Indestructible

by Cassie Miles

  He’d been worried about how she’d react to his ability. She could have been repulsed or shocked or scared. Instead, she’d come through like a champ. Right away, she figured out that the most important factor was that they escape.

  She was his partner, and it felt damn good to have somebody on his team.

  She cast a glance in his direction. “How are you feeling?”

  “Good.” The sleep refreshed him. His headache had faded to a mere twinge. Physically, he was back to one hundred percent. “I’ve found that head injuries tend to heal quickly with few aftereffects.”

  “Have you had concussions before?”

  “Frequently.”

  She pointed through the windshield to a roadside sign advertising Wall Drugs. “Get Wall-eyed at Wall,” she read. “We’re stopping there.”

  “At the drug store. Why?”

  “I’ve been reading those signs for the past hour and I’m dying for a hot dog.” She cocked her head to one side, curious and adorable. “What happens if you don’t eat? Would your body keep you from starving to death?”

  “Never tried it.”

  “What about the opposite? Do your abilities keep you from getting flabby? If that’s true, I’d like a transfusion, please.”

  Joking about his ability was new to him. He’d always taken himself seriously. “I don’t experiment on myself.”

  “Aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to jump off a bridge or shoot yourself to see if you can heal?”

  “I feel the pain,” he reminded her.

  “Oh, yeah. Right.”

  He watched her profile as she drove. Her milky complexion glowed against her light auburn hair. Though strands had fallen from her high ponytail to curl around her ears, she still looked neat. She’d pushed up the sleeves of her sweater, hiding the stains left by his blood.

  He was fairly certain that his own appearance wasn’t so normal. The blood spatters stood out on his white T-shirt. “Pull over at the next rest stop so we can wash up and get changed.”

  “I’d rather stop at a gas station so I can get something to eat.”

  He pondered for a moment. Any kind of stop was dangerous because it meant exposure. Somehow, his pursuers had known he’d cross the Missouri at Pierre. They might have eyes at gas stations. But they needed fuel. “Okay, next gas station. We can’t stop to have a real meal, but it wouldn’t hurt to grab a couple of sandwiches.”

  “No Wall Drugs?” she asked.

  “Too many witnesses.”

  “Okeydokey.” She shrugged. “I’m new at being on the run. New at all of this, and I still have a lot of unanswered questions.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I want more examples,” she said.

  He decided against mentioning the recent incident on the cliffs outside Naples. There was no need to remind her of the danger. “There was a scuba diving incident when I got cut pretty bad on a coral reef. And a spectacular crash on a motorcycle. One time, when I was skiing on a glacier, I took a bad fall and banged up my noggin pretty good.”

  “Of course, you weren’t wearing a helmet.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Good point,” she conceded. “I’m beginning to see a pattern here. You’re that guy who always walks away from disaster without a scratch.”

  “Some people say I’m the luckiest man on earth.”

  “But what do you say?”

  He wasn’t so sure. His ability to self-heal had saved his sorry butt many times, and he was grateful to have survived. But his regenerative blood made him the object of a manhunt that had been going on since he left the Andersons’ house on his eighteenth birthday. He was a freak. Isolated.

  He wasn’t sure if his ability was a blessing or a curse, but he couldn’t imagine being any other way. Since he was ten, he’d been different. And his ability led him into a lifestyle he thoroughly enjoyed. “If I hadn’t been able to heal myself, I wouldn’t have survived those early years in New York when I was working two jobs and going to school. I never got more than a couple of hours of sleep a night.”

  “Hold it,” she said. “Can you heal exhaustion?”

  “Pretty much. Depleting your body’s natural reserves is like an injury.”

  “I like it,” she said emphatically. “You can stay up all night.”

  “But I love sleeping.” Allowing his systems to shut down and his brain to fade into slumber was an incredible luxury. “It’s almost as good as sex.”

  “That’s a topic I want to discuss,” she said. “Intercourse.”

  Her prim manner amused him. “What about it?”

  “As you know, I’m on the pill and we only made love once when you didn’t use a condom. I’m thinking that you have exceptionally hardy sperm. Your little guys are like superheroes in capes and masks. Indestructible. That’s how I got pregnant.”

  “Interesting theory.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not sure I like the idea of being invaded by an army of supersperm. The next time we make love, I might just pull out the kryptonite.”

  She’d said “next time,” which he translated to “maybe tonight.” He couldn’t wait.

  WHEN THEY GOT TO the Black Hills, night had fallen. The mountainous terrain closed around them in an embrace as they went deeper and deeper into the pine forests. Melinda had lost track of all the twists and turns on their way to the remote cabin.

  Apparently, when Drew went into hiding, he didn’t kid around. For the past ten minutes on a winding two-lane road, she hadn’t seen a single light or mailbox or any other sign of human habitation.

  Though she’d come to grips with the idea that Drew wasn’t crazy, their current situation ranked as one of the most bizarre she’d ever encountered, and that was saying something because she’d read tons of fiction. At least there weren’t green aliens with six arms involved…she hoped.

  Applying common sense to Drew’s theory that he’d been experimented on as a teenager, she was still trying to draw logical conclusions.

