by Susan Grant
His gloved hand slammed over her face, cutting off her scream. His fingers dug into her face. It hurt like hell. His palm pressed over her mouth and nose. Hard to breathe. Fear blotted out much of the pain.
She struggled, but he jerked her roughly against a wiry body as if she was a beanbag doll, floppy and compliant. “Time to die, bitch.”
She made a sound in her throat that sounded like a whimper. She wasn’t a fighter, a tough chick. She was a geeky little intellectual, cerebral, not physical.
Then think your way out of this one, Jana.
But she didn’t know what to do, how to save her life. Her mind was scattered, couldn’t focus. Too afraid.
He was suffocating her. Her vision was going gray. Blood rang in her ears.
“They told me to be fast, not to make noise. You will die quietly, yes, little czarina?”
Czarina? Viktor had called her that at the restaurant. Her mind spun with the implications, whirled in a panic-accelerated kaleidoscope of crazy cousins, daffodil neckties and illegal caviar.
The man was getting something out of his pocket now. What? A gun? A knife? He was going to kill her.
What about Cavin? What about Earth? It hit her, then, hit hard, the realization of all she had to lose.
No! It would not end this way, her fairy tale. She drove her stiletto heel into her assailant’s instep so hard that it jarred her entire body. He shrieked in pain. Some women lifted cars off their kids, driven to superhuman strength in an emergency. Her? She twisted around, wrenching free of him while screaming like a martial arts star, and kicked him in the balls.
The man bent over. Something clattered to the ground. The knife in his hand? No, a cell phone. He cursed her out in fluent Russian. Naughty words, the ones her mother told her never to say, but that Jared had taught her anyway.
As the elevator doors opened, the man came at her again. She got a crazy, desperate idea that she’d kick the knife out of his hand, and she would have, too, if someone hadn’t grabbed her by the collar from behind, pulling her from the elevator—and right out of one of her shoes.
Hobbling, she fought for balance. The hand on her collar was strong and held her upright. Call her Cinderella, she thought, wild with terror. Only it was a three-hundred-dollar “glass slipper” she’d just left in the elevator with her would-be murderer. Not as expensive as the yellow shoes she’d lost the night Cavin showed up, but still a loss. Note to self: for all future knife fights and high-speed chases, choose pumps from Payless.
Something white and hot zinged past her ear. There was a crack, like the sound of a bug zapper, amplified. Her attacker’s scream was cut short as the inside of the elevator car erupted in a green-white flash. The Russian slumped into a heap. Jana’s eyes burned from the acrid stench. Where had she smelled that distinctive odor before?
The parking lot at Safeway.
Oh, God, no. Not him. Whoever gripped her by the collar let her go. She spun around, unbalanced, standing on one shoe, and came face-to-face with the REEF.
Chapter Twenty-Three
JANA KNEW RIGHT AWAY it was him. The REEF. He’d disguised himself with a hooded sweatshirt with the sleeves hiked up and baggy pants, but he had that lean, mean, musculature common to prisoners serving life sentences. He was taller, larger than she expected, eerily handsome with intense blue eyes as frigid and clear as an arctic night. Yet, he looked…well, ill. It was the only way she could describe it. His skin was pale, practically greenish, and covered with a film of perspiration. Cold sweats? His aim seemed true enough, though, with two futuristic rifles pointed at her forehead. “Jana Jasper?” he asked in a flat voice.
She swallowed. Okay, in the movies, only the stupid people said yes. She was not going to say yes. She might be a nerd, but she was a nerd with a learning curve.
Heart pumping, dizzy with panic, sucking in great gasps of air, she hunted for an escape with her eyes. There was the stairwell. Or the elevator, the way she’d come up. Both seemed equally impossible at the moment. But if she ran to Cavin, wouldn’t that lead the REEF right to him?
