“That’s why,” he said. More blood flowed from his nose and he gave a small grunt as his head slumped against his shoulders and his eyes closed.
Utah was afraid he might be dead. She cautiously crept up to him and placed a shaking finger on his neck. A fast bump bump bump ran under her fingers. She pulled her hand back and ran it over her hair. “Oh shitohshitohshit.” She walked in rapid circles and tried to calm down.
“Okay, think, Utah, think!” She hit the side of her head as if that might jar an idea out of hiding. She should just call 911. The dude had to be crazy. But that thing, the light thing, what the hell was that? The only thing she could think to do was the last thing she wanted to do. She called her brother.
As she waited for him to answer she looked at the unconscious guy. “Dude, I swear if you’re crazy I’m going to kill you.” On the fifth ring, right before she was getting ready to hang up, her brother answered.
“Utah, hey.”
“Yeah, hey Jude. How’s it going and stuff?” How’s it going and stuff- brilliant. “Umm. Listen, I really hate to bother you, but, yeah- someone stole my bike and I can’t get hold of the roommate – not that he would come get me anyway, but you know how weirded out I am with the subway, uhhh…”
“Someone stole your bike?”
“Uh, yeah. Came out back and there it was, well I mean there it wasn’t, just the chain all cut, and yeah, no bike. I mean maybe I shouldn’t have called. I don’t know what I was thinking, I’ll walk, it’s cool.”
“Where are you?”
She exhaled. “Work, in the back alley. That’s where I keep my bike. Kept- kept my bike.”
“You can’t walk all the way to Harlem this time of night.” Jude sighed. “All right. Stay where you are. I can be there in ten minutes.”
“Thanks man. You’re a life saver, seriously.” Utah ended the call and squatted down next to the guy again. She touched his forehead with the back of hand like her mom used to do when she was sick. His skin was hot, like blister-inducing hot. “Okay, weird light dude, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I didn’t call 911. But you might wish I did. I just lied to my brother to get him here and he is not going to like this one little bit.”
Utah sat down next to the guy and tried to figure out what the hell she was going to tell Jude when he got here. Her brother was a lot older. He was the favorite child, the golden boy. Jude could do no wrong in their parent’s eyes and Utah was the big oops. The -I–thought-I-was-in-menopause-oh-crap-I’m-pregnant-kid.
He never tried to make her feel like a failure, but he couldn’t help it. The guy had an entire alphabet behind his name – MD, PHD – he taught at Columbia, she never was sure what exactly but he was pretty important. She was doing okay most of the time as long as she didn’t stop to compare herself to Jude.
She kicked at the guy’s leg, suddenly pissed at him. “You sure as hell better not die before he gets here.”
A few minutes later Jude’s Mercedes SUV turned into the alley. She had her bike stolen and he came to save her in a freaking Mercedes. Families. Sometimes they were they easiest people to hate, and the hardest to love. Maybe because you knew that no matter what you threw at them they would always take it and still be there when you really needed them.
Jude got out of the car searching the alley through the glare of the headlights. “Utah?”
“Over here.” She stood to the side of the dumpster and waited for him. “Promise you won’t be mad.”
“Mad? What are you talking about? Why would I be mad about your bike getting ripped off?”
“Not about the bike. Jude, he needs help.” Utah squatted next to the guy as her brother came around the side of the dumpster.
His eyes went wide when he saw the guy. He hesitated for maybe a second before bending down. He felt for a pulse and lifted the guy’s eyelids. “Jesus, what the hell happened to him? Do you know him?”
“Haven’t a clue and no. I came out to empty the garbage, saw the bike was gone and found him. Looks like he got hit by a bus.”
“Looks like he got hit by something, Jesus.” Jude took his phone out.
Utah put her hand on it before he could make the call. “No,” she shook her head.
“No, what?” he looked at her suspiciously. “What’s going on, Utah? Why don’t you want me to call for help? Why’d you call me instead of 911?”
“He was scared, told me someone was looking for him. Jude he was so scared.”
“I bet he was. You’re unbelievable.” He took his phone back.
“Wait, Jude, please. Okay I know I mess everything up, I work in a job I’m over qualified for and mom and dad are constantly disappointed in me. I get that, but this isn’t about me.
“Look at him! He didn’t want me calling for help because he knew whoever was looking for him would find him if I did. Do you want whoever did this to find him? You’re a doctor. Didn’t you take an oath or something? Please, I didn’t know what else to do. Will you help me help him?” She decided to keep the glowing ball of light thing to herself for now.
He stared at her, his face completely neutral. Utah hated it when he did that. She could never tell what he was thinking. Just when she thought he was going to leave, or worse, call for help, he pulled the guy upright. “Help me get him to the car.”
Utah went to the guy’s other side. “Thank you Jude, Thank you!”
They dragged him the few feet to the SUV and laid him on the back seat. Jude closed the door and looked at Utah over the roof. “Don’t thank me. You’re going to detail the inside of my car and get out every drop of blood this guy bleeds on it.” He got in the driver’s side and waited for her.
“Oh absolutely, you bet.” She got in and Jude backed out of the alley and sped off toward his apartment.
