by Carla Cassidy, Evelyn Vaughn, Harper Allen, Ruth Wind, Cindy Dees
“Consider yourself under military arrest, mister,” Asher growled as she took a step back. “If you resist any further, I’ll be forced—”
She hit the wall beside him running, and kept running up it. Just as gravity started to claim her and she felt her rubber soles begin sliding down the wall again, she twisted her body so that she was no longer facing the ceiling, but for a second seemed to be defying all laws of physics and standing straight out from the wall.
But only for a second. Thrusting herself from the wall, she brought both feet up as her leap projected her within reach of him, intending to knock him back down as he struggled to his knees with a variation of her earlier kick.
“Hell, do you think I’m so bloody stupid that you get to use the same trick twice?”
Instead of trying to stand, he’d unexpectedly dropped to the floor like a man doing push-ups. Dawn heard his mutter but she was too busy attempting to correct her trajectory to take it in, now that the solid wall of Des Asher that she’d counted on to halt her wasn’t there. She failed. Her balance compromised, she landed awkwardly on the floor, tumbled once, and slid to a jolting stop against the leg of the round oak table just in time to see him spring to his feet and face her.
He’d outmaneuvered her. The realization disconcerted her for a moment, but disconcertion was a luxury she didn’t have time to indulge in, she saw immediately. Asher’s booted foot was already swinging in a brutal chopping arc toward her, with enough power behind it that if she allowed it to connect, it would send her halfway across the floor.
No hitting below the belt? No kicking? Boy, was I wrong about the training these SAS bastards get, she thought, illogically aggrieved. He fights like me, dammit!
She spun out of the way of his boot, feeling a rush of air as it passed over her. Now he was the one temporarily off balance, and she wasted no time in using his momentary vulnerability against him. Lightly jumping up, she again instantaneously assessed all the possible moves he might expect from her and chose the one he would consider least likely.
Her rush forward took her to within inches of him—which was a whole lot like running straight into the path of a Mack truck, Dawn thought as she experienced the fleeting impression of his muscular bulk looming over her before she back-slammed a braced elbow up and under his rib cage. She heard the harsh exhalation of his breath somewhere above her, but already she had grabbed the gleaming leather of his military-issue belt and was jerking him closer. Even as his hand began to clamp around her wrist she was twisting free and moving slightly to one side of him, using her grip on his belt to wrench him more off balance as she brought her knee crashing into the base of his spine.
No shame in crying uncle now, buddy, she told him silently as she heard the whistle of pain that escaped his tight lips. I know what you’re going through, believe me, because it’s happened to me once or twice in a fight. There’s a whole bunch of nerve endings right there, and every single one of those little suckers feels like it’s on fire, doesn’t it? So if you want to call it a day, I’ll understand. If you don’t, all your stubbornness is going to buy you is a couple seconds’ more punishment.
“Bloody hell, that does it!” Pain thickened his voice, and even with her inadequate vision Dawn could see the same pain carved deep into his features. His gaze blazed with fury, and like a bear tormented beyond endurance, he swung one big hand toward her, his knuckles bunched into a fist.
She had plenty of time to dodge back out of reach. She began to do so, felt something solid impede her and realized that with the goggles hampering her depth of field she’d miscalculated her location in relation to the oak table. Quickly she tried to change her step back into a slip sideways. It all took just a fraction of a second too long.
Asher’s uppercut hit her like a battering ram, catching her under the point of her chin. Her head snapped back on her neck with the force of his blow, and the sharp, coppery taste of blood immediately filled her mouth. She felt her feet leave the floor, felt herself start to fall backward, began windmilling her arms desperately to regain her balance.
“Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done,” Asher said, his voice hoarse with anger. “Although I wouldn’t want you to think that exotic crap you go in for is beyond me, you sorry son of a bitch, so before I finish this off by unsportingly pulling my gun on you, I’ll give you a demonstration.”
