by Jade Powers
She didn’t put them in her own pocket because she’d felt the blood touch her hands and now she was completely grossed out and didn’t want to put the keys in her pocket or touch any of her clothes.
Now that she had a flashlight, maybe she could find Drake. Hannah turned away from the path and started walking across the field, searching for the place where Drake ran into the forest.
He had been shackled and handcuffed, his run more of a shuffle. Hannah stopped when she heard something moving. She turned off her flashlight. That was when Hannah realized that she had a very slim chance that the person moving in the forest was actually someone she wanted to find.
She turned back on the flashlight for a three-second count, turned it off, turning it on for a one-second count, turned it off, turned it on for a three-second count. S.O.S. Save our Ship. The international code for distress. Maybe if the guard saw it, he wouldn’t immediately shoot her, and if Drake saw it, maybe he would know it was her.
Hannah felt very vulnerable in the woods alone, flashing her distress. The crackling forest sounds had stopped. When her hand started to get tired, she stopped turning the flashlight off. She was about to move again when she heard the crackle of the leaves to her left.
She whirled around, the light catching Drake’s eyes. He squinted and pulled both of his still-handcuffed hands up to protect his eyes. Hannah felt safe for the first time in two months. She expelled a breath, “Drake.”
“Are you okay?” His eyes roved over her body, and she felt a fleeting sense of satisfaction that those eyes carried a hunger for her that hadn’t diminished or failed.
“Fine. There’s a guard waiting at the van who thinks I was mind-controlled when I shot him. I was hoping we could drive out of here,” Hannah stood frozen. She tentatively slid the back of her hand along his upper arm, watching him for a reaction, anything that would tell her the advance was welcome.
His eyes lit with warmth. He leaned down and whispered, “I’m not really into handcuffed romps, but for you I might make an exception.”
Drake’s breath was warm on her ear. It tickled her stomach with tendrils that reached deeper, stirring fires that once lit would turn into an inferno. Something in Drake brought out Hannah’s boldness, her confidence. Touching his cheek, she stood on tiptoe to kiss him. His mouth claimed hers, his tongue teasing hers.
They were interrupted by the sound of gunfire. In a rough voice he said, “We don’t have long. As much as I’d love to see where this leads, we have to get out of here.”
The soft light of the moon reflected off the cuffs. Hannah shook herself, “The keys.”
She pulled the keys out of her pocket, finding the small one that would unlock his cuffs. In a low voice, Hannah said, “Keep the cuffs on but unlocked. I have a plan.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Drake said, holding out his hands as she set him free. His deep voice was full of teasing and admiration. Hannah liked being admired.
She knelt to unlock the chains on his feet, a secret smile playing on her face. She was exhausted, frightened, injured and titillated all at once. How often does that happen in life! When the chains fell, she looked up. The light of the moon filtering through the trees cast Drake’s hair in a soft silvery glow, but his face was still hidden in shadows. Somehow the intensity of his gaze reached through the darkness, seizing her heart and making her gasp. As if he noticed the shiver, Drake put a hand on her shoulder, a comforting gesture that steadied both of them.
Trembling she pushed up from the ground where she had unlocked the chains on his feet, tucking the keys back in her pocket. She said, “I’m going to pretend to bring you in. The guard is already injured, so he won’t be able to raise much of a fuss. We’ll take him hostage and then drive out.”
Hannah walked just behind Drake’s shoulder. As they approached the van, her shoulder’s tightened and her fingers tightened on his jacket. He walked with a bowed head, faking tired submission.
Nothing stirred within the van. As they approached, Hannah imagined the guard shooting them both. She stopped.
There was a terrible smell, the same smell from the field where Gordon and the puppet master had died. Turning the flashlight back and forth, she searched the area. Something had gone horribly wrong, “Hello? Guard guy?”
When there was no response, she crept to the van and slid the door open. The van was empty. No guard. No nothing. “He’s not there. Do you smell that?”