Chapter 28
ROBERT SAT IN Coben’s office with his head in his hands. He tried to block out Tanya’s rant. He’d already been chewed a new one and then some. Something more than humiliation consumed him. He was mortified, ashamed and fucking pissed off. He swore if he ever saw Kale Delancey again he wasn’t going to wait for the guy to try and push him, he was putting a bullet in his brain. He didn’t give a fuck how valuable the psycho was. This was personal. He didn’t remember anything, but it was more than obvious what had happened.
“You just walked him to the door? Then you went back and sat in his room for three hours until someone noticed something was wrong!” This time it was Coben who was stating the obvious. Robert lifted his head and stared at him.
“He pushed me Coben. Something Tanya assured me he was incapable of doing.” He shot Tanya a sideways glance. Anger was beginning to replace his humiliation. “It’s not like I simply decided to let him go, for God’s sake.” He turned to Tanya. “You knew better than anyone what Kale was capable of and you sent me in there by myself. So don’t try to pin this all on me. You gave me orders. I followed them while you had lunch with the upper echelon. So maybe instead of trying to figure out who to blame we should be trying to figure out how to find him.”
Tanya and Coben both surprised him by looking embarrassed. Coben cleared his throat. “No one is trying to blame anyone, Robert. You’re correct. Kale is weak and injured. He has never been outside before and he has no resources. He can’t go far. Are you up to getting a team together?”
“Yeah, I can do that.”
“Then do it. You have the authority to do whatever is necessary to find Kale and bring him back.”
Robert stood. “My pleasure.” He was turning to leave when Tanya stopped him.
“Robert, I want him back here alive. Is that understood? You sedate him and bring back – alive.”
He clenched his fists and answered with his back still to her. “I understand.” He left the room and mentally prepared a list of agents he wanted with him for the hunt.
She wanted her little pet back alive. He knew why. Everyone knew. Perverted bitch, she got off on the freak. True, she seemed to be the only who could
control him, but still, it was sick. She wanted him alive? Yeah, well, accidents happened. Didn’t they?
* * *
FINN ANSWERED HIS phone on the second ring. His watch informed him it was five in the morning, but without windows or daylight it was hard to tell. He missed the light. He’d been underground for only a day, but it was a day too long. He pushed the claustrophobia down, checked the caller ID and answered.
“Vic? What’s up?”
“Kale got out.”
“Say again?”
“You heard me the first time. I don’t know details. But this place is a nut house right now. Apparently Kale’s security screwed up big time. He was supposed to be compromised, in other words- safe.”
“What did he do?”
“He pushed them. Guess Tanya didn’t think he could. Look I don’t know anything more than that. I don’t know where he went, or if they have any leads on him, but it’s been about twelve hours and that boy is in the wind. Word is he is not in great shape so he couldn’t have gone far.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah. Gotta go. I’ll try to come in later today, but it’s tight here. Might be better if I stay away.”
“I hear you. Stay cool. Thanks for the heads up.” Finn sat there with the phone in his hand trying to understand, what this meant. He needed to tell Cross, but he had to do so carefully. He knew his partner. Cross was going to act first and think later. That wasn’t what they needed. They needed information. Kale getting out changed everything. This was no longer a rescue mission
One of Finn’s best attributes, as one of his instructors at Quantico had told him, was to see beyond the static. In other words he had the capability to see the next three steps in the equation. It made him an excellent chess player and an even better agent. He sat up, fully awake now and thought about what Vic’s news meant. Their goal up to this point had been to rescue Kale. All of them had been willing to do whatever it took to see that goal accomplished.
Kale just changed all that. He’d taken matters into his own hands and rescued himself. Now all they had to do was find him. Before Tanya did.
Considering the psychic connection Cross shared with his brother, finding Kale shouldn’t be terribly difficult. They simply had to find Kale before Tanya did. That was step one. Step two was the hard part. Tanya wasn’t used to losing. And she had lost both Cross and Kale. That meant they were all officially righteous targets.
Tanya was going to use every man, every weapon, and every trick at her disposal to get them back and exact revenge on anyone she thought responsible. That would include Finn and everyone in the Underground.
Tanya had an organized team trained for situations just like this. Finn had a group of paranormal misfits who would rather kill him than help him. Go team. He had to do the impossible with only the improbable for help.
He needed to bring Kale in to safety which right now meant into the Underground. Then what? If either Cross or Kale stayed here, Tanya would find them. It wasn’t a question of if, but when. And when she found them, every man, woman and child in these tunnels would end up in the crossfire or worse, in a glass-walled room. Or dead.
“So we don’t let that happen.”
Finn jumped at the voice. He had been so absorbed in his thoughts he hadn’t heard Cross come in. The large common room was, for now empty of everyone save Finn and Cross. “Shit,” he pressed his hand on his chest. “Don’t freaking do that.”
“Which part? Scare you, or get in your head?” Cross walked confidently to the table where Finn sat.
“Both.” As he watched Cross take a seat, it hit him. “Hey, don’t take this the wrong way, but aren’t you blind?”
A sly grin spread across Cross’s face. “Yeah.”
“Then explain how you just walked in liked you own the place.”
