Dark Spy Conscripted

by I. T. Lucas

  It was the same speech as last week, only delivered by a different instructor. They’d had Shannon, the fitness teacher, accompany them the other time.

  Richard took her hand. “Where would you like to go?”

  “Jacki and I want to check out the clothing discount store.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  Crap. That wasn’t good.

  She smiled and kissed his cheek. “That’s so sweet of you to offer, but we are going to the intimates sections to stock up on panties and bras. You’ll get nasty looks from the ladies shopping there.” She leaned to whisper in his ear. “They’ll think you are a pervert checking out female lingerie.”

  He pulled her closer to him. “I’ve shopped for lingerie before, and no one gave me nasty looks.”

  Jacki turned around and pinned him with a hard stare. “You are really thick, Richard. Jin is trying to be nice about it, but the truth is that I don’t want you hanging around when I’m trying bras on.” She followed Wendy down the steps.

  Richard frowned. “You should have said so in the first place.”

  “I’m saying it now. Isn’t there a hardware store you want to visit? I’m sure you’ll find it more interesting than lingerie.”

  Richard pretended offense. “That’s such a sexist thing to say. I’m going to report you to the PC police.”

  The four of them were the last ones on the sidewalk, and Jin glanced around, checking for her sister even though she doubted Jacki’s vision was going to come true today.

  “Can I come with you?” Wendy asked.

  “Do you need to shop for tools?” Richard winked at her.

  She rolled her eyes. “No, I want to go with Jin and Jacki to try on bras.”

  He put a hand over his chest. “No one wants to be with me. I’m deeply hurt.”

  Letting out a breath, Wendy threaded her arm through his. “Fine, I’ll come with you. But on one condition.”

  “Name it.”

  “You buy me ice cream later.”

  “You’ve got yourself a deal.” He started walking, then looked over his shoulder at Jin and Jacki. “And you two aren’t getting any because you are a couple of meanies.”

  Laughing, Jin sent him an air kiss.

  “Oof.” Jacki let out a breath. “That was a close call. We don’t want either of them hanging out with us.”

  As a pang of sorrow speared through Jin’s heart, she ran after the two and pulled them both into a quick hug. “Now, am I getting ice cream?” She tried to cover up for her emotional outburst.

  Richard let go of Wendy and pulled Jin against his chest. “A kiss, and it’s yours.”

  15

  Mey

  Mey tapped her foot on the floor and looked out the café’s window. It was across the street from the main entrance to the mall, which was where the bus was supposedly going to drop the trainees off.

  Hopefully.

  The driver might deviate from his routine and drop them off at the parking lot in the back or next to one of the other entrances. And that wasn’t the only problem. Lokan was late. He’d been supposed to be there over half an hour earlier.

  Mey and her team had arrived early, right when the café had opened, and no other customers were there yet. As soon as they’d entered, Yamanu had shrouded the place, making it look as if it was closed so no one else would come in. Kian had taken care of the two guys behind the counter, thralling them to ignore their group and the lack of incoming customers.

  They were in an invisible bubble, watching the street, and waiting for her sister to arrive.

  “Where is Lokan? He should have been here already.” She looked at Kian. “Can you call him?”

  “He’ll be here at any moment. Carol texted me that they were stuck in traffic, leaving Washington. A three-car collision was blocking two lanes of the freeway.”

  Arwel lifted a brow. “Is Carol coming with him?”

  Kian chuckled. “You know Carol, she wouldn’t want to miss out on all the excitement.”

  Mey appreciated having another woman on the team. Carol had been very helpful with Eleanor’s interrogation, and they had been lucky that she’d shown up with Lokan. She might be helpful again, and Mey was glad Carol hadn’t asked anyone’s permission to join.

  As wonderful as her mate, Arwel, and Kian were, they were a bunch of chauvinists who preferred to leave the women behind, where they knew they were safe.