“Where is he? Where is Far Star?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He grabbed her shoulder and shoved her up against the wall. Her head snapped with whiplash. Now she finally knew what people meant when they said they saw stars. Something smacked against her shins. Her attaché case, she realized. Leave it to a Jasper not to lose important paperwork—especially when it related to alien spacecraft parked in the backyard
The assassin looked so mean he sent chills spinning down her spine. This man was an interstellar assassin. He killed for pay. He’d taken lives. Many times. One more wouldn’t bother him. Soldiers, at least, had a code of honor. Mercenaries like the REEF were in it for the profit. “Are you going to kill me?”
“Extraneous kills dilute the pleasure of the real thing,” he said, his voice level.
Somehow, she knew he’d say something like that.
“Where is he, Jana Jasper? Where is Prime-major Far Star?”
“He’s hiding. He didn’t tell me where.” Not only was her voice quivering, she was the worst liar in the world. Plus, the REEF was no stupid Terminator robot. One look at his exhausted face, his short black hair dampened with sweat, and the tension lines around his mouth told her there was more human in him than machine, something on which she hoped she could capitalize. After all, he’d spared the men he threw in the Dumpster.
Remind him of his mercy. Her attacker was lying in the elevator in a smoking heap. Unlike the men in the Dumpster, this one wasn’t getting up again. The REEF had saved her life.
A selfish act. He needed her to bring him to Cavin. He needed her alive. He needed a hostage. Remind him anyway.
“Thank you,” she gasped.
His brow went up.
“If you didn’t help me when you did, I’d be dead. You saved my life.” To her shock, genuine gratitude leaked from her heart to her voice.
He gave her an angry, impatient shake. “Stop babbling and bring me to him.”
So much for the mercy idea. Again, she cast a desperate glance around, looking for escape ideas. Where were the security guys? There were cameras everywhere. They should have been here already. The only explanation she had was that the REEF had disabled the surveillance cameras. She had to get downstairs herself. She had to warn Cavin before he sensed something and came up looking for her. But how?
Cavin gave you the gift of gab. Use it!
“You were hired by mistake,” she blurted out. “Hired by mistake because he’s never coming back—ever. He’s staying here with me. You don’t have to kill him.”
“I don’t care what his plans are.” His tone dripped with disdain.
“He called home today,” she lied. “He told them he was staying here. With me. They know. He resigned his commission. He’s done. Over. He’s an Earthling now. The people who hired you, they won’t pay you such a huge sum for nothing when they realize he’s gone anyway, that their mission is already accomplished—without you in the mix.” Since when was she an expert in interstellar intrigue? She didn’t know where she was coming up with this stuff; she was making it up as she went along, drawing on what Cavin had said and expanding using her gift of gab. “You’re going through all this trouble to kill him and when you show up expecting to get paid they’ll pretend they never knew you, never hired you.”
As frigid as his eyes were, almost inhuman, in them she saw uncertainty flicker. She’d hit on something. A weakness. A doubt. “They’re powerful individuals, probably the most powerful in your government, and to them you’re just a lowly administrative worker. Persist, and they’ll terminate you.”
His forehead was shiny with sweat. He was in pain, physical pain, and hiding it.
“Look at you. You’re breaking down as we speak. And if you lose your computers, you’ll be useless. Obsolete. Nothing.”
Mistake. A tic started up in his cheek. She’d hit a sore point. He lifted the rifle. For
an instant she thought he’d blow a hole in her head. Not only was the REEF sick, he seemed crazy. Or desperate. Did it matter? Neither was a good place for a man with guns to be.
“Freeze!”
A CHP officer stalked down the hallway, his gun aimed at the REEF. The REEF sighed and swung a gauntlet similar to Cavin’s in the man’s direction. The officer lifted off the floor.
“What the hell?” he said simultaneously with Jana as he floated up to the ceiling. Then he swore and dropped his gun. It clattered to the floor, red-hot. It fired off a couple of rounds that ricocheted off the walls. Jana screamed.
The REEF winced. “Please don’t do that. The gunfire is loud enough.”
Jana exchanged a petrified glance with the guard, who clutched his burned hand by the wrist. So much for keeping the presence of aliens on Earth secret, she thought.
