by Avery Flynn
A large shadow fell across the foot of the bed. She glanced over. Clay Blackfish loomed in the open doorway, wearing his black BDUs, a T-shirt with DEA Agent printed across the front and dark circles under bloodshot eyes.
“We need to talk before you see him,” Blackfish said.
“I don’t have time for that,” she said as she mentally prepped to try to sit up again. The need to see Taz for herself and make sure she hadn’t killed him tore a hole through her that hurt more than anything that had landed her in an infirmary bed. “I need to get to Taz.”
Clay snorted. “You better make time, because you’re not going anywhere until we talk.”
His declaration sucked the fight right out of her—well, that and the searing pain in her head that had joined the throb in her shoulder. The fact of it was, moving more than an inch or two was impossible in her current state. It would be nice if she could blame it all on the gunshot wound, but she knew in her gut she couldn’t.
She’d been hit with Genie’s Wish before and hadn’t gone all mind-control victim with a bone breakingly bad hangover the next day. Whatever was in the latest incarnation of the drug was beyond bad. And she’d shoved two doses into Taz. This time the pain squeezing her lungs had nothing to do with the gunshot wound or Genie’s Wish. While waiting for the sedative or whatever else they’d given her to wear off, she could talk and do a little digging of her own.
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
“Everything.” Clay sat down in the chair Vivi had vacated earlier and opened the small notebook in his hands. “Start with spotting Gidget on the security feed.”
So she did, with Vivi standing by her side and shoving the water bottle in her face whenever her voice went raspy. It took less time than she would have figured to explain how everything had gone from sunshine and puppy dogs to a category-five hurricane with a side of crocodiles. On the thank-God-for-some-good-news-finally side of things, her headache had dulled to a manageable six on a ten-point scale by the time she was done talking.
Clay stood up and pocketed his notebook. “Thanks. I’ll talk to you lat—”
“Stop right there,” she said, managing to sit up without her head exploding. “Your turn. What aren’t you telling me?”
He gave her a considering look, then glanced over at Vivi. They did some nonverbal communicating thing that only people who’d worked closely—or were in a relationship—seemed to have. Finally, he looked up at the ceiling and mumbled something under his breath.
“We found the Genie’s Wish lab here on the island,” he said. “What we discovered was worse than we’d expected, and our predictions were already pretty damn bad.”
He paused, rolling his neck and exhaling a deep breath as if he had to psych himself up for what was coming next.
“The lab was here on the island in an unused part of the wastewater facility. Yasmin leased the building the lab was housed in. We’ve confirmed that the resort staff and administrators had no idea what was going on. The bartenders didn’t know the orange juice had been spiked with the drug. The only people who knew were Yasmin, Walsh and a chemist named Byron Ward.” He rubbed the back of his neck and began pacing the small space. “Walsh is in custody. Yasmin and Ward are in the wind.”
“How in the hell did that happen?” she asked, frustration swirling through her. “We had the coordinated raid planned perfectly.”
“Mechanical issues on our end delayed us,” Clay said. “By the time we hit the beach near Yasmin’s bungalow, the B-Squad team was already in place. There was chaos inside. Marko had to shoot Gidget and you. Yasmin used Gidget as a human shield, blocking any shot from Marko or Lash. We headed straight toward the scene and weren’t expecting B-Squad sentries set up on the perimeter. There was an exchange of friendly fire but, luckily, no fatalities. Yasmin slipped through the net using the craziness as a cover.”
“It was a cluster,” Vivi agreed from her spot near the door.
Missions went sideways—even the best-planned ones—but this one mattered more than the others had. That she’d failed by getting caught and people had been hurt because of it sliced deep.
Clay went on. “By the time we got to the lab, most of it had been destroyed already but in the twenty-four hours you’ve been out, we’ve been able to put most of the pieces back together. The latest version of Genie’s Wish had to be liquid because it delivers a microchip into the bloodstream.”
Holy shit. Welcome to science fiction territory. “But Taz and I drank it at the cocktail party and it didn’t have the same effect.”
“That was version two,” Vivi said, taking over the narration. “The first version was the aerosol that was breathed in. That proved effective but they needed a better delivery system so they could target individuals. That led to version two, which can be added to drinks or food without the person taking it even knowing. According to the files we were able to decipher on Yasmin’s hard drive, that’s when they were finally able to go to version three, which had been the plan all along. Version three gave all the benefits of versions one and two when it came to accessing the brain and the added bonus of—”
“Mind control.” She flashed back to the moment when she couldn’t stop herself from plunging the needle full of Genie’s Wish into Taz’s arm and she wanted to puke, to cry, to scream and tear her hair out. Shame. Guilt. Terror. Find a word that meant all three and it just about summed things up.
“Ain’t technology grand?” Clay asked, sarcasm twisting the message. “The only drawback to version three from the makers’ perspective is that it has to be injected.”
He took out his notebook and pulled out a folded sheet of paper and handed it to her. She opened it to reveal a picture of a penny with a small square sitting next to it.
