“But…” She waved at the shackles on the bed. “Like this? Really?”
“In case I turn violent,” he said. “Yes. It’s absolutely necessary.”
“And what if you do? What the fuck do I do? How do I help you?”
“You don’t. Walk away. Call 911. At that point, I’ll be past help and no longer your problem. Obsidian will probably get to me before the police do anyhow.”
“Walk away?” She looked shocked. “Not an option.”
“You have to,” he said. “If it all goes to shit, it’s the only—”
“Listen, Luke,” she said. “I don’t ‘have to’ do anything. You can’t control me. Certainly not if you’re shackled and out of your mind.”
“You have a point,” he admitted. “So where does that leave us?”
“In a really uncomfortable place,” she said. “But yeah, I’ll try to help you. Goddamn you all to hell, you crazy-ass son of a bitch.”
“I want to protect you,” Luke said. “Nothing is more important to me than that.”
Luke turned back to the heap of stuff he’d hauled up from the car and pulled a folder and a small remote out of a knapsack. He held them out to her. “For you.”
She took the items and looked at them, puzzled. “What’s this?”
“The remote will start the SUV,” he said. “I programmed it last night, just in case. The folder has your new identity. You’re Jessica Mass, Arizona resident. Birth certificate, Arizona driver’s license. You went to UCLA, by the way. Got good grades, too. As good as Dani LaSalle’s grades. Identical, actually.”
“Oh,” she murmured. “Wow. Really? Yay, me.”
“She took the MCATS, just like you, by the way. Got the same high score.”
Dani looked startled. “How do you know about me and the MCATS?”
He gave her an are-you-fucking-kidding-me look. “You could go to med school, with scores like that.”
“Right.” She laughed. “With what money?”
“The money in this folder.” He didn’t miss a beat. “There’s a big wad of cash, clean and untraceable, and some bank accounts in Jessica Mass’s name that hold about eight million bucks, give or take. And contact info for people who can hook you up with a new passport. Fucking expensive, but you have what you need.”
She looked dumbfounded. “So if this procedure goes wrong, I’m supposed to just…run away from you? Into hiding? Alone?”
“Alive,” Luke said harshly. “The operative word here is ‘alive.’ ”
* * * *
Pain jarred Jada out of her stupor. She lay on the narrow cot in her tiny room, chest burning. So damn hot. Her head pounded. The overhead light blazed down into her watering eyes.
Hale was silhouetted against it, brandishing the punishment wand in her face.
She focused on the processor feed, and caught her breath. Shit. She was late.
It was scarcely possible for her to be late. Forty minutes ago she should have come out of a brief restorative sentinel sleep in time to follow all of Hale’s orders, dress as he’d directed and fetch that bottle of champagne.
But the system hadn’t automatically roused her. What the fuck?
She cringed as he made another move with the wand. “Did you forget the time, R-48?”
“Sorry, sir.” She struggled up into a sitting position. “I’m having functional issues. A fever and abdominal cramping. I seem to have gotten some kind of food poisoning.”
“Bullshit. You’re immune to everything!”
“Ah, actually, a few pathogens can get past our defenses and cause infection in pre-Carelton era operatives,” she said. “It’s rare, but it happens. The Carelton edit wiped that issue out, but those of us who were modded before—”
He backhanded her across the face, knocking her off the cot and onto the floor. “No excuses, bitch.”
Jada crawled up onto her knees. Hale stared down at her, slack-mouthed, the toxic haze of his lust still tainting the air. He put his hand to his belt buckle.
Her guts convulsed. She lunged for the wastebasket by her desk console, reaching it just in time.
Hale recoiled as she vomited up her guts. “Christ, R-48. Never do that in front of me again.”
“Sorry, sir.” She sagged over the wastebasket, face clammy with sweat.
“For fuck’s sake, get yourself to sickbay and get some drugs. You need to hold it together for the next forty-eight hours, at least until my reinforcements arrive from Oakline. Two squads of Level Fourteens were the best I could get, even after I told them about the Level Twenty-five Midland rogue. Power-tripping fuckstick assholes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But the new squads won’t be here for twenty-eight hours, which leaves only you as my top-level operative. I need you to prepare High Mesa to secure a Level Twenty-five and a Manticore cyber-operative, and organize to welcome the Committee at the same time. You can’t break down on me now. You better than anyone know how dangerous that rogue is, control codes or no control codes.”
“Yes, sir,” she said faintly. “I’ll get right on it.”
“E-677’s squad is ready to back me up for the pick-up, but there’s just one more thing. Remember the telephone call from the Kwik-Stop? The monitor you put on the place’s security vidcam caught this about an hour ago. Look at it.”
He downloaded a file to her head. It consisted of grainy security footage inside a featureless convenience store.
A greasy-haired young man picked his nose and played with a smartphone behind the counter. The bell over the door dinged. A man walked in. The vidcam’s vantage point revealed only his broad back, long coat, and buzzed dark hair until he turned his head and looked around.
