.
“We’re almost out of here.”
He realized he shouldn’t have spoken almost the second he did. It was clearly a challenge to the universe that he’d actually thought he was home free. The elevator doors opened, and Madame sauntered out as though she were strolling through the park instead of into a virtual war zone.
“Hello, Mr. Lavelle. How unpleasant to see you again.” She stared at Shiri in his arms. “I hadn’t anticipated this. Set her down, unless you want her to die.”
He didn’t want to do what she said, but he wasn’t willing to risk Shiri either. In what he hoped was a smart move, he set her down next to the elevator. She made a sound that was something between a moan and a scream. “Just go, Ben.”
He didn’t look down at her. Why shouldn’t she believe he’d let her down? He’d done nothing to show her he wouldn’t. That would change right now.
“Would you like to know, Mr. Lavelle, how I became the Madame of this Institution when so many of my Conditioned brothers and sisters were being locked up like animals?”
“No.” Ben wanted to wring the life out of this woman. He couldn’t take one more second of her fake French accent. “Didn’t you grow up in the United States?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, and he realized he’d startled her. Good, let her be surprised.
“I was born in France.”
“Yes, but you were raised here, right? If I’d come into this world in Greece, it wouldn’t mean that I spent the rest of my life putting on some pseudo-ridiculous attempt at speaking Greek just to—what?—Seem European? Are we all supposed to be impressed?”
“Do you want to see what I can do?” The woman advanced on him, all pretext of being a so-called lady gone. She reminded him of Medusa, her hair full of snakes, ready to turn men into stone with just her gaze.
“No. I want you to get out of my way before I do to you what I did to your Fury seconds ago.”
“You’re talking about the magnet in your pocket that takes away the power of whoever it is used on. I’m not interested in it. Nothing takes away my power. That’s what I tried to explain to you. They are Conditioned. I am a God.”
Before he could blink, the woman was on him. Her hands on his head, she knocked him down to the ground, levering her weight on top of him. Ben didn’t even have time to gasp.
“I am the stuff of nightmares, Mr. Lavelle.” He had heard that phrase when Bryan had uttered it. It was obviously a favorite amongst the Conditioned.
She hadn’t lied. Within seconds of her hands colliding with his head, Ben couldn’t make out what was real and what wasn’t. His eyes filled with visions, and soon they were all he could see; they were all that was real in the world.
His girls were lost at sea. Surrounded by monsters, he couldn’t get to them. A giant snake lunged out of the water, aiming for Daphne. He screamed and tried to get to her, but he was powerless to move. His feet were glued to the ground as though they were roots from a strong tree that would never move.
“Daddy!” Daphne cried in anguish, tears in her eyes as the monster dragged her under.
Ella was next. This time the snake swallowed her whole before diving back into the dark depths, where he couldn’t follow.
The scene changed. Now he was on the floor of a hospital room. Ben only knew his location because of the smell of antiseptic. He’d never forget the overwhelming stench of chemical cleaning products from the time he’d spent with Dana in the hospital. The scents of the things that were meant to help people get healthy had come to represent death to him. He couldn’t do anything but lift his head to watch what happened.
Shiri lay strapped to the bed, restrained by her hands and feet. A man with a black mask approached her with a needle in hand.
“You have been sentenced to death.” The masked man’s voice sounded nonhuman, like it was part animal. Ben screamed for release. Why couldn’t he move? Why couldn’t he get to her? “Prepare to be judged by your maker.”
Twenty
Shiri struggled to get to her feet. Madame cackled like a deranged witch as she gripped Ben’s writhing body. What was she doing to him? Madame’s horrible abilities were infamous in the Institutions. If someone messed with her, she destroyed their mind—infested it with such frightening images that not everyone came back from the abyss where she’d taken them.
For years, Shiri had believed the woman’s own bullshit, that somehow she should be thanked for taking basic care of the people whose lives she had been entrusted with.
She had to get Ben away from her before it was too late to get him back. It took her a few seconds to orient herself to being upright before she could move. Her vision narrowed the longer she stared at Madame. No one got to hurt Ben. Too much had happened, too much had been taken from her. Ben would not be one of those things.
