by Devyn Quinn
Callie had just enough presence of mind not to panic. Doing that would probably hurt her more than it would hurt her captors. Staying calm would be the safest bet right now.
Taking a deep breath, she concentrated on dragging her mind out of the dense fog gripping her senses. Her whole body was one big jumble of aches and pains. She felt like she’d been kicked to pieces and put back inside out and upside down. Her mouth was so desert dry it might as well have been glued shut. God, she was thirsty. So thirsty she would cut off her right leg to get a drink of water.
She eased back against the pillow. The pillowcase under her head was clean. The scent of Lysol and bleach used to clean the linens assailed her nostrils. Someone was taking care of her. Good sign. That unburdened her tension a bit, lifting a great weight from her shoulders.
Stilling her breath, she concentrated on listening to her surroundings. The low buzz of a monitor and the soft hush of faraway voices clued her into her whereabouts.
Hospital.
She heard them before she saw them.
Someone watched her. Callie felt it in the back of her neck and the incessant drone in the back of her skull.
“Who’s there?”
An unfamiliar female voice answered. “Just a minute.” The sounds of a body shifting, footsteps closing the distance between chair and bed. Sounds of breathing as someone bent over her. “I’m going to take this off your eyes. Are you sure this is what you want?”
Licking parched lips with an equally parched tongue, Callie nodded. “I don’t understand why I was blindfolded to begin with.”
A soft chuckle. “You came in complaining the light hurt your eyes. We were just trying to make you feel better. You said you needed the dark…that sunlight would burn you up.”
I did?
Callie considered. “Will it?”
“Hasn’t so far.” Another chuckle from the mystery woman. “Would you like me to draw the blinds first?”
Callie didn’t think things were so fucking funny, but managed to bite her tongue. “No. I want to see.”
The mask slid off.
Callie’s eyes snapped open. She blinked, once, twice. Blurry images cleared, then sharpened. Eyes adjusting the wash of light, an unfamiliar face swam into view. White uniform and concerned expression. A nurse.
She cast a hurried glance around the room. Typical hospital room, bed, monitors, a single window covered by slatted blinds. Gray skies outside, rain pattering against the glass. Everything seemed to be in place. Except the window had bars. Meant to keep people who wanted to get outside, inside.
Callie’s gaze settled on her restrained wrists. The effort delivered a wave of nausea. An IV ran from her left arm to some mysterious substance in the bottle hung above her bed. Oh shit. Waking up in a hospital was one thing. Waking up in a place with bars on the windows and bound to the bed didn’t bode well.
“What the fuck is going on?” Rising fury emanated from every pore. Hysteria vibrated in her voice.
The nurse placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Don’t panic. Your hands had to be restrained to keep you from tearing out your IV.”
Callie glared at the suspicious bottle. The back of her hand was bruised with multiple needle marks. Apparently someone had mistaken her for a pincushion. “What are you people poisoning me with?”
A second voice answered. “Nothing more than a saline solution to replace the fluids in your body. You were dangerously dehydrated when you came in.”
Callie looked at the new intruder. The woman who’d walked into her room commanded instant respect. She wasn’t young—late fifties, maybe early sixties. Beautiful face, a cap of brown hair, highlighted in a chic youthful way and perfectly arranged. Slender, she wore a gray suit under her white lab coat. Gold earrings and a touch of lipstick were her only adornment. Back ramrod straight, she carried a clipboard in one hand, a cell phone in the other. Her glasses were plain black frames, perched halfway down her nose. She looked like she talked no nonsense and took no shit.
Flipping her cell shut, the woman stepped up to the bed. “I’m Doctor Collins,” she said as an introduction. “I’ve been your attending physician during your therapy sessions and recovery.”
Callie ignored her. “I don’t know you. Where are my people?”
“We are your people, Agent Whitten,” the doctor returned smoothly. “Rest assured that Agent Reinke has been notified you’re awake. He’ll be here shortly.”
