Touch the Sky

by Kari Cole

  That had been the mortifying cherry on top of her shame sundae. Jessie seeing her like that was bad enough, but she was blood. Being insane in front of your family was a time-honored Southern tradition. Becca, on the other hand, was a stranger. A particularly disconcerting one at that. “Pshaw, that female has badass written all over her. I doubt my munchies gave her the vapors. In fact, I know they didn’t. Unless you want to try to tell me those noises I heard coming from your room were a panic attack.”

  Jessie’s smile turned smug. “I don’t kiss and tell, unless you want to trade stories. They may have faded already thanks to that wolfy blood of yours, but you had some spectacular hickeys on your neck last night. Couldn’t have been all bad.” She checked the clock. “Ooh, wait. Gotta go. We can talk about it over dinner. And don’t tell me you don’t want to go out. One, I am a terrible cook. Two, it’s Thunder Moon week. You’re a werewolf. You need to be out among your own kind. It’s not good for pack creatures to be alone so much.”

  Before Hannah could respond, Jessie was gone, clomping down the back steps and heading across the yard.

  “I’m not alone,” she said to Frost. “I have you. Plus, I have been around a ton of werewolves lately. I think I’ve met my quota for the month.”

  He gave her a look and sank down to his sphinx pose.

  “I am not trying to avoid Vaughn.”

  Frost cocked a brow.

  “I’m not. He’s getting too curious. Look how mad he got about my hair and gloves. I had an itch. He scratched it.” Boy, did he. “And now we should stay away from each other.”

  That last part caused a pang in her chest, but she needed to ignore it. Actually, all the more reason to stay away from him. She wanted to be with him too badly.

  “All right.” She clapped her hands together. “No more moping. We have work to do.”

  Frost rose and made a questioning hum.

  She left the kitchen and headed down the hallway toward the front of the house. Frost woofed at her and tried to block her path. “I know you’re trying to protect me. Too much grass has grown under our feet already. When I think about those kids—” Her voice broke. All the better, because when she let herself think about what she’d seen when she’d touched Macon Crawford’s ring and that memory card, the horror overwhelmed her.

  Eight long months had already passed. Goddess only knew how old that information was to begin with. She had to try. Even if it was too late for those kids, she had no doubt there were others. Right now she needed to focus if she was going to be any help to them.

  “Anyway, I don’t need Jessie here to work. I’ve got you to pull me out.”

  Frost huffed, but he got out of the way, following her into the dining room. “I haven’t tried touching any of the stuff in here.”

  A double-pedestal, lightwood dining table and six chairs were in the center of the room, beneath a cool set of eight clear glass pendant lamps. A wooden chest with a powder-blue cushion on top sat under the front window. In the corner, Jessie had a small desk and older model desktop computer.

  Hannah was wearing Gran’s gloves again. They seemed to work the best for her being able to sense things without taking a full blast of impressions. Standing behind one of the cushioned dining chairs, she took a deep breath and touched the top. The visions came to her immediately, but without the punch to the gut she normally got. Jessie stapling a new cushion onto the chair. Laughter. Hunger. Satisfaction. A parade of happy people.

  She let go and smiled. Jessie had made a good life for herself in Black Robe. She had friends—lots of them—who seemed to truly care for her.

  “See? I’m fine,” she said. Frost flicked his tongue as if to say get on with it then. He hopped up onto the window seat and lay down.

  Hannah moved to the head of the table. Before she touched the chair, she closed her eyes and pictured her shields. They were different than before she’d arrived in Montana. Instead of wispy, porous walls of fog, now they looked like window sheers, billowing in the breeze. Not the stoutest protection in the world, but a definite improvement.

  Without opening her eyes, she laid her hand on the back of the chair. The image of Jessie in a forest-green sweater popped into her mind, and she tried to shove it out. Tried to push it behind the curtain, out of sight. For a few seconds, the picture grew hazy.

  She opened her eyes. “Hey! That was better. I almost blocked it out.” Frost sighed. “Sorry to bore you.”