  “There had to be a reason why you were chosen,” she said. “Something biological or genetic.”

  “Since I’m an orphan, there isn’t a good way to check my family background.”

  “Did you look for your parents?”

  “I tracked my way to a dead end. Literally.” He peered through the windshield at the edge of the thick forest. “As far as I can tell, I have no living relatives.”

  “What about your biological parents?”

  “Not much to tell. This was almost thirty years ago, before every person had an Internet profile. My father was a pilot in the air force, stationed right here in South Dakota at Ellsworth AFB. He met my mother, a high school math teacher, in Rapid City. Three years after I came along, they were killed in a plane crash. It was a small plane with no black box, and the FAA called it an accident due to weather conditions.”

  “So you were three when they died,” she said. “Do you have any memory of them?”

  “I remember my mother singing. She’d get down on her knees, hold my hands and dance with me. I wish there was more. A scrapbook or a toy. Something.”

  The wistful tone in his voice touched Melinda’s heart. Even though he was too young to remember much, the tragedy of losing both parents must have been terrible.

  “When I was a kid,” he said, “I used to imagine that they’d come back. I hoped the report of their death was a mistake, and there was some other reason they couldn’t be with me. I guess that’s a common fantasy for orphans.”

  She wanted to wrap her arms around him and comfort him. Children needed to have parents or, at least, someone who loved them unconditionally. She would make certain that the child growing inside her would know both her and Drew. Even if they weren’t together.

  “Have you seen health records for your parents?”

  “I accessed the military reports on my father, who was in excellent physical condition. Perfect vision. Blond hair. Blue eyes. I couldn’t get into my mother’s records.”
r />   “Basically, you’re telling me that there’s no way of knowing if your biological parents had any sort of genetic anomaly.”

  “Correct.” He slowed and turned onto a graded gravel road that was almost invisible. “One more mile to go.”

  Settling down in his cabin sounded terrific to her. Though she’d grabbed a couple of sandwiches at the gas station, she was still hungry for something sweet. He’d told her that there were food supplies at the cabin. But would there be chocolate?

  “I assume you’ve done research on the people who experimented on you,” she said. “They must have had a screening process to pick you.”

  “I always figured that being in foster care made me an easy target. There wasn’t anybody to protect me.”

  “What about the Andersons?”

  “I’m pretty sure they were paid off to keep their mouths shut while I was being tested.”

  He drove slowly on the one-lane road. In some parts, it was so narrow that the pine branches brushed the side of the Range Rover. There were no neighbors anywhere in sight. “How did you find this place?”

  “On the Internet.”

  “Under real estate listings for hermits?”

  The road widened into a clearing. Moonlight spilled across the dull winter grass in front of a small log house surrounded by forest. The windows were closed with wood shutters, making the one-story cabin, with its sloped, shake shingle roof, look like it was sleeping with eyes closed. A stone fireplace rose from one end.

  Behind the cabin and nearly as big was a garage that looked as if it had been newly constructed and painted a dark brown. She wondered what kind of vehicle he’d stashed in there.

  Drew pulled up to the front door. “We’ll unload first, then I’ll put the Range Rover away.”

  She hauled in her own suitcase and a bag of groceries from the gas station convenience store, where they’d stopped hours ago.

  The interior was one large room with a stone fireplace against one wall and a kitchenette on the opposite side. The warmth of knotty pine paneling contrasted with the on-the-run technology and weaponry she was coming to associate with Drew. Three white-topped tables were covered with computers, monitors, printers, cameras and other unfathomable electronics.

  As soon as they entered, Drew flipped a couple of switches by the door. “It’ll be warm in a few minutes. I replaced the propane heater with an electric generator and radiant heat.”

  “What about the fireplace?”

  “Never use it. Smoke rising from the chimney would give away the location.”

  Instead of thinking he was the victim of paranoid delusion, she appreciated his attention to detail. They needed every advantage. She glanced around the room. The furniture was minimal. Only one office chair and a mattress on the floor. Hopefully, she asked, “Is there an attached bedroom?”

  “Afraid not. I never expected to have company.”

  “What about a bathroom? Please tell me there’s a bathroom.”

  He opened a door. “It’s got a flush toilet and everything. The cabin has its own well, so water isn’t a problem. But I use a small water heater to conserve energy.”

  “Not a lot of hot water,” she suggested.

  “There’s enough.” He grinned. “If we shower together.”

  When it came to making love, she wasn’t quite sure how she felt. Of course, she was attracted to him. Any warm-blooded, breathing woman would be. But they’d been so busy running that there hadn’t been time to talk about their future.

  She dropped her suitcase near the mattress and went to the kitchenette. The refrigerator had a six-pack of beer, ketchup and a jar of pickles. “Good golly, there has to be more food.”

  He unfastened a latch on a door that blended into the knotty pine paneling. “The pantry.”

  She stepped inside. Floor-to-ceiling shelves held canned goods and a depressing variety of packaged food, ranging from instant potatoes to coffee. None of it appealed to her until she spied a stack of extra-large chocolate bars and grabbed one off the top. “Mine.”