“Yeah. Shine your light over there,” Drake said, and in the dim light she barely saw where he was pointing.
Hannah flicked her wrist back and immediately wished she hadn’t. The guard was dead in a bad way. He looked like he had exploded from the inside out. “I don’t understand. He was alive when I left him. Who killed him? What happened?”
“The base knows the mission went south and it looks like they’re doing a house-cleaning. We have one chance. Let’s make it a good one. Keys?” Drake asked.
Hannah handed him the keys and climbed into the passenger side of the van. As oppressive as her world had felt just a day before, with Drake beside her, somehow she felt strong.
He threw the cuffs in the back and jumped in the driver’s seat. He drove at a safe pace through the gravel road, fast enough that they fish-tailed a few times, but not so fast that they went off the road. At the end of the gravel, he took a left.
“Wait! That will bring us back to base,” Hannah remembered the turn-off.
“I know, but if we take the road into the mountains, they will only need to send three helicopters and we’re done for. This road passes by the base. If we drive back toward the base, they won’t know there’s a problem until we drive by. At that point we drive like hell into town and hope that our guys get there first.”
Hannah took a deep breath. She said, “Okay. Let’s do it.”
They drove in silence on the curvy road. Hannah found that instead of relaxing, her adrenaline spiked. She couldn’t sit still. Every nerve was itching to move. She fidgeted in the passenger seat.
“You okay?” Drake asked again, turning his face for just an instant to assess what was bothering her.
“I don’t know. I feel like a thousand ants are crawling along my hands and down my face. Something is wrong with me.”
“Did they give you implants?” Drake asked. His hands tightened on the wheel, white knuckles giving away his worry.
“Yeah. They put me under and I woke up with all this stuff in my head. They tested me every day for a month. I was connected to this really sporty guy who could make me hit the bull’s-eye at the shooting range every time.”
“Who shot the guard back there? Him or you?” It was more than a casual question.
Hannah rubbed her fingers against her thighs, not because her thighs itched, but because her wrists and fingers had to move, had to engage in some activity. “Me. If I think of numbers, I can take control. Someone is trying to...access my hands.”
“Close your eyes. I’m going to stop speaking to you for a while,” Drake clenched the wheel and he sped up the van. Hannah closed her eyes, and forced her lungs to expand slowly as she drew in a deep breath. Remembering the first tests, she decided to imagine she was back in the forest, alone and frightened.
In her mind, she visualized the image of the branch and the road in her perch from the tree. She watched the connection from the silence as the message dropped into the implant. A simple order, “Return to base.”
That they could activate the chip, see what she could see and hear what she could hear disturbed Hannah. That a simple order would have her struggling not to jump out a van moving down the highway at sixty miles an hour was even more troublesome. Hannah clenched her hands, squeezed her eyes shut and started counting by twos. When that didn’t work, she counted by nines.
Regaining control, Hannah realized that she could buy them more time. She said aloud, her eyes still closed, as tempting as it was to open them, “I’m returning to base. I’m alone. The target is dead. So are some of
the unit.”
She pretended to climb down a tree, focusing on each branch as if it really existed. The pressure on her mind eased. It was uncanny.
Hannah didn’t open her eyes. She couldn’t trust the feeling that the handlers at the base had withdrawn from her mind. For all she knew, they could implant a feeling of trust if they thought she was about to betray them.
With eyes closed, she felt Drake’s presence, larger than life. He lived his life on the edge of danger. Hannah wondered if everyone else fell in love with him the way she had. She was having his baby. Oh, dear God. That was one secret she didn’t know how to tell or if she should. He had his top-secret life. Now she had hers. She would never guilt him into a life with her. Maybe some women trapped men with babies, but not Hannah.
“We’re passing the turn-off to the base. They’ll know we’ve escaped,” Drake said.