Relief. Someone knew where she was.
Lying the clipboard on a nearby bed table, Doctor Collins began to loosen a cuff around Callie’s wrist. “I think these can come off. You seem sane enough now.” The nurse rounded the bed, quickly helping to remove the second cuff.
Callie gingerly lifted her abused hand, moving it to rest across her stomach. “Therapy sessions?” she gritted out in stunned confusion. “While I was—” Her words stalled. “Unconscious?” The question came out as a reedy whisper. Oh, shit, she cursed silently.
Doctor Collins nodded. “Yes.”
Throat working painfully, Callie leveled her gaze. “How long have I been out of it?”
Honesty compelled an answer. “Two days.”
Her tongue swiped over parched lips. “I don’t remember anything.”
Seeing Callie’s discomfort, the nurse poured water from a carafe at her bedside. Unwrapping a fresh straw, she guided the straw to Callie’s mouth.
Shooting her a grateful look, Callie sucked. Cool blessed water trickled over her tongue and down her throat. She swallowed in long grateful gulps, drinking until the cup was empty. The slight ache in her skull instantly diminished. She felt better, human. Hunger rumbled deep in her gut, a sure sign she’d survive.
The nurse smiled as she refilled the cup and offered more water. “Think you can handle some juice?”
Callie sipped the water, wishing it was darker, richer, and hotter. “Coffee, please. I need caffeine and sugar. A major infusion.”
The nurse looked askance to the good doctor.
Doctor Collins shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”
“Something to eat?” the nurse asked.
Callie leaned back against her pillow and sighed. “Food would be wonderful. I’m so damn hungry I’d eat a shoe.”
The nurse smiled. “Shoes, we don’t serve. Though I suppose our cafeteria’s food isn’t much better than leather most days.”
“Get her something light,” Doctor Collins suggested. “Soup and crackers would be good.”
The nurse hustled out just as Roger Reinke shot in at top speed. Paul Norton scurried hot on his heels. Norton hovered in the background, a silent wraith. By the look on his face, he wasn’t happy.
Roger hurried to her bedside. He reached for her hand. Slack jawed, uncertain, skin as pale as a corpse, genuine concern creased his features. “Thank God. You had me worried.” He looked a little grayer around the temples, a little older and a lot more tired than she remembered. His eyes were filled with the vulnerability of concern and remembrance of things passed.
Callie felt her hand in his, but remained curiously distant from the press of his skin against hers. She pursed her lips. She realized it no longer hurt to see him. No twinge in her heart, no pang from the time they’d shared together. He was just someone she used to see naked, someone she now didn’t see naked. The old wounds in her heart seemed to have healed, didn’t feel so fatal now.
A shudder wracked her. Damn it. Roger was the one who’d made the decision to end their affair. He had no right to hover like a worried lover. He didn’t deserve the place at her bedside. Not for one minute. He’d forfeited the keys to her heart.
She squelched further thought. Apparently the part of her brain storing Roger Reinke mementoes was perfectly intact. Too fucking bad. She wouldn’t have minded a memory wipe of that section. Time to toss the mental box into the fire. The moment had finally come when she could look at him and not fall to pieces inside.
Passion, elation. Dead.
Grinding mental gears into reverse, Callie gently withdrew her hand from his. No reason to let sorrow and ugliness squeeze the life out of her. Resentment was the wrong emotion to be throwing at him right now. Concern for a fellow human being’s welfare should be allowable. And welcome.
She drew a calming breath. No time to dwell on the past. More immediate concerns loomed. “I’m fine. Really.”
Reinke clamped his jaw, nodding solemnly. His wall of self-control reasserted itself. Nothing between them but work. “You had us all worried there.” He took a step away from the bed as if to emphasize the distance.
Callie rubbed a hand over her face. “I suppose I’d be worried, too, if I remembered what happened.” She swallowed heavily and forced herself to go on. “According to Doctor Collins, we’ve been in therapy for two days—and I have no idea it ever happened.”