  The only reason Mey was included, grudgingly, was because she’d convinced Kian that Jin wouldn’t come willingly without her there. They could have used compulsion or thralling to make Jin cooperate, but that was riskier. No one knew for sure whether Jin was susceptible to thralling, and it was better not to take a chance.

  Mey’s presence guaranteed that Jin would at least listen to what they had to say.

  As the door opened and Carol walked in with Lokan, Mey puffed out a relieved breath.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Carol said. “I guess we arrived on time, though.” She glanced out the window. “Since we cleared the traffic jam, Lokan has been driving like a maniac. I don’t know how we weren’t pulled over by the police.”

  Lokan pulled out a chair for her. “I told you that you had nothing to worry about. I’m an excellent driver.”

  “Of course, you are, my love.” She sent him an air kiss.

  Now six people were looking out the window, but only two were anxious. She and Arwel.

  Mey didn’t need a paranormal empathic ability to sense the Guardian’s inner turmoil. Even her pre-transition human senses would have picked it up.

  For some reason, Arwel had been off since that morning. His usual long-suffering expression had been replaced with a determined one that Mey hadn’t seen on him before. Usually, he was such a mellow guy, but now he was buzzing with barely suppressed energy as if he was preparing for battle.

  Was he sensing something the others were not?

  Being a powerful empath, his senses were probably reaching far and wide, and he was collecting information that was not accessible to the others.

  “What’s the matter, Arwel?” Mey asked. “You seem on edge.”

  He cast her a scowling look. “I’m getting ready for surprises. I don’t trust our source as far as I can throw her.”

  Everyone agreed with him. Marisol was a rotten person through and through, but that was nothing new. Something else was going on, and Mey wondered whether Julian had hit the nail on the head with his remark about Arwel being infatuated with Jin.

  Mey stifled a smile. She couldn’t have chosen a better mate for her sister if she’d tried. The question was whether Jin would feel the same about Arwel.

  The girl was extremely picky when it came to guys she dated. Her list of requirements was ten pages long, and no living man could match them all. Arwel was very handsome, and he was a couple of inches taller than Jin, but was he tall enough? Was he too mellow? Not mellow enough?

  Mey sighed. If Jin stuck to her list, she was going to remain single forever, but not if Mey had a say in it. The moment Jin was safe with them, she was going to put her matchmaker hat on and go to work.

  “A minibus is pulling up,” Yamanu said. “Did Eleanor say a bus or minibus?”

  Mey’s heartbeat accelerated. Could this be it? Was she going to see Jin?

  From where they were sitting, they had a perfect viewing angle of the vehicle, but they couldn’t see the people getting off until they took several steps toward the entrance.

  The first two were a couple holding hands; following them were a boy who looked to be no more than twelve and a girl who was a little older. Those couldn’t be the people from the program. They were probably a family, a mom, a dad, and their two kids.

  Mey sank back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s not them.”

  “I think it is,” Arwel growled as if he was ready to tear someone’s throat out.

  Lifting her head, Mey looked at the sidewalk again, and her breath caught in her throat.
Was the girl who was passionately kissing a guy her sister?

  She was tall, and her long dark hair was gathered in a ponytail, but with her face glued to the guy’s, it was hard to tell for sure. Except, Mey recognized the blouse Jin was wearing. It was one of the many she’d borrowed from her and had never returned.

  Pushing to her feet, she was about to run out when Yamanu pulled her back down. “Not yet. We have to wait for them to go in.”

  “They have children in that fucking program,” Kian spat. “Did you see that boy? He looks to be Parker’s age or younger.”

  “And the girl looks no more than fifteen or sixteen,” Carol commented. “Eleanor said nothing about kids.”

  “Of course not,” Arwel hissed. “She didn’t want us to think any worse of her than we already do.”

  “Can we get them out?” Carol asked.