“That’s for comparison’s sake,” he continued. “That square is a wirelessly controlled microchip that sails through the blood stream. We think the controller was in that device Yasmin had that looked like a dog-training clicker. The microchip is three millimeters by four millimeters and can be steered by the controller toward the brain stem. Once there, it sends out electrical impulses, just like your brain does, telling your body what to do while at the same time surpassing your brain’s ability to do the same thing. The initial tests showed that a small but significant percentage of the test subjects had adverse reactions, including death.”
Her blood turned to ice. “I gave Taz two full doses. Is he going to die?”
“We don’t know.” Vivi hurried over to the bedside and took Bianca’s clammy hand. “The doctor on staff said his vitals are all good. They sedated him, just like you, because there’s no way to know if he’s going to be under Yasmin’s influence. She’s gone but there are so many variables about how Genie’s Wish works that we don’t know, like the effective distance of the wireless controller.”
It just kept getting worse. She’d never be able to forgive herself. God knew Taz would never forgive her. “So she’ll always be able to just turn it on and control us if she’s close enough?”
“No.” Clay shook his head. “That was one of their two biggest frustrations with version three, according to their files. One, they haven’t been able to make the non-microchipped version two addictive. Two, the microchip in version three is only viable for twenty-four hours. That’s why they had to continually shoot up Gidget.”
Poor Gidget. Yasmin had held her prisoner for months. That would fuck up a person without even adding any lingering effect of Genie’s Wish. Gidget was strong though, and she had her girls from St. B’s to lean on, not to mention the guys on the team who’d already devoted so much time to finding a woman they’d never met. Whatever Gidget needed and however long it took, she’d have it.
“Where is she?” Bianca asked.
“She went straight to a military hospital in Hawaii. Lexie, Elisa and Marko are with her,” Vivi said. “She was unconscious after Marko had to shoot her to save Taz and she’d been injected with so much Genie’s Wish since s
he’d been kidnapped that we needed her in a secure location while she detoxes. No one knows what she’ll be like when she wakes up.”
“But Taz will be waking up soon.” She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more they were holding back.
Clay and Vivi exchanged a look.
“We don’t know,” he said. “But we hope so.”
Gritting her teeth against the expected pain, Bianca tossed back the sheet and pivoted so her legs dangled over the edge of the bed. “I’m going to be there when he does.”
“You’re still recovering,” Clay countered, moving to stand directly in front of her in an attempt to block her way. “You need to stay here.”
That wasn’t going to happen.
Tapping into the fury and worry filling her, she lowered her feet to the cold tile floor and shoved Clay back a few inches. “Unless you pull a gun on me, you’re not keeping me from Taz—and even if you had the brass balls to do that, I wouldn’t bet on you winning.”
Vivi rolled a wheelchair over to the bedside. “Get in. We can’t have you shooting a federal agent, even if he is a total pain in the ass.”
Muscles shaking in protest after all that had happened, Bianca got into the wheelchair. Without any other comment, Vivi spun her around and wheeled her down the hall, turning into a room three doors down from where she’d been.
Her heart stopped.
Taz lay in a bed with about a dozen more beeping monitors surrounding him than were in her room. His skin was a pale imitation of his normal tawny brown color and the circles under his closed eyes were so dark they were almost black. A clear mask covered his mouth and was connected by a narrow tube to the nearby respirator.
“Oh my God, Vivi.” She covered her face with her hands. “What have I done?”
Taz
A cold darkness surrounded Taz. It was so complete, so all-encompassing that it wasn’t worth fighting against even if he could remember why he should. This coal-black blanket was all he needed. It was his soartă to be alone like this. He’d always known it, which was why he’d always held back.
Inside this cave of shadows though he was free. No angry specter of his father stalked him, thundering and threatening. No sad spirit of his mother followed him, softly weeping as she pretended everything would be alright. No quietly disappointed ghost of Freddie clung to him, wondering when he would realize there was more to life, to love, to everything than Taz had believed. There was no failure, no disillusionment, no wish for something more he couldn’t define.
Here, there was only perfect quiet and total aloneness.
But it didn’t feel right. Something—no someone—was missing.
Again, he tried to remember…but there was nothing.
A line of warmth curled around his waist, sinking into him and making the pitch dark a few shades brighter. It brought with it memories that tugged at him with silken webs. A woman’s ruby-red smile. The softness of her skin. Her teasing laughter. The sweetness of her satisfied sighs. All of it pulled him closer to the light.
Little sounds began to intrude into the gray darkness. A soft beep and another at a higher pitch. The whoosh of pumped air. Voices in the distance.
He turned away from it, but the silk strands held tight, bringing with them the smell of sweet flowers, the sky after the rain and something as enduring and illusive as hope. The darkness faded more to the pink-gray of first dawn.
It wasn’t fair, taking him out of the inky safeness.
But whoever said life is fair? a woman’s voice asked.
The question danced around him, like tracer lights in the sky. At the same time the answer thumped against him with the steady rhythm of a heartbeat.
It.
May.
Not.
Be.
Fair.
But.
It.
Can.
Be.
