He waved his hand in dismissal. “Of course not. He thinks you’re with Drake, that you both escaped. Alec doesn’t need you or the distraction you provide.”
Yes. She was at the Resource and not far from Alec.
“You’re the one who’s afraid. You’re afraid that if we’re together again, Alec will pick me over your lies. He already did, you know. He was coming with me.”
Lansing set his jaw, angry for the first time. “You think this is a pissing match between the two of us, counselor? You’re wrong. You’re insignificant in the great scheme of things. You could have been part of it once. No more.”
“What great scheme of things?” If only she could listen to Lansing’s thoughts, she could find out a lot more. Years ago, it had worked on her kidnappers. It had worked briefly before with Lansing. Why not now?
“No, I’m not answering that,” Lansing said. “You had your chance.”
She concentrated, trying to remember what she’d done to hear Alec. It was like opening a door with a broken hinge. She took a deep breath and gritted her teeth.
“She’s scared, good. Alec would be appalled to see what a coward she is. Once he knows his future, he’ll forget her. It’s not like an Oriental is a proper mate for him, in any case.”
It worked. She could hear him, like she’d heard that wordless scream of pain from Philip at the house.
“I don’t want any part of your future. And I can’t imagine you’ll have a future when Philip finds me.”
The force of Lansing’s hatred for her father rolled over her like a physical blow. Lansing seized her and dug his fingers into her arms. “Philip Drake is dead.”
She whimpered and tried to concentrate through the pain. She caught images from Lansing. Images of the house in Maine in ashes. Images of the retrieval team reporting that they hadn’t found Philip’s body.
He was alive. He’d gotten to the tunnel. “You’re lying.”
Lansing let her go and shrugged. “She doesn’t believe it. I hardly believe it myself. What a waste of life. My fault, I should have grabbed the boy when he was eighteen, or even at birth. I should have known he’d breed true. He could have been so useful. It must be the mongrel blood showing.”
Beth blinked. Breed true? Mongrel blood? What? Well, she knew one thing for sure now. Lansing was a racist, to go along with his other faults.
Lansing walked to the door. “Believe what you want. It doesn’t change anything.”
He couldn’t leave yet. She needed to keep him here, to keep listening to his thoughts. “You say you care about Alec. Then why do you let him risk his life with F-Team? What kind of father does that?”
Lansing spun around. “Because Alec needs to learn to lead men, he needs to be forged in fire, so he can survive anything.”
“And if he’s killed?”
Lansing shrugged. “If he can’t learn, then, well, he’s not fit to lead. I’ll miss him and then train another. There are others, you know.”
“There will be many others. And they’ll answer to me.”
Megalomania. How nice. “Maybe what he’s learned with F-Team is that you aren’t the final authority on matters. That he can stand alone.”
Lansing shook his head. “No, what he’s learned from F-Team is that he should be in charge, that they rightly fear his power. He’ll learn to make use of that fear.”
God forbid. “He’ll learn he can stand on his own, without you.”
“He could be on his own but he’ll be lost out there. I can offer him more than anything he’d ever find in a normal life.”
“How?”
“I’m offering what he wants. A chance to be a hero. A chance to lead. A chance to be in charge of others like him and use their gifts to change the world. You could have been part of it.” He shrugged. “And your genetic children will be, as soon as I can sort out how to control telepaths.”
So, Lansing’s racism didn’t prevent him from wanting to use her or her future children, so long as they were under his thumb. Another type of slavery. “I don’t want any part of you.”
“That’s not your decision any longer.”
“Counselor this, counselor that. The boy’s obsessed. He’ll do better once he’s taken care of Demeter’s group, once he feels better about the failure. He’ll stop insisting that he needs to leave to find her.”
“If I’m so unimportant, if I’m a pawn, why are you bothering with me?”
Lansing smiled. “You need to know what you’ve lost. I wanted to be the one to tell you that.” He walked to the door, put his hand on the doorknob, and looked around at the room. “This is your future. I hope you enjoy it.”