  “I wish we could.” Kian looked out the window, watching the group enter the mall. “But we can’t, and not only for security reasons.” He turned to look at Carol. “The kids didn’t sign the contracts, their parents did, either under compulsion or not. Their families probably depend on the contract money. Once the training is over, they will get to see their children again. The best we can do is to keep tabs on them and approach them when they are adults.”

  “By then, it’ll be too late,” Carol said. “They will be fully indoctrinated. But you are right. There is nothing we can do.”

  16

  Arwel

  As Arwel tried and failed to stifle the growl that had started deep in his throat, Anandur got up.

  “I’m going for the bus.”

  Strolling casually in a wide circle, he walked up to the rear of the vehicle and attached the tracker.

  “It’s a shame that we will have to remove it once the driver’s memory is taken care of,” Kian said.

  Following the signal back to the base would have given them valuable information, but they couldn’t chance it being discovered. It was supposed to look as if Jin had just decided to run on her own and hadn’t been aided by anyone.

  Although, given the fervor with which she was kissing that dude, Arwel was afraid that Jin might refuse to leave even after Lokan freed her from Marisol’s compulsion. She wouldn’t want to part with her new boyfriend.

  Except, if the guy were dead, she wouldn’t have a reason to stay, which Arwel could arrange.

  Damn. Where had this rage come from?

  So what if Jin was kissing some dude? She didn’t know Arwel, nor was it her fault that he had developed an idiotic, totally unwarranted obsession with her. She didn’t owe him a thing.

  What the hell was wrong with him?

  He was so agitated that even Mey’s anxiousness didn’t register until she put a shaky hand on his arm.

  “Can we go now? Yamanu will shroud us, so there is no point in waiting until they enter the mall.”

  “Two more minutes.” Arwel glanced at Kian, who nodded his approval. “It’s better to wait for everyone in the group to get inside first and disperse. Some of them might be immune, and I prefer to have the cover of other people when we follow them.”

  He also needed a moment or two to regain control. If he got out now, he was bound to attack the boyfriend.

  Her lips drawn in a tight line, Mey nodded.

  Closing his eyes, Arwel took a deep breath and then another, forcing himself to relax. After the mission was over, he was going to schedule a session with Vanessa because it seemed like he was finally losing his fucking mind. Centuries of suffering the onslaught of human emotions hadn’t broken him. Still, one look at a picture of a pretty face apparently had.

  But maybe it was just the last straw.

  Going on two missions back to back meant that Arwel hadn’t been drinking to drown the emotions of others, and dealing with that while sober had taken its toll. On top of that, he also hadn’t had sex for far too long.

  Was it a wonder that he was at breaking point?

  A vacation was in order, a real one. Yeah, a few sessions with Vanessa and some time off would do the trick.

  In the meantime, though, he had to get his head in the game.

  As the last of the bus's passengers got out, and it drove away, Yamanu got up. “Let’s move.”

  Fortunately for everyone involved, Jin had parted with her boyfriend at the entrance, and while the guy and the brown-haired girl continued in one direction, Jin and the blonde went in another.

  Arwel and Yamanu walked behind the two, while Mey, Lokan, and Carol headed toward the restrooms where Arwel was going to later send Jin with a thrall.

  It should have been easy for him to sense Jin’s feelings and figure out how deeply she felt about the boyfriend, but he couldn’t get a grip on them. First of all, she wasn’t projecting much, and secondly, he was too worked up to make sense of what she was feeling.

  Mostly, she was anxious.

  Or maybe Arwel was projecting his own emotions onto her?

  His empathic ability had always been too strong, but today it was malfunctioning. He couldn’t read the blonde at all, and what little he was getting from Jin didn’t match her expression or her behavior.

  Joking and laughing with her friend as if she had no worries in the world, Jin didn’t seem anxious at all.

  He felt a nearly unstoppable urge to reach into her mind and dig around for information about the boyfriend, and also to check whether she was anxious or not.

  But that was wrong, and it wasn’t sanctioned. All he was supposed to do was thrall her, planting the need to visit the bathroom.

