The elevator dinged, and Finn picked his bag up, took a thankful step out into the parking garage, and looked up at a shout.
Shit.
Six big guys all wearing ski masks were beating the crap out of someone with baseball bats. The man lay on the floor, curled in a fetal position. For a second Finn froze, not believing what he was seeing, and then the guy on the ground moved, and Finn stumbled in shock.
It was Talon.
“Hey!” Finn shouted. Not for one moment did he think it wasn’t a good idea until they all turned at his shout. Then he gulped. Talon was huge, and they had just taken him down. What the hell were they going to do to him? For a moment he contemplated taking a step back before the elevator doors shut behind him. They were too far away to get to him in time. He could go get reinforcements or something.
Then indignation took over. They were beating his supposed new partner, and he wasn’t going to walk out on him.
“I’m Agent Mayer,” Finn shouted. “You are all on camera. The parking garage will be surrounded by agents within seconds, and they”—he eyed the closest man in disgust—“won’t be carrying baseball bats.” Shit, he didn’t even have a gun, but the implication and the authority in his voice were clear.
The first man laughed but turned to the others.
The smallest one at the back grunted. “Let’s get out of here.”
The first one turned back to Talon and gave him a vicious kick in the ribs. “We don’t want your sort here,” he spat and ran out after the others.
Finn had a split second of satisfaction, and then he heard Talon groan quietly on the floor. “Talon,” Finn said, dropping to his knees. Talon was blinking groggily, so Finn put a hand on his arm. “Stay still. I’m going to get an ambulance.” He fished his cell phone out of his pocket and looked up. Did they even have cameras? Surely they did. Maybe the ambulance was already on its way.
“No.” Talon’s voice came out croaky. “You can’t call anyone.”
Finn bit his lip. “They have to treat you,” he said tactfully in case that was what Talon was worried about. He knew all hospitals now had to accept enhanced as patients.
“No. Just help me get up.”
Finn sighed and tried to plant his legs firmly as Talon heaved himself up, almost using Finn as a crutch. He gasped as Talon threw an arm around his neck. He weighed a ton.
“Keys are in my pocket.”
Finn shoved his hand awkwardly into Talon’s pants pocket and blinked as his fingers brushed something else. Fuck, the man was huge everywhere.
“Don’t get any fucking ideas,” Talon growled.
And straight, thought Finn in resignation. Not that he was interested in his ungrateful ass. The size of him just briefly distracted him, was all.
“You should be so lucky,” Finn snapped in annoyance, and his heart gave a jolt as Talon laughed abruptly. He’d been beaten up by six men with baseball bats, could hardly walk, must be in unimaginable pain, and he’d just laughed. He shut up quickly, though, thought Finn with some satisfaction. It must hurt to laugh. Not that he deserved the mess someone had made of him, but still.
Finn pointed the key fob desperately in the general direction of all the cars and hoped. He didn’t know how far he could actually get with Talon. Finn wasn’t completely sure he could even make it to the line of cars. He praised every god he’d ever heard of when he saw the lights of a truck just a few steps away turn on, and he half carried, half dragged Talon toward it. He barely registered the size of it until he got Talon leaned up against it. “You’re gonna have to get in,” he gasped. There was no way he was going to get him up there. Finn would need a stepladder.
He opened the door, and Talon gave the truck and Finn a bleak look, and with another grunt, he put his boot on the wheel and pulled himself in. Finn slammed the door in annoyance and ran back for his bag. He walked around to the driver’s side and looked in desperation at the height of the wheel, then opened the door. He looked around, noticed a small cutout step on the side of the truck, awkwardly stuck the toe of his shoe in there, and reached up to grab the seat that was higher than his waist.
His eyes darted upward when instead of the edge of the seat, his hand met warm skin. Talon leaned over, and without any effort, soon had Finn inside.
“You’re gonna have to tell me where we’re going,” Finn said as he started the truck.
Talon barely opened a swollen eye and pressed two buttons on the dashboard. “GPS. When you get to the gates, press the bottom one.”
