by Rose O'Brien
Jen took a lot of steps to avoid that fate. She wrote under several pen names and never used her real name on anything. She had layers of identities online and in the real world. Only her editors knew who she really was, and they were all stateside.
She had no idea who those guys had been or how they’d found her or what they wanted. It wasn’t like it really mattered, she supposed. Ditching her life was something she’d gotten good at over the last few years through plenty of practice. She had everything she needed: her camera, her laptop, her phone, and her wallet.
She had credentials and documents stashed in a safety deposit box at a bank in the Green Zone. There was nothing she needed in her apartment. She could walk away from that place and never look back, having learned a long time ago not to get attached to any material things.
She pushed the attack out of her mind. There was nothing she could do about that. She wasn’t going to worry about it. What she needed to worry about was checking in with her editors on the car bombing story.
While she’d been riding around town, she’d managed to file a preliminary story with the international desk at a major newspaper in New York using her smartphone. Thank goodness for technology.
Hauling herself from the bed, she fired up her laptop. There were several urgent emails from her editor. He wanted updates and the high-resolution photos.
She sent the photos and captions first so the art department could start processing those. They were using the pics she’d tweeted earlier as placeholders online and were eager to upgrade.
Next, she called her usual sources in the Baghdad police and emergency services department to update her info. Death toll was officially three, and no one had claimed responsibility for the bombing.
Jen glanced at her watch. It had been hours since the bombing. No one had claimed responsibility? Weird. Usually there was video from some psycho fundamentalist group posted by now.
The official line was that the investigation was ongoing.
She hammered out the updated story in about ten minutes and sent it off. Ten minutes after that, her editor had sent her a list of questions. She answered them, and the story was posted five minutes after that.
She updated her Twitter account with the latest info and a link to the story, then closed her laptop and headed downstairs.
Calling one of the young runners over, she handed him the equivalent of fifty dollars US. The kid was about fourteen, one of the many errand boys that hung out in the hotel to run messages or pick things up for the journalists and tourists that stayed here.
In Arabic she told him, “I need you to run out to a clothing store. Buy some pants like this.” She pointed to her khakis. “And some shirts like this,” she pointed to her T-shirt. She gave him the size. She gave a list of toiletries she’d need, too, and added socks and underwear to the list.
“I’ll get you a hairbrush, too,” he added.
She touched her frazzled braid and realized that she probably looked frightful. Yeah, not a bad idea. Nodding, she sent him on his way.
She thought about sending another errand boy for her scooter and decided against it. It could lead whoever was after her right here.
Back in her room, she hit the shower, eager to wash the fear sweat off her body. The water pressure left a lot to be desired, but that wasn’t unusual for this time of day. She was just lucky the water was on in this part of town right now. There were a lot of days when it wasn’t.
What she wouldn’t give for a hot, pounding shower. But she’d settle for a lukewarm trickle because that’s what was available. The story of her life.
As she washed, her fingers brushed the gold phoenix necklace she wore. It had been a gift from her mother, and she was relieved it was still with her after everything that had happened. The Chinese phoenix had been an important symbol to her mother. Jen took comfort in it. Even when the worst happened, it was possible to rise from the ashes.
Her mind raced with a list of things she needed to do, thoughts careening from one place to the next. Her apartment was a loss. She’d have to lease a new one.
Crap! There was probably at least one dead body in there, if her recollections were correct. The Baghdad police had their hands full and then some, but even that overworked department was going to notice a corpse.
She’d have to burn that identity.
What if the cops talked to her neighbors or the landlord? There weren’t exactly a lot of single Chinese-American women running around Baghdad. They might be able to track her down, and she really didn’t want to answer any questions.
Maybe it was time to leave town for a while. She’d been meaning to take a trip to Turkey to report on the continuing Syrian refugee crisis for a while. Now was as good a time as any. Hell, she was already packed.
Still in her towel, she hopped on her laptop and had a flight to Gaziantep out of Baghdad booked for two days later. She marveled at the ease with which she could just book a flight and go. Five years ago, that had not been the case. She’d been so broke when she’d first come to Baghdad, but she’d found surprising success as a freelance reporter and photographer.
If someone had told her five years ago that she would claw her way from dead broke to making more money than she ever had at her cushy reporting job at the L.A. Times, she would have laughed.
Anger rose like acid in her throat at the thought of her old life and the way it had all ended. That Jen was long gone. She pushed the thoughts away and emailed one of the editors she worked with in New York.
“Heading to Turkey to report on refugee crisis. Should arrive Thursday. I’m giving you first dibs on my stories,” she wrote.
The editor for the New York Times responded within two minutes.
“We’re relying on wire copy right now. I’ll buy anything you write and shoot. Usual rates. Can you give us an exclusive?”
She responded that she was happy to give the exclusive and that she would be in touch when she landed.
