by Kelly Oram
I whirled back toward Dr. Haggerty, excitement spiking my adrenaline as a new thought occurred to me. “What if I don’t shock him? What if I fill him with good energy?”
The good superthug gripped the bars of his cell. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t have to electrocute you.” Turning my excitement on Major Wilks, I said, “Think about it. Geek pointed out that I wasn’t electrocuted when I fried the nanobots in my head. I was just really charged up. Teddy and I used to practice out in the desert a lot with how much energy I could give him. We got to a point where he had enough energy in him that he could release a strong bolt of lightning and still superrun back home. My energy, if I’m not using it to attack, doesn’t harm people. It used to elevate Teddy’s pulse a little, but not like electrocution. I could just fill this guy with my energy until it baked the nanobots. He’d be fine.”
I waited for all the enthusiastic cheers such a solution should have caused, but the room stayed silent. Nobody seemed excited by my plan, except for my new friend behind the bars. “Major, it would work. I swear.”
Major Wilks sighed, but it was Ryan who stepped forward to officially reject the plan. “Babe, you’re probably right. It might work.”
He’d called me babe. Did that mean he wasn’t still mad at me?
“But you’re talking about giving him your power. If it doesn’t work and you fill him with superpowers, he could break out of that cell and disappear with you in a heartbeat. Things could go very badly.”
So that was their problem? I supposed I could see their point, but I still shook my head. “Super T won’t fight it. He won’t use my powers against me. He’s one of the good guys. I know it.”
Major Wilks shook his head. “You can’t know that for sure. It’s an awfully big gamble, Angel.”
“No. I’m sure of it. Watch. Hey, Super T…”
He laughed at the nickname I’d given him. “Yes, Angel?”
“Who’d win in a fight? A Ranger or a SEAL?”
He snorted. “No offense to either, but a Force Recon would take them both.”
The answer was immediate. Instinctive. Habitual. Exactly the same way Ex Marine Special Ops Smut shouted an enthusiastic “Ooh rah!” and all the other ACEs launched into an argument, each defending their own former branches of the military.
Men. They’re so predictable.
“You see?” I asked Major Wilks over the voices that were being raised, rather passionately. I pointed to the cell, where our prisoner was just as engaged in the debate as all of the ACEs. Only a military man would care so much.
Major Wilks observed the argument a moment, watching the superthug closely. The conversation moved on to a comparison of tattoos, and when Super T stripped off his shirt to show off the ink etched across his shoulder blades of a skull and wings with the knife and oar as crossbones that was synonymous with the Marine Corp Force Recon, Major Wilks nodded at me. “Point taken, Angel.”
“Thank you. So…?”
His brows pulled low over his eyes as he waged an internal debate. I waited him out silently; I’d already argued my side of it. Now I just needed him to give the approval. When he set his uncertain eyes on me, I stared back with complete confidence. Ryan had said I was being overconfident, and maybe I was where Donovan was concerned, but I could do this.
I knew the moment I won the battle. I saw the acceptance in Major’s eyes a split second before he barked, “Marine!”
Both Smut and the superthug automatically snapped to attention like the well-trained soldiers they were. When the superthug realized that Major Wilks was talking to him, that he’d acknowledged his military status, he grinned, completely elated. He then blanked out on us, and his vacant gaze slid to the ground. “I bet he tried to salute you,” I said when Major Wilks frowned. “He does that every time he tries to do or say something that would give away his identity.”
“But he showed us his tattoo,” Smut said.
“In a heated argument where he wasn’t thinking about it. I think the trick is to not let him think he’s giving you a clue. But it doesn’t matter. He’s one of us. He won’t fight me. Let me try to free him.”
Major Wilks nodded to Tex, who, without a word, stepped forward and unlocked the superthug’s cell. “Be careful, Angel,” he muttered as I stepped inside, and he locked the door behind me.
I gave him my most confident grin. “Always.”
