by Jenn Nixon
Here and now was all that mattered.
As she collapsed into his arms, her body satisfied, she brushed her mind against his forcing the tears he’d been holding to fall. She tiled her head and frowned. Liam?
He wrapped his arms around her back, pressed his face against her shoulder as she ran her hand over the back of his headland sniffled with him.
What is it, luv? She trembled and squeezed tighter.
I cannot shake the fear, Dina. After everything we’ve seen and heard, what if Caelum is right and we are on the same path, only accelerated?
Dina leaned back, wiping the tears from his cheeks as she shook her head. “I don’t think we are. I think we’ve already changed things. In…her future, Sanjeeta never met Caelum until way later. He wasn’t here when we started looking for Marjorie the first time, I’m certain.”
“And if it’s not enough to change what you’ve seen—”
“That’s why we’ve got a whole team, to figure out the next step. I’ve said it a hundred times, we have too much information, but now we finally have enough people to help us scour through it all and find this fucker Gardner. And it’s your job to come up with a plan.”
Liam smirked, meeting her eyes and sighing. “This is supposed to be your brother’s team, Dina.”
“It’s our team, Liam, but you’re a natural leader and we all trust you with our lives.”
“My judgment has been compromised of late,” he said, brushing the last tear away as he sat up and drew her against his chest.
“Because you’ve been worrying about me and I love you even more for that,” Dina replied, nuzzling his neck. “Time for us both to focus.”
“Agreed.”
“I want to try healing Marjorie and the kid.”
“And you should, Dina. It may be time to rethink continuous healing of the others without confirming Caelum’s theory, but once or twice should not have a significant impact on either of them.”
“Aime’s got all of our older records, we can start tracking everyone else, do a control group or something…”
“We’ll figure it out, somehow,” he said, rubbing his hand along her arm as his mind wandered to happier thoughts. “Central Park.”
“Where we teleported the first time?”
“Yes. We should marry there.”
“I love that idea.”
“And I love you, Dina, more than I can express.”
Dina gazed up at him with glassy eyes. “You’re half my heart, Liam, and no one is going to take you away from me. Not this time.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Dina stared at the weird looking image of the white blood cell Liam said was causing the barainum to remain in Marjorie and Travis’s system. Since it was organic, synthetic, and had traces of nanotechnology, she had no idea why he thought she could heal them both, but she had to try. She glanced away from the medical monitor and stared at the young kids, hating what she knew awaited them when they woke up.
Regardless whether they knew about their psionics, they were now a part of this strange secret world they’d built. Even if the government went public as Theo and Connor believed would happen soon, they didn’t know about or at least wouldn’t acknowledge visitors or descendants. Not yet. Maybe never. Which meant as long as there are people with abilities beyond the average psychic, Earth needed the MIND team.
Sighing, she took Marjorie’s hand in hers, opened her link, and shared her healing energy with the young girl instantly sensing it working. Liam was right. Perhaps she could heal any unnatural ailment as well as injuries.
Conversely, the Enhancer energy may be the source.
Either way, Dina was overjoyed when Marjorie murmured and breathed deeply. She sent a quick mental message to Caelum to tell Sanjeeta that her employee would be awake soon then went to work on Travis, shocked her healing worked just as quickly on him too.
The reality smacked her right in the face. She didn’t even need to peek into the future memories to confirm it, these two were the proof. Grinning, she glanced back toward the doorway to call Liam when fingers wrapped around her wrist.
“Who are you?” Marjorie wheezed, her voice cracking.
“Dina, I’m a friend of Sandee Desai from…the pet shop in Wilmington,” she replied, allowing the Cartuilan descendant to hear her thoughts if she wanted and catch her honest vibe.
“Sandee?”
“She helped us find you,” Dina said, smiling. “You’re safe, that stuff they used on you is gone now.”