Hannah’s hand lifted of its own accord, reaching for the door. Clenching her teeth, she struggled against the control, trying to regain her own body. She rode the wild wave of fear that gave her hands a tremor. She imagined picking up a paint brush to finish a watercolor, effectively breaking the connection again.
When she could speak again, Hannah asked, “What are we going to do? They’re trying really hard to regain control and we’re just outside the base.”
With a boyish grin, Drake said, “I’m going to floor it. Let’s get the hell off this mountain.”
Drake stomped on the gas, hurtling down the mountain like a mad man. The van swayed on a few of the sharper turns. Hannah squeezed her eyes shut, even though the temptation to watch when the van’s tires squealed was too much to bear. She was driving down a mountain road with Drake. The idea of her and Drake together was absolutely insane, and utterly perfect.
Hannah opened her eyes and flinched. Drake was driving superfast and the road was curvy.
“Drake, you work for another group of powerful people, right? You can get these things out of me?” Hannah recoiled when they took a corner right near the edge of a drop. She closed her eyes and counted to ten. When she opened them, they were still on the road.
“The implants? Yes, we have a surgeon who has removed them before,” Drake said. He paused for a moment, and then added quietly, “Hannah, I’m not sure how to tell you this, but you can’t go back to your family...or to school. Your parents think you’re dead. The base set up the press releases. That was how we guessed you were still alive.”
Feeling suddenly tired, Hannah leaned her head against the door. Her first impulse would be to call home. She didn’t want to put her family in danger. She said, “I don’t know what to do.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Drake said.
Closing her eyes, Hannah didn’t answer. The weight of life pressed heavily. She just needed to stop thinking.
Drake felt like crap. The whole mission had gone sideways from the start, and now that he was in the middle of it, he knew that no amount of money was worth the trouble that the mind control tech had brought. Hannah was only six years younger, but in terms of life style, there might as well be a twenty year age difference. If he had left well enough alone, she would still be safe in her dorm room.
She sat quietly with her eyes closed while he drove down the mountain. He hadn’t meant to blurt that out about her parents, but truth was important. Hannah needed to hear it from him.
The implants bothered him. He cared for Hannah. If he couldn’t admit it to himself, he was a lost cause. He glanced over, his fingers twitching to reach over and brush that stray strand of hair away from her face. She was part pixie, part elf with those large eyes and a delicate chin that came to a gentle point. He wanted her. Her voice was quiet, but when she spoke it was with certainty.
Hannah straightened, her eyes opening. She said, “I wouldn’t ever push myself on you. I just want you to know that up front. I’m self-sufficient. If I can’t talk to my parents, I’ll find another way to take care of myself.”
Drake forced a smile, but his fingers tightened on the steering wheel. It was just the slightest bit offensive that she would think he would just leave her high and dry when his corporation caused the trouble to begin with. The implant thing and her kidnapping were all on the government, but putting her in a position to be kidnapped. That was on him. He said, “It’s not pushing. You need a place to stay for a while.”
It seemed too convenient. Hannah liked the idea of being kept more than the reality. Not to mention, she had to get away from Drake before she started showing. She said, “I like to make my own way.”
Drumming his fingers against the steering wheel, Drake asked, “You’re not going to give an inch, are you?”
Hannah smiled firmly when she said, “Not on this. I mean, it was only one night, right? You’re this hot shot mercenary spy, and I’m a college kid. It’s not like we have anything in common.”
Drake was taken aback. He hadn’t actually realized that she was taking his invitation as a relationship-starter. While his initial response was surprise, there was that deeper reaction. She didn’t want him. It hurt.
Brushing aside his feelings, he laughed gruffly, “Nothing at all in common, but that was one fantastic night. Once the implants are out and you’re feeling back to normal, we could take a couple of weeks off. We can spend some time confirming that we’re not...compatible.”
Hannah’s uncomfortable grimace said more than any combination of words could. Drake didn’t understand why. He was handsome, rich, in physical shape, and rather a nice guy all around, so why wouldn’t Hannah be wooed?
