by Jami Gray
Give it time.
Frustration joined my irritation, and I turned away from the counter to pace. If I ever got back to normal, I was banning those three words from my vocabulary. Logically, I knew that four weeks was not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things, but I still felt trapped by my inability to shake the horror that shadowed every waking moment. I felt trapped by the nightmares that wouldn’t leave me alone and a sense of loss I couldn’t understand—and by the suspicion that someone was watching me, just waiting to pounce.
According to my all-knowing therapist, all of it was just a by-product of six months of captivity bundled into one diagnosis—post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, a label I never considered would apply to me and my relatively normal life. I mean, seriously, how much danger could a noncommissioned officer expect to face while serving as the administrative assistant to a retired colonel who now works in the private sector? The low-danger nature of the job was one of the reasons I chose to remain an NCO when I joined the marines. I wasn’t looking to make a name for myself—I just wanted a successful career before I found the mysterious “one” to share my 2.5-kids-and-dog life with. You know, the normal American dream.
Unfortunately, I’d gotten pulled into a nightmare to end all nightmares, and my goals had changed. Now I just wanted to make it through a full night without waking up in a cold sweat, with a raw throat and blood-curdling nausea-inducing images seared into my mind. The lack of sleep and the low level of apprehension I couldn’t shake left me feeling as if the nightmare wasn’t really over.
Hang in there, Megan. The fading echoes of my imaginary protector drifted through my mind, triggering that elusive sense of loss.
“He’s not real.” Saying it out loud didn’t help this time, which was no surprise. My therapist’s explanation hadn’t stopped me from mourning someone who didn’t exist but was simply a coping mechanism. Logically, I understood it, but somewhere deep inside, it wasn’t sinking in.
Welcome to the crazy train. Next stop, mad ramblings and wild hair. That thought had made me give a sharp, humorless laugh. Rubbing a hand over my face, I blew out a hard breath and resumed my pacing, trying to yank my mind off the jumbled path it was determined to tread.
A flash of movement outside the patio door stopped my restless movements as a colorful little bird did a flyby. A pang of jealous longing hit me, and the walls went from comforting to confining. Needing the escape, no matter how minor, I unlocked the slider and stepped onto Keelie’s tiny balcony. My baby sister managed to afford a nice but cute—another word for small—apartment on the fifth floor of a complex with a sliver of a view of San Diego’s coastline. It wasn’t the remodeled bungalow I once shared with two other women, but it worked, especially since Keelie’s roommate had recently gotten married and was only staying on the lease to give herself an exit strategy.
Instead of a half wall, the balcony was a series of iron rods, which gave me a chance to people watch from my lofty perch. It was a pastime I used to enjoy, but ever since I’d gotten back, it wasn’t the same. Curling up in one of the two chairs, I pressed my bare feet against the railing. Eventually, my claustrophobia receded. The sounds of the city drifted up—the hum of traffic, a dog barking somewhere, and off in the distance, the deep toll of one the many cargo ships dotting the harbor.
My gaze drifted to the scramble of life below. For a moment, I considered going back in and unearthing one of my sketch pads. Almost seven months without them should have left me jonesing for the creative outlet and comfort. Instead, the thought of putting a pencil to paper left me in a cold sweat. I was scared the madness in my head would bleed onto the page.
Right, no sketching.
Unable to get lost in the possible stories associated with each passing face, my mind detoured, wandering down darker roads. How much ugliness lies under all the friendly smiles and pretty faces? I squeezed my hands into tight fists, forcing my thoughts back to brighter paths before I got lost in the murky alleys. But it was hard not to wonder if the guy in board shorts and a baseball cap, checking his phone as he sat on a bench, was the same one I’d seen hanging around at other times. Is he watching me? Is he working for the monster?
Laughter, like shiny bubbles, burst from a group of young women juggling surfboards and tote bags. Baseball-cap man turned to watch them walk by, and even from my perch, I swore I could hear his appreciative whistle.
See? Perfectly normal—unlike me, thanks to my warped psyche.
Yeah, something was seriously wrong with me. With the sun warm against my skin, despite the cool late-January breeze, I rubbed my bare heels against the railing’s edge and tried to enjoy the moment. Watching the minor drama play out below, I noted a familiar red-and-white bag from a nearby Mexican restaurant being carried by one of the women. Like Pavlov’s dog, my mouth watered. Hmm, maybe I should brave a public appearance. My stomach rumbled an agreement, and since it tended to be extremely picky lately, I took that as a cosmic sign.
I got to my feet and was heading back in for some shoes when something made me pause and turn, catching a flash of sunlight hitting something in the distance, blinding me for an instant. Shadows rushed at me. The hated voice filled my ears and echoed through my skull, harsh and unrelenting.
Give me what I want.
I don’t have it.
Don’t lie. Give it or die. I don’t care.
I stumbled, pitching forward, and threw my hand out to stop my fall. The rough stucco wall scraped against my palm, but I barely noticed as my nightmares slithered into the light. I caught a glint of teeth. A faceless blur moved closer as the teeth grew, threatening to swallow me whole.
You think you’ll escape, but you won’t. It touched my face, making me flinch. You can’t escape me. I won’t let you go.
