She was used to him being the rational one. He didn’t have a choice, since panic made it easier for someone else to see in his head. But this didn’t sit right with her. She was talking about a threat he couldn’t read. “I—” She didn’t want to argue, but he needed to understand. “I just told you I saw someone who can identify us. Someone we last saw thousands of miles away. And he sat a few seats away from me. He found me online.”
“Are you sure it was him?” Taylor’s question sliced senses and bled into her doubt.
“I heard his voice, and I’ll never forget that face.”
Taylor kissed her, and her thoughts shattered into a million pieces. Warmth and need and confusion rushed through her at the sensation of his mouth, gentle against hers. A whimper tore from her throat. She parted her lips, and he darted his tongue in in, to massage and dance with hers. His touch that meant safety, filled her head and conjured tantalizing images that made her pulse race. She dug her fingers into his chest, and the rough fabric of his button-down bit back.
She struggled to find her breath when they broke apart. That definitely never happened before, and her heart slamming against her chest wanted it to be for more than show.
Taylor watched her, eyes wide and brighter than she’d ever seen them. He cupped her cheek. “He’s not the only Null out there. He’s simply the only one you can put a face to. You can’t assume the person you talked to online was the doctor because the doctor is a Null and your mystery texter has the same knack for computers you do—”
“Don’t you dare marginalize my observations.” Her want evaporated. “I heard him. Text to speech, Taylor. It was him.”
“I believe you.”
Relief flooded her, along with the desire to kiss him again. “We need to at least switch hotels,” she said.
“Can we get something within a few blocks of the current one?”
She frowned. “We can. We could get a different room in the same place. But why would we?”
“Hear me out.” His words vibrated through her, blending with the beat. “If we’re being followed, staying close is counter-intuitive.”
She raised her brows. “My point exactly. We don’t even have to stay in town. I can do this job remotely.”
He traced a finger along her bottom lip, and a chill ran through her. She wasn’t sure if it was desire or trepidation. “If this person—”
“The doctor from the shelter.”
“Right. If he has the skills to find you, it’s going to happen, no matter where we go. At least if he thinks you’ve run, he may look in a different city first.”
His logic made sense. “All right. I’ll get us something within a few blocks of where we’re staying now,” she said.
“Good.”
The way Taylor all but shut her down made it difficult to voice her concerns. Short of packing up the car and telling him they were leaving now, she wasn’t sure how to make herself clearer. On top of that, as she sat here, wrapped up safe with him, her worries felt eons away. Did she overreact?
The lack of physical proof didn’t help her relax. “How was dinner?” she asked. With any luck, his afternoon with the administrative assistant from IasoChem was less eventful and offered more knowledge than her day.
“We weren’t meant to be. He’s got an irritating infatuation with Psy registration and the fact it’s not stringent enough.”
“If he’s so anti-Psy, does he have no qualms about working for a company that’s working on a cure for P-72?” As the words slipped from her mouth, she realized she’d said too much. She snapped her jaw shut, but it was too late to take back the proprietary job information.
He didn’t flinch. “I don’t think he knows.”
She frowned. Taylor should be stunned or excited or something, to hear there was a cure in the works. And if his date didn’t tell him...
Taylor shook his head. “Wait, what? Sorry, that just sank in. A cure? Really?” He held up a hand. “No, wait. I know. I can’t hear this.”
She couldn’t do this anymore. “What are you hiding from me?”
“Why would you ask that?”
If he’d said Nothing, she might let it drop—if he’d done anything besides countering her question with a question. “You’re just... You’re acting off.”
He slumped his shoulders and sank further into the seat, averting his gaze. “I didn’t want you to worry. And I’m not the only one who keeps things like this quiet.”
She slid away from his touch. “Tell me.”
“It’s all been too much recently.” He rubbed his knuckles with his thumb. “The running, the uncertainty, how close we were to P-72... It’s gnawing at me, and I can’t stop thinking about it, and the only way to keep the despair at bay is to pretend it’s not there.”
The sick knots in her gut loosened. She understood that too well. She nudged his knee with hers. “Talking about it makes it easier to deal with the thoughts.”
He gave her a weak smile. “I know. Also, look who’s talking.”
She took his hand, as much for her comfort, as to keep him from fidgeting. “Touché.”
He tugged her close again and rested his chin on the top of her head. She buried her face against his chest and let the proximity push away more of her doubt. The music and flashing lights filled in their lack of conversation.
“I can’t believe I didn’t see it.” Taylor’s excitement jolted her. She pulled away enough to see him. His eyes were wide. “My date. He was bitching that they’d been bought out by sympathizers. Those bastards over at PharmNu...” His expression fell. “Shit. That’s not good.”
If PharmNu owned IasoChem, her and Taylor’s employer hired them to expose one of their own holdings. That made even less sense than why someone would go to all the effort to make sure they looked shinier and cleaner than bleached steel. Every inch of her itched to get the hell out of here and never look back. “No. I’m thinking that’s not good at all.”
Chapter Four
The new hotel was pretty much identical to the old one. After living in so many, they all blurred together.