“I will certainly enjoy watching you break, however long that takes.”
She clenched her fist. Combined with that thought was contempt both for her being a woman and for being of Japanese descent. He’d use her if he could—he had no other telepaths available—but she’d always be a tool to him. Oddly, Alec did represent more than that to him. She wondered if Lansing had ever acknowledged his feelings for Alec.
Lansing turned and walked out of the room, his mirror images on the stainless steel walls winking out as he shut the door. The green-clad men moved in. One of them injected something into her IV.
The lethargy spread to her whole body before she could object. Her brain drifted back in time, back to when she was eight years old and all alone. No, not alone. Philip had come. That wouldn’t happen this time, at least for a long while. Even if Philip wasn’t dead, he was badly hurt. Alec wouldn’t come—he thought she was already safe.
But, in a way, Alec had already rescued her. He’d given her back her telepathy and urged her not to be afraid of it. If he could stand up to the fact that his whole life had been a lie, then she could stand up to this.
I will rescue myself.
Chapter Sixteen
Beth?
Alec slammed down the intel report and stood. He closed his eyes and concentrated, listening. But he didn’t hear her again. If she was trying to reach him telepathically, it wasn’t working very well.
He paced the medical lab, wishing he were on the beach in Maine, huddled against the boulder with Beth in his arms. He shoved his hand into his pocket and fingered the rock he’d taken from the beach. No sky, no sea air here. Instead, only the sterile whites and chrome of the Resource’s med lab surrounded him. He could read the CIA intel report on the terrorists again but he’d read it six times already. He nearly had it memorized.
The report claimed Demeter had time to assemble the bomb since that night at the docks and that he could strike at any moment. The CIA had finally tracked the origin of the radioactive elements of the weapon, concluding it had come from Russian sources and that it was highly possible the Russian government—read: Putin—was using terrorists to covertly attack the U.S. That was of serious concern to the CIA but it wouldn’t help Alec in a fight against Demeter.
Alec was less worried about where they got the radioactive stuff and more concerned with that fuzzy something that he’d felt just before the tug exploded that night. If there was one telepath out there, there could be more. He had explained that to Lansing but the man said that was no consequence. Translation: if Lansing knew anything about it, he didn’t think Alec needed to know.
Anyway, for all Alec knew, Lansing had concocted this report from whole cloth to keep him from leaving the Resource after the capture in Maine. Oops. Sorry. Lansing kept calling it a retrieval.
Alec stopped in front of the med lab door. It was locked. For his safety, he’d been told. Beth had said that too, about the basement door in Maine. At least she’d unlocked it when he’d asked.
I’m sick of people doing things for my own good.
“We have to find out what she did to you, Alec,” Lansing had said. Yet Lansing hadn’t told him anything Beth hadn’t confessed herself. Lansing just gave it a sinister spin. If Alec had known where Beth was, he would have walked out of here and to hell with stopping the damned
bomb.
He poured a glass of water from the sink. Some of the clear, cool liquid slopped over his lips and down his chin, cooling his naked chest. They could have at least given him clothes beyond the sweatpants. Or let him stay in his room. Time to start demanding that, at least.
Lansing walked inside. He locked the door behind him. Naturally.
“You’re up late again, Alec. Can’t sleep?” he said, voice full of sympathy, falling into the tweed armchair next to the bed.
Alec shrugged. “What do you want now?”
“I was worried about you. I also wanted you to know I’ve gotten an intelligence update. I think we might be close to Demeter.”
“Fine.” Again with dangling the threat of the terrorists over his head so he’d stay.
“I’m glad you’re back in time for the mission,” Lansing said. “You’ll have a chance to make up for your failure.”
Lansing sure knew how to press the guilt button. What if they’d found Demeter while he was off with Beth and F-Team had failed to stop the bomb?
“Stop it, Alec. What could you have done? You didn’t have your fire then, remember?”