A horn honked, shattering the hellish tendrils and slamming me back to the present. I sucked in air, trying to breathe around my pounding heart, my vision blurred by a sudden piercing ache slicing through my head. Even worse, the sensation of being watched hit my back like a venomous arrow.
Blinded by panic, I half fell, half tripped inside. I slammed the door closed behind me as I put my back to the wall, getting out of sight. Body shaking, mind breaking, I slid down the wall until I could wrap my arms around my knees. The past rose up in a hellish wave, threatening to suck me under.
You’ll be okay. The assurance that had once provided comfort now lashed at me, scoring deep wounds. It didn’t matter whether it was a coping mechanism or a figment of my imagination—I was far from okay and very much on my own.
My anger and despair rushed out on a choked sob. “I’m not. I’m not.”
They were watching, waiting. Despite being out of that hellhole, I was still trapped, still caught in whatever evil web had shattered my life. That voice, the one that belonged to the endless questions, was still there, still whispering its evil in my mind.
The nightmarish images, memories—whatever the hell they were—circled, waiting to land, but I couldn’t let them. I knew to my marrow that if they settled in, I was well and truly done. The only thing left of my future would be four padded walls.
You could make it all go away.
The insidious thought found a foothold, offering relief from the sounds and images stalking my every waking moment. I was so damn tired. I just wanted a moment of peace and quiet. Was that too much to ask?
Open your eyes, and show me you’re still here.
The memory of Bishop, rough and commanding, yanked me back from the crumbling edge. “I’m still here.” My voice shook, but the words were true—I was still here. For six months, I’d managed to hold on. There was no way in hell I would let go now. I just needed… help. And I knew exactly who to ask.
Chapter Two
BISHOP
“I don’t like it.” That was putting it mildly. I was not one to normally question Colonel Charlene Delacourt’s orders, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t. The idea of buddying up to Megan Rouser to find out if she
was a player or a pawn in this shitastic game of lies and deception we had going with Falcon did not sit well with me.
The lines of stress on the colonel’s angular face deepened, and her response was clipped. “You don’t have to like it.”
Uh-huh. “Why me?”
“You’ve already established a connection with her.”
The knowledge that the colonel had picked up on that fact made me itch. Granted, my habit of stopping by the hospital until Megan’s release a couple of weeks earlier couldn’t be missed, but I could try to ignore it. “I got her out of that hellhole. Not sure how much of a ‘connection’ that really is.” I ignored the bitter taste of a lie.
“You rescued her,” the colonel patiently continued, not about to let me wiggle out of this. “Not only that, but you were the one she chose to speak to when she finally talked. Tell me how that’s not a connection, Bishop.”
She was right—I felt a connection. The problem was, it might be one-sided. I couldn’t seem to get Megan out of my thoughts, and I couldn’t rationalize that reaction, which made me leery. As for Megan, after I carried her out of that warehouse, she’d shut down, turning mute and unresponsive for almost four days. On day five, following the doctor’s advice, I sat at her side and kept up a one-sided conversation. For some reason known only to her, that worked, and she finally started talking.
Still, I wasn’t about to give in to the colonel gracefully. “Give me another reason, something a bit more concrete, because I’m not as sold on this as you.”
One eyebrow rose, and dry amusement lightened the grim lines of her face. “Risia.”
Well, shit. My arguments crumbled into dust. There was no arguing with a woman who could see the future, and Risia Lacoste, the team’s seer, had an accuracy that was off the charts. But when another solution came to mind, I threw my best friend under the proverbial bus and said, “What about Wolf?”
A man has to try, right?
Delacourt gave a small grimace. “You know he won’t try unless Megan gives him permission.”
Frickin’ Boy Scout telepath. Okay, that description wasn’t exactly fair. Wolf could bend and break a mind as easily as read it, so setting boundaries was crucial to his mental well-being. And working on a mind shrouded by trauma for the sake of expediency definitely crossed one of Wolf’s lines.
Unable to sit still, I rose and began to pace. “You really think I can get her to give him permission?” I was shaking my head before she could answer. “There’s no way she’ll allow him near her after what she’s survived. You’re asking for a miracle.”
“Maybe, but we can’t afford to wait any longer.” The colonel was starting to sound impatient.
I get it. Damn, do I get it, but… “She’s been home from the hospital—what, two and half weeks?—after spending six months having her mind jacked around. I think you might want to cut her some slack.”
Sympathy flashed over the colonel’s features. “If I had that option, I would.”
Her answer settled into my brain, and in a flash of clarity, I understood. “You’re worried about your inside man.”
Grim resolution came back to her face with a vengeance, confirming what I’d said. I knew Delacourt had someone embedded deep inside Falcon, the evil mercenary group that was playing yin to our quasi-military-psychic-team yang. We might not be an acknowledged part of the US military, but we had enough ties to be problematic, which meant we had to play by the rules. Falcon didn’t. They didn’t play nice either.