The superthug’s attention was back. He’d risen from his bed when I entered his cell, and was regarding me cautiously. I took a step toward him and he stiffened. I held my hands up in surrender, trying to look as harmless as possible. “It’s okay,” I promised. “I don’t want to hurt you. I’m just going to give you a little energy. That’s okay, isn’t it?”
His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched, but he nodded his head. I took another step and he made no move, so I took a couple more, slowly closing the distance between us. He started to hold out his hand to me, but drew it back. “You’re really going to give me your powers? You’re not trying to kill me?”
“If I wanted to kill you, I could have done it from safely outside your cell. I’m only going to give you some of my energy, and I’m trusting you not to use my powers against me. You ready?”
He nodded and held his hand out again. I clasped his strong hand and took a breath of my own. “Try to hold still for me. I’m going to concentrate on sending the energy straight to your brain so I can avoid your heart as much as possible. I’m a little nervous about it, so any sudden movements from you could startle me. That would not be good. You understand what I’m saying?”
He gave me a curt nod and said, “Do it.”
No big deal, I told myself. I give my powers to people all the time. It’s never hurt anyone before. There was no reason to doubt myself now. But it had never mattered so much before. My nerves couldn’t be helped. Not wanting to shock the poor man, I took a couple of long, deep breaths and then pushed out my energy very slowly.
The man gasped as a wave of energy climbed up his arm and headed for his brain. My energy has a warm and tingly feel. It reminds me of when I forget to use a dryer sheet and I have to pull apart my shirts when they come out of the dryer, stuck together from static cling. Imagine being wrapped in that static. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s still a surprise the first time you’re exposed to it.
I needed to send the energy straight to his head while keeping an ear out for his heartbeat. I also needed to pay attention to how much energy I was giving him. If I wasn’t careful, I could fill him too full with energy and he would lose control of it. Whenever that happened to Teddy in the past, the energy usually escaped in the form of a stray lightning bolt. Not so dangerous when you’re alone in a desert. But in a confined space full of people? Yeah, not something I wanted to try.
There was so much to keep track of at once that I closed my eyes to help me focus. As I fell into deep concentration and focused my attention directly on the man’s head, I could feel the small electrical impulses that naturally came from his brain sending signals to his body. Beyond the brainwaves, I could also feel a warm shroud covering his entire brain. It felt strange, prickly. It was easy to imagine it was a swarm of microscopic robots sending faint charges of electricity into the brain. “Bingo.”
A smile crept over my face and I locked onto that weird blanket, sending a new wave of power straight for it. “Fry, you nasty little buggers.”
The superthug began to tremble, but I didn’t dare stop the flow of energy. I could feel the warmth of the nanobots pulsing out, as if trying to fight me off, but they were losing the battle. Their warmth was fading.
With my ears so focused on his heartbeat, the loud shout from Lorenz in the other cell rang through my ears, forcing me to drop my connection and grab my head. “Harper!” he shouted. “Do your job! You have her powers! You can get yourself out! Take her to Donovan! HARPER! COMPLETE YOUR OBJECTIVE!”
Whether because I’d stopped the connection or those were the magi
c words, some phrase programmed into the soldier’s mind to renew his compliance, Harper snapped out of his shock and grabbed my arm with superstrength. I tried to pull away, but with him so full of my energy, he and I were on the same playing field, and it came down to who was physically stronger. You can bet your behind that the ex Marine Force Recon soldier had more muscle than me.
“Harper, don’t do this,” I said, trying once again to break his hold.
He looked down at me with sad eyes and pulled me tight against his chest. “I’m sorry, Angel. I have my orders. I must complete my objective.”
I kicked and flailed and tried to claw him, but again, soldier versus cheerleader…and I couldn’t even remember being a cheerleader. “Dang it! I really need to learn how to fight,” I grumbled as he pulled me toward the front of the cell and snapped the bars open with a single hand.
Several of the ACEs tried to physically stop him, but he knocked them easily away. It was enough of a distraction, though, that I managed to punch him in the face. My hit was totally wimpy and girly, but it was enough of a surprise that he let me go. “Fight it, Marine!” I shouted as he squared off with me.