“Pretty sweet, huh? Maizey showed me.”
“Showed you what?” Finn moved a hand in front of Cross’s face. He caught it and stared at Finn. Stared directly at him.
“How to use the energy around me to see. Sort of.” He let Finn’s hand go. “It would seem when I lost my sight, my paranormal abilities adapted, only with Gabriel’s mind-fuck I never knew it.”
“You can see?”
“Not like before, not like I used to, but yeah. I can see. It’s kind of beautiful. I absorb the energy around me. When I let it out again, it pings off objects around me. Everything shows up in glowing blue and white. Like electrons dancing on the edges of light.”
“Sort of like radar?”
Cross appeared to think about that. “More like a lateral line. You know, like how a shark finds prey?”
“That’s pretty freaking cool.”
“Infinitely better than not being able to see, but it does have its limits. I can’t keep it up for very long. It takes energy to use energy. I get tapped out after a while.”
Finn grinned. “So you’re just showing off now?”
“That and I was curious. I wanted to see what you looked like.”
“And now you’re jealous, right? Cause now you know I’m a chick magnet.”
“Yeah, sure.” Cross lowered his head and laughed. “Actually you look exactly how I imagined you. Except you didn’t have blue hair.” When he raised his head he looked directly at Finn. “Now that the party trick is over, I do have a suggestion.”
“About Tanya. And I thought you promised you wouldn’t look in my head.”
“You really want to go there Finn? As far as I’m concerned anything or anyone that gets me out of this mess alive is fair game. Any promises I made to you before I understood what happened to me are null and void. If you have a problem about that, I gotta say I really don’t care.”
The expression on Cross’s face as he spoke concerned Finn. Not because Cross looked pissed off, but because he looked utterly empty. Finn would have preferred pissed.
“Fair enough. So what’s your suggestion?”
The empty look gave way to something else. Finn couldn’t decide what it was, but he was certain about one thing. Cross was teetering. This was not the collected, methodical man he had worked with for the last decade. This was someone he didn’t recognize.
“First,” Cross said, “I would say I agree with you. We need to find Kale. I’ve been trying to contact him, with no luck. If he’s in worse shape than the last time I contacted him, it’s no wonder. I’ll work on it.”
“Okay, and then once we find him, what do we do then? We can’t put these people in danger. They gave us refuge and if we stay we’ll repay them by bringing a war to their doorstep.”
“I agree.”
“So what do we do?” Finn said.
Cross suddenly resembled the homicidal fourteen-year old Finn had seen pictures of. “We bring the fucking war to Tanya.” Complete and total hatred laced through every syllable.
“You’re kind of freaking me out a little here, partner,” Finn said. Cross looked like he wanted to hurt someone- anyone, very badly and Finn was the only person in range. The hairs on his arms stood up. He wasn’t cold, he was scared.
“I’m not your partner, not anymore.”
“Who the hell are you then? Because I’ll tell you something. You sure as hell don’t resemble the Cross Delancey I knew a few days ago.”
“That’s because I’m not. That Cross was never supposed to exist. He was created by Tanya and my father. He died when I learned the truth.”
“And this Cross? How does this Cross differ from the one I knew?” Finn eyed Cross with more than a little concern.
“This Cross is never letting anyone take anything from him again. This Cross is strong and doesn’t give a fuck. He’ll do what has to be done.” No empty look this time. Anger was the mood of the moment.
“And what needs to be done, Cross?”
“Tanya and anyone who helped her put Kale in that room for ten years, who decided taking my life from me and let me live a lie, they need to pay. Whatever it takes to accomplish that is what needs
to be done, Finn.” Without another word, Cross turned away from him and walked out of the empty room.
For the first time, Finn almost felt sorry for Tanya. He didn’t think she knew exactly what she unleashed when she showed Cross the truth.
Chapter 29
KALE OPENED HIS eyes and immediately understood two things. He wasn’t in his own bed and he wasn’t alone. He didn’t know if that was a good thing and decided to err on the side of fear. He sat up quickly, or at least he gave it his best shot. Pain was a vice gripping his ribs and stealing his breath. He grimaced as his arm braced his chest. He didn’t even come close to sitting up.
“Hey, hey, take it easy. You’re safe.”
A few blinks brought everything into focus. A man he had never seen before sat next to the bed and next to him was a young woman. She was vaguely familiar, like someone he remembered from a dream.
Then it all came back to him. Pushing Robert. Stumbling through to the outside. Wandering aimlessly before collapsing next to the green garbage bin in the alley. A girl. The same one sitting next to him now. He’d been sure she would call someone and he would be back inside when he woke up. She hadn’t.
He was out.
He was out!
What the hell did he do with that?
He had never been so terrified in his entire life. Turning to get a better look at the girl, he said, “Thank you,”
She smiled and he was certain he had never seen anything as beautiful in his whole life. She had short spiky blonde hair streaked through with purple. Her eyes were an incredible clear blue. They hypnotized him.
“I thought you were dead,” she said.
“Not far from it,” the man said. “What’s your name?”
Kale watched him adjust the IV attached to his arm. “You a doctor?” he said instead of answering.
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