Lunatic Fringe

by TL Schaefer

  I may not want to spend any time thinking about what drove Heath Farrell, but I could be happy he was here, and on my side, even if his influence seemed to have waned.

  It went against my nature to trust, to invest in anything but my child, especially if his actions had put her in harm’s way, but something made me go there. Even as I was ready to destroy him if I had to.

  "Is there any way we can use Grace’s position at the top of the food chain to help us out?" Kavenaugh brought up a fact most of us had forgotten in the last few months. Heath's half-sister was loaded and one of the most influential people in Denver. Hell, in the Rockies.

  When everything had started to go south seven months ago, Heath and Trang had stayed with her while we went after Dave Gordon. I didn't know how much she could help but asking certainly couldn't hurt.

  Then Heath blew that idea away.

  "Grace and I don't exactly see eye to eye," he said, his lips twisting in a grimace of what looked like distaste. “We didn't part on the best of terms seven months ago, after everyone went home."

  Well damn. But at least we were thinking outside the box while the computer analysts tried to find a pattern of kids who'd disappeared.

  "When Hugh left me CASI, and Grace the rest of his fortune and holdings, she wasn't happy," he admitted. I could see what it was costing him to open up that much and wondered why he was doing it. "She's always been fascinated by Talented people, as a child had a minor Talent of her own of verbal control, but never enough to be worrisome. Honestly, I think she was pissed that he left me anything."

  The rest of the crew turned interested faces toward him, even Joe. And I understood why he was sharing. He was trying to re-establish some trust with people who thought he'd betrayed them seven months ago.

  His omission on Dave Gordon being alive had certainly been a blow to his credibility, and I had to wonder how much of it had been Heath, and how much had been Trang trying to cover his boss's ass by keeping him in the dark.

  While I wasn't overly interested in giving Heath credit he didn't deserve, it hadn't seemed in character for him then, and it didn't now. But at the time, we'd all been pissed, and rightfully so.

  "Do you think this'll ever end?" Arin asked the question, and while her tone was one hundred percent FBI agent, I could hear the concern. Jonah was her lover, and he was in this as deeply as the rest of us.

  "I don't know," Heath said, and dragged a hand over his face, sounding more tired than I'd ever heard him. "When Hugh started CASI, it was to make a safe place for Talented kids, where they didn't have to worry about government or corporate interference. It's why he loaded so much of his fortune in the Foundation. But in today's information environment, you can't keep things like CASI secret. I'm surprised some reporter hasn't already done an expose on CASI. It's something we've been prepared for. It might even be the best thing, to bring the Talented out into the open. It might actually help, if kids knew where to go."

  He wasn't wrong, but I could easily see the government and for-profit entities beginning a whole new type of warfare with the Talented. The thought made a shiver go down my spine. From the expressions on my crew's faces, their thoughts had gone in the same direction as mine and found the results just as distasteful.

  The cold, hard truth was that it was likely already occurring, whether within our government or another. The Talented existed. Now we had to find a way to protect ourselves.

  Chapter Nine

  WHAT CAME BEFORE...

  “I just don’t think the military is right for you, Monica.” Mama was verging on tears, though she’d never admit it. These weren’t tears of frustration, but of a real fear. I understood some of it. We’d become really close after Papa died, more like sisters than mother and daughter, especially given her young age. But I had a life to live too, a future to conquer. And I couldn’t do it stuck in dusty old Waco. No matter how much she wanted me to.

  “Mama, I just can’t stay here. The military will give me skills, and pay for my college later, when I figure out what I want to do.” I wasn’t telling her anything we hadn’t already discussed, ad nauseum. This time I was standing in front of her with a suitcase. “Besides, I’ve already made the commitment to enlist. It’ll be good for me to learn something new.”

  “I know, baby, but I’ll worry about you so much.” She threw her arms around me.

  “I’ll probably get a desk job or something, Ma. Heck, I’ll bet you after I finish basic training, I’ll get sent to someplace way safer than Dallas.”