Doctor Collins spoke up. “A form of hypnotherapy was employed. Under sodium pentothal, we were able to take you back through the day you disappeared. We had to move fast, pull the memories out before they dissipated entirely. I tried to restore as many as possible.”
Callie shot the doctor a narrow glance. “Just what exactly did these sessions entail? And why don’t I remember them?”
Collins answered again. “During our sessions, we decided you wouldn’t remember until you asked to. This was implemented primarily to allow you to rest and get your strength back.”
Callie eyed the three warily. “I don’t like the idea of you people fucking with my head.”
Roger started to put a hand on her arm. He aborted the instinctive move midair. Callie’s look said she wouldn’t welcome his touch.
“Entirely necessary, Agent Whitten,” he said, putting on his sternest face. “What we are dealing with touches on a matter of the most confidential nature. Your involvement in the investigation changes your status as an agent.”
Callie shivered as if a chill wind had swept through the room. By the look on Roger’s face and the sound of his voice, this didn’t bode well at all. What the hell had she stumbled into?
She shot a look at Norton. A frown wrinkled his forehead. Saying nothing, he studied her like she’d somehow grown a third eye in the center of her forehead.
“You’re going to have to explain that one, Roger,” she said, bristling. “I’m not following everything here, and I have a feeling there’s a reason why. It’s not a good feeling either. I don’t like having my mind messed with by Doctor Frankenstein there.”
Roger nodded. “I understand. But this comes from higher up than me. I need to make it clear that if you choose to remember, you’ll be automatically transferring into a top-secret area most people in our own fucking government don’t know exists. This is hush-hush, touching on national security matters.”
There was a pause while she considered that.
Trying not to let her ambivalence ruin the business at hand, she turned matters over in her mind. Burning with curiosity, she wondered if knowing would be the wisest move. A nagging feeling came over her. Sometimes not knowing was the safest course to take.
Walking the safe path had never been her forte.
“Tell me.”
Doctor Collins glanced to Roger Reinke, who in turn got the nod from Paul Norton. “You still going in, Norton?”
“I’m going in, too,” Norton said.
Norton’s words caught her by surprise. “You’re in this, too, Paulie?”
Shifting nervously, Norton nodded. “Yeah, Callie. I’m in. We’re partners, you know? We’ve been working this thing together.” He did not look excited. He did not look thrilled. He looked terrified.
That look should have warned her to say no. Whatever was lost in her head could stay lost.
Not good enough and not an option.
Deluged by unexpected emotions, Callie lay there, feeling like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. Suddenly everything was all mixed up. She didn’t know what to think anymore.
Or whom to trust.
She considered a moment. There was an old saying that good judgment came from experience. And experience came from bad judgment. She’d never been known for having good judgment. She did, however, have a hell of a lot of experience.
“Tell me.”
Roger turned to Doctor Collins. “Do it.”
Collins considered for a second. She took off her heavy framed glasses. Serious dark eyes drew Callie in with their intense power. “This is going to be tough to accept.”
Fighting to keep patience and sanity, Callie searched her abused mind. No easy answers appeared. Her brain just wouldn’t function fast enough to answer the questions.
Callie’s jaw tightened. “It’s pretty tough waking up blindfolded and tied to a bed with a needle in your fucking arm. I see bars on my windows and I don’t know where the hell I am or where I’ve been.” A harsh laugh escaped her. “I feel like shit. And on top of that I have you three nattering nitwits telling me I can’t handle what’s in my own fucking head. So please, stuff your concern up your tight asses and give me back my memories.”
Collins’s eyebrows rose above her frames, but she gave no rebuttal. “Perfectly understandable, Agent Whitten.” She cleared her throat. “If you would follow my instructions, we can do exactly as you’ve asked.”
“Thanks,” she said and met the doctor’s gaze. “Let’s do this.”
A pause. “Close your eyes and relax, please.”
Callie settled back against her pillow. “Okay.”
