Cut and Run (Phoenix Code 1 & 2)

by Lara Adrian

  She recalled the way the evening had played out, but Ethan’s timing seemed off, to hear him tell it now. “No, that’s not right. You came over to me before then. We were already dancing when the fight happened.”

  “Yes,” Ethan replied slowly, carefully. “I asked you to dance because I needed to get you out of the path of the drunk who was going to crash into the bar, directly where you’d been sitting.”

  Tori frowned. “I don’t understand. You couldn’t have known that would happen.”

  “Yet I did,” he said. “I saw the fight play out exactly the way it happened.”

  “You saw it.”

  “In my mind, Tori.” Ethan reached over and closed the bathroom door now. His eyes held hers, grave and earnest. “Just before I went over to ask you to dance, in my mind I saw the drunk being shoved back into you at the bar. I couldn’t let it happen.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “I have an unusual ability. A gift for precognition.”

  “Precognition? As in ESP?” She cocked her head, pushing out an incredulous laugh. “Come on, Ethan. You don’t believe in that unscientific, new age bullshit any more than I do.”

  “You wanted the truth, Tori, and I’m trying to give it to you. I need you to trust me—”

  “Trust you? All you’ve done since I saw you today is feed me one lie after another.” She crossed her arms over her breasts, incensed that he would think she’d buy this as anything close to the truth. “I’m not an idiot, and just because you might’ve had a hunch about a fight breaking out in a bar, that doesn’t make you a psychic. And none of this explains or excuses the way you walked out on me—on us, damn you—without ever looking back. As far as I’m concerned, the man I thought I knew might as well have never existed.”

  That stung him. She could see the regret in his expression.

  It edged his deep voice too. “I had no choice but to leave like I did. I was part of something secret, Tori. Something I couldn’t share with you.” He muttered a curse, low under his breath. “I wanted to protect you from what I was doing, but now my secret could get you killed.”

  Tori stared at him. He believed every word he was saying; that much was clear. But the pieces still hadn’t clicked into place for her.

  “I don’t understand, Ethan. What exactly are you saying?”

  “I was part of a classified CIA program that utilized precognitives like me as counter-intelligence operatives. We predicted terrorist activity, averted all manner of disasters. In a few cases—more frequently than anyone would care to know—the program’s agents thwarted global war.”

  “You were working for the CIA?” God it sounded outrageous even saying it out loud. “So, you did this kind of work down in New Mexico, before you took the job at the college?”

  He gave a vague nod. “Before I began teaching in Portland, yes. And during. I would still be part of it now, but the program was betrayed. I don’t know by whom, but I need to find out.”

  “You were an agent in the CIA,” Tori said again, needing to repeat it in order for it to truly sink in. “An agent with psychic abilities.”

  “Only precognition.”

  “Oh, well. Only that,” she replied, unable to curb the biting sarcasm in her tone. She studied him with a suspicion that put an odd ache in her chest. “How long were you in that program before I met you?”

  He seemed to think back for a moment. “They recruited me soon after my first deployment overseas with the Army. My CO noticed my intuition skills were off-the-charts accurate. When they realized what I could do, they yanked me from my combat unit and I found myself being interviewed and tested at The Farm.”

  Tori listened, then gaped when another revelation sank in. “Wait—you were in the Army too? You never mentioned that in all the time we were together either.”

  “Because at the time, you didn’t need to know,” he said flatly. “I enlisted when I was seventeen. I wanted to save the world. I suppose I still do—if I don’t wind up on a slab first.”

  Tori didn’t even want to consider that possibility.

  She couldn’t deny that what she was hearing—if it really was the truth—did little to put her mind at ease about Ethan or the relationship they’d shared before he left. He’d still deceived her from the start, even if he wanted her to believe it was out of care and concern for her.

  He’d lied about who he was, about his past, about everything.

  And now he wanted her to accept that he had a special gift for telling the future?

