by Paige Tyler
Thorn turned to look at him. “Stutmeir only had a knife? And there was no way you could have taken him alive?”
Landon had asked himself the same thing. “I suppose I could have tried to take him alive, but some people are too dangerous to let live. I killed Stutmeir because he needed to die.”
Thorn regarded him in silence for a moment, then turned his hawklike gaze on Ivy. “And the former DCO operative Peters? How did he die, Agent Halliwell?”
Ivy’s eyes flashed green as she smiled. “I ripped out his throat, though I was nice enough to let him keep his knife while I did it. I wanted him to feel like he had a chance there at the end.”
Thorn didn’t look away; he seemed unconcerned by the green glow rimming her irises. “If I remember correctly, Peters attacked you several years ago when you were partners. I assume that previous attack had something to do with your decision to rip out his throat instead of detaining him?”
Ivy let out a little growl. “As Captain Donovan said, he was a man who needed to die.”
Thorn lifted a brow, then laughed. “Remind me never to make you angry, Agent Halliwell. I have no problem with the decisions either one of you made. We live in a difficult, complicated world. Many times, the thing most needed is decisive action taken with a clear mind and unencumbered soul. I think you two have the ability to take that decisive action at the appropriate time. It’s a talent in short supply, even in the DCO.”
Thorn glanced at Frasier, giving him a nod. Frasier stepped out of the office without a word and closed the door behind him.
When they were alone, Thorn stabbed Landon and Ivy with a sharp look. “Tell me what happened down in Costa Rica. And don’t even start with any of that sanitized crap you put in the official report.”
Chapter 3
Minka’s eyes fluttered open, but she closed them again and snuggled against Angelo. She smiled. His name was fitting, considering he was her guardian angel.
She had no idea what was happening, where she was going, or what these American military people wanted with her. All she knew was that for the first time in a very long time, she felt calm. The rage that had been inside her almost every minute of her life since those doctors had injected that red liquid into her had somehow disappeared the moment the big, handsome American soldier had wrapped his arms around her.
She hadn’t wanted to attack him back in the village. When he’d ordered the other soldiers out of the building, then taken his hands off his weapon and started whispering soothing words in Tajik to her, she had thought the beast would back off and give her a chance to regain control. His scent and voice had been so relaxing, almost hypnotic, that her claws had immediately begun to retract. And his face was so beautiful—honest and sincere. With his dark, soulful eyes, wide mouth, and silky, black hair that almost reached to his shoulders, he was quite possibly the most attractive man she had ever seen. She’d been ready to take his hand and let him lead her wherever he wanted because she instinctively knew it would be somewhere safe.
But then the cries of the angry villagers had shattered the peaceful scene into a thousand pieces, and the beast had come charging back, taking control and extending her claws and teeth to their fullest.
When the beast lunged at the soldier, Minka had fully expected him to pick up his weapon and kill her. But he hadn’t. And when he’d wrapped his muscular arms around her and pulled her tightly against his chest, his scent had enveloped her and a complete and total sense of peace had settled over her. She didn’t know why being near him made the beast inside her go away, and she didn’t care. She was Minka in his arms and a monster out of them. That was all that mattered to her.
She closed her eyes again and snuggled against him. She thought about asking where they were going, but then realized she didn’t care. The horrible doctors were far behind her now and she was safe in Angelo’s arms.
* * *
Angelo couldn’t remember being so exhausted. He’d been holding Minka for the better part of their twenty-hour flight back to the States. He’d slipped away long enough to use the tiny restroom on the C-17 once, thank God, but other than that, he’d held her the entire time.
He didn’t understand why, but Minka only seemed calm when she was in his arms. Every time he tried to put her on the seat next to him, she’d dig in her claws. And when she fell asleep deeply enough for him to move her, she immediately woke up and climbed right back into his lap. Finally, he just gave up. If the only way she could sleep was in his arms, then so be it. She looked like she needed the rest. Besides, what man didn’t enjoy a beautiful woman curled up in his lap, even if she did treat him like a scratching post every time she woke up?
