by JL Terra
Nate was also in witness protection, along with his wife Cyan, their new baby, and three cats. Ben had never seen the baby in person, only via video call. It was a life Ben had no choice but to live. Whether he liked it or not didn’t matter. It was simply the way things were. And it kept all of them safe. Grant was really the only Mason brother who could walk freely and travel under his own name. Who didn’t have to safeguard his kids’ lives for fear they might be targeted.
Ben said, “What about Pat?”
“John is going to wait on bringing him until we know exactly what happened.”
Ben couldn’t hide the pang those words brought him. It shivered through him like a knife wound, leaving an ache behind it. Raw and sharp.
Grant hugged him again.
“It’s fine,” Ben said.
They walked to the elevator and stepped inside. Grant pressed the button and leaned back against the wall. If he wanted to know what Ben had been up to since they’d spoken on the phone, he didn’t ask out loud. He simply kept his curiosity to himself.
It was both considerate and insulting at the same time. Ben had been on so many missions that took him out of the country for long stretches of time. His brothers were used to not relying on him. Or prying. It would take as long to change the situation as it had to arrive here in the first place. Perhaps, like Shadrach’s dog, they could learn a new way to be with each other.
Grant showed him the way to the room and then said, “I’m going to get a couple of coffees. I’ll be back in a little while.” He squeezed Ben’s shoulder.
“Thanks.” Ben watched his brother walk away, then let himself in.
His mom lay in the bed with her eyes closed, tucked under hospital blankets. Heart rate monitor on her finger. The knot on her forehead had been covered with gauze and a bandage. Her chest rose and fell in rhythmic succession. Her eyes moved behind their lids as though she was lost in some dream world. He hoped that wherever it was, she was happy, because whatever had happened to her looked brutal.
Ben perched on the side of the bed and touched the back of her hand. Her skin felt like it would tear if he was too rough, the veins pronounced. Her blonde hair showed no trace of the gray he figured was by now her natural color. Her eyelids were shadowed metallic blue but the peach lipstick had mostly rubbed off.
She stirred Friday night at the community center in the retirement complex where she lived. She was a spitfire, and his dad had often told the four of them to find a woman who kept them on their toes and made them feel young. Dad had loved her until the day his heart finally failed, leaving his four sons to be outshone by their mother’s vitality every single time.
A tear rolled down his face.
Her head shifted, slight enough he wondered if he’d imagined it. Her eyelids fluttered, and she inhaled through her nose before her lips parted.
“Don’t try to talk.” He didn’t want her using up energy she needed to get better. “Just rest.”
The door cracked open. Grant stepped inside. When Ben looked back at his mom, she was moving more. Fighting the unconsciousness provided by medicine.
“She’s waking up?” Grant set the two paper cups down on the table.
Ben lifted his free hand in a shrug. “I thought she was sleeping.”
She shifted again and moaned, almost silently. Ben said, “Mom, are you awake?” He touched her shoulder and gave her a tiny squeeze. More just to settle her than to wake her.
Grant sat down in a chair with his elbows on his knees. Leaned forward, just watching. Ben brushed hair back from his mom’s forehead, the light strands straight and short. He didn’t even want to think what it would feel like when she finally left them and passed onto whatever life came next.
He couldn’t help thinking of the gunshot wound he’d gotten Saturday night. Injuries healed, bruises disappearing in minutes. Years ago, in the army, he’d been shot in the shoulder. He’d have loved for it to have healed instantly like smaller cuts and bruises—that graze from Saturday. And while the gunshot had healed faster than expected, it was nothing like this. Seconds? Minutes?
Eventually his teammates had started to joke about him getting back on his feet quicker than anyone. It got so bad he’d had to finish out his tour and walk away. Eventually one of them would’ve figured out something was different about him.
After that he’d gone his own way, ending up in Panama City in a meeting with a CIA agent. The career he had now had been pieced together from there.
For twenty-five years he’d walked this road—lived with the ability to heal anything, given enough time. But now?
It was getting worse.
With the spread of the veins came new abilities. Fighting off poison. Skin that knit back together in seconds. If he was able to transfer any part of whatever was inside him that gave him the ability to heal so thoroughly, he’d give it to his mom now. Even if it killed him. Just as he would have given it to any of his teammates. The men and women he’d served with.
Ben knew of no way to do that. He didn’t even know what it was, or where it came from. At least, he couldn’t remember enough about it that might be helpful.
Once again, his mom stirred. The moan from her throat was audible this time. “No…no, don’t.”
Ben lifted his hand from hers.
She stilled. Settled.
Ben touched her hand.
Her legs shifted under the covers.
Ben made his brother promise to call if there were any changes. He took the stairs to the bathroom two floors down. It was empty, so he stood at the sink and pulled down the collar of his shirt. Like it would suddenly be gone?
His proximity to her, and whatever ran through his veins, had caused her distress.
Ben didn’t look at his face. Couldn’t.
The black veins crossed his chest. Touched the underside of his collar bone, above his heart. The heavy feeling they brought, inch by inch, covered his chest like sinister fingers. The weight of darkness inside him was growing.