“Thank you.” She threw her hands over her face and cried. “I never should have gone on the deepnet. I didn’t know what else to do…I kept hearing—”
“Voices in your head, feel things you shouldn’t…maybe some other things? We can explain it all, Marjorie, I promise and Sandee’s going to be here soon, she can—”
“I knew it, she’s like me right?”
“Sorta, it’s a little complicated, but you’ll get the whole truth, I promise.” Dina glanced to the kid, also starting to wake up. “Do you know Travis?”
Marjorie shook her head. “We talked a little, he’s from Pennsylvania, they took him the same as me. The woman, is she okay?”
“Zila? Yes, she’s downstairs sleeping in my brother’s apartment.”
“She said she was there to help us, I couldn’t tell if she was lying. I’m glad she wasn’t,” Marjorie said, shuddering.
Dina sensed the power of Caelum fill the base and glanced back to the doorway to see Sanjeeta rushing toward it.
“You’re awake!” Sanjeeta grinned as she darted to the medbed and hugged the young girl. “Thank god you’re okay. We were all so worried.”
They both sniffled. Dina sucked her tears back.
“Thank you, Sandee, I don’t know how you did it, but thank you,” Marjorie cried softly.
“Wasn’t me, they…did all this,” she replied and leaned back.
Dina shook her head. “Team effort, always.”
“Uh…” the kid, Travis, lifted his head from the medbed. “Maggie? What’s going on?”
“Sanjeeta’s going to fill you in a bit… I know you want answers, but you both need to rest so that’ll have to wait until tomorrow. We’ve still got work to do.”
“I’ll be in shortly, Dina, thank you.” Sanjeeta smiled and nodded.
Satisfied the kids were mending, Dina exited the medlab and teleported to the hub looking for Caelum, but only seeing Liam, who was focused on three different things on the screen. The first was a text message to the team. The other two, photos. One was obviously Gardner standing on the corner of a street with one of those red English phone booths—turned coffee shop—in the background. The second was a non-descript warehouse building near water.
“Team meeting?”
“Yes, I have a plan.”
“Of course you do. And I realized something else. It was way too easy for me to heal them and if Phoenix is still messing around with synthetic cells and nanotechnology they probably don’t have a virus yet.”
“Unless the virus is synthetic and this is the first stage,” Theo said as he and Casey walked into the base followed by Kim and Duncan.
“Either way, I’m ready, what’s the plan?” Duncan said, cracking his fingers.
Dina shook her head as Liam chuckled.
“I only have part of it at the moment, that’s why I called you in,” Liam replied. “Aime, go visual.”
“Good morning,” she replied, coming on screen with a blue pixie cut.
“Are you ever going to stick to one style and color?” Dina finally asked after months of wondering.
“I was waiting for someone to notice.”
“We noticed,” the group replied and laughed.
“Organics,” Aime said, shaking her head. “I’ve gone through the Phoenix server information, I’m afraid I don’t have good news.”
“Go ahead,” Liam nudged.
“There is nothing regarding a virus or the synthetic cells. Everything o
n here is related to psychic and visitor abilities and their reactions to the barainum-narcotic mixture in both forms.”
“They’re just the testing facility…so to speak,” Casey said with a frown. “We’re going to have to tear that place apart, everything may be on paper, seems like Gardner’s M.O.”
“Indeed. Aime and I have also narrowed down several locations in London where he’s been spotted, recently,” Liam said, swiping several pictures to the other three hanging monitors. “It’s been six hours since we’ve had the guards in lock up, only a matter of time before he contacts them for an update and realizes something’s wrong.”
Sanjeeta approached the group from the side. Dina smiled and tilted her head when Liam caught her eye.
“Hey, Sandee, how’s your friend?” Kim asked as the others looked over.
“Alive and well, thank you, all of you,” she said, pausing near the hub. “They’re both still tired, but told me they were exposed to the aerosol weapon you mentioned.”
“Did they overhear anything about Gardner or a virus?” Liam asked, but Sanjeeta shook her head. “How’s Caelum?”