The REEF’s facial muscles clenched with the effort he expended to keep the guard in the air. He took a step backward as if thrown off balance. His eyes had glazed over. He holstered one rifle, but the other, the one aimed at her head, wobbled. He looked as if he was about to pass out. In fact, he looked a lot like Cavin did when his bioimplants were acting up. Whatever he’d done to float the guard had taken a terrible toll.
“Are you okay?” she blurted out. “Jana, you have so much heart.” She’d heard that many times from Grandpa and others. But she couldn’t shut off her heart, even for this assassin. This human had been raised from a very young age to be a machine, according to Cavin. He killed because he’d had no other choice. She felt sorry for him. It must have come through on some level because he brought his gaze back around to hers. He seemed almost hungry for kindness. There, that was the weakness. Using her gift of gab, she’d found it. “What’s happening to you?”
I don’t know, his eyes said. Growing paler still, he brought his hand to his eyes and grimaced.
“You’re ill. Look at you. You’re sick.” Sick like Cavin was. Sicker, instinct told her, than what could be attributed to the crash itself. “What if your own people are doing this to you? Did you ever consider that? That they may be trying to kill you long-distance.” She was grabbing at straws now, using the imagination that had gotten her into so much trouble as a child.
For a heartbeat, she thought she saw shock and real fear in the REEF’s stare but his eyes turned so glacial, so fast, she was sure she was wrong. “Like this?” he hissed. His gaze turned distant for a moment or two, as if he were reaching inside himself. He let out a grunt. Then his eyes came back to her, and he smiled. What had he done? Had he hurt Cavin somehow? “I can kill him this way, too, Earthling. But it’s slower, more painful. It’s your choice, really. Bring me to him and I make it quick, or run and I make him die from the inside out.”
A SHARP PAIN exploded inside Cavin’s forearm, beneath where he wore his gauntlet. He braced himself for what he knew would happen next. But it was worse this time. Much worse. Searing agony exploded in his head. It nearly brought him to his knees. A groan escaped him before he could stop it.
He let his head dip to the dashboard while he fought to take control of the pain. He’d been wounded in combat before; he could handle this. Gods, but it was so much worse than anything he’d experienced before. It was as if he was coming apart from the inside out.
Finally, his vision cleared, but grayness flickered at the edges, distorting his peripheral vision. He was sweating, but cold, sickly cold. He shoved open the car door and swung his legs out. He drove his fingers through his hair and let his head fall into his hands. Dread gnawed at him and made him doubt his fitness for the coming challenges, and for his ability to protect Jana. He and Jana had their biggest battles yet to come, and here he was, falling apart. He couldn’t fall victim to his own body. He could not. Whatever was happening to him, he had to fight on. Surrender was not an option.
“Would you like a newspaper, sir?” one of the law enforcement men called to him from where they relaxed at a table in the garage.
Cavin pushed off the car seat with an effort. His first steps were unsteady, but he gained balance as he walked to the men.
“You okay?” one of the guards asked.
“I’ve been under the weather,” he said, drawing from his database of colloquial phrases. “I’m getting better. It’s taking time.”
“Flu?”
“Mmm.” He looked over the papers scattered across the table. He couldn’t read a word of Jana’s language, or any Earth language, but he did his best to act like an Earthling, to blend in. Now more than ever, in his weakness, it was important not to attract the wrong kind of attention.
Not all the papers were current. He recognized one from the morning after he found Jana in the market. There was the image of her shoe that she’d found so distressing, and there, in the most recent copy, were images that had distressed her even more. He frowned as he studied the pictures, and became so angered by those who sought to damage her reputation and that of her family that he was able to block some of the piercing throbbing in his head and arm.
He picked up the paper and held it closer to his face, studying the image of Jana sipping a drink at the fish farm. His eyes soaked in the sight of her sweet, slender body, slipping down her long legs to her pointy-toed shoes. He swerved his focus to the older newspaper. To the close-up image of…the very same shoes. Adrenaline surged. Yenflarg. The shoes connected Jana to the “hostage” supposedly taken from the market, which then linked her to him, something of little value to anyone else but the REEF.