Alec choked on the water. Beth? This was not a good time to make contact.
“Are you all right?” Lansing poured himself a drink of water from a pitcher at the bedside table and sipped, looking at Alec over the rim of the glass.
“Fine.” He stared back at Lansing.
“I lived my own nightmare those days you were missing, Alec. I can’t tell you again how glad I am to have you home safe.”
“You’re kidding.” Alec drank more water and leaned against the sink. The old man had seemed eerily happy to see him.
“I’m not kidding. You should have called.”
Alec jiggled the water glass in his hand, sending the ice cubes tinkling against the sides. “I didn’t call because Beth was no threat to me and I decided I needed a break. I deserved one. I didn’t expect you to send an assault team after me. It would have been a lot easier if Daz had just knocked at the door. Or, you know, phoned.”
“So you’ve claimed, repeatedly. But the fact remains that when we descended on that house, you attacked us.”
“You lobbed the tear gas first.”
“Because the retrieval team saw a fire start inside the cabin.”
Alec clenched his teeth, his temperature rising.
“Daz knew I was fine.”
“Daz knew nothing of the sort. Have you thought or wondered why you set the tear gas on fire? That’s stupid, Alec, and you’re not stupid about your use of fire. The only explanation is that she controlled you and got you to fight back, only she didn’t know how explosive your power is.”
Hah. He knew something Lansing didn’t for once. “I told you, all I knew right then was that I was being attacked. I defended myself.”
“That was all you knew because that’s all she let you know. I notice Philip Drake didn’t have any qualms about killing to cover his escape.”
“And you had no qualms about trying to kill him.” Alec stared at the ceiling, counting the white tiles, an exercise that Beth had taught him in one of their sessions, to bring calm. He counted a vertical row of five, a horizontal row of seven. Thirty-five tiles in that corner. Better. Calmer. “You taught me that when someone attacks you, the best reaction is to fight back and sort it out later.”
Lansing sighed and unfolded his long legs in front of him, relaxing or appearing to relax. “We’ve been over this. She was a CIA plant from that start. My fault, I should never have agreed. I’m sorry for that.”
Alec tossed the glass in the sink. It shattered but he ignored the noise. Let Lansing get one of his staff to clean it up. He stalked over and put his hands on the back of the armchair, looming over Lansing. Under his hands, the upholstery of the chair began to smoke. Lansing jumped up, twisted to face Alec and pointed a finger at him.
“You see?” Lansing raised an eyebrow. “You’ve regressed since you met her. What does hurting me gain you, Alec?”
“Satisfaction.” Alec crossed his arms over his chest. “Why don’t I get a paycheck?”
Lansing blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Daz gets paid. You draw a salary, I bet. And even Beth got paid. Where’s my money?”
Lansing rubbed the back of his neck, the command gone from his pose. For once, he seemed completely off-guard. “A paycheck? Alec, we can provide anything you want.”
“Within reason. Within the borders of my cage.”
“The Resource is to keep you safe, not to keep you prisoner.”
“Does that mean keeping me a slave?”
Lansing shook his head. “If a paycheck means that much to you, fine, you’ll get what Daz earns plus five percent more.”
“Just like that?”
“The money’s not an issue. You should have asked sooner if it bothered you. I’m not a mind reader, unlike your counselor.”
“What about a car?”
“We’ll discuss it.”
“You mean no.”
“I meant we’ll discuss it. You’d need a safe car, an armored car, to protect against attack. Those take special driving skills to handle. Plus, I don’t have one at the snap of my fingers.”
“When do I get a chance to leave?”
“When I’m sure you’re not a danger to others. If you lose control, like you seem perilously close to doing lately—” he pointed at the burnt back of the chair, “—you will hurt innocents. Remember what happened at the docks, when your team member died, when you also trapped the others in a firestorm. You would have killed them if Daz hadn’t stopped you.”