  That made her smile. As much as she didn’t want me to join the military, she wanted the big city of Dallas to swallow me even less.

  A horn tooted outside—my ride—and I picked up my suitcase and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll call you as soon as I can, okay?”

  The tears overflowed now, trickling down her cheeks in a shining trail. “I love you Moni-bear. You stay safe, and come back to me soon, you hear?”

  Then she was pushing the screen door open and I stood on the porch of our tiny little shotgun house, one amongst many in the rundown neighborhood.

  “I love you, Mama,” I shouted through the car’s open window, trying to stifle tears of my own.

  It’d been Mama and I for years, so long I didn’t know anything else. Years where she held down three jobs while I worked two and tried my hardest to pull down a scholarship. Years we barely scraped by, no matter how hard we tried. Now I might have a way to help her, to repay her for everything she’d sacrificed for me. And dammit, I’d make it work.

  I leaned against the headrest and shot a sidelong glance at my driver.

  I wasn’t the type for best friends, but Carrie-Sue and I had been in each other’s hip pockets since Papa died, and Mama and I had moved into the neighborhood.

  Tears glistened in her blue eyes too, but we both knew I had to do this. Had to get out, any way I could. And hopefully I’d bring Mama out with me a bit later. It was my true goal, though I’d never admit it to her.

  “You’ll be careful, won’t you?” Carrie-Sue reached out to grasp my hand.

  “I’ll be as careful as old Mr. Winterbourne,” I promised, referring to the stodgiest of our teachers, the man who never took a chance, never cracked a smile. Then I settled my eyes on the road unfurling before us, unfurling into something shiny and new.

  Now... Denver

  The boutique hotel we bedded down in was Joe’s doing. Nothing but the very best for my ex. I couldn’t really complain; I’d become used to creature comforts after Joe and I got married, even if part of me still longed for the simplicity of the Air Force, of a mission that was easy to understand and navigate. Now I didn’t know up from down, and it made me so very, very tired.

  I took a ridiculously hot shower and felt some of the guilt wash away. Not much, but enough that it didn’t feel as if my back was going to break.

  I had my laptop open when someone tapped on my door.

  Joe. Had to be. It was time for round two. I dreaded it, but it had to be done.

  A room service waiter had a cart stationed by the door.

  “I didn’t order room service,” I said, but damned if it didn’t smell good. My stomach growled and I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten.

  “Mr. Foudy arranged for dinner for each of you,” he nodded down the hall, toward my companion’s doors. “He thought you’d like a burger.”

  Joe knew me well. I pushed open the door and allowed him into the room.

  “After dinner, Mr. Foudy asked that you join him in the library.” He consulted his watch. “Around eight-thirty, unless that doesn’t give you enough time.”

  “I’ll be there,” I said, and let him out. I’d been on one too many deployments to not know how to wolf down a meal. But half an hour gave me time to enjoy the food before heading downstairs.

  Joe was likely buttering me up, for what I had no earthly idea. He had custody of Tori. He held all the cards, and I wouldn’t begrudge him that hand. Once we
found Tori, we’d go back to normal. Or at least as normal as it could be.

  I needed to figure out how to control my empathy, because knowing I had this gift didn’t change the reality we’d all been living in before we gained that knowledge. I’d likely still wake screaming from dreams not remembered if the CBD oil hadn’t panned out. And until I could live in a home and not scare the crap out of my kid, she’d stay with Joe and Elizabeth and Lawrence.

  I dove into the food, enjoying the burger and fries more than I’d thought I would. The food warmed me from the inside out, making things just a little less ominous.

  I’d deal with Joe, we’d figure this all out.

  I took the stairs to the lobby, still feeling all warm and fuzzy and mellow. I should have been worried about the coming confrontation, but Joe yelling at me seemed to be something to worry about down the road. Not now, when I felt so good.

  The library was a wood-paneled reader’s dream. Heath sat at one of the ornate wooden tables dotting the room, looking almost as relaxed as I felt. Huh. This couldn’t be good. Not if Joe had summoned both of us.