The words were still leaving his lips as he pivoted so that he was no longer facing her, but turned side-on toward her. At the same time he drew one booted foot close to his body, his palms now rigidly flat and held close to his chest. The leg he had drawn up shot out like a piston just as Dawn found stability. As it blurred toward her she stiff-armed it aside and lunged at him.
Now I’m mad, she told herself. My lip’s split wide-open, I nearly fell on my keister like a kid trying on her first pair of skates, and to add insult to injury, he has the nerve to let me know that he’s held off using his gun because it’s not sporting! The man’s un-freakin’-believable!
She drove her first punch directly into his solar plexus, her second and third finding the same target. As Asher doubled over, her gloved fists moved upward, one blow glancing jarringly off his right cheekbone. But by then he had her rhythm. Blood streaming from a cut over his eye, he waded in toward her and wrapped one heavily muscled arm around her shoulders, dragging her close to him as if they were engaged in some deadly and antagonistic kind of dance.
“Tea party’s over, mate,” he ground out. His mouth was only inches from her ear, and his breath felt warm against her skin. Dawn let herself go limp, felt his hold relax, and then brought her knee up in a deliberately unsporting move. Her aim was true but he twisted at the last moment, and her kneecap jarred achingly against his thighbone. Asher’s one-armed bear hug became crushing, his free hand going swiftly to the Sig Sauer strapped to his hip. “Like I said before, you’re under military arrest, not civilian, so don’t hold your breath waiting for me to read you your bloody rights. All I have to tell you is this gun’s pointed straight at you and my finger’s on the trigger, so put your hands on your head and slowly—”
He hadn’t needed to spell it out for her, Dawn thought angrily. She could feel the muzzle of his Sig jammed into her rib cage and if she flicked her glance downward she could even see it, his finger on the trigger as he’d promised. She could see his watch, too, the dial worn on the inside of his wrist, the little hand pointing at two, the big hand almost straight up, the sweep hand counting the few seconds remaining until—
Until her mission could be considered officially blown. The sweep hand’s countdown was at ten…nine…eight…Exploding into action, she made a grab for the gun, felt her gloved hand wrap around the crosshatched grip and began to wrest it away from Asher.
At the six-second mark it went off and a nine-millimeter parabellum slug tore through the outer wall of her heart.
Chapter 11
Status: nine days and counting
Time: 0159 hours
Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, even to the passage of the bullet through her body, Dawn thought dazedly. She could feel it continue on its way, knew it had missed her spine by a hairbreadth, felt it punch through her back. Then it was out of her but still moving. Two wings of velvet briefly enveloped her and fell away—Sir William’s heavy draperies, she guessed, billowing out at the sides in reaction to the force of the projectile that had slammed through the center of them. At the same time she heard the icy sound of glass shattering as the window she hadn’t been able to open earlier was blown out. She looked down at herself. She could see perfectly now, she realized, which meant that the light-stick had finally sputtered and died, giving her this final split second of darkness.
This is the experiment Aldrich always wanted to conduct, the one experiment Uncle Lee threatened to kill him over if he ever tried to carry it out on me, she thought, seeing the dark stain spreading rapidly across her shredded sweater and the thick globules dropping to the floor, some of them spattering
the edges of the sheaf of papers that had fallen from the waistband of her pants when she’d been shot. Peters wanted to know if I could survive a bullet to the heart. In a moment I’ll have the answer to his question.
“Dammit, man, it didn’t have to end this way!” Asher’s expression was appalled, his tone stricken. “What the hell were you thinking, going for my gun when I told you—”
She could feel it deep inside her. The process had already begun, her tissues beginning to knit themselves perfectly together again. The answer to Aldrich Peters’s question was yes. Lab 33’s lab rat could survive a shot to the heart. But could Lab 33’s lab rat escape the trap she was in…the trap that was about to spring shut right about—
Now! Dawn ordered herself sharply.
Even as she wrenched off the goggles and threw herself backward, time began speeding up again, fast-forwarding so rapidly that everything seemed to occur at once. The study was suddenly flooded with light. She had a freeze-frame’s glimpse of Asher’s drawn features, thought she saw a flicker of shock pass over them, and then she was falling through the cool night air, her arms outstretched and her body limp. She hit the ground with a jarring thud, but knew immediately that her lack of rigidity had saved her from any broken bones.