The ACEs gathered around us, weapons drawn, but the way they all hesitated to shoot, I didn’t think their guns were loaded with tranquilizers. “Don’t shoot!” I shouted. “We need him!”
Glaring at the man, I matched his small steps as he tried to watch the surrounding soldiers and me at the same time. “Fight it,” I said again. “I know you can. I know what the impulses feel like. They feel wrong, don’t they? Confusing? Stop and think about it. You don’t want to hurt me, Marine. We’re on the same side.”
“We’re not on the same side!” Lorenz yelled. “Harper, she’s manipulating you. You know how dangerous she is. We need to bring her back to Donovan. He’s the only one who can help her. Remember?”
Harper blinked and shook his head. His eyes made contact with me again. “He’s right. I like you, Angel. I want to help you.”
“Then help me. Tell me where Donovan is.”
His frown grew. “No.” He reached up and grabbed his head as if it hurt. “No, I need to take you to him. That’s the only way.”
He pulled his shoulders back and balled his hands into fists. When I saw the determination in his eyes, I knew I was screwed. I hadn’t killed enough of the nanobots. He was still under their control, and now he was confused, thinking that he was protecting me by taking me to Donovan. The orders were working with his heroic military-trained personality, and against me.
“Don’t make me hurt you, Harper,” I whispered, raising my hands in his direction.
He realized what I was doing and narrowed his eyes. “I’ll knock you out if I have to.”
“And I’ll blast you to kingdom come if I have to.”
I heated up my palms, calling my energy to me in a way that wasn’t going to feel good for Harper when I released it. When my eyes lit up and my hair started doing its freak windstorm thing, Harper realized he was out of time and charged me linebacker style. His shoulder dropped, and he crashed into me with the force of a wrecking ball, knocking the wind out of me. He rammed me down the hall into the thick metal door that was the only entrance to the stockade. I smacked my head, immediately seeing black spots. Chalk up my second superconcussion.
“I’m sorry about this, Angel. I don’t like hurting you.”
He moved to punch me, but his energy was already starting to wear off and he didn’t know how to use it as well as I did, so I was easily faster. I ducked under his arm and jumped on his back, wrapping my arms and legs around his large body. “I don’t want to hurt you, either, so I’m sorry, too. I really hope you live through this.”
Needing to make sure I finished the job this time, I unleashed all of my energy into him in one violent burst that exploded out of both of us. It shook the room with a thunderous crack and obliterated all of the electrical equipment in the stockade. And judging from the warning sirens suddenly blaring throughout the base, the damage probably extended beyond the walls of the small prison.
“Jamie?” Ryan’s worried voice rang out in the silent room. He clicked on a flashlight and pointed at me. I was lying on top of the unconscious marine. At least, I hoped he was only unconscious.
In the dim light I glanced up at Ryan, then around the wrecked room at the cracks in the walls, and then at the shocked faces of my team members, and grimaced. “Sorry. I can pay for that.”
Somebody snorted. The laughter was exactly what I needed to break me from my shock. I listened for a heartbeat in Harper’s chest, and when I found none, I immediately called up my energy again. “Oh, no. No way. You’re not dying on me now.”
I had no idea if this would work, but I didn’t have a set of defibrillators and I refused to be a murderer.
“Jamie, what’s wrong?” Ryan asked when my eyes started to glow again.
“Stay back!” Placing my hands over Harper’s chest, I steadied myself and took a deep breath. “If I could stop his heart with a bolt of lightning, I can restart it with one, too.”
At least, I really, really hoped so…
“Come on, Marine,” I muttered, sending up a silent prayer to anyone listening as I released a blast of electricity into his chest.
I waited a second, and just when I was about to hit him with another blast, a small sputter thudded in his chest, singing to me like the most beautiful concerto I’ve ever heard. “Harper!” I cried when the man coughed.
He moaned and I grabbed him up into my arms, overwhelmed with relief that I’d not killed him. Well, not permanently. I squeezed him so tightly that he groaned again and a small laugh shook his chest. “Easy, Angel, don’t crush me. It’d be a pity to die now after all that.”