If he saw a doctor what would they even say? Some kind of infection. A poison, or a virus. Maybe they would even put him in quarantine. Maybe he needed to be quarantined. He didn’t feel sick. Before the last twenty-four hours, he’d have said he wasn’t a danger to anyone. Unless it was mission critical. Now that wasn’t true, was it? Not when someone sent two men to capture him and the mission distilled into a single task: stay free. He’d done his job for years, no problem. Both the capture and extermination of targets. Ben had never killed anyone out of anger or burning rage. Not the way he’d done last night after he blacked out. He’d always been able to separate his emotions from the task.
Ben splashed water on his face before he headed to the elevator and traveled up four floors. Maybe the rush of emotion—and whatever had happened after—caused the spread of these veins. It was the only thing that had changed in him. He crossed an empty hall to the stairs and descended back to the parking level.
He should get on with the next file. Except they’d promised long ago they would never put each other in jeopardy. If he located her for the CIA, would it break years of trust? Maybe she didn’t want to be found, even by him. But if he didn’t find her then he needed something else to do, and fast. Down time wasn’t good for him, and he didn’t need to recharge. His life was what he had made it. No home. No name. No family. The team was the only aberration. If he allowed his emotions to become part of his life now, who knew what the repercussions would be?
Ben stepped between two rows of cars and looked for something old. He could pop the lock and borrow it for a while before he left it locked in a nice neighborhood with cash in the glovebox.
Two rows down was a purple Honda. His brothers would find it hilarious if they saw him driving this. The perfect thing to force a divorce of his brain from his feelings—even if it was only embarrassment.
A car pulled up behind him. Electric, the engine just a hum. Two men got out, neatly dressed in jeans and collared shirts. Ben faced off wit
h them. “Help you?”
He glanced between the two. The man from the airplane and…a relative of Eric Tiller if he had to guess. Was this Ted?
One pulled out a stun gun and fired. Ben feinted left. The barbs caught him mid-weave. Crackle. He tugged them from his chest and shoulder. Winced. Threw them at the man’s face. The man reeled back.
The other closed in. The man from the plane, no turtleneck this time. A tattoo peeked out from his shirt collar, up the side of his neck. Ben’s palm strike made contact with the prongs of another stun gun. The buzz traveled to the top of his head and he hissed. Followed it up with a second punch. The man jabbed at Ben again with the stun gun. Made contact with his neck. He used the man’s close proximity to slam an uppercut into his solar plexus. He choked for a breath and went down. Ben shook off the lingering buzz.
Remy was probably freaking out.
The first man had rallied and found a new weapon. This time he came at Ben with a baton. Ben grabbed it, ready to use the man’s own strength against him, but it came alive. Thousands of volts coursed through the baton. Through Ben’s hand, into his arm. He hissed out a breath, gritted his back teeth, kicked out at the man’s knees. Finally, he gathered the wherewithal to let go. Kicked again. An audible pop. The guy went down on one leg screaming.
Airplane guy grabbed him from behind. He flung his head back, but the man’s face wasn’t there, and he only made contact with air.
The guy with the baton stood on one leg, keeping his weight from the knee Ben had popped. He touched the baton to Ben’s stomach. The end of it felt like a cattle prod. The guy didn’t let up.
They knew.
Somehow they’d figured out Ben had beaten the drug. Beaten the last two men sent after him. They’d prepared well for this encounter.
At the same time realization dawned, the strength in Ben’s legs gave out. He could no longer get out of this man’s grip. That was when they stuck him in the neck with a needle. He felt the press of the plunger as the drug was forced into his veins. It hit his system like the collision of two asteroids, one made of ice and the other made of fire. His body began to burn. His back arched so hard he felt like he was going to snap in two.
They lifted him.
He cried out, every touch a thousand needles against his skin. Ben wished for the blackness to overtake him. Even if it meant he woke up to these two men, dead on the ground.
Unconsciousness never came.
Ben was tossed in the trunk of the car. His face smashed against the scratchy interior. Smelled like new carpet. They folded his limbs inside, his knees almost to his chest. All his joints locked. The muscles in his back spasmed, and he contorted with a sudden wash of pain. The metallic tang of blood filled his mouth.
Another needle was stuck in him. His thigh this time. It brought with it a wave of oblivion he welcomed. Swallowed Ben like a thirty-foot breaker just crashed down on him.
**
Colin slammed the lid down on the trunk of the car and exhaled. “I knew it was going to be tough, but I didn’t think it would be that bad.”
Ted hopped to the passenger door. “Speak for yourself.”
Colin got in the driver’s seat. “At least it’s done.”
“For our mothers. For our fathers.”
“For our sisters,” Ted answered. “For our brothers.”
“For our children. This evil will be stopped.”
Colin steered the car for the exit.
Chapter 14
Cascade, ID. Tuesday, 20:13hrs MDT
Taya watched her patient come awake. The old man looked so frail. He’d terrorized people for years.
Hard to believe he’d taken from her everything she’d had in the world—good and bad—and forced her to live without it. To find a new life. She should just press the plunger on the syringe right now, and rid the world of his destruction. This evil. He was death. Not the instrument of it, but the will behind it. His finger had pulled the trigger.