  “We could have stew,” he said, lifting a can with an overly bright picture of beef and carrots on the front.

  “Maybe later.”

  Melinda wasn’t picky about her food. She didn’t require gourmet cuisine and was accustomed to making do with a little bit of this and that. Nor did she have qualms about living arrangements. Until she got the apartment in Sioux Falls, she’d always lived with someone else—her sisters or roommates or dorm mates in college. That meant dealing with messes that weren’t hers.

  But this cabin was one step up from a bomb shelter with very little charm and zero amenities. The mattress on the floor had only a sleeping bag. No sheets. No comforter.

  In the back of her mind, she’d been hoping for a little romance—a chance to talk to Drew about the pregnancy in pleasant surroundings where they could relax. She plunked down on the double-size mattress and nibbled at the edge of her candy bar. The cabin would have been so much nicer with a roaring fire.

  Drew joined her. “You’re disappointed.”

  “It’s okay.” She heard the break in her voice. As if she was going to burst into tears? What kind of spoiled brat was she? She hoisted a determined smile onto her face. “Really, I understand. This is a hideout. Not a five-star hotel. We need to focus on the bad guys.”

  “I have another sleeping bag in the storage room,” he said. “There’s only one pillow, but—”

  “We’ll be fine,” she said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. “There’s food, water and a roof over our heads. Roughing it will be fun.”

  “You don’t have to convince me.”

  She was convincing herself, trying to make the best of things. “Let’s get back to what we were talking about in the car.”

  “And what was that?”

  She’d been following a train of thought that was relatively logical. Drew had been given a remarkable ability. “Even though you don’t remember anything about the experiments, they must have taken place in a hospital or a lab.”

  “Which I’ve never located. A secret facility.”

  “Considering that this was taking place decades ago, before the idea of cloning and mapping the genome was commonplace, these experiments were using cutting-edge science.”

  “Very much so.” He reached toward her. With his thumb, he wiped at the corner of her mouth. “You had a smudge of chocolate.”

  When he drew his hand back and licked his thumb, she focused on his lips. She knew what it was like to have his mouth on her body, knew the pleasure that resulted when he trailed kisses down her throat to her breasts to her belly.

  Forcing herself to look away, she came to her logical conclusion. “A scientist wouldn’t use just one subject. There had to be a test group. That means you’re not the only person who can self-heal.”

  “Not necessarily,” he said. “With me, the experiment was successful. They could have tried with others. And failed.”

  She shuddered at the thought of other children who were stolen from their homes and never awoke from the blackouts. “But if they had such a terrible success rate, the experiments wouldn’t have continued. How long did they work with you?”

  “Eight years.”

  “There have to be others like you,” she said. “And we need to find them.”

  Chapter Nine

  While Melinda washed up in the bathroom, Drew activated the security measures at the cabin. Similar to the setup in his apartment, he had surveillance cameras—four of them—placed strategically around the cabin to observe the approach of intruders. Motion sensors on the road were calibrated to indicate the approach of a vehicle.

  Since it was after dark, he didn’t bother opening the shutters that covered the windows. There would be no lights shining from the cabin.

  In the storage room next to the bathroom, he found his second sleeping bag. He unzipped both and spread them on the double mattress. Melinda deserved satin sheets and downy comforters
, but this would have to do.

  Her reasoning that there were others like him wasn’t a new idea for him. Years ago, he’d been convinced that he wasn’t the only person who had undergone treatments that gave him special abilities. Though he didn’t know where he was taken during his blackouts, it couldn’t have been far from his hometown of Lead. Other subjects had to live nearby. He’d thought they might even attend his high school.

  And so, he studied the other guys, especially those who were athletic. If they got bruised or sick, he eliminated them, until he narrowed the list to one. His name was Mark Terrance. Mark’s parents were separated, and he spent most weekends in Rapid City with his father. Or did he? Those frequent absences could have been times when he was taken to the secret facility.

  Drew wanted to find out about Mark, but the urgency of his quest took a backseat to his love for Erica Clark. His first girlfriend reminded him of Melinda. They both had curly hair and great smiles. Both were smart and funny. Both liked sex. Not that he’d gone beyond second base with Erica.

  He’d wanted to tell her about his ability, his affliction. But he was too afraid of losing her. His plan was to wait until after they’d made love. That day never came.

  When Erica was killed in a car accident, Drew felt like his still-beating heart had been torn from his body. He couldn’t eat or sleep or think or even cry.

  The whole high school showed up for her funeral. People who barely knew her sobbed in the church pews. People she’d hated wrung their hands in fake mourning. Drew kept his sorrow inside, unseen and festering; he vowed to never fall in love again.

  After her burial, Mark came up to Drew in the cemetery, punched him on the arm and told him to lighten up. Maybe his intentions were good, but Drew didn’t want to talk to anybody. When he tried to walk away, Mark stayed at his side, babbling about some upcoming sports event.

  Drew grabbed him by the collar and said, “I know about you. About your secret.”

  Mark got red in the face. “I don’t have any secrets.”

  “You’re like me.”