What a difference five years made. When she’d first come to Baghdad, she’d had a hard time selling her photos and stories to low-level outlets. Now, she had a direct line to one of the most desirable papers in the world.
But she would never let herself get comfortable again. She’d learned her lesson the hard way. She wasn’t on anyone’s staff, and she kept a stable of newspapers, magazines and broadcast outlets hungry for her work. She could never become dependent on anyone for a paycheck again.
Her runner arrived with two shopping bags and she handed him a few extra bills through the crack in the door so he didn’t see her in the towel. Slipping the bags through, she shut the door and flipped the lock. She popped tags off a tank top and ripped open a package of cotton briefs before slipping on a pair.
A knock sounded at the door. Had the runner forgotten something?
Later on, she would realize that she didn’t check the peephole. Stupid move. She’d assumed she knew who it was and that it was safe here in the hotel. What was that old saying about assumptions?
As she opened the door, she found herself looking at a very broad chest. As her eyes traveled upwards, she registered the indigo gaze, the blonde hair.
The firestarter.
Her eyes snapped wide in panic and she opened her mouth to scream, but his hand shot out and clamped like an iron band over the lower half of her face. In a split second, she was shoved backward through the door and up against the wall of her room.
The door slammed shut behind them.
Those eyes were inches from hers. The breath was frozen in her lungs.
His voice was low and dark.
“We need to talk.”
***
Theron looked into the seer’s dark eyes and realized that he had probably made a terrible mistake.
While she had shown the appropriate amount of fear for a moment, those eyes were narrowed and focused like lasers on him now. A frightening intelligence was working in those shadowy depths, likely planning his death. Or castration.
But he lived his life on a philosophy of “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,” and he wasn’t dead yet, so he was sticking with it.
“I’m going to say three things, and then I’ll take my hand off your face. I’m begging you not to scream,” he told her in a low voice. “One, I swear on my mother’s life I’m not here to hurt you. Two, I saved you from getting kidnapped by some really scary dudes, so I’m hoping that buys me just a little consideration. And three, we have a severely limited amount of time to get you out of here and to a safe location before more bad guys show up.”
He gave her a steady look and he slowly took his hand away from her mouth. Her jaw looked like it was clenched hard enough to crack teeth, and her eyes flashed with anger. She was breathing hard. That’s when he noticed she was only wearing a tank top and underwear, and her legs were bare.
Theron’s brain ground to a halt for a second at that sight. That was all the opening she needed.
Her little bare foot lashed out in a well-placed kick to the side of his knee that could have shattered the joint. Luckily, he was able to shift his weight and take the blow on his calf. He grunted at the impact and scrambled to grab her as she tried to dodge around him to the door.
There was no way she was getting past him, though. His shoulders had only a few inches of clearance on either side of the mini hallway and his back was almost to the door. His hands clamped around her biceps, but her skin was still wet from the shower and she had used some sort of girlie lotion crap, causing his fingers to slip. It was like trying to catch a greased pig.
“Just listen to me! I’m here to help you!”
She ignored him and tried to kick him in the balls. He was able to take that blow on the thigh. He didn’t realize he’d picked a fight with a martial arts expert and he was going to walk away from this encounter with some serious bruises.
Thankfully, she hadn’t started screaming yet. He hadn’t been kidding about having limited time before another round of bad guys showed up. He’d been able to track her. There was nothing stopping the men he’d been after from doing the same. They could be here, even now.
He hated to do this, but he was running out of choices.
Reaching in his pocket, he cracked a plastic capsule in his fist, filling it with Svarturan knockout dust. He took a deep breath and blew across his palm, filling her face with the stuff. She fell to the carpet in a sprawl that somehow managed to be graceful
He felt like the world’s biggest asshole. This woman had been attacked in her home and had a stranger barge into her hotel room while she was partly undressed. She must have been terrified and he couldn’t blame her for the ass kicking she’d tried to give him. And he’d just drugged her into unconsciousness. He was so going to hell for this. Just add this to his long list of sins and screwups. One more thing for his guilt to feed on.
He just hoped it was worth it.
Careful not to breathe in the knockout powder, he knelt beside her. Glossy black hair, damp from a shower, pooled around her head and contrasted against tanned skin. A dusting a barely-there freckles highlighted high cheekbones. Her body was slender, almost willowy. If she hadn’t just tried to beat the life out of him, he might have said she looked fragile lying there. She fought like a much larger person.
A spark of awareness flared inside him and he pushed it away. Objectively, she was a beautiful woman and he was a sucker for a gal who knew how to throw a punch. But this was the absolute worst timing. Trouble was hot on their heels and they’d both be lucky to survive the next few hours. He sighed and only blushed a little as he started looking around for her pants.
***
The first thing that Jen became aware of was a pounding headache. The second thing she noticed was that she was moving.
Her eyes snapped open, and she immediately wished they hadn’t. Even in the dim light, the headache ratcheted up several notches, causing her to moan and grip her skull.