  Closing her eyes, she tried again. This time, she was able to block the actual image of Jessie, though she still felt her cousin’s good mood.

  “I’m going to call that a win.”

  Moving to the little office nook, she looked over the items on the desk: a cordless phone; a royal blue pen with the logo for a local bank; a blank five-by-seven pad of lined paper; and the computer keyboard, tower, and monitor.

  Hmm, she hadn’t tried touching anything that required power since they’d started. On a whim, she touched the tower. Instantly, she was bombarded with images, too many to process.

  A furry head banged into her arm, breaking the connection. “Whoa,” she said, a little breathless. “Thanks. That was a little more than I was bargaining for.”

  Hannah eyed the off-white metal box. Since her ability had gone berserk, she’d touched countless pieces of tech. Her cell phone, the laptop, various cars, refrigerators, gas pumps, et cetera. Life in the modern world. Usually she’d been wearing the leather gloves, so she couldn’t say if they would have blasted her with the parade of sights and sounds that Jessie’s computer and the memory card did.

  The cordless phone was a good place to start checking. With her right hand, she reached out and wrapped her fingers around the silver and black handset. Jessie flashed through her mind, frustrated, bored, happy. Through it all, numbers. Lots and lots of numbers. She let go.

  “Phone numbers, Frost!” She spun around in a pirouette and pumped her fist. “I can see the phone numbers. Ha!”

  He didn’t seem as excited as she was about this new development.

  Dropping to her knees, she grabbed him around the neck for a hug. “Don’t you get it?” she asked when he pulled away, looking at her like she was totally nuts. “If I can read the numbers that have been dialed into a phone, I can get the password for that nasty little memory card.”

  * * *

  “Yeah, thanks. Appreciate the help,” Vaughn said. He hung up the phone and slammed his hand down on his desk. “Son of a bitch!”

  Someone cleared their throat at the door. He looked up and his newest deputy filled the space, eyes off to the side in a show of submission. Tim’s face was as flushed as if he’d run there.

  Damn it. Vaughn ran a hand through his hair and sighed. Now he knew why Luke’s hair was always sticking up everywhere. His wolf whined at him to go comfort the kid. They both liked Tim. Neither of them enjoyed scaring him enough to trigger an acknowledgment of Vaughn’s dominance.

  “That was the werewolf Alpha from the pack in Nashville,” Vaughn said, beckoning Tim to come in. “I called to see if they were missing a pair of wolves that matched the description of Marianne’s would-be abductors. No dice.”

  “Nashville? Why there?”

  “Our dead shooter, Jeff Foy, is from the coyote pack there. Excuse me, was from there. His Alpha kicked his sorry ass out more than a year ago. And he had no idea where Foy went afterward.”

  Tim’s brow furrowed. “Awful lot of untraceable guys running around here all of a sudden.”

  “Yeah. Interesting, that.”

  A bit of gold entered Tim’s eyes, and he closed the office door before moving to the opposite side of the desk. Alarm bells went off in Vaughn’s head that only started clanging louder when Tim spoke in a soft murmur. “Sheriff, I ran the diagnostics like I told you last night. If I had just used basic IT procedures, I never would have found it.”

>   “Found what?” he asked just as quietly as Tim.

  “Why everything’s been running so slow. We’ve been hacked.” He raised a hand. “Not just once or twice either. Someone put spyware on the system. They can see every search we run, every report we file. Hell, they can see every keystroke in real time.”

  Holy fuck. “Why didn’t you say so right when you came in?”

  Tim paled under the force of Vaughn’s anger, but he held it together. “I—I was getting there, but your call seemed relevant.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He lowered his voice again. “I’m starting to wonder if it isn’t connected to all the mystery men.”

  Vaughn matched his volume, though his beasts were screaming at the breach of their territory. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m paranoid, but after everything that’s happened around here the last two years, I don’t like coincidences.”

  “Me either. Can you destroy the spyware and block them out?”