The biggest difference was this one came with a gnawing in Max’s bones that insisted she and Taylor were still in danger. She tried to calm herself, using Taylor’s reassurances, but her brain wasn’t having it and argued he might be part of the problem.
She sat cross-legged on her bed, staring at her handheld, trying to make sense of the world. There were no holoscreens tonight. Not with Taylor in the room. He lay at her feet, watching a movie.
Her search took her on a hop from who owned IasoChem to the truth behind the rumors about P-72 being a hoax, to where their next paycheck was coming from. None of them produced answers.
Frustration welled inside the longer she looked. She was better than this.
The tone of her messenger triggered the all-too familiar sinking of her gut. She needed to find a way to keep this asshole out of her system. She needed to—
It’s about Taylor.
Her brain froze when she read the short message. Of course he’d throw the one thing at her she couldn’t ignore.
Max was sick of hiding, as much as every inch of her screamed to shut off her handheld, yank out the battery, and swim across the ocean, if that’s what it took to get out of here. Instead, she typed, It’s you, isn’t it?
If he was going to use Taylor’s real name, she was done with beating around the bush.
I didn’t realize it was you I was talking to, until I saw you leaving the cafe.
Too many coincidences told her that was as much a lie as everything else that transpired between them. She was tired of this game of talking a lot without saying anything. Tell me about Taylor. What do you mean? If that’s not your next answer, this conversation is over. Hell, it was over in thirty seconds anyway. Not that she was yanking anything, but her brain whirred over ways to disconnect, once she’d kept him active long enough to get a good trace.
He knows.
The words did
n’t make any sense, so why did she feel like she’d been punched in the chest? She stared at Taylor’s head and summoned a list of all the things she adored about him. Why he was important to her. Every single reason she trusted him. Knows what? How to make a wicked quiche?
He knows I’m the person who hired you. That I’m the man signing your paychecks.
She watched the reply as it appeared on her screen, but her brain wouldn’t process it. No. This wasn’t possible. Taylor didn’t know. He hadn’t lied to her about something so significant. He hadn’t sold them out to a fucking Church doctor.
She dragged in a shuddering breath. Taylor glanced over his shoulder, brow furrowed. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. This doctor, this asshole online, was making shit up. He’d been fucking with her head for days. Hell—weeks. She wasn’t sure why, but he was trying to throw her off. “I’m fine,” she told Taylor. Hopefully she sounded more certain than she felt. Bullshit, she replied on her handheld. We don’t keep those kinds of secrets from each other. I don’t care what it takes, this is the last time you and I will ever speak.
The instant she hit Enter, to send the message, a note from him popped up. I don’t know why he didn’t tell you. But if you don’t believe me, I’m the only person besides you who knows what’s on that memory card from your employer.
Goosebumps crawled across her arms. She erased and physically destroyed the memory card after she decrypted it. He shouldn’t know such a thing even existed, let alone that it had anything to do with work. Her thoughts kicked into overdrive. Where could she and Taylor go, that this man wouldn’t find them? How the hell did they get out before this led to both of them being hauled in and tested—sorry, sentenced to community service—for not being registered?
A new message popped up. Ask him. Best guess is he’s there right now. Ask him who you work for.
Max shouldn’t play along. This was another mind fuck. But even as she tried to convince herself, she nudged Taylor. The moment he turned his head, her question tumbled out. “Who hired us?”
His expression was as blank and devoid of emotion, as if he were staring at a wall. “You know that. You found us the job.”
Was he avoiding her question? “Tell me who, specifically. What was the guy’s name? Who is he?”
Taylor clenched his jaw. “Adam.”
What the hell kind of answer was that? It meant nothing to her, but then again, she didn’t know the name of the person she was talking to. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Taylor rolled away. “Nothing. It’s just work.”
No. He wasn’t keeping something this important from her. “Taylor?” More pleading than she wanted leaked into her question.
He muttered something, staring at the carpet.
She strained to make out the words, refusing to believe she’d heard right. “What did you say?”
“It’s the doctor from the raid.” His quiet response blended with the air. “We’re working for him.”
Her eyelids stung with unshed tears of frustration. She disassembled her handheld and stared it at rather than having to see Taylor.
She dropped the disabled computer on the mattress and headed for the door. “I need air.” She didn’t know what she was going to do out there, but she couldn’t stay here.
He grabbed her wrist. “Max, I can—”
“No. You can’t.” She shook him off so hard it left her shoulder throbbing. She focused her energy on the physical pain, to distract herself from her thoughts, and let the door slam behind her as she headed into the hall and toward the street.
The blood pounded in her ears, mingling with the rush of evening traffic. He had looked her in the eye, comforted and held her in the club, and tried to convince that she was overreacting, when he knew the truth the entire time.
She couldn’t make sense of her thoughts. So she walked, weaving through the people on the sidewalks, their faces passing in a blur, until her feet ached. And then she walked some more.
From the way the crowds thinned, and the position of the moon in the sky, it must have been hours before the rage faded from her mind and more words than just what the fuck made any sense.