  I pulled out a chair and settled in. A comfortable silence stretched between Heath and me. It was odd, since there’d never been much that was comfortable when we were in the same room together.

  Then his eyes met mine and it was as if all the air in the room vanished. The ice that always seemed to shroud his gaze went white-hot. His lips tightened, as if he were fighting against something, maybe against saying something, anything.

  Lust swept through me, hot and more potent than anything I’d ever felt in my life. I swallowed roughly, and his gaze tracked down, following the motion like a caress before settling on my lips.

  The ornate grandfather clock in the entryway chimed the half hour, and as if by magic, a man materialized in the doorway, shrouded in shadow.

  “Stay seated and don’t speak. Hands on the arms of your chairs, feet flat on the floor,” he said, his voice low and flat. Not menacing, exactly, more businesslike than anything. It yanked me out of my hormonal haze.

  Heath’s head snapped back as if he’d been hit.

  The man stepped into the light and it took me a second to place him. It was the room service waiter from earlier, but now wearing jeans and a hoodie instead of a uniform. I shot a glance to Heath and he looked just as puzzled as I did. Just as normal, as if what had swept over us seconds ago had never happened.

  We kept our seats when we should have been standing, falling into the defensive. Or at least that’s what my instincts told me to do. But I stayed, butt glued to the chair.

  The man moseyed over and grabbed my cell phone. “Gonna set this up nice and easy. You two went out on a lead together. Everyone will buy that, right?” He started typing in a text. “Let’s see, half an hour ought to do it. And now to set the delay, and voila.” His tone was almost jovial now, as if this was all highly amusing to him.

  I sat, immobile in my chair, and a familiar feeling of despair washed over me. It was Simple Simon. Jesus, we’d been dosed with a mind control drug. The fucking burgers. They’d laced the burgers, given it just enough time to take effect.

  Everything in me screamed to get up, to knock him on his ass, to sound the alarm, but just like that day six months ago, I was utterly helpless, at their mercy. But now so was Heath.

  His expression was murderous, and from the glance he cut my way, I could see he’d figured it out as well. But he still couldn’t really move more than his head, just like me.

  “All righty,” our kidnapper said, “Let’s get this show on the road.” He walked to a row of windows and opened a previously unseen set of French doors. “Out you go. Nice and easy to the van at the end of the drive.”

  We stood and followed his directions, as if we were marionettes. Inside, I was fighting to do something, anything, to break his control, but it was useless. He’d dosed us with enough to make us completely and totally suggestible. Fuck. I hadn’t felt this helpless since Denver, when I’d been under the influence of the same goddamned drug.

  Beside me I could hear Heath grinding his teeth. His jaw was rock-hard, but his steps were sure beside mine.

  We walked to the end of the driveway shrouded by trees, and I cursed Joe’s need to have the top-of-the line everything. The bed and breakfast was secluded, so much so that unless someone happened to be looking out the window at the exact right angle, no one would see us leave.

  My text message would go through and enrage Joe so much that he wouldn’t question that I’d never leave without the rest of them, especially with Heath.

  We stood at the van doors now, and a sense of hopelessness dropped over me. Jesus. This was actually going to work.

  “Into the van you go,” our abductor said, almost laughing with glee as he opened the side panel doors and urged us inside, to sit on the floor. “This is going to get me a massive bonus.”

  The door slid shut and we were cloaked in darkness until he slid into the driver’s seat. “Sleep.”

  And we did.

  I SAT UPRIGHT, HEART racing, a scream hovering on my lips, staring into a darkness so pitch black it was fathomless.

  The nightmare was imprinted on my memory, of a dark, enclosed space, a sinister laugh on the other side of the door. Of hours spent hidden away like a nasty secret, and being able to do nothing about it. Of creepy crawlies with too many legs all around me until that was all I could feel. Until all my ten-year-old imagination could see was them, covering the walls, creeping toward me with fangs dripping.