He’d gotten Minka to eat something a couple hours earlier, when the crew chief came down to the cargo section and tossed him a flight-crew box lunch and a bottle of water. Minka clearly hadn’t thought much of it, but he’d done his best to get her to eat as much of the dry sandwich as he could. She felt so light and fragile in his arms, he doubted she’d eaten a full meal in weeks, maybe months.
As Minka had been eating, one of the sleeves on the camo overshirt he’d given her to wear had slipped down, revealing a series of scars along her forearm, from her wrist all the way up to her inner elbow. He clenched his jaw as he remembered seeing cut marks and puncture wounds like that before, on Ivy, after she’d been captured and tortured by Stutmeir and his doctors. It wasn’t that hard to imagine it had been those same doctors who’d tortured Minka. Damn, why the hell hadn’t the DCO found and killed those fucking psychos already?
After she’d finished eating, Minka had snuggled up against his chest and fallen asleep again. Angelo should have slept too, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Even after everything she had obviously been through—exhaustion, starvation, torture—she looked like an angel. A beautiful, peaceful angel. Seeing Minka like this, it was hard to believe she was a hybrid. She looked more like the kind of girl he’d take out on a date—if he was the kind of guy who bothered with dates.
Angelo resisted the urge to push her long, dark hair back from her face, afraid he’d wake her up. Instead, he leaned his head back against the seat. But he didn’t close his eyes. They’d be landing soon. Besides, his mind was spinning way too much to consider even taking a combat nap right now. So he watched Minka sleep while he tried to figure out what he was going to do when he got to the DCO.
He’d dealt with the covert organization enough in the past to be seriously worried about what some of the people there might have in mind for Minka. He and Tanner had spent a lot of time talking together down in Costa Rica, and Angelo knew the DCO hadn’t treated the hybrid very well. Sure, he was alive, had a place to sleep, and food to eat. But they watched him like a hawk, and constantly poked and prodded him like a damn lab rat. Tanner had told him once that he was alive for one reason: because he was the only known hybrid with a trace of self-control.
Angelo had no doubt that some of the higher-ups in the DCO would regard Minka the same way, like she was just another lab rat to be poked, prodded, and experimented on. Others would be less concerned with what made her tick. They’d simply want to know how they could turn her into a weapon.
As Angelo gazed down at the beautiful woman in his arms, he decided right then he wasn’t going to let any of that happen to Minka. She was a person, made this way against her will, then tortured and mistreated by almost everyone around her, even her own people. She needed to be protected, not turned into a science project—or a weapon. She’d gone through enough already.
He was still thinking about exactly how he was going to stop any of that from happening when the stocky crew chief came down the steep stairs from the flight deck and moved halfway into the cargo section.
“We’ll be on the ground at Anacostia-Bolling in fifteen minutes. There’s a security force from…well, from somewhere to take you where you need to go, wherever that is.”
“Thanks,” Angelo said.
The crew chief’s blue gaze f
ell on Minka. “Hey, I hope everything works out okay with her. She looks like she’s had it pretty hard.”
“I hope so, too.”
The crew chief did a quick inspection of the cargo section, checking panels, lights, and wires, then headed back upstairs without another word. A few minutes later, Angelo felt the cargo plane start to descend.
Minka didn’t even stir when they landed, or when the C-17 taxied for what seemed like a really long time. Heck, she didn’t do much more than turn her face into his chest a little more when the cargo ramp dropped down with a rumbling hydraulic groan. Typically the crew chief would have been down there already, checking the plane’s status and getting the aircraft’s passengers ready to disembark. Maybe the DCO had instructed the guy to stay in the cockpit.