We knew they were behind Megan’s kidnapping—not that we had actionable proof. Nope, what we had was some serious-as-shit suspicions with a heavy dose of skepticism, but proof was what we needed to shut Falcon down. To that end, Delacourt had an operative deep inside Falcon, so thoroughly undercover that months passed before he or she could confirm our lead on Megan’s whereabouts without raising suspicions. Blowing the cover of an embedded operative never ended well—hence the cautionary handling.
As I stopped in front of her desk, my mouth moved before the ideas swirling in my mind coalesced into something solid. “You need to pull them out, sir.” Certainty bloomed with no damn rhyme or reason and changed to dread—the mysterious operator was running out of time. That realization was a psychic punch that left my bones humming. “As soon as you can.”
Her gaze didn’t falter. “We’re working on it.”
Work faster. I locked the words behind my teeth because they wouldn’t help.
“Our operative is not the only reason,” she added in a low voice as she straightened the already neat papers on her desk. “Although it’s a damn good one.”
I had to ask. “Do I want to know?”
She met my gaze. “Answers are being requested from above, and people are getting impatient.”
In other words, someone was pressuring Delacourt about team operations and outcomes. That was not a good thing, considering that our team had been quietly trying to chase down whispers about a high-ranking traitor working with Falcon. Having eyes on us would make our search that much more difficult. So far, we’d managed to stop the illegal sale of a shipment of stolen weapons and block the auction of a hijacked list of undercover operatives, but our luck was bound to run out at some point. Although Delacourt maneuvered better than any bomb tech I knew, the situation was more volatile than TAPT—triacetate triperoxide, the notoriously unstable explosive.
Although the PSY-IV teams weren’t officially part of the military—deniability and all that—the colonel still had to answer to the higher-ups, especially since they were the ones who ensured our funding. I wasn’t a fan of politics, which was why I was standing on one side of the desk, and she was sitting on the other.
If you don’t do this, she won’t be on that side for long.
The realization rang with crystal clarity, but I tried not to react. I sensed a shadowy figure standing close to the colonel, shrouded in malice and manipulation—as if my suspicion that the traitor was someone close to Delacourt needed more weight. Proof was worth a hell of a lot more than some unexplainable psychic instinct.
Gritting my teeth, I turned away and moved to the large window overlooking the bland parking lot of the even blander building housing our off-the-books teams made up of ex-military and Special Forces personnel who all shared one common trait—psychic abilities. Which reminded me… “What about her brother? Isn’t he one of ours?”
Behind me, the colonel’s chair creaked, and the air shifted, telling me she had moved. “Devon and his team are currently OCONUS. The mission has no set return date at this time.”
So Dev is out of the country. I felt a flash of satisfaction and a strange possessiveness that left me uncomfortable. Why in the hell do I want to be the one responsible for Megan? I decided to deal with that question later. Rubbing my neck, I blew out a hard breath and surrendered to the inevitable. “How’s this supposed to work?”
“She hasn’t been cleared to drive yet. Her follow-up appointment is tomorrow at the base hospital.”
Which means… I turned back to the colonel. “I’m her ride.”
Delacourt nodded. “Her younger sister, Keelie, left town yesterday.”
It took me a moment to recall the information we’d gathered on Megan’s family when we were planning her rescue. “She’s the one who works with service dogs, right?”
“And splits her time working with disaster-recovery efforts.” Delacourt bent over her desk and scribbled something on a sticky note before offering it up. “Her address, which is where Megan is staying.”
I took the piece of paper, barely glancing at it. “She’s staying there alone?” Why that concerned me, I wasn’t sure, but it did.
Delacourt settled a hip against her desk and held my gaze. “Yes, at her insistence.”
The sticky note crumpled in my fist. “Tell me you have eyes on her.”
Faint amusement drifted over the colonel’s normally stoic face.
My fist uncurled. Yeah, there are eyes on her. “What
time’s her appointment?”
“Oh nine hundred.”
At least it wasn’t the butt crack of dawn. “Fine, but don’t hold your breath.” I turned on my heel and headed to the door. Before I could get to it, a knock sounded. Looking back over my shoulder, I caught Delacourt’s nod—the slight movement of her silver-streaked cap of black hair. Then I yanked the door open and stepped to the side.
The colonel’s latest administrative assistant and Megan’s replacement, a fresh-faced intern, popped her head in, worry lining her face. “Apologies, Colonel, but there’s a Ms. Rouser here to see you, and she’s insistent.”
She barely got the last word out before I brushed past her to the front office. Standing in front of the desk, in loose jeans and a shirt that hung over what had once been generous curves before she’d suffered months of captivity, was the face that had haunted my dreams for the last few weeks. Or longer, if I were to be brutally honest. There was no escaping the low punch of hunger I felt or the sudden protective urge to lock her away from everyone and everything.
Megan’s arms were wrapped over her stomach. She was too damn thin. Hell, the bruises under eyes were almost as dark as her hair. But it was her disconcertingly blank expression that made me feel a surge of anger. Shoving that reaction aside, I managed to say, “Megan.”
Her gaze met mine, and for a moment, her mask slipped, revealing a breath-stealing fear inside the startling blue eyes. She blinked, and it disappeared, replaced by cool distance. The abrupt change sent ice through my veins.
“Bishop.” Her tone was as neutral as her expression.