Finn stared at him. Blood was seeping from the cut above his right eye, and his left eye was completely closed. Finn was convinced at least one of his cheekbones was broken, and Talon poked masochistically at his split lip. Finn lowered his gaze and cataloged the rest of him. Talon had a patch of blood on his left sleeve. He was favoring his right arm, and to be completely honest, Finn thought he should get it X-rayed. He couldn’t see the rest of him because he was still in his suit.
Finn started the truck in resignation.
TALON STARED down at the sleeping young man. He was too damn good-looking for his own good, for starters. He’d noticed his dark green eyes last night when he first looked at him in Tony Gregory’s office. That was before they widened with shock when he saw Talon’s mark. He didn’t want to wait around to see the look of shock turn to one of disgust—or worse, pity.
He wasn’t sure which was harder growing up: the looks of fear on people’s faces or the do-gooders who decided he was mentally subnormal and always talked really slowly and carefully to him.
Finn moaned and moved restlessly. Talon stood there, leaning casually against his spare bedroom door, sipping his coffee. The other full mug of coffee sat steaming next to the bed. Finn’s nostrils had flared a couple of seconds ago as the coffee aroma settled in the room. Talon took another sip and winced as the hot liquid stung his cut lip. He flexed his sore arm carefully, thankful it was only Finn who was having physical tests today and not him.
At some point around 5:00 a.m., when Talon woke to find Finn completely passed out in the chair next to the bed, he had stared in astonishment. Not only had Finn interrupted his beating without taking one look and getting back in the elevator, but he’d also challenged six armed men. Either he was one of the bravest men Talon had ever met, or he was incredibly stupid. Talon was leaning toward the incredibly stupid.
Gregory told him that Finn had been awake for nearly thirty-six hours by the time he arrived in Tampa, but the guy had absolutely no situational awareness. He never stirred once when Talon lifted him out of the chair and tucked him into his spare bed. Talon would have to get him cured of that straightaway.
Talon smiled sardonically to himself. At around the same time as he carried Finn to bed, he’d decided Finn deserved a fair shot, and he wasn’t sure who would be the most surprised when Finn woke and he told him that.
A fair shot at getting into Quantico, he hurriedly corrected himself. He still hadn’t changed his mind about working with regular humans.
Talon wiped the smile off his face as Finn stirred and blinked sleepily. “Coffee’s there,” he said mildly, somewhat satisfied as Finn started a little and opened his eyes wider to look at him. The green in his eyes was as dark as he remembered.
Finn stared at him, clearly not knowing what to say, reached for the coffee, and then took a sip without looking. “Eww,” he said, looking at his cup as if Talon had given him dishwater or something.
“Don’t like coffee?” Talon drawled, not really giving a rat’s ass.
“Have you got any cream or sugar?” Finn asked hesitantly.
“No,” Talon said shortly, trying not to roll his eyes. He waved to the door next to the window. “Shower’s in there. I got your bag from the truck. We leave in thirty minutes.”
Finn blinked again and stared at Talon. “Are you all right?” he blurted.
Talon paused just as he was pushing himself off the wall to go back to the kitchen. The question threw him. “I’
ll live,” he answered and shut the door behind him as he walked out, probably a little harder than he intended.
He walked into his small kitchen and drained his coffee. He’d already called Gregory, and they found the cameras in the parking garage had been tampered with, which meant inside access. Gregory was uncomfortable, but it was clear he thought what Talon already knew. The guys who beat him up were cops. Cops or agents. The field office shared the same secured parking as the local sheriff, and a lot of them were friends. He wasn’t surprised. He’d been exposed to that sort of hate and discrimination since he was twelve. It shouldn’t shock him anymore.
Gregory didn’t even bother asking if Talon was going for treatment somewhere. He knew better. His rapid healing ability was one of the few benefits of being an enhanced. His bones could still break, and it wasn’t some amazing shit that could heal in a few hours or anything. He’d broken his tibia once and his arm twice, maybe a few ribs when he was sparring with Vance, another enhanced. Those bones completely healed in less than three weeks, and the injuries he got last night would barely put a dent in his stride.