  Jesus. I put a hand down on the bed, bracing myself, and instead of a comforter or sheets, my fingers met warm flesh. I swallowed another scream as the body next to me jerked in response.

  A second later I realized whomever I lay with wasn’t reeling from my touch, but from a nightmare. From the sound of it, a nightmare eerily similar to my own.

  I reached out again cautiously, until I could feel more, what turned out to be a male arm. I stroked my fingers over the crisp hair along my companion’s forearm, automatically murmuring meaningless comfort sounds.

  As the brain fog from my nightmare faded, I knew who lay against me, in the throes of a nightmare. Likely the same nightmare I’d just had, if our theories held any water.

  Heath. His scent surrounded me, and my fingers tingled with the contact of bare skin on bare skin.

  I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but right now Heath needed me, and I’d be there for him, just as he’d been there for me countless times, even though we’d both shrouded that concern in hostility.

  I felt him come out of the dream with a lunge and take a half swing at me. I ducked it, barely, by instinct alone, and fell off the side of the bed with a thump.

  His breath sawed the air, rough and choppy.

  “It’s okay, Heath,” I soothed. “You had a doozy of a nightmare.”

  “Monica?” For a second, his voice sounded just like the ten-year-old in the dream. “Did I hit you?”

  “No,” I said, climbing to my feet. Planting the soles of my shoes, then thinking with a start that I was still clothed, and so was Heath, from what I’d felt before I fell off the bed. Unfortunately, the only thing I’d taken with me to the library had been my phone, which was, unsurprisingly, nowhere to be found. Dollars to donuts Heath’s was missing as well. Because why would our captors give us any kind of advantage?

  My eyes were starting to acclimate to a sliver of low light shining beneath a doorjamb. “I just woke up too.”

  He drew in a deep breath, as if fortifying himself. Should I admit I’d been in his dream with him, that I’d felt what I was pretty sure was his terror? And then he was talking and the chance flitted away.

  “Fucking Simple Simon.” Now he sounded like the man I knew, with a barely restrained edge riding just beneath the surface. “Asshole used the same playbook from Tin Cup, just deployed Simple Simon instead of one of the Talented.” He stopped, as if he’d said too much. “Are you okay?”

  I had
no idea what he was referring to with Tin Cup, but we could get to that later.

  I took an internal inventory before answering him, and when I did, it was honestly. I wouldn’t deceive him. I was done with hiding this new part of myself away. “Yeah, bit of a headache, but the Simple Simon seems to have worn off. Oh, and I just had a doozy of a nightmare about spiders, but other than that I’m fine.”

  I felt him shrink back at my words, and a part of me died inside. It wasn’t as if I needed validation from Heath Farrell, of all people, but I’d just put a very vulnerable part of myself on the line and he’d let me down. It was more than disappointment, it was a deep sorrow I hadn’t felt in years. A regret that was fundamental on a level I couldn’t even name.

  I shook it off, squared my shoulders and stood, striding for the door, and tried the handle. We had more than my hurt feelings to contend with right now.

  Locked. Not that I was overly surprised.

  Then Heath was behind me, his hands settling on my shoulders. Heat speared through me and I stiffened. He didn’t get to touch me, not when he’d shied away just seconds ago.

  “I’m sorry,” his voice had lost some of the frost I usually associated with it. “My dreams are rarely happy places,” he admitted, “and it shook me to think I might have projected to you.”

  Could it be that simple? I doubted it, but I wasn’t going to argue with him right now. I stuffed down the feeling his mere touch inspired, shrugged away and swung around to face him, the basic outline of the room coming into focus now that I was paying attention. “Door’s locked.” Heath was a solid presence in front of me. I didn’t know what we were going to do from here, but he surely had an idea.

  He gave a soft grunt, as if something had struck him, then his hands were tangling in my hair and his lips descended on mine.

  As a first kiss, it obliterated anything I’d ever felt before. His lips were firm as he nibbled on mine, coaxing me into response. Sensation cascaded through me and I opened for him on a sigh and returned his kiss, as I’d wanted to do for so very long.