It seemed obvious to Shiri what she was supposed to do. Her body knew what to do even as her mind railed against the thought. Almost by its own volition, her hand reached out in Madame’s direction.
She took in and expelled ghost energy, played with it. Earlier that day she’d shown Madame that she could push it out onto other people. But the real reason Madame had been afraid of her was because of what Shiri had always known she could do—even as she’d refused to do it.
But not anymore. There were lots of kinds of energy in the world. Shiri could touch all of it. And she was going to take Madame’s life energy.
As if thinking it could make it happen, Shiri felt the power move through her fingers. Madame gasped and tried to turn around, but Shiri’s energy drain kept her pinned where she was.
“You can’t kill me. You’re not built to kill.” Madame’s voice barely registered above a squeak.
“I couldn’t have until you harmed him.” Shiri sighed. “Now I don’t even feel sorry.”
She didn’t lie, ever. Madame’s death might creep up on her later as a regret or a guilt that bothered her, but right now she just wanted it over with.
“What about Heaven? God won’t forgive you for this.”
“I don’t know what God does or does not want from me. But you’re going to know what the divine thinks about you sooner than I will.”
For years, Hell terrified her. She’d have done anything to avoid it. But now? She was more afraid of living the rest of her life worried about the small woman whose only real accomplishment involved abusing others.
Scenes from Ben’s torture filled her mind. Shiri wasn’t sure why she was receiving Madame’s imagery, but then again, she’d never taken someone’s life energy before. She could see what Madame made him see. Visions of herself being executed, his girls dying, his brother being gunned down as he was powerless to do anything about it made her want to gag. Yes, this woman was a cancer to the world. She needed to be cut out of it.
As quickly as it had begun, it ended. Madame slumped down on top of Ben. Shiri could feel the other woman’s life-force slip through her like so much dust in the wind. If she left part of herself behind as ghost energy, someone else could deal with it. Shiri had handled enough of Madame’s energy to last a lifetime.
Shiri shuddered. She didn’t feel regret about what she’d done. By contrast, she felt relieved. But it had taken a tremendous amount out of her. Between taking care of Madame and the mental beating the Fury had been giving her, Shiri wasn’t sure she could keep her eyes open for another second.
She kneeled down, wanting to be close to Ben’s warmth. Gently, she shook him. “Ben.” Her voice was hard to make out even to her own ears.
She tried again.
“Ben. Wake up, please.”
For a second, she thought he wasn’t going to open his eyes. Maybe she’d been too late. Maybe it had taken her too long and he would be forever lost to Madame’s madness, even with his assailant dead. Finally, when she thought she would just close her eyes and let fate take her wherever it want
ed, his eyelids opened.
He stared blankly at the ceiling. Was he really there, or were his eyes still unseeing? Using the last of her energy, she reached out to stroke the side of his face.
His head turned, and he blinked several times quickly as he stared at her. She wanted to smile but she didn’t have the strength.
“Seven?” His voice sounded like a croak, and he cleared his throat. She wouldn’t have corrected him even if she could manage to speak. He could call her whatever he wanted.
He turned his head, and realization spread across his expression that Madame was dead. He pushed her dead body off his own, a feat Shiri hadn’t been able to manage herself.
It would have taken too much coordination.
“Did you do this?”
Shiri wasn’t sure she managed a nod, but she must have. He grabbed his head.
“You rescued me. I came here to save you and you saved me instead.”
That was debatable. She’d been unconscious and he’d rescued her from her captors. That he had even managed to get into this place seemed a miracle. In any case, she didn’t care who had rescued whom; she just wanted to sleep.
“We have to get out of here.”
Ben staggered to his feet. Sweat creased his brow, and she wondered how he had managed to stand up. Most people took months to recover from one of Madame’s assaults. The images Ben had seen would have sidelined her from thinking, let alone moving. Yet Ben still managed to cope. Her love for him surged inside her. Even if he didn’t feel the same, she knew she could subsist on how she felt in that moment for the rest of her life if she needed to.
Nothing could happen to him. “Go.”
It was a miracle she’d managed that word. Nothing else mattered. He would be safe. Madame was finally gone. She could sleep now.
Illicit Connections (Illicit Minds Book 2) Page 20