“Mornin’ sleepyhead,” a low voice drawled with a barely perceptible twang. “Drink this.”
A plastic water bottle hit her left palm. She eyed it through narrowed lids but decided it was probably a safe bet since it was still sealed. With a shaking hand, she reached to twist off the cap. And came up short.
Frowning, she looked down and saw that her right wrist was handcuffed to a door handle. And she was in the front passenger seat of some kind of SUV or truck. It was moving. Where were they going?
It was dark outside the windows. How long had she been out? There were lights from buildings and homes and streetlights overhead. They were still in the city, then.
Fuzzy brain rattling with questions, she paused for a second before she figured out that she needed to move the bottle closer to her right hand so she could open it.
The water was the best thing she’d ever tasted.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “Svarturan knockout powder can leave you with one hell of a hangover. But the water will clear it up pretty quick.”
Jen continued to chug, letting the water slide down her throat in big gulps. As she drank, she looked sidelong at the man in the driver’s seat. Blond hair, dark blue eyes, black clothes. Yup. Same room-crashing asshole as before.
As she finished the bottle of water, she calmly put the little plastic cap back on it. And proceeded to hit him in the head with it over and over.
“Ow! Hey, quit it! I’m trying to drive here!”
“Fuck you!” Jen shouted, slamming her booted foot against the floorboard. “Fuck your handcuffs! And fuck your god damned driving skills!”
Unfortunately, the bottle was one of the thin plastic ones, so it crumpled on impact and didn’t do any damage.
The guy actually had the nerve to laugh.
“That’s some mouth there, princess.”
She threw the water bottle at him and went after him with her nails. Her kidnapper was in the process of taking her someplace. She wasn’t going to let him. Better to make him kill her on the street than to get wherever it was they were going. They’d find her body on the side of the road, but that was better than getting murdered on camera.
“Shit, lady! What the hell?”
The blond jerked the wheel and pulled to a stop.
“You’re going to have to kill me here,” she growled as his hands clamped around her wrist, holding her slashing nails at bay.
She met those stunning indigo eyes for the first time since he’d pushed inside her hotel room and that gaze locked her in place for a moment. Was this what the mouse felt like when it looked into the mesmerizing eyes of the cobra?
“I don’t want to kill you,” he said slowly. “For the last time, I’m here to help you.”
He released her and held his hands up. She rubbed her wrist, not taking her eyes off him.
“Kidnapping and help are kind of mutually exclusive terms, dick cheese.”
“I’m not kidnapping you...exactly,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Look, we had to get moving. The guys who are after you are seriously dangerous. They’re the ones that want to kidnap you. I’m just trying to get you to someplace safe. Let’s call this what it is: protective custody.”
“And who are you, exactly?” Her tone was sharp as a razor.
He extended his hand. “Theron Blackwell.”
She ignored that hand and continued with her questions, going into full reporter mode.
“Who do you work for? Everything about you screams military, but you’re not. Are you CIA? NSA? A merc?”
“You’ve never heard of the organization I work for, but we’re the good guys. We keep people safe and do everything we can to prevent conflict and bloodshed,” he told her.
“Ha! First off, there are no such thing as good guys in this world, just people seeking to protect their own self interests. And second, you caused plenty of bloodshed back at my apartment.”
“I was trying to protect you!” he said, frustration tightening his shoulders.
“Who were those guys who attacked me?�
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“Operatives of a fanatical cult. They are well armed and well organized and I’m almost certain they set off the bomb in the market today.”
That brought Jen up short.
“Really?”
“I’ve been tracking them for a few days. We think they took out agents in Damascus and Baghdad, and now they’ve set up shop here,” he said.
She paused, thinking hard on that bit of info. Operatives and fanatical cults. Her smarter brain cells said this was not something she wanted any part of. The piece of her that liked adrenaline too much was suddenly very curious.
“Why did they attack me? I hadn’t even filed my story on that bombing yet.”
He looked away from her, gazing out at the dusty street and the traffic passing by them. After a moment he turned back and stared at her again.
“Because you can see and speak with the dead.”
Jen felt her eyes widen and she let out a tiny gasp at his words.
“How did you know that?” she blurted.
He turned and gripped the steering wheel, shifting his weight and making the huge slabs of muscle in his chest and arms ripple. It suddenly hit Jen that Theron was massive and ripped out with enough muscle to bench press three or four of her. And she’d just slapped him around like she was the one with a tactical advantage. If this guy wanted to, he could snap her in half. She needed to keep that in mind.
“I saw you at the market after the bombing,” he said, finally. “I got there a few minutes after the blast. I had been tracking some of those operatives, but I got on the trail of the wrong ones. I had no idea they were planning that bombing. I was a couple miles away when I heard the blast. I rolled up and saw you, talking to someone only you could see.”
Shit. He knew what she was. And for some reason this had made her a target? Of all the things she’d thought would get her killed, her stupid ability hadn’t been on the list.