A half hysterical laugh bubbled out of my chest, and I let him go. He sat back and grinned at me. “Not that dying in your arms would be the worst way to go.”
I laughed again. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I owe you one, Angel. Those bastards took me from my post over four months ago, and it’s been driving me crazy. I’m more than ready for some payback.”
Major Wilks beat me to the million-dollar question. “Then, you know where Donovan is?”
Harper shot the major a smile that I would not like to be the cause of. Donovan was a dead man. “Oh yeah, I know where he is. And who he’s working with, how many people are at his base, all of the soldiers injected with the strength serum, what the security is like, and I have all of the entry codes. I have all the information you need to plan an attack and take him out, once and for all.”
The ACEs all burst into a chorus of whoops and cheers. Ryan’s relieved voice rang out above them all. “This is perfect! With this information, we don’t have to send Jamie in at all now.”
My head whipped in his direction at superspeed. “Excuse me?”
He was too excited to notice my anger. “Babe, we know where he is. With the information we’ve got, the military can plan a proper attack. They can do a full-scale invasion if they need to. We don’t have to involve you at all.”
I couldn’t believe he expected me to stay behind after everything I’d done and everything Donovan had done to me. “You seriously want to cut me out?”
Ryan shook his head. “You’re not a trained soldier. You’ve done so much to help already. You’ve put your life at risk enough. You probably have another concussion after that hit you just took.”
I was sure I did. And maybe a few bruised ribs, too—not that I was going to bring that up right now.
“Let the pros take it from here. It’s what they’ve been trained to do. You’ve earned a break.”
If the lights hadn’t already exploded, they’d be flickering in and out right now. I didn’t want a break. I wanted to nail the monster who was stealing people and controlling them to do his dirty work. I wanted to. I wanted to get Teddy back, since it was my fault he’d been captured, and I wanted to get my memories back.
Ryan, as knowing as ever,
gave me an apologetic smile. “I’m not trying to exclude you, Sunshine. It’s simply the practical solution, and I want to keep you safe. I’ll even stay back with you. I’ve only been enlisted for six months. I’m barely a soldier at all. I’m not ready for any kind of battle. We can stay with Geek in the command center and oversee everything as the guys go in.”
“He’s right, Angel,” Major Wilks said. “Your help has been invaluable to us, and we’re grateful for all you’ve done, but we can take it from here.”
Logically, I understood. They were right that I wasn’t trained. But the words felt like betrayal. They hurt. It sucked to be sidelined because I was useless. I felt like a teenager being forced to sit at the kid table for Thanksgiving dinner.
“And the superthugs?” I asked, willing my voice to remain steady. I didn’t want anyone to see how upset I was, though I suspected they all knew anyway. “Won’t you need my help with them?”
Johnny G stepped forward, grimacing as if he knew I was going to hate what he had to say. “We have the advantage here. We’ll be able to form a plan to take them out without them ever knowing what hit them. We’ll gas the whole building or something, and put them all to sleep before they ever know we’re there. If something goes wrong and a fight breaks out, well, we’re trained for that type of thing, but hopefully we can go in, detain everyone, fix the people controlled by the nanobots, and sedate anyone juiced up on the strength serum until it leaves their system. We get the bad guys, save your friend and the other PACs, and nobody gets hurt. Everybody wins.”
Everyone, except me. “And my memories? Donovan is the only person who can help me. He’ll never give up that info if he’s captured. Can’t I just go in alone, and then you guys come get me? I know how to fix the nanobot situation now. He can’t control me. But if I play my cards right, he might reveal his secrets about my memory before you guys come in and wipe them out.”
Each and every one of them shut my suggestion down instantly, making me feel as if a brick wall had been slammed down between us. None of them even thought about it. Their refusal was followed by looks of pity that had become so familiar to me over the last six months. Major Wilks voiced what they were all thinking so that no one else would have to be the bad guy. “It’s not worth the risk, Angel.”