  “Probably. But they’ll know that we know then.”

  “You’re suggesting we pretend that we’re not being spied on? That we let some bastards in on all our business?”

  “It’s like when you’re hunting and find a cougar stalking prey. Do you let him know you’re there and hope to avoid a fight?” The disgusted twist to Tim’s lips said what he thought of that idea. “Or do you lie in wait and smack the shit out of him for hunting in your territory?”

  Vaughn barked a laugh and smiled at Tim, though there was nothing friendly about it. “Smart, kid. Very smart.”

  Gold swallowed Tim’s irises in a flash.

  A growl ran through Vaughn’s voice. He said, “Let’s go hunting.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Hannah was still riding a wave of giddiness when she booted up her laptop and contacted Raze. All these months, she’d been running from one misadventure to another, trying to stay out of Apex’s clutches, she hadn’t actually believed it was possible. Raze was insistent that Hannah’s ability was their only hope for breaking into the data stored on the memory card. So she’d kept running. Kept trying to get stronger, to learn how to control her power. But she had never really, truly believed. She just hadn’t had any other options.

  But now...

  The laptop pinged. Raze’s icon of an exploding lightning bolt popped up. ???

  Back in her leather gloves, Hannah typed, I can read phone #s.

  ...Good 4 u?

  She sighed. Off the cordless handset. She left off the “you idiot” she was itching to add. When I touch it, I see the #s that have been entered.

  Reliably?

  Well, that was the rub. I’ve done it twice. Wrote down #s. But they were all scrambled.

  She tried calling a few. Most were not real numbers, or they went to weird places. Like, why would Jessie need to call a tunnel boring contractor in New Jersey, or a ballet studio in Dallas, Texas? Sure, it was possible, but likely? No.

  Not good enough, he wrote. If u give me the wrong 1, we lose everything.

  She knew that. Why the hell were they even going through this if it wasn’t for it being their only shot? She could have dropped the card in his lap and run off to some deserted island where Apex could never find her.

  It’s progress.

  Not enough. Try harder.

  Bastard. She was trying. She could only press so far. What did he want? For her brain to ooze out?

  Another message popped up. She stared at it for more than a few seconds. It said, I’ve sent someone 2 help. When she didn’t respond right away, he wrote, Hello?

  What do u mean?

  Don’t worry about it. When you break the password they’ll be standing by.

  Standing by? For what? Unease made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

  Who is it? she sent. What she really wanted to ask was, Are you setting me up? She’d been so desperate and alone when Raze and his seemingly magical omniscience had appeared out of nowhere, she hadn’t questioned him.

  She and Frost had been camping in the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia. When they got back to her car—a 1990 Ford Fiesta that was more primer than paint—she found a note on the driver’s seat taped to a disposable cell phone. The first thing she thought was, how did someone get into the car? She was positive she’d locked the doors. Then she’d read the note: Take me if you want to live.

  A little dramatic. She’d expected Arnold Schwarzenegger to zoom up to her on a motorcycle to deliver that line. But then the phone rang. She answered, and a mechanically warped voice said, “Apex has found you. They know this car and are combing the lots now. Hunters will enter the woods. They will kill you if you don’t do what I say.

  “Take the memory card, get in the black Subaru parked two spots down on the left, put on the hat and coat that are on the seat, and drive. Keys are under the front seat. Do not speed. Proceed as if you are a normal camper leaving the grounds. I will call you again in twenty minutes.”

  Despite the absolute, bloodcurdling terror those words instilled, she hadn’t believed him right away. The fear had paralyzed her. But then Frost made the decision for her. He’d gone over to the Subaru, sniffed it, and then stood on his hide legs to check it out. He’d woofed at her. When she didn’t move, he came back, bit the sleeve of her coat, and started dragging her to the other car.

  The hat and coat were huge and bulky, man-sized hunting gear. They smelled funny, like cold water rather than nylon and polyester. But they were warm and she was shivering like mad.