Alec swallowed. “I remember.”
“Do you remember how the fire used to consume you, how dangerous it was? What if it goes back to that?”
“It won’t.” Alec reached around and touched the scars at the base of his back.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” Maybe.
Lansing crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you remember who was it that braved that fire, to help you gain control?”
“You did,” Alec said in a quiet voice.
“We both could have been killed. All that time we spent together, all those years that you lived with me, all I tried to teach you and you say I don’t care?” Lansing spread his hands in front of him.
“You wanted to use me.”
“If that’s all I wanted, I would have sent someone else to help you with your fire. I wouldn’t have risked myself. I raised you. I’ve been here for you your entire life, Alec. You’ve only known this woman for less than two months. What makes you think she’s right and I’m wrong?”
“She makes sense.”
“When she talked, no doubt she did. But does it hold up?”
Lansing walked over and put his hand on Alec’s shoulder. Alec almost pushed him away but he was too surprised. Lansing rarely got touchy-feely.
“You know people like Demeter exist. You’ve seen what they can do and you know what you can do to stop them, yes?”
Alec nodded, a knot forming in his chest. “Yes.”
“And did your counselor want you to keep using your gifts to fight them?”
Alec shook his head. “She said there were better ways to use my fire than being a soldier.”
“Did she name them?”
“No.”
“I thought that you wanted to be a hero. But I suppose you’d rather shop at Wal-Mart and learn to drive.”
“That’s not—”
Alec pushed Lansing’s hand off his shoulder and started pacing again. Beth hadn’t lied, she’d offered love, but she hadn’t offered a damn thing about what to do with his life, about how he could make a difference. In fact, she was completely against him being a soldier.
“Now you’re beginning to think.” Lansing shoved his hands into his pockets. “Would you like to see something?”
“If it gets me out of this room.”
Lansing nodded. “We’ll go to your home so
you can get dressed, then follow me.”
Alec put on his jeans, T-shirt and sneakers in record time. He shifted the pebble to the pocket of his jeans. Lansing said nothing while waiting. When Alec turned around to switch off the lights, he took a second to compare it to the cabin in Maine. Beth’s place had had so much of her in it. This was his home but it looked so sterile. Like a coffin. Hell, not as fancy as a coffin.
Lansing led him down to a wall at the end of the corridor. A dead end.
“What do you think it is?” Lansing pointed to the painting on the wall.
“Monet’s Japanese bridge,” Alec answered. “It’s a print, right?”
“Yes, but that’s not what I wanted to show you.” Lansing slid the print to the left, revealing a control panel, and punched in a code. Several seconds later, the wall slid away to reveal an elevator. Alec followed Lansing in.
“This goes up to your quarters.” Alec must have ridden this elevator a thousand times. The scarlet paneling and the gold inlays were unmistakable.
“Yes. I should have let you know it was here on this floor and available to you. My mistake.”
Lansing admitted to doing something wrong? “Why was it a mistake?”
“I distanced myself from you once I sent you to work with F-Team. I thought it was the right thing, for you to bond with your team. But I pulled back too much.”
“It’s not like we were close.”
Lansing smiled thinly. “I’m all the father you have, Alec. I should have let you know that more.”
Lansing was certainly in an odd mood tonight. Alec decided he preferred the usual dour, glowering Lansing to this one.
The doors to the elevator opened to the small hallway that led to Lansing’s penthouse, which was perched on the top floor of the Resource building. Alec watched Lansing punch in the security code to the side of his metal door.
“Thought you’d have a different code by now, not the one I remember.”
The door lock clicked. “I did,” Lansing said. “I changed it back for you.”
“Uh, thanks.”
As they stepped inside, Alec really looked around Lansing’s home for the first time in a long time. He studied the red oriental carpets, the Victorian-style sitting couches and the collection of wooden angel statues on the tables and shelves. Nothing cute about those statues. Grotesque, maybe.
Phoenix Rising Page 17