His mouth closed, and he swallowed. She couldn’t do it. It meant she would never be better than him—only just as vindictive as he was. The greater good didn’t count when both sides used that excuse to justify their actions.
Taya stepped back and resumed her nurse’s duties. They were so close to the end. She couldn’t give in now.
If she’d learned one thing in her long and lonely life, it was how to put aside her feelings and get on with the task at hand.
Closure.
Roger moaned a word as he awoke.
Good for her, she spoke fluent German. It came in handy in Asian countries when she needed to ensure she wouldn’t be understood. She used it now as she replied, “Be that as it may, we’re here. You and me.” She leaned her hip against the bed. “You don’t have much time left.”
He smacked his lips and swallowed again, so Taya held the cup of water to his lips. “I’m ready to go.”
“Not a lot of people can say that,” she continued in German. “Everyone’s got a bucket list. You’ve checked all your things off?”
“Nothing left to tie up. It has been commanded.”
She studied his face, those cloudy eyes. This wasn’t a man who got his hands dirty. He only ordered things to be done. “There is nothing you regret?” She spoke as if this was the most interesting conversation she’d ever had. Like she lived for old people to dispense their end-of-life wisdom upon her.
His gaze flicked around, unfocused. “My work was the stuff of legends.”
When he didn’t add more, she said, “Will Malcolm continue that for you?”
His chest moved with the laugh, but no sound came out of his mouth. “The boy, he is useless. Only cares about himself. I knew when he was young that he would always be self absorbed. He wasn’t capable of sacrificing anything in the name of research. Or bettering the world.” Roger frowned. “Such a shame.”
She wanted to rage at Roger and his idea of what bettered the world. Instead, she forced her voice to sound sympathetic. “That must be disappointing for you.”
“It doesn’t matter now. The work will be concluded.”
“May I ask what you were working on? I know it was in the medical field. As a nurse I can’t help but be curious.” It goaded her to add that measure of being vapid to her persona. She had the knowledge of a doctor, had even gone through residency as part of a CIA operation. These days it was helpful when she had to patch herself up after an injury. More than that? Not so much. Knowing how to kill people faster was nothing but a curse.
“Cutting edge.” The answer was a little too fast.
“I’ll bet you’re sad to see it end.” She smiled gently. “I think I would be, after years of hard work.”
“The truth will die with me. That’s how it’s meant to be, I suppose.”
His phrasing bothered her. Especially considering he had commanded his work to be completed.
“Surely there must be someone who can take up your research. Who knows if there’s a breakthrough yet to be had?”
“No. He cannot be trusted.”
She started to commiserate more with him, but he cut her off. “No one is going to get their grubby hands on my greatest achievement. As if I would be so careless.” Even old and frail, he seemed formidable now.
“So it’s a closely-guarded secret?” One he refused to share with Malcolm.
She thought back to that photo. Karl and Hans. One memory retained, one torn out. This man knew many secrets.
Roger said, “Even from my staff.”
She let her eyes widen, as though he had surprised her. “How can you ensure that level of security?”
His eyes narrowed as he saw in her something more than a nurse. Good catch. He wasn’t a stupid man, but she’d already known that. “I have taken steps.”
“Shut people down. Killed them, maybe?” She laughed like it was some delicious secret she would relish. “Sounds like a movie.” And this nurse simply thought he was a kooky old man, delirious from the meds. Right.
&n
bsp; His eyes drifted closed.
For years she’d walked through life alone, thinking Ben was the one who had destroyed everything. Now she knew it wasn’t him. This man lying in the bed in front of her had brought her reality to a screaming halt.
He was the one who had commanded it.
Taya gripped the door frame and stood on the edge, where carpet turned to wood. The kitchen was ice white, not a crumb or drip of errant liquid to be seen. She had scoured it until her fingers were red and raw from the burning hot water. Until her nose stung from the smell of bleach.
He wasn’t here.
She walked on her toes, even the whisper of her socks entirely too loud. Past the empty spots on the wall where her brother’s high school graduation photos had hung. It was as though he’d died as well.
Wherever her father was, she had to find him and say goodnight. That perfunctory, “Sleep well, Daddy.”
It made her nauseous to lean down and kiss his cheek and watch him flinch. He’d smell the bleach on her. He would remember Mama in her face and her hair. The sight of Taya caused tears to shimmer in his eyes at the memory of his lost love.
Taya wished she could remember her mother and once again be the flower in their lives as she’d been so long ago. Only when she stared at the picture long enough could she recall her mother giving her a white bloom. “You’ll always be my flower.”
She reached the doorway to his office, where she sat on the floor when she’d finished her chores. Studied his medical books in preparation for the next time he would quiz her. If she failed, there would be no dinner, only more chores.
The desk lamp was on, but he wasn’t here. Taya glanced over her shoulder. Saw nothing. Heard no movement. Had he gone outside?
She opened the back door. The chill cut through her thin pajamas. She hugged herself with one arm and shut the door.
When she turned back to the kitchen, she saw him at the end of the hall. Her best friend since Kindergarten, Ben Mason. “What are you—”
Ben stepped off the bottom step and headed for the front door.