Cavin threw down the paper. He was a fool, a blind, careless fool, not noticing it until now. And here he’d let her out of his sight when the possibility was strong the REEF knew who she was—and where she worked. His mistake could very well cost Jana her life.
He strode away, limping toward the elevators. “Sir,” the guards called. “Sir!”
“The senator’s in danger,” he barked and pressed the button to call down the elevator. No sound indicated that the machine was working. He hit the button hard, impatiently. He felt like putting his fist through the primitive control panel.
“You are not authorized, sir.”
Again he punched the call button. He looked around for an alternative route upstairs.
One of the guards called over his radio. “Mark, you got anything on your security cameras?”
No one answered.
“Mark? Mark! You there? Hey,” he called to his partner. “Levy’s not at his station.”
Cavin paced until he was ready to come out of his skin.
“The elevator’s dead,” the guard muttered. “It’s stuck up on the third floor.”
Cavin’s blood turned to ice. His focus tunneled to one thing and one thing only—getting upstairs to Jana. He tried the door to the stairs. It wouldn’t open.
“Sir, you can’t—”
Like hell he couldn’t. Cavin used his gauntlet to open the security lock. He flung open the door and a guard grabbed him. Cavin shoved the man—too hard—and sent him flying into his partner. Both men sprawled on the cement floor. The guards took out their guns as they got up.
Cavin kicked the door closed with his boot, used his gauntlet to alter the key code. To what, he didn’t know, but their cards would not work. Jana would be angry with him for doing so, most likely, but she could scold him all she wanted once he was assured she was safe. He wasn’t going to take the risk of the guards keeping him from reaching her. To the sounds of pounding fists on the door, he took the stairs two at a time up to the third floor.
THE REEF HAD HURT Cavin somehow, without touching him.
But the toll it took was tremendous on the assassin. His breaths were harsh and uneven. He was barely able to hold up the rifle. Any color had left his skin. But his eyes were pure evil. Malice shone in them. “Go to Far Star and tell him the choice you made for him. Days, Jana Jasper—you’ll be back looking for me in mere days. Begging me to put Far Star to death, because this way will be so much worse.”
His wor
ds sank like cold stones in her belly. Her ears rang. Her stomach threatened to unload its contents all over the REEF’s basketball shoes. What had she just done? What had she encouraged the REEF to do to Cavin?
In the corner of her eye, she saw Cavin sneak out of the stairwell door and flatten his body against the wall. He was almost invisible in the shadows. His pistol glimmered darkly.
Her heart exploded with relief that he was here. He was hunched slightly, his mouth set in a grimace. Sweat ran down his cheeks and jaw. He was hurting, badly, yet he’d made his way upstairs to find her. Her chest contracted in terror. Nowhere near top form, Cavin was about to walk into the jaws of his killer.
She cast her panicked stare to the CHP officer bobbing near the ceiling like a bizarre party balloon. She knew with one look in his eyes that he wouldn’t say anything about Cavin. She turned her focus back to the REEF. Would her fear for Cavin show in her face? The only thing going for her was that she was expected to appear terrified.
The REEF poked his rifle at her. “I am giving you a head start, woman. But you’re still here. Are you going to leave, or will I have to give Far Star an extra little something to get you moving?”
The last thing she wanted was for Cavin to be debilitated at the moment of facing his mortal enemy. She looped the strap of her attaché over her head and shoulder and kicked off her remaining shoe as she moved away, slowly at first, making sure to hold the assassin’s slightly amused gaze. She couldn’t escape to the stairwell, because it would swing the REEF’s attention directly to Cavin. Her only option was to run in the opposite direction. But it would bring her to a dead end. She winced. Bad choice of words.
Dead end or not, she wasn’t leading the REEF to his target. She had to trust that Cavin, an experienced soldier, knew what to do.
One…two…three. She dived into a full run. The floor was like ice under her panty hose. Her back crawled as she imagined the REEF’s rifle aimed between her shoulder blades. If he wanted her, he had her.