  She still couldn’t say what it was that made her get in that car and drive away, but as they passed another lot, she’d spotted two men getting into a dark van. They would have seemed perfectly normal—a couple of guys who’d decided it was too cold to sleep outside in the West Virginia woods in January—if her headlights hadn’t caught one of their eyes and shown them for what they were: shifters.

  Raze, as he’d later introduced himself, had saved their butts. He’d done it again and again since then. So why was she suddenly so nervous about following his instructions? Damn. She rubbed her temples and waited for him to answer.

  Finally, he said, Arachne. Trust no one else.

  Then he was gone.

  Frost came and laid his head on her leg. As she stared at the now blank message window, she wondered if it was safe to trust anyone besides him at all.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Caine strode down the hallway of the main Apex lab. Housed beneath one of the smaller Genysis Pharmaceuticals facilities, it hummed with activity in the middle of the afternoon. Security guards walked the halls, assistants pushed carts with various supplies, while orderlies and guards moved the lab experiments from one place to another.

  Bryce Angelo walked beside him, his lip curled in distaste. “How can you stand the smell? It’s like metal and sulfur. It’s worse than some bodies I’ve torn up.”

  Caine shrugged. “You get used to it.” Somewhat.

  They approached the inner sanctum of the medical and research staff. He pulled a card key from his pocket and swiped it in the console next to the bullet and shifter-proof door. Next, he entered a numerical code. The lock buzzed and he opened the door. A weasel-faced assistant in a lab coat sat behind a desk just inside. When he saw who had entered, he blanched and scurried off down another corridor, the reek of fear heavy in the air.

  Angelo watched him go, not a flicker of emotion changing his expression. It was one of the things Caine appreciated most about the male.

  Four people sat around a table in the conference room. Each of them had a computer tablet in front of them. Dr. Peter Hermann stood at the head of the table lecturing the others about some test result or another.

  “Dr. Hermann,” he said when he entered the room. “I require a moment of your time.”

  As
expected, the doctor sputtered and whined. Caine didn’t care to hear it. He was on a schedule. When two of the other doctors rose to leave, Angelo blocked the door.

  “Stay,” Caine said. “Dr. Hermann, Holt would like to know why he has continued to receive reports of your experiments in the field committing egregious, attention-grabbing acts of violence.” That quieted the venomous little cretin.

  When Caine continued to stare at the male, he jumped as if shocked with one of the cattle prods he liked to use on recalcitrant lab rats. “I—I h-have s-sent p-progress reports on the various incidents. P-perhaps we were t-too eager to adjust our p-procedures to meet Mr. Holt’s timeline?”

  “So it’s Holt’s fault that one of your black bears started frothing at the mouth, decimated a sheep farm, rampaged through a town, and attacked the family of the local pack Beta?” Caine’s voice never rose above a conversational tone. Yet each damning fact caused the medical personnel to flinch as if he’d struck them.

  Except for the human woman. Interesting.

  He held up a hand to cut off Hermann’s next stuttered parade of excuses. “Care to illuminate us, Dr. Salma?” Caine asked.

  The human doctor who acted as Hermann’s right hand removed her reading glasses and laid them on the table. “I agree that the serum variant responsible for these incidents should never have been introduced in the field. I warned Dr. Hermann that he was risking the soldiers’ lives and possibly exposing Apex to unwanted scrutiny. He disregarded my warnings.”

  Hermann hissed, the dry, sandy scent of serpent rising in the air. “You’re the one who created that variant.”

  “I did,” she said calmly, meeting his transformed snake eyes without apparent worry or fear. “I also said it should only be used on our contained population, due to its volatility. While they are by no means expendable, they also are not trained soldiers and operatives, loyal to the cause. You, Doctor, are the one who insisted it was good enough to use on our own people.”

  “You bitch! You’re setting me up!”

  Quick as the snake he was, Hermann launched himself over the table, meaning to strike Dr. Salma. The result would be her quick and agonizing death. The other two doctors scrambled back, tripping over their chairs in their haste to get out of the way.