“Unsure if he should come back, he’s struggling to overcome his guilt—”
“There’s nothing to feel guilty about,” Dina said, shaking her head.
“On the contrary,” Caelum said, appearing behind Sanjeeta half of the group who gasped with the surprise while the other half frowned.
“I swear, Enhancer, one of these days…” Theo mumbled.
“Apologies, you know I’m often lost in thought—”
“We know,” Dina and Duncan said.
Sanjeeta laced her fingers through Caelum’s and Dina saw the silver ring around her iris brighten. When she nodded to him, the Enhancer sighed and looked to the group.
“While I’ve seen definitively that I willingly gave Dina my energy, it seems the only reason I did was due to a vision from Jazara. She saw Dina going back to warn us. If I had not given her my energy to survive, none of this would be happening.”
“Exactly, and we’d all be dead in a year,” Theo said, grunting. “We need to find Gardner, destroy all his research, find out how far he got and who else knows about it.”
“Sanjeeta and I want to help.” Caelum shrugged. “It’s time I contribute.”
“Maybe you can try to get information out of the guards,” Duncan said. “We tried but—”
“Gladly, we’ll head to the shuttle.” He barely finished the sentence before they both blipped away.
“I think we’re going to need that plan, luv,” Dina said, smiling and shaking her head, feeling the excited rush again, adding fuel to the fire in her belly. Seems her brother and Theo were as eager to get to work as she was right now.
“Me, Theo, Duncan, and Kim will go to Phoenix, tear the place apart like Casey mentioned,” Liam said, before turning to Dina. “You, Lexa, and Hinta go to London, search for Gardner. I’ll ask Bates to coordinate from the hub.”
“I’ll back him up,” Casey said, glancing down up at the hanging monitors. “I busted my ass yesterday, I’m beat.”
“You saved our asses, Casey,” Dina said as she tapped a text message to Lexa and Hinta to give him the good news they’d be going to England.
“Very true,” Liam added with a chortle. “Make sure everyone brings a stunner since we’re dealing mostly with humans.”
“What are we going to do with all these people when we’re done?” Duncan asked something that had been on Dina’s mind for a while. “I mean, we can’t just keep them in the shuttle, they’re guilty sure, but we’re not jailers.”
“I suggest we turn them over to the unit, they are using their equipment and database to find targets, though explaining that may be tricky,” Theo began and scrubbed the back of his neck. “I trust Tippton, the new Director of DHHS, I think if we keep the visitor aspect out of the equation we may be able to convince him the guards were traumatized by one of their psychic captors—who happened to escape before we got there.”
“Can’t hurt to try,” Kim said as she got up from her seat. “I’ll get the gear, you get snacks and drinks, we may be there a while.”
“Good thinking,” Duncan replied with a nod and headed toward the kitchen.
“Hinta’s going to meet me at Lexa’s cabin, gonna let her do the heavy teleporting to England,” Dina said, glancing back to the hub and catching Liam’s eye. You watch their backs, Liam.
He nodded, his gray eyes glowing slightly. If you need me, call me, Dina.
Ditto. She winked as she got up from her seat, heading toward the techroom to gather a stunner and perhaps a grenade or two. Even though it wasn’t much of a plan, it was all they had. As long as the entire team had one similar focus, Dina had faith they’d make it through, one way or another.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Caelum flashed to the Cartuilan shuttle in the Grand Canyon and watched Sanjeeta’s eyes light up at seeing another visitor craft. His heart flipped and with the voices muted, he was able to catch her thoughts on the wind. She was already planning trips she wanted to go on with him.
When she squeezed his fingers then released his hand to look around, Caelum went to the command center at the front of the vessel and checked the security footage from the cells. Ravvi, the descendant who assisted Zila sat on his cot reading a book, seemingly doing his best to gain a parole of sorts by behaving. The five human guards took up the second and third cell and were all still knocked out after Hinta and Duncan’s attempted interrogation.