The rear part of the plane had been towed into an aircraft hangar, and Angelo could see three black SUVs waiting for them, along with a team of ten heavily armed men in tactical gear. DCO security, he guessed. He’d hoped Landon and Ivy would be there to meet them, but no such luck.
Minka jerked awake as two of the black-clad men stepped onto the loading ramp of the plane. Angelo held up his hand, indicating for the men to stop where they were. They halted but lifted the barrels of their M4s slightly. Angelo ignored them, focusing on Minka instead. While she was eyeing the men warily, she hadn’t shifted, but Angelo got the sensation that she was only a hop, skip, and a jump away from going berserk depending on what the security guards did next.
“It’s okay,” he whispered.
Wrapping one arm around her shoulder and slipping the other under her knees, he got to his feet. Minka relaxed against his chest, but her eyes remained alert and focused on the men the whole time. Angelo had no doubt the fangs and claws would make an appearance if anyone made a hostile movement. Angelo didn’t recognize any of the men, but he knew their type—hardcore security drones who looked like they didn’t take a crap without referring to a manual first. If Minka did anything out of line, every one of these Cybermen would happily shoot her dead.
Angelo walked to the end of the cargo bay and down the ramp. One of the men stepped in front of him, forcing him to come to a stop. Tall, with dark hair and eyes that seemed like they didn’t miss a thing, he gave Minka an appraising look, then locked gazes with Angelo.
“Does she need to be sedated?”
Angelo shook his head. “No. She’s fine as long as no one threatens her.”
The man regarded Minka for a few moments, then sized up Angelo again. Finally, he must have come to some conclusion because he nodded his head curtly and pointed at the second Suburban in line.
Four of the guards got into the lead vehicle, while another four took the back one. That left two guards—including Eagle Eye—with him and Minka. There was a heavy steel cage separating the front and backseats, so it wasn’t like the two in the front seat were any braver than the rest. They’d probably just lost at rock, paper, scissors.
Angelo was relieved when Minka allowed him to put her in the seat beside him. He really didn’t want to drive through DC traffic with her in his lap. Unfortunately, getting a seat belt on her turned out to be a waste of time. Three seconds after he’d clicked hers into place, the claws came out and she shredded it. Then she wiggled over, sliced through his belt as well and grabbed hold of his arm. She snuggled close, her claws retracting.
He chuckled. “Not into safety restraints, huh?”
Minka ignored him, her eyes huge as they headed out to the highway and she saw DC spread out before her. As the driver sped up and merged onto 295, Angelo really wished he had that seat belt back. He’d rather jump out of a plane with a beach umbrella for a parachute than be on the roads around the nation’s capital. The people here drove like they were insane. The driver of the Suburban was a perfect example.
The vehicle headed south on 295, then onto 95 south. The DCO’s training and medical complex was about an hour outside the city, near Quantico, so he guessed that’s where they were heading. No surprise there—it wasn’t like they’d want to have a hybrid brought to their main offices in the middle of town.
Angelo was just trying to look over the driver’s shoulder to see how fast they were going when Minka’s soft voice yanked his attention back to her.
“What?” he said.
She turned away from the window to regard him with big, cinnamon-brown eyes. “Are there always so many cars on the road here?”
He blinked. “You speak English?”
“Yes,” she said simply.
There was a slight accent to the word, maybe Russian or Eastern European mixed in with Tajik. Something told him there had to be an interesting story there, but that would have to wait until later.
He glanced out the side window to see a small two-door Mini go zipping by even though their convoy of SUVs had to be doing over eighty. “Yeah, I guess,” he said in answer to Minka’s question. “Washington, DC, is a big city with millions of people. The roads are packed from before dawn until well after nightfall.”
Minka stared at him for so long he wondered if maybe he’d thrown too many words at her at once. Just because she could say a few words in English, that didn’t mean she was fluent. He ran into the same problem with Tajik and Farsi—talk to someone for a few seconds, and they’d start rattling off whole sentences like you were a native.