  “If you know what’s going to happen before it does, then why didn’t you know you were going to be stabbed today? Why keep running and hiding if you have the power to avoid any danger before it happens?”

  He shook his head. “The gift doesn’t work like that. I don’t see things that are going to happen to me. And there are things I never see at all.”

  “Show me.”

  “What?”

  She spread her arms. “Prove it to me. Tell me something you see, right now. How about you give me the winning lottery numbers so I can cash in before I have to fly home to Maine tomorrow? For that matter, why not use your super powers to amass a fortune for yourself? Then you can build a super-spy fortress and not worry about anyone being able to find you.”

  Shadows dimmed his serious, hazel eyes. There was a glimmer of anger there too. “It’s a skill that requires concentration, respect. It’s not a crystal ball, Tori. I can’t just wave my hands and conjure up a vision for you. It’s not something I need to prove. Not to anyone.”

  She nodded slowly, letting her arms relax back down at her sides. “Okay,” she said. “You’re right, you don’t need to prove anything to me. I mean, who am I to ask anyway, right? I’m just the woman you practically lived with for a year. The woman you lied to every time you opened your mouth. The woman you fucked and walked away from without a second thought. I’m nothing to you, and I probably never was.”

  She pivoted to grab the knob on the door.

  “Hoshi has the tea kettle on in the kitchen,” Ethan murmured. “It’s going to boil in three, two, one—”

  From elsewhere in the apartment, the whistle on Hoshi’s Hello Kitty teapot began to howl.

  Tori whirled around to face Ethan. “You could have heard her out there. You could’ve known she was making a cup of tea…”

  Ethan’s expression was grim. Ruthlessly so. “She’s not paying attention. The cup is going to slip off the counter—”

  His words were punctuated by a sharp clatter and crash in the kitchen.

  “Shit!” Hoshi cried. “That was my favorite china teacup!”

  Tori gaped at Ethan. “Oh, my God. Everything you said…”

  He didn’t look smug or triumphant, merely stared at her with sober acceptance. He reached past her and opened the door, expectation in his inscrutable gaze.

  Tori moved away from him, stepping out into the hallway.

  Ethan said nothing, just slowly closed the door between them.

  8

  Ethan cursed as he struggled into his T-shirt. His movements were impatient, agitated. Too hasty, when the stitched wound in his chest screamed with even the slightest tension.

  The pain wasn’t the cause of his anger.

  He was furious with himself.

  He had fucked things up badly enough when he deserted Tori three years ago. In truth, his fuckup had started earlier than that—when he’d first allowed her to get under his skin. To get into his heart.

  He couldn’t call that mistake back. And he couldn’t change the hurt he’d caused her either.

  But what he was doing to her now was even worse.

  This unexpected reunion had entwined their lives like never before. Now, Tori was helping him, sheltering him—touching and kissing him, for crissake—in spite of all the things she’d found out about him today.

  Not the least of which being his most dangerous secret.

  The one that could get both of them killed.
>
  He’d rehearsed in his mind half a dozen ways he could have explained to Tori about his ESP ability and his role in the Phoenix program. It wasn’t easy to swallow; he knew that.

  He should’ve known a woman like her—someone with a mind grounded in science, and sensibilities honed by good old-fashioned Yankee pragmatism—would need to see his gift to have any faith in it.

  To say nothing of the fact that he couldn’t actually expect her to have a lot of faith in him at face-value either.

  Instead of easing her into this part of who he truly was, he’d pissed her off, then got defensive when she doubted his word.

  Way to go, asshole.

  The parlor game demonstration of his gift had been real smooth too.

  He hated squandering his ability like that. Over time, he’d learned to be careful with his gift, using it only in the line of duty as a Phoenix member. He rarely forced it to rouse, and then, only in cases of extreme emergency.

  When opened on command, his precognitive skills functioned something like a spigot with a faulty washer ring. Visions dripped into his consciousness, abrupt and uncontrolled.

  Vague splashes of a premonition danced at the edges of his mind’s eye now, as he stood at the sink and smoothed his T-shirt down over his abdomen.