Good.
More warmth. It wound around him, extending from his toes to his chest and drawing him out of the darkness into the bright fluorescent light.
Aches and soreness registered along with a pounding in his head, but he barely noticed because Bianca lay asleep next to him. Her arm lay across his stomach, the hand tucked so her fingers were underneath him. Her body was curled around his on the narrow twin hospital bed.
He pulled the oxygen mask from his face and her eyes fluttered open.
Confusion twisted her beautiful face before realization made her gasp. “Taz!”
She was it. She was the warmth and the light. Bianca was what made it good. “You brought me back.”
She sniffled. “You promised you wouldn’t leave.”
“And I never will again.” He brushed one of her tears away with his thumb. “I came back for you.”
She took his face between her hands and brushed a series of quick kisses across his forehead, cheeks and lips.
“How long have you been here?” he asked when she stopped for a breath.
“A few hours. Vivi’s standing guard outside the door,” she said, wiping away the last of her tears with the back of her hand. “Can you believe they tried to make me leave when I crawled into bed with you?”
He could imagine just how well that went over. “I hope you told them to fuck off.”
“Something to that effect,” she said, her tone light but her expression serious. “God, Taz, I was so scared that I’d killed you. I’m so sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.” He caressed her face, loving the feel of her soft skin against his palm. This was what he’d been looking for in the dark.
“No, I do. You have a right to a part of you that you don’t share with me. It was an overreaction on my part to demand you pour your soul out to me. That’s not love. That was fear.” She let out a shaky breath. “I want to be a part of your life, I want you to let me in and share what your thoughts and dreams and hopes are, not because you think you have to but because you want to.”
As if that could ever be in doubt.
“Believe me,” he said, bringing his face close to hers and kissing her softly. “I do.”
Chapter 17
Bianca
Two Weeks Later
Ft. Worth…
Bianca couldn’t hide her smirk. Taz was about to lose, and lose big, because he thought he could bullshit his way into a win.
The gameboard lay between them on the bed and victory in this round of strip Scrabble was within reach. Taz was already down to just his jeans while she still had on her skirt, T-shirt, bra and panties. She loved having him naked, but smoking him in Scrabble in the final game of the strip Scrabble tournament took precedence. That’s what happened when two competitive people spent fourteen days following doctors’ orders and laying off any gym work. They’d finally been cleared to put on the gloves tomorrow, which meant this game was all about permanent bragging rights—and they were going to be hers.
“There is no way that qat is a word. Take that Q off the triple-word square and get ready to go down because I have the perfect word to go there.”
“Get ready to eat some crow.” He held out an extra-thick paperback dictionary. “Look for yourself.”
She rolled her eyes and whipped out her phone. “It’s okay, I have the Miriam-Webster app on my phone.”
He snatched the phone away and replaced it with the dictionary. “Look it up.”
“You are so bossy.” She cracked the book only enough to see the letters on the top right corner. “Ah ha! Q.” She opened the dictionary fully. “If by some chance it is in here, I’m still going to want Miriam-Webster confirma—”
The rest of the word died on her tongue.
A square had been cut several inches deep into the middle of the pages and a small blue box with a white bow had been placed inside.
Her pulse went into overdrive and she forgot how to breathe. She glanced up at Taz and her heart hiccupped. With the exception of his new buzz cut, he looked exactly like the man who’d strutted into Bisu Manor and chan
ged her world, but his totally confident fighter vibe was a skinny tread of nervousness.
She pulled the ribbon and took off the lid, inside was a black-velvet ring box. “Taz—”
He shoved the Scrabble board and pieces off to the floor and closed the distance between them. “Open it.”
She did, revealing a diamond ring almost as big as the box itself. Her entire body felt as if it was fluttering. “Oh my God.”
He took out the ring and slid it onto her left ring finger. “I only want to hear one thing from you.”
Looking up from the ginormous ring, she managed to fight back the tears of joy welling up. “Yes.”
“Damn.” He gave her that cocky grin she loved. “I was hoping you’d say you conceded the Scrabble tournament.”
She gave him a playful shove, pushing him onto his back on the bed and positioned herself over him. “Never.”
“Then I’ll take yes.”
And so would she. God knew she’d fought against it for so long because she’d been afraid, but not anymore. Life with Taz may not always be easy, it certainly wouldn’t always be perfect, but it would be forever and it started now.
Well, almost now. She needed something first.
“You have to ask it. I want the words.”
The teasing glimmer vanished from his mossy-green eyes and he looked at her with such love that she caught her breath.
“Bianca Sutherland, will you marry me?”
There was only one answer in her heart. “Yes.”
Taz
Taz cupped the back of her head as she leaned over him on the bed and pulled her down for a kiss. Not just any brush of the lips, but one that would show Bianca just how much he loved her. As stupid as it sounded, this was the happily ever after neither of them ever expected.
The baby-blue ring box tumbled out of her grasp and she wound her arms around his neck, the tips of her fingers brushing against his new buzz cut. She moaned against him and Taz, seizing the win, slipped his tongue between her lips.