But Minka only nodded like she understood everything he’d said. “I’ve never seen so many cars. And they all drive so fast. Everyone here must be very good drivers.” When he chuckled, she gave him a confused look. “Did I say something wrong?”
Angelo was stunned to see she actually looked embarrassed. What did she have to be embarrassed about? She spoke English far better than he did Tajik.
“No, you didn’t say anything wrong,” he said quickly. “It was just that I was thinking people around here drive like they’re crazy. Way too fast.”
Minka nodded, accepting his answer. Then, without a word, she crawled into his lap so she could get a better look around. She did it so unabashedly that Angelo couldn’t stop himself from grinning as he put a protective arm around her.
She pointed at a big building with a large number of cars parked around it. “What is that place—a mosque?”
He glanced out the window and realized they were passing the big Hoffman Center. “That’s a movie theater. The number twenty-two means there are twenty-two screens.”
Her eyes widened. “Twenty-two movies playing at the same time?”
He nodded as she went back to gazing out the window again. After that, the drive turned into a game of twenty questions, except it was more like a hundred. He never realized how many things he took for granted until Minka continued to ask him what they all were. Parks, malls, golf courses, carpool lanes, IKEA—the list of things that caught her attention seemed endless, and he couldn’t help but smile at the awe in her eyes after each new discovery.
Even the two expressionless gargoyles in the front seat cracked a smile at some of the things she asked, especially when Minka pointed at a man on the side of the road surrounded by cops and K-9s and asked if they were helping him with car trouble.
Thanks to all the questions Minka asked, the hour-long trip to the DCO complex zipped by in a flash. She fell silent as they weaved through the gates and she caught sight of the armed guards standing there. She climbed off Angelo’s lap but stayed close to him, the tension returning to her body.
After they got through the gate, she relaxed a little, but he could tell she was still on edge. When they stopped behind one of the main buildings, the eagle-eyed guard opened the back door for them. The moment he and Minka stepped out, the security force surrounded them. Two took point to lead the way, but most closed in behind them. Angelo couldn’t decide if they were being treated like visiting dignitaries or criminals.
At first, he was a little worried Minka might be too scared to walk on her own because she was definitely tense as hell. He was all ready to carry her if he had to, but she only pulle
d the uniform shirt he’d given her more tightly to her chest, then latched on to his arm with her free one and gave him a nod.
They moved through several long hallways with lots of turns and offices. There were a few open doors, and even some windows here and there that looked into cubicle-filled spaces. If it wasn’t for the armed security guards, Angelo might have been lulled into thinking this was just a normal, everyday Fortune 500 company. Then again, he was walking beside a woman who could turn into a snarling she-cat when things went bad. He sure as hell wasn’t walking around Microsoft.
The guards led them into a large, open room that looked like it couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be a medical facility or a science lab. There were three men dressed in white lab coats, a half-dozen beds, lots of equipment that looked like it belonged in a hospital, and the distinctive smell of antiseptic cleaners. There were also lots of microscopes, centrifuges, and other things that were probably completely normal in a lab like this, but given the DCO’s history with hybrids, Angelo couldn’t help thinking it looked a little like Frankenstein’s lab.
Minka stiffened the moment they walked into the room, and Angelo slowly slipped his arm down and encircled her waist. He wasn’t surprised to discover she didn’t think much of the lab-like room.
Angelo looked around for Landon and Ivy and was disappointed to see neither of them were anywhere to be found. Before he could ask where they were, a squirrelly looking jackass in an expensive suit walked in the room. The man took one look at Angelo and Minka and glared at the lead guard.
“Who the hell is this?” he asked, motioning to Angelo. “And why isn’t the hybrid sedated and restrained?”
Angelo had never met the man, but he didn’t have to be a genius to figure out it was the one and only Dick Coleman, deputy director of the DCO. Landon had said the man was the worst kind of bureaucrat and a Grade A asshole. Angelo immediately decided his friend had been too kind.