IF IT WEREN’T FOR HANNAH watching Drake’s reactions carefully, she might have missed that quick flush of hurt followed by the iron clad mask of jolly that he put in its place. He wanted her. She wanted him. Where was the problem?
But there were a few really big problems.
She hadn’t told him about the baby.
She hadn’t told him about the cancer.
Hell, she didn’t even know if the treatments had done anything to help her. For all she knew, they gave her placebos. Hannah certainly didn’t go through chemotherapy or radiation or any of those other things they do for cancer. The docs in that weird prison were doing an experimental treatment she had never heard of.
In the meantime, she had to say something, to stop this weird courtship before he got hurt.
“Maybe we should wait until the implants are out,” Hannah said.
“Fine,” Drake said.
And shut down. He just stopped talking. Hannah thought a few times of saying something to encourage him, but she didn’t know what to say, and then the space of silence was so long that any conversation would just be awkward.
They drove in silence. Hannah fell asleep and didn’t wake up for hours. When she finally opened her eyes again, they had put some distance between the van and the base. Drake glanced over once and gave Hannah a small smile, but his eyes were distant. She could tell that he would let her go without a fight. She wanted him to fight for her, needed it, but that was crazy. You can’t reject someone and expect them to come back like a puppy.
Chapter 8
DRAKE BLINKED. THE freeway passed before him in one long boring stretch and Drake couldn’t remember the last ten minutes. Time to stop. The next freeway exit promised hotel accommodations on one of those blue signs.
He took the exit, glancing over at Hannah who sat silently with her hands in her lap. He would hate to have a wife who just stewed in silence. Then he berated himself. Wife? Where did that come from? She was barely a one-night stand. He needed his head examined.
“Are you okay?” Drake asked tentatively as they turned into the hotel parking lot. It was a four story building with an elegant sign. Not the best hotel in the world. Not the worst either.
“Yeah. I’m just tired,” Hannah lied. She was lonely, and the one person she wanted was sitting in reach.
“We’ll stop here for the night. We should be safe here. Sven is on the way. He’ll pick us up and we’ll ditch
the van,” Drake said. He cleared his throat and started to say something and then stopped.
“What is it?” Hannah pressed.
“I think we’ll be safe enough, but maybe we should share a suite,” Drake actually felt embarrassed when he said it, even though he had done it plenty of times with the men and women of his corporation when the mission required a tight safety net. It was because he cared for Hannah. That made the request awkward.
“That’s okay.” Hannah smiled.
He paid cash for the room, plus a deposit. When the clerk asked for his car’s make, model, and license plate, Drake told him with a straight face that a taxi had dropped them off.
The suite was luxurious. Hannah found herself wishing that they had stopped somewhere to buy clothes. She was filthy. Hannah usually slept in t-shirts and underwear. She was wearing fatigues. “Do you want to shower first or shall I?”
“Go ahead,” Drake hung his jacket in the hotel closet. His movements were slow and methodical, even as he was berating himself for a missed opportunity. Right now he could be showering with Hannah. She was still attracted to him. Drake knew the signs. Hannah had already stepped into the bathroom and the lock had clicked.
Drake disarmed, putting his holster in the top drawer near the bed where he was sleeping. The gun belonged to one of the dead men. He would have to ditch it before returning home. He could only guess at what charges they would lay on him were he found with the weapon. He wouldn’t be surprised if they had committed more than one murder using it. On the other hand, he wasn’t prepared to go unarmed until he brought Hannah completely out of danger.
Although used to crawling through the woods, Drake was ready for a shower. Yawning, he leaned back.
Eventually the sound of running water stopped. The door opened. Hannah was wearing...a towel. Seeing Drake eye her, Hannah said, “I didn’t want to put on dirty clothes before bed.” She added, “Is it going to be awkward between us now?”