What happened defied everything she knew. The reality she’d based her adult life on.
Maybe he had his reasons.
How was that a justification for something so severe?
You’ve kept things from him before.
Nothing on this level.
So what are you going to do? Leave it all behind? Walk away now, never look back, and run overseas?
She might. She reached in her pocket for her handheld. Her fingers brushed lint, and ambivalence coursed through. It was in the hotel. She could leave without it if she had to. She kept links to money, contacts, everything, stored in a place they couldn’t be found if she lost a stupid electronic device.
A new haze of sadness and confusion almost swallowed her. She couldn’t walk away without Taylor, though. Thinking of him made her chest ache.
Something sharp jabbed her spine, and rough leather dug into her wrist where someone grabbed her. “Don’t turn around. Don’t look at me. Just join me over here, out of the flow of traffic.” The coarse voice drilled into her skull.
Really? She was being mugged? She half-followed and was half-dragged toward a nearby ally, never having the chance to face her attacker.
“Hand over whatever’s in your pockets. Electronics, plastic—all of it.” The pressure on her back vanished. Seconds later, she was spun and slammed into the brick behind her. Her head bounced off the rough surface so hard it rattled her. “Don’t scream. Don’t—” A bare hand rested on her throat, rough calluses digging into the sensitive flesh. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Several things occurred to her at once. His hair was violent blue with fuchsia tips. He was either Psy or Ee. His pale, almost yellow, eyes were wide and frozen on her face. Rage pulsed under her skin. She so wasn’t in the mood for this.
“What the fuck are you?” His growl rolled off the surrounding concrete. “Why aren’t you afraid? I should be able to feel your fear.”
She grabbed his exposed wrist, ignoring the tangible grime, and stared him down. She was so sick of things going wrong. At least this, she had control over. “So you’re an Ee. Unregistered, right? Because someone like you—someone with your talent—would have a respectable high-paying job otherwise.”
He tried to jerk away, but she held tight, and the angle was awkward, keeping him from extracting himself. He shook his head. “Nulls don’t exist.”
“Trust me, life might be easier if that were true.” The fear, anger, and frustration of the last few weeks filled her. She barely recognized the words spilling out, wrapped in fury and aggravation. “In about two seconds, I’m going to scream. It’s going to be so loud, the entire block will hear. And you’ll get to deal with the fallout of someone discovering you’ve been ditching the system for decades.”
Part of her recoiled at the thought of turning in anyone who was avoiding The Church, but it was overridden by everything negative she’d been pretending wasn’t a big deal.
He twisted and broke free of her grip. “Please, don’t. I’m sorry.” He backed away, shaking his head. “I didn’t... I won’t— You can’t.”
He’s what would happen to you or Taylor if you didn’t have each other. She shook her head, but the doubt wouldn’t leave. Staring at her would-be mugger, she clamped her lips shut, to keep the conflicting thoughts from spilling out. She finally managed to grasp the sense to say, “I’ll keep quiet. Just this once.”
“Fucking Null bitch.” He took two more steps away, and then sprinted into the crowds, blending and being absorbed by the people around him.
The adrenaline that had fueled her rage evaporated. She slid to the ground and pulled her knees to her chest, as the terror and confusion of what happened sank in.
She’d all but spat in the face of a mugger. What the hell was wrong with her? He had his rea
sons. Like you do. Like Taylor does.
Stupid mental voice. She buried her face in her arms and sniffled. And then the tears spilled over. They dredged up her frustration. The betrayal. All of it. The brick bit into her skin as she rocked, but she couldn’t stop. What was she going to do? She couldn’t keep running like this, and she didn’t know how to fix any of it.
And why had this bastard Church doctor kept his distance? He knew who she and Taylor were. What they were. Even if he hadn’t realized yet that they were unregistered—which she doubted—he hired them because of their reputation. Was he toying with them? Looking for more information?
Confusion welled inside and poured out with her tears. She sobbed silently, until her insides ached and her eyes were raw. Time passed, immune to her pain, until she exhausted her well of frustration.
She forced herself to stand, then dragged her arm across her cheeks. Her sleeve was damp, and it didn’t do much to wipe away the signs of crying.
She kept her head down as she emerged onto the street. Not that anyone noticed. To all these people, life was the same as every day. She was just another face. Another body stealing their air and competing for their resources. She was only significant if the internet told them she was, or if someone pointed out how she was different from the rest.
She was glad she let the mugger leave. He was as much a part of this broken place as her. As Taylor. And she owed Taylor a chance to explain.
One foot in front of the other, she watched the sidewalk as she trudged to their hotel. When she reached the room, she wiggled the handle, and her chest almost collapsed in on itself. She’d forgotten her key.
The door was flung open, making her fractured nerves splinter further, and Taylor stared at her with wide eyes, lines creasing his forehead. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed until her ribs ached. Or maybe that was emotion, causing the pain.
She leaned into him, too tired to drag up her frustration, and too comfortable to remind him what he’d kept from her.
“I’m so sorry.” His lips moved against the top of her head.
Over Stimulated Page 3