She’d taken the fast way down, she thought grimly. Mr. SAS was going to have to take the stairs. Her contingency plan could still be put into operation…if her mobility returned in time.
It was a pretty big if. She heard shouts, then the Klaxon-like bursts of an alarm. The military contingent of the facility had obviously gone to code red at the sound of a gunshot and any minute now they would be converging on this area. Sir William’s velvet drapes were hanging on the outside of the now-destroyed window, and while Asher was racing down the hall and taking the stairs three at a time to get to the body of the intruder he’d thought he’d killed, she had no doubt he would be barking out orders to whomever he passed.
She couldn’t wait any longer. Awkwardly she got to her feet, grimacing at the blade of pain that thrust through her but ignoring its warning. Yeah, I know I’m not healed yet, okay? Under the circumstances, Dawn thought light-headedly, it seemed eminently reasonable to have a dialogue with her own body; after all, she was going to be asking a lot of it in the next few minutes. But I don’t have a choice here. You want to end up with me being the poster girl for a bunch of curious scientists, monitors shoved up my wazoo and so many tubes coming out of me that I look like an octopus, go ahead and wimp out. If you don’t want that, you’re going to have to get me to my room, and pronto, dammit.
Her pep talk had the desired effect. Putting one foot clumsily in front of the other, she prodded herself into a stumbling run, clutching the edges of her destroyed sweater together to slow the telltale trail of blood she was leaving as she headed for the building she’d just left so precipitously. Veering drunkenly toward the nearest entrance, she suddenly realized what she was doing and hastily ducked back into the shadows.
Asher burst out of the building, his boots hitting the path so violently that gravel sprayed up behind him as he tore by her hiding place. With less speed than he’d exhibited, she forced herself to sprint up the same path, slipping in between the doors he’d just exited before they had a chance to swing shut.
Right in front of her were the stairs that led to the staff’s rooms, Sir William’s among them. Carpeted in a utilitarian beige, they appeared to rise ahead of her like the various base camps of an Everest ascent.
“And me without my Sherpa guide,” she muttered, exhaustion rolling over her like a fog. “Maybe I should take the elevator instead.”
But there was too much of a risk that it wasn’t working properly after the power outage. It would take time to get all systems back online, and although the elevators would be a high priority since a few of the scientists and technicians were wheelchair-bound, the odds were good that Asher’s people were working first on the security features that had gone down…like the hall video monitors.
As the thought occurred to her, Dawn glanced in alarm at the camera situated above her. It was still dead, the red light that would have been glowing if it was operational not yet showing, but the mere sight of it served as a stimulus to get her up the stairs. With the balaclava still obscuring her features, she wouldn’t be recognizable on camera…but the fact that her masked figure had entered Dawn Swanson’s room would damn her just as thoroughly.
“Talking about systems coming back online, it feels like mine are beginning to return to normal,” she said under her breath as she entered the hallway that ran by Sir William’s rooms. As she’d expected, Asher’s departure from the study hadn’t been so hasty that he’d overlooked locking the door behind him, and for the first time since the fiasco that had resulted in her obtaining and then losing Sir William’s notes, the full impact of her failure hit her.
She’d committed the cardinal sin of her profession, she thought bleakly as she turned down the corridor that led to her room. She’d let her emotions take over at the expense of the mission. There’d been a point during her fight with Asher when she could have turned tail and run, but since the day she’d arrived there had been a personal edge to their infrequent interactions, and tonight had been no different.
“Face it, O’Shaughnessy, you wanted to whip his ass,” she berated herself. She let herself into her room and went immediately to the window, taking care not to turn on the light. Searchlights crisscrossed the grounds and the voice of Lieutenant Keifer was clearly audible as he directed a group of soldiers to search the area nearer the gates. “Instead, you got blown away by Mr. SAS, and in the process you not only screwed up this assignment, you insured Sir William’s notes will be kept under even tighter security after tonight. With your anticipated life span now down to a week and two days, you’ve put yourself back at square one.”