  Except, as the two entered a department store and headed for the lingerie department, the blonde turned around and looked at him and Yamanu. Her eyes widening in appreciation, a flirtatious smirk lifted one corner of her mouth.

  She shouldn’t have been able to see them through Yamanu’s shroud, but she obviously did.

  Jin’s friend was an immune, and that complicated everything.

  “Drop the shroud,” he whispered as the blonde nudged Jin and motioned at them with her head.

  If Jin couldn’t see what her friend was seeing, it would alarm both of them. Since they were aware of paranormal abilities, they were not going to dismiss it.

  Instead, Yamanu grabbed his elbow, turned them around, and ducked behind a clothing rack before Jin had a chance to turn her head.

  “Do it now,” Yamanu whispered. “Send her to the bathroom.”

  Arwel couldn’t figure out why Yamanu hadn’t just dropped the shroud, but he did as his friend suggested, planting in Jin’s mind an urgent need to pee.

  “Oh, crap.” She crossed her legs and started rocking in place. “I need to find a bathroom right now, or I’m going to wet the floor.”

  “There is one a two-minute walk away,” the blonde said and threaded her arm through Jin’s, leading her back the way they’d come.

  Jin hissed. “I hope I make it.”

  As the two rushed out, Yamanu called Mey. “Jin is on her way to the bathroom, but she has her friend with her. The bad news is that the friend is an immune.”

  17

  Jin

  Jin felt like any moment now, she was going to embarrass herself.

  That would be just great. She would have to purchase new clothes and dump what she was wearing in the trash because there was no way she was lugging around a shopping bag with pee-soaked pants and panties.

  Gross.

  “I don’t know why I need to pee so badly. I only had one small bottle of water on the bus.”

  “Let me distract you.” Jacki lengthened her strides. “Did you catch a glimpse of the two hunks that were walking behind us?”

  “What hunks?”

  “You must have missed them by a second. I think they are the ones I’ve seen in my vision together with your sister. The tall one for sure. That’s one hell of a mouthwatering specimen of manhood.”

  Right now, the last thing Jin cared about was some hunky dudes that Jacki had dreamt up. All she was interested in was
the bathroom sign, which was glowing about fifteen feet away.

  “Salvation is near.” She pulled her arm out of Jacki’s and ran the rest of the way, barreling into the first stall and pulling her pants down before even closing the door.

  “Thank God,” she breathed as the pressure eased.

  She’d been expecting to pee gallons, but surprisingly there wasn’t that much.

  Damn, could she be coming down with a urinary tract infection?

  The uncontrollable need to pee was one of the symptoms. Still, absent was the stabbing pain and the burning sensation that usually accompanied it.

  Hopefully it wasn’t that because it couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Nothing other than antibiotics would help with that damn infection, and spending the rest of the day in excruciating pain would be a nightmare.

  Except, Doctor Roberts could probably write her a prescription. It was such a stroke of good luck that he’d accompanied them on the outing.

  Outside, she heard Jacki ask someone what she was looking for.

  “I lost a contact lens, and it’s impossible to find it on these blue tiles.” The woman sounded distraught.

  “When did you notice that it was missing?” Jacki asked.

  “It was right outside the bathroom when I rubbed my eyes, and I felt it pop out. Usually, it just gets caught on my clothes, so I came in here to look for it in a better light. I swear that I heard it fall and hit the tile, but I can’t find it.”

  “Show me where you were when you rubbed your eye.”

  “Right outside the bathroom. Thank you so much for helping me. I’m blind without it, and it’s really hard to find something when you can’t see.”

  “No problem, I’m glad to help.” Jin heard two sets of footsteps walk away from her.

  As one of the stall doors opened, and someone walked out without flushing the toilet, Jin shook her head. Some people were just gross. A moment later that same someone walked over to her door and knocked. “Jin, it’s me, Mey. Open up.”