“Oh, I didn’t know anyone was here,” Sanjeeta gasped from the back of the shuttle.
Caelum returned to the hallway to see Zila and Jazara walking out of the mess hall. “Hello.”
“Hi,” Jazara said. “Hinta’s helping Dina and Lexa so I offered to take his shuttle shift and my mother wanted to see Ravvi.”
“Duncan asked if I would venture into the guard’s minds, but they are sleeping, I will let their minds rest and heal first.”
“I just made some iced-tea. Please help yourself,” Zila said as she bypassed the group and went toward the prison room.
“We may as well stick around, the others are busy enough without us hovering,” Sanjeeta added as she threaded her fingers back through his. Although her touch easily aroused him, Caelum maintained his focus on the conversation instead of what he wished to do.
“Yes, and I can monitor most of the team from the command center here,” he added, following Jazara back into the mess hall.
“I hope they find this guy,” Jazara said, sighing as she took a seat at the table and pouring them each a glass of tea. “We can’t let him create the virus.”
“I agree and believe if we concentrate and stay on this path we will,” Caelum said, already reviewing all of the information at hand, attempting to predict how it would play out. Instead of letting his thoughts wander and dwell on what he had no control over, Sanjeeta brushed her mind against his, keeping it quiet, helping to maintain his control, and filling him with her generous, powerful energy while enjoying the constant sensual connection.
“You work with the team now, like on a regular basis?” Sanjeeta asked.
Jazara nodded. “I don’t do much, really. I help in the shuttle or base when they need me, mostly I’ve been working with Lexa to strengthen control of the visions and when I see them.”
“Something I’ll need help with too.”
“We’re all here when you’re ready.”
Caelum listened to them chitchat, seeing how easily Sanjeeta meshed with the members of the MIND team. As his Conduit, she kept him grounded and focused enough to be near other visitors and descendants without their minds and emotions overpowering his senses. The urgency to solve their problems quickly so he could leave had faded. Now, he wanted to stay and help.
“And I hate to say it,” Jazara said, her voice tightening. “Using the implants or wristbands on visitors and descendants for the appropriate reasons may be the only option if we want to contin
ue keeping our existence quiet. What do the other planets do?”
“Some do something similar, others have lethal weapons capable of killing any class, most simply do what you do, overpower and incapacitate and then hold in facilities with capabilities like the shuttle.”
“Seems like a happy medium to me, you keep track of them, but they get a semblance of freedom until they right their ways. I’m glad Hinta steered me straight,” Sanjeeta said, frowning when Caelum lifted his brow. “You don’t know?”
“No.”
“He stopped me from robbing a jewelry store,” she said with a shrug. “I was in a tight spot for a couple of months, he helped me.”
His heart sank. The people on this planet had much to learn. Struggling to survive took on different forms on different worlds. Only Earth seemed to be the one ruled by monetary means. Those who suffered on this world did so because they lacked money. He found it tragic yet comforting. Others in the galaxy suffered far worse for more terrifying reasons.
“I’m glad he did, you helped us break this case, or investigation or whatever they call it,” Jazara said with a chuckle. “Personally, I think they’re all addicted to playing hero.”
“Take it from someone in customer service, helping people really is a natural high,” Sanjeeta said, grinning.
Simply looking at her filled him with joy. When that joy was suddenly replaced with anger and deception and the presence of new minds surrounded the shuttle, Caelum released Sanjeeta’s hand allowing the silver sheen to encase his body. He flipped his vision and glanced around, holding up his hand when Jazara opened her mouth to speak.
Others are near. He projected to both as his eyes locked on four men standing above their location. The depth of the rock between the shuttle and surface was no more than ten feet. Easily something men with military skills and weapons could overcome. His first task was to keep the occupants of the ship safe. He turned to Sanjeeta. Go to the command center and activate the ship’s shields. Large blue indicator on the left hand side, Valtor assures me they are operational.