No one likes screwing up on a job, Dawnie, but sometimes it happens. When it does, the best plan of action you can have is to make it to safety, regroup your resources, and figure out how you’re going to fix your mistake.
“More pearls of wisdom from a dead man,” Dawn said bitterly, turning from the window and entering the bathroom. She stripped off her pants, the balaclava and the ruined top, bundled them into a blood-soaked ball and a moment later had tossed them into the air shaft with the rest of her clandestine possessions, including the gun she’d liberated from Reese and had decided not to take with her tonight—another mistake that Lee Craig would probably have a handy bromide for if he were alive, she thought dismissively.
Clad only in a plain black bra and pants, she paused in front of the mirror. Yessir, step right up and see the amazing regenerating woman. Lightly she touched the edges of flesh and skin that had been torn apart less than five minutes ago and were now almost knit together, before twisting the washbasin’s taps on full blast and running hot water over a washcloth. The water swirling in the sink ran crimson, then pink and finally clear as she automatically scrubbed the drying blood away, her attention still on her reflection. Break her bones and she’ll bounce back. Shoot her full of holes and she heals right up. Is she a freak, a lab rat, a monster? Why, she’s all of those things, ladies and gentlemen, and a fool besides, because the one part of her that won’t heal is her heart—not the organ but the feelings she once had for the man who lied to her all her life. Come on, folks, let’s give the little lady a big round of—
“Shut up!” The washcloth fell unheeded as Dawn grasped the edges of the sink and brought her face to within inches of the mirror. “Shut up, shut up, shut up! I have healed! I’m perfectly fine! Sure, I loved you, you bastard—I loved you so much I used to pretend you weren’t my uncle but my real father! I loved you and I believed your lies and I thought—I thought—”
The woman in the mirror opened her mouth in a silent rictus of grief. Her gold-green eyes were red rimmed and her face was wet with tears. Behind her there seemed to be a ghostly image—an image of a man, no longer young, with lines of experience and
regret on his face and shadows of pain under his eyes. Dawn reached out and touched the ghostly reflection.
“I thought you loved me, Uncle Lee.” Her whisper was agonized. “But that was just part of the lie, wasn’t it? Because even if I could somehow overlook everything else you were and did, I can’t overlook the fact that you killed my mother, Rainy Miller. Her death at your hands has to mean that you never felt anything at all for me, and knowing that has been tearing me apart, despite what I told Kayla Ryan…and despite what I’ve tried to tell myself.”
She let her hand fall away from the reflection. Her anguish hardened. “Don’t come back anymore, Lee. Your little lab rat doesn’t need you. Stay dead and stop haunting me, and maybe then I’ll be able to heal, you bastard.”
Gripping the sides of the sink, she let her head hang between her braced arms for a moment. When she looked up once more, there was no one reflected in the mirror but herself. She firmed her lips to a straight line, swiped the back of her hand across her tear-marked face and began to reach for the drab robe hanging on the back of the door.
“Exit O’Shaughnessy, enter Swanson,” she muttered. “God, couldn’t Carter have given her better taste in clothes, or at least—”
“Open the door!”
The shouted command coming from the hall outside her room was accompanied by a violent pounding. Dawn spun around. Only when she was facing the door did she notice she was holding a wickedly jagged shard of glass in her hand, the remains of the water glass she’d instinctively grabbed and smashed to use as a weapon.
“I know you’re in there, Swanson. If you don’t open this door immediately I’m breaking it down!”
The voice belonged to Des Asher. So, presumably, did the boot that crashed into the door a second later, rocking it on its hinges. He was the last person on earth she felt like confronting right now, she thought in trepidation, the last person she could afford to confront while the bullet hole he’d put in her was still healing; but a more important issue was, why was he here at all? There was a full-scale manhunt going on outside this building, a manhunt he himself had ordered, and with all his faults Asher wasn’t the type to let a subordinate shoulder his responsibilities for him.