He wasn’t stupid, though. He knew it would have gotten a lot worse if Finn hadn’t intervened. Talon was angrier at himself than he was at the goons with the bats. He’d been careless. He was furious at the FBI for foisting off some substandard schoolboy on him and wasn’t concentrating when he stepped out of the elevator. The first blow was to the back of the head, and that was the only reason they got the drop on him.
He heard the shower stop and grunted. Finn, at least, took his instructions to hurry up seriously.
Five minutes later Finn appeared in the kitchen wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and his towel draped over his shoulders. He was carrying his rumpled suit jacket. “Have you got anything I can clean this with?”
Talon blinked and had to unglue his tongue from the roof of his mouth. He stared at Finn’s chest. Solid muscles but slim. The guy looked in reasonably good shape. Fuck. His life would get immensely more complicated if he was attracted to Finn. Talon shifted his weight from one foot to the other and took another gulp of his second cup. He forced himself to look at the jacket. He could see the blood stains—his blood—on the sleeve.
Finn looked up at him, obviously wondering if he was being ignored. An angry flush crept up his neck. “Never mind,” he said in resignation and turned to go.
Talon reached out and caught his shoulder. Finn stiffened, and Talon dropped his hand. “We’ll drop it off to get cleaned on the way in. It’s Saturday. Wear jeans.”
Finn turned around suspiciously and eyed Talon’s own denim. Then he shrugged.
They both heard Finn’s stomach rumble in the quiet kitchen, and Talon watched in fascination as Finn’s face turned pink. “We’ll get some breakfast on the way,” he said as Finn disappeared back into the bedroom.
Talon swore again to himself. Finn was greener than his yard. He hadn’t shown any sense thinking he could take six assailants on. A stranger just touched his shoulder, and he didn’t object. He let someone carry him to bed without waking up, and he blushed. Real, honest-to-God blushed. Like some teenage girl. He also didn’t come up to Talon’s shoulder, and the sight of him walking around in his boxers made Talon want to pick him up and take him back to bed, or the shower, or any available surface that was convenient to bend him over.
Talon was so screwed.
Chapter Three
FINN WAS such a complete dork. Talon had looked the most receptive since they’d met, so when Finn had the chance to ask all sorts of cool questions about the team, what did he have to go and say? He asked him about fucking laundry. Finn threw his jacket on the bed and pulled in a ragged breath. He was only going to get one shot at this—one shot to prove himself worthy of the FBI—and he wasn’t stupid. He knew damn well if this “experiment” didn’t work, they wouldn’t give him a chance with the regular FBI. Both Talon and Agent Gregory made that very clear. The FBI didn’t take B averages. If this didn’t work, he’d be back in Cookeville faster than he could say “Quantico.”
He actually couldn’t believe Talon was walking around and drinking coffee. He wondered if the enhanced had super healing abilities and knew a lot of them were wary of going to a hospital. Even in the last few years when treatment was made mandatory, there were still some places that were complete dicks to them. The enhanced couldn’t get insurance of any sort. He could kind of understand an insurance company not wanting to touch people who could jump buildings and set things on fire, but unscrupulous hospitals used that excuse not to treat until the government once again stepped in and instigated a mandatory duty of care.
After he found out about Adam, Finn had read everything he could get his hands on about the enhanced. Not that there was much. Plenty of official statements citing they were as much US citizens as anyone, though that was only in recent years. But every time an enhanced so much as breathed in the wrong way, the papers would blow everything out of proportion. The media’s favorite was the story of one guy who electrocuted someone, then successfully escaped during the trial by setting a charge so high, half the courthouse blew off. That was in the early days, though. Any time an enhanced was said to be causing a problem, the special units would roll out. They didn’t have ordinary bullets; they had powerful sedatives that could be fired from anything as small as a 9mm Luger to something as large as a rocket launcher to take out a large group.