  At first, he wasn’t sure what he was seeing.

  When it became clearer, Ethan’s blood ran cold.

  He stalked out of the bathroom and found Tori in the kitchen, sweeping broken shards of china into the garbage while Hoshi mopped up the spilled tea on the floor.

  “We have to leave. All of us. Right now.”

  Tori gaped at him. “What’s wrong?”

  Ethan didn’t have time to explain. “The GPS chip on your phone. Is it turned off?”

  “I don’t know. I—”

  “Give it to me. Now, Tori.” She retrieved it from her purse and handed it to him. He disabled the locator and glanced up at her. “Get your things. You too, Hoshi. The apartment’s not safe.”

  Tori’s face blanched. “You saw something.”

  “Yes.” Even now, the premonition flashed through his mind’s eye. The darkened apartment. Deadbolt breached. A killer stepping over the threshold. Nowhere for any of them to run.

  Tori gave Ethan a small nod. Hoshi pinned Ethan with a suspicious scowl. “I’m not going anywhere. And neither is my friend—not with you, anyway. And what do you mean, you saw that my apartment isn’t safe? Not safe from what?”

  “Hoshi,” Tori said softly, urgently. “If Ethan says we need to leave, then we need to believe him.”

  “Why should we?”

  “Because your life depends on it,” Ethan replied grimly. “The man who stabbed me today will be coming here, looking to finish the job. I don’t know when exactly. Could be tomorrow or the next night. Maybe in the next few minutes. But soon. Trust me when I say that you don’t want to be here when that happens.”

  Tori took her friend’s hand in a firm grasp. “Please. We should do what Ethan says.”

  Some of Hoshi’s steam seemed to ebb. Ethan could see the young woman considering his grave warning. She was stubborn, perhaps even more so than Tori, if that was possible.

  But she was smart like Tori too, and where Hoshi didn’t fully trust the stranger standing in her kitchen, predicting bad things to come, she did trust her friend’s judgment where he was concerned.

  “Where?” Hoshi murmured. “And for how long?”

  “The farther you can get from Seattle, the better,” he said. “As for how long, a few days.”

  She eyed him hesitantly, then gave a faint nod. “My parents live a couple of hours north, in Surrey. I could call them—”

  “Don’t call. Just get there,” Ethan said.

  Tori glanced to him, frowning. “What about me?”

  He recalled what she’d told him earlier. “You said you were flying home to Maine tomorrow?”

  “In the morning. Ten twenty.”

  “Good. I’m going to personally make sure you get on that flight safely. Then I’m going to take care of the situation back here.”

  “Take care of it?” Dread dulled her anxious gaze. She eyed him as if she was looking at a stranger. Someone she didn’t know and might have even feared in that moment. “You’re going to kill that man, aren’t you?”

  He didn’t answer the question, but hell yes, that was precisely what he intended to do. Neither Tori nor he would be safe until the assassin was dealt with and eliminated.

  Until then, he would keep her close.

  He would protect her with every skill he had and every breath in his body.

  First, he had to find someplace for them to go until he could put Tori on her plane home. It had to be somewhere secure. Very public, if at all possible.

  For the man who’d spent three years living like a nomad and a pauper, now the most secure place for Tori and him to hide was somewhere they’d be surrounded by people.

  “Collect your things,” he told the women. “Only the essentials. Nothing you can’t carry on your person. And make it fast. We’re leaving right now.”

  9

  “Let us out at the corner of Ninth and Pine,” Ethan said from the darkness in the backseat, after Hoshi, on his instructions, had driven Tori and him across town from her apartment.

  Tori looked out the passenger side window at the busy nighttime boulevard and the tall glass and brick buildings that lined the street and crossroad.

  At the corner Ethan indicated was an old theater, its vintage sign and marquee glowing with bright lights. A crowd of people waited outside, lined up to purchase tickets.

  Tori slanted him a wry glance as Hoshi slowed to stop at the curb outside. “You’re taking me to the movies?”