“Now, take three deep breaths,” Collins instructed, her tone soothing and firm. “As you take these breaths you will feel very calm and relaxed.”
Callie closed her eyes, acutely aware of each slow breath expanding her lungs.
“Imagine yourself standing on the top of a staircase and as you go down from the top step you are getting more and more relaxed,” Collins said. “Count backwards from ten, very slowly. As you reach the last step you will be deeply relaxed, so relaxed that you cannot move the muscles of your body even if you want to.”
Callie counted, mentally picturing and descending the imaginary staircase.
“At the bottom of the stairs is a door,” Doctor Collins said. “When you open it, you will know what you have forgotten.” A pause. “Is your hand on the doorknob?”
Her hand rose, reaching for the imaginary door. “Yes.”
“Do you want to hear your word, Callie?”
Her throat tightened. “Yes.”
One word.
“Drake.”
Slowly, a slew of images began to take shape in her mind. A tremor went through her whole body. She shut her eyes. Painful longing stabbed through her as memories of Iollan Drake solidified and fell into place.
She squeezed her eyelids tighter. “Oh. God.”
“Do you remember now?” Doctor Collins asked.
Callie whimpered. What she remembered couldn’t possibly be believed. God, his touch. Those strong steady hands exploring her naked flesh, the fullness of her breasts, the soft valley between her thighs. The press of his solid male body against the yielding softness of hers. Then the bites, the exquisite feel of sharp teeth penetrating her neck.
No.
She drew a shuddering breath, wanting—no, needing—to deny everything she remembered in a rush of sights, sounds, and sensations.
Impossible.
Memories poured in like water through a sieve, filtering into her harried brain from all sides, giving no peace and offering no respite. More than filled, more than tasted, she’d been possessed body and soul by a man whose unique hunger would forever haunt her memory. She’d been so thoroughly conquered she didn’t think she’d fully recover.
The flood of emotions turned her limbs liquid. Her psyche took a blow. “He’s not human.”
The words tore from her lips, half disbelief, half anger. Bitter acid rose in the back of her throat as conflicting feelings raged through her. Every emotion she’d ever experienced over a lifetime now came to cente
r and focus around a man she’d found darkly alluring, and perilously deadly.
Doctor Collins laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I tried to ease you into the idea during our sessions. It’s difficult to take, I know.”
An understatement.
17
Heart beating a mile a minute, Callie walked between Roger Reinke and Paul Norton. Her head turned every which way as they progressed down a wide corridor. On the outside, the facilities looked like an ordinary seven-story office building.
Inside was a far different story.
The building sat on a four-mile circle of government property, perfectly landscaped, pristine, as still as a fly trapped in amber. Property restricted to civilian personnel. Property fenced and patrolled by armed security guards.
Callie fingered the badge clipped at her waist. Her security clearances were written into the small piece of plastic that now granted her access into the government’s most secret of inner sanctums. They’d only made it inside after enduring innumerable security checks. All movement through the complex was accomplished through badges and codes. When she’d slid her newly minted ID badge into the scanner, she’d held her breath, expecting the red light to remain red. To her relief, it switched to green and she was allowed to punch in her code and proceed along with Norton and Reinke.
Where they had proceeded to boggled the mind.
A new guide led the way through the maze. A tall cadaverous man who rather reminded Callie of the actor who’d played Lurch in the Addams Family television show in the sixties. He lumbered, a giant of commanding presence and booming voice. The blind and dead couldn’t fail to see him coming. Those who did steered a quick path out of his for fear of being run over. He, too, wore the all-telling white lab coat.
In Callie’s mind, white coats didn’t exactly bode well. She was noticing a lot of white coats. Those troubling coats below unsmiling and serious faces meant business. Bad business. Under the seeming serenity, a more sinister note vibrated. Maleficent and corrupt forces were in power. The strings of fear they pulled taut sought to restrain free thought and independent action. Those who had control wouldn’t easily relinquish it.