He knew all this because firepower had become his favorite subject since he decided to join the FBI. It was even something his dad had helped him with. They spent hours poring over pictures in Guns & Ammo. One of his dad’s buddies used to send him a bunch of back copies every so often. Finn knew his dad wasn’t interested, said the ’Nam War cured him of any attraction to guns, so Finn knew he did it for him.
He never even got to go to a firing range. The only local one was run by a friend of Deke’s, and there was no way he was going there. So he waited. He knew everything about guns. He could strip, clean, and reload in seconds. Or at least he could in his imagination.
His dad never even told him he still had his old service weapon.
Finn pulled his jeans on sharply. He didn’t need that image in his head today. He took a look around the room and thought about last night. He was so worried the big lump was gonna die on him or something, he never made any attempt to get back to the field office and get his assigned car.
He kept Talon awake long enough to get him some painkillers and water from the kitchen. Then Talon shucked off his pants and jacket and crashed on the bed. Finn even dared wake him up three times, which he knew he was supposed to do for a head injury. The last time Talon quietly informed him that if he woke him up one more time, Finn would be the one with the sore head.
He finally fell asleep in the chair around 4:00 a.m. To be honest, after nearly forty-eight hours of little or no sleep, he couldn’t believe he lasted that long. And much to his embarrassment, he was obviously carried to bed sometime later. He never remembered undressing, but he woke up this morning just in his Superman boxers, and he wanted to die. The front showed Christopher Reeve pumping his fist with the caption “Up, up, and away.” He’d headed out of the house so quick, he just grabbed what was clean and decided to travel in those. His grown-up underwear he was saving for all the medicals. Fuck, he hoped he undressed himself. The thought of Talon seeing them made him want to crawl into a hole and die.
“You ready?”
The growl made Finn jump, but he grabbed his keys, wallet, and the security tag from the brown envelope and turned around. He nodded and took a step forward, then stopped in surprise when Talon didn’t move.
“Look,” Talon said. “I don’t apologize for not wanting to babysit a wannabe fed, but you could have cut and run last night…. You didn’t, so.” He shrugged and took a step away from the door so Finn could move.
“You’re welcome,” Finn called out to Talon’s retreating back. Finn grinned when he paused for a millisecond but
didn’t acknowledge his words.
One point to Finn. He smiled wryly. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to win many of them.
In the daylight, the step to fit his toe in to climb in Talon’s truck wasn’t so daunting. It was the passenger side, of course, but at least Talon didn’t need to hoist him up like some child. They drove in silence for about a mile while Finn struggled to come up with an intelligent question that might not be shot down.
“You know, someone had to put out the cameras in the parking garage last night.”
Talon grunted again in response. “Ya think?” he said, and Finn had to bite off a huge sigh. It was good while it lasted, he supposed.
He didn’t attempt to say anything else, but in five minutes, they had pulled up outside of Betty’s Diner. Finn’s belly rumbled again, which earned him another sardonic look. He climbed out as gracefully as he could before Talon had a chance to come around, and inhaled appreciatively as a customer opened the door to exit. The place smelled delicious. Finn had barely eaten in the past two days, and he was starving. He wanted to rub his hands in glee as they walked in.
He didn’t, of course.
Finn looked around. The place seemed popular, and an older gray-haired woman looked up from the cash register as they walked in. Her face broke out into a huge smile, and she stepped around to greet Talon.
“Where have you been? You haven’t been to see me in three days.” Finn watched in astonishment as the pint-sized lady battered Talon on the arm. “Are you eating properly?” She squinted up at him and then seemed to notice Finn stood behind Talon. “You’ve brought a friend?” she asked, astonished, and Finn nearly laughed. Her blatant surprise at the thought of Talon actually having friends mirrored Finn’s own opinion. He hadn’t exactly demonstrated many social skills since they’d met.
Five Minutes Longer Page 3