  “Just a pit stop.” His mouth quirked, and the fact that he was able to smile in the midst of what they were doing gave her an odd sense of reassurance. “We shouldn’t linger.”

  When Ethan got out of the car, Hoshi reached over to clasp her hand. “Are you sure about this? Are you sure about him?”

  Tori nodded, even though her heart was racing with the uncertainty of what awaited her in Ethan’s company now. “I’ll be fine. Ethan won’t let anything happen to me. I know it. And I…trust him.”

  “Oh, shit,” Hoshi whispered. “It’s even worse than that, isn’t it? You still love him.”

  Did I ever stop? She knew the answer to that, even if she wasn’t prepared to admit her likely foolishness. She leaned over and pulled her friend into a tight hug. “I’m going to be okay. I’ll call you as soon as I can, let you know I’m safe.”

  “You better.” Hoshi gave her a stern look as she let her go. “Someday you’re going to tell me what’s really going on with this guy, right?”

  “I have to go,” Tori said, a less than artful dodge. Christ, she was getting as cagey as Ethan. But this was life or death stakes, and if keeping him safe meant keeping his secrets, she was prepared to take all of them to her grave.

  Though hopefully not anytime soon.

  Tori climbed out of the vehicle and met Ethan on the curb as Hoshi pulled back out onto the street and drove away.

  “Come on,” he said, and led her into the theater.

  The place was packed for the evening show, a grim art house film that had brought out about a hundred sullen teenagers. Ethan laced his fingers through Tori’s and brought her past the crowds, toward the restrooms in back.

  “Go into the ladies’ room and wait five minutes,” he said. “I’ll meet you right here.”

  She wasn’t sure what this little excursion was about, but she did as he asked.

  When she came out, he was already standing where he’d left her. Fortunately in the dimmed lights of the theater lobby, amid the hipsters and Goths, the bloodstain and knife hole on his shirt looked like some kind of grunge detail.

  “You were fast,” she said as she approached him.

  He pulled her into a kiss that left her breathless. “I have what I came for.”


  And with that, they were off again. Now, Ethan took her across the avenue and then down another side street. Up ahead was a large bus station. They entered, and he made a beeline for a bank of lockers inside.

  He walked down to one of the last rows and took a sealed plastic bag out of his cargo pants pocket. It wasn’t anything Tori had found when she’d searched his clothes back at Hoshi’s place. The bag was crisscrossed with silver duct tape, still wet from where he’d retrieved it.

  Inside was a folded up paper towel, and inside the paper was a tarnished locker key.

  Tori arched a brow at him. “Don’t tell me you hid that in a public toilet.”

  He grinned and discreetly opened one of the lockers.

  A battered old backpack sat inside. Ethan rifled through the zippered compartments. Tori saw a change of clothing and a pair of shoes, more plastic bags that appeared to contain assorted toiletries, cash and credit cards.

  As he took a quick inventory of his stash, she couldn’t help noticing he also had a pistol and three different passports in the pack, only one of them sporting the navy blue and gold colors of the United States.

  He closed the locker and slung the pack up onto his good shoulder. “Ready?”

  She could hardly stifle her astonishment. “Ready for what—a secret agent initiation ceremony, or the witness protection program?”

  Ethan chuckled, but when he spoke, there was gravity in his low voice. “This is what I never wanted to expose you to, Tori. The secrets, the subterfuge. The danger. This is part of who I really am.”

  “What about my bookish, slightly nerdy liberal studies professor?”

  “Associate professor,” he corrected on a smile. “And what the hell do you mean, nerdy? I got skills. I’m a military-grade, government-certified badass, babe.”

  “Yeah, you are,” she agreed. “And I have to admit it’s more than a little hot.”

  “Yeah?”

  She nodded. “Seeing you like this, so cool and capable in a situation that would have other men pissing their Dockers…let’s just say I’m glad you’re not hiding this side of you from me anymore.”