Jada’s senses jangled at the resemblance to the man she had fought in Daniela LaSalle’s kitchen. This was the younger brother. She remembered him. Teasing her, clowning for her, making her and the younger kids laugh. A superhuman feat in Midlands.
His number: D-13. His name: Zade.
He looked different now. Bigger, taller, bulkier. A glinting earring, a tattoo on his neck. More tattoos on wrists and hands. Dangerous intensity in his keen dark eyes.
She knew him. She had no way to hide it now. She couldn’t protect either man. Hale had forced open the doors in her mind. He would pick the info out of her brain, and she’d watch him feed all her old friends back into Obsidian’s jaws one by one. Once they’d cross-referenced D-13’s number with his control codes, he’d be fucked.
The clerk’s eyes went wide when he looked up from his phone. He stumbled back, knocking over a calculator, a can of soda and a wire stand that held tourist brochures and roadmaps. “I’m calling the cops,” he yelped.
“No need.” The man’s voice was low and even. “Do I remind you of someone?”
The guy blinked rapidly. “Wait,” he said. “Hold on. No. You’re someone different. That other guy didn’t have the tats. But he looked like you. You got a twin?”
The man ignored that. “Did you see which direction he went?”
“I ain’t telling you nothing. Talk to the cops if you’re curious.”
The clerk’s gaze darted to the parking lot and back.
“Maybe I will.” The tall man strode out of the camera’s field and was gone. The clip ended.
Hale swam back to the forefront of her vision in front of the blank screen. “Recognize him?” he demanded.
She took a deep breath, fishing desperately for a way to stall. “I…I—”
“Skip it. I can see from your reaction that he’s another rogue agent from the Midlands rebellion. And I know that you recognize him. What’s his number?”
She swallowed over a burning coal in her throat. “D-13,” she whispered. “He is…he was D-13.”
Hale turned to her computer and entered his security codes to access Obsidia
n archives. “Yes,” he muttered. “Fucking yes. His codes are right here. Biological brother of D-14. Another Braxton boy. Hot damn, a matched pair. This is a game-changer. Get the fuck back to work, R-48.”
The thump of Hale’s boots faded down the corridor. He’d been too preoccupied to grab her ass or pinch her breast as he left. She should be grateful for small mercies. But she just lunged for the wastebasket again.
She imagined his face at the bottom, and let go.
Chapter 19
Usually, tackling a complicated task would ease Dani’s anxiety. When she was concentrating hard and doing something that took all of her attention, there just wasn’t room for it.
This was different. She couldn’t keep her hands from shaking, or control the sensation that she was falling right through the floor, never hitting bottom, just an endless, sickening plummet downward.
It made her heart hurt. He was doing this for her. And there was nothing she could say that would make him change his mind.
She was haunted by the thought of finding herself alone with Luke’s lifeless body, Obsidian wolves circling, licking their chops. He thought she could help him, but she wasn’t so sure. She had to set aside her ethical concerns to even attempt the memory recapture. If it didn’t succeed, she could be charged with medical malfeasance. Or worse.
As for herself…well, hell, even with the money he’d thrown at her, plus the car and the new identity, it took relentless energy to run and hide, and a super high-level of organization, not to mention mental clarity. Where was she going to find that if her worst nightmare came true?
They studied the equipment for tedious hours, poring through computer files and PDFs with fine-print instructions, warnings and explanations for the info they needed. Luke’s super-fast data processing capacity was a godsend. He could flip with blinding speed through the irrelevant stuff and glean the exact information they needed to put together their plan. If it could even be called that.
At one point, she opened a case and found a transparent cap. The rubbery material it was made of held a tangle of colored wires, circuits and sensors. Luke’s face contracted with revulsion when he saw it.
“Seen those before,” he said. “Braxton used one on me. It hooks up to…yeah. This thing here, the 3D brain imager. So you can see where in my brain the probe is going.”
“Great,” Dani muttered. “Amateur brain surgery. I love a challenge.”
“Good.” Luke’s voice had the same joking-not-joking tone. “Because this is challenging. But it’s not surgery. You thread the probe through the data ports and through the correct turns so it gets to the right terminus. No cuts, no stitches. It’s just an access point.”
“Right,” she said flatly. “Access to your vulnerable brain tissue. Everything you are now, or were once, or could be in the future. No big deal, right? Shut up, Luke. There is no way to make me think that this is OK. You only make it worse when you try.”
Luke was smart enough to zip his lip, but she was getting ever closer to a state of screaming panic. And those shackles just skeeved her out. Any procedure that required steel restraints had to be a seriously terrible idea.
“You could still stop this,” she told him. “We rescue Ivy, just the two of us, and run away with her, someplace safe where she can heal. Maybe you won’t have your past, but we might still have a future. As much as anyone can hope for.”
But she could see from Luke’s face that she was wasting her breath.
He stripped off his shirt and stalked off into the big en suite bathroom. Ultra clean, to Dani’s relief. Just not sterile. Stark black and white tile, gold-toned fixtures. He opened a cabinet and found guest toiletries in a classy package, helping himself to a razor and some shaving cream.
She followed him in. “What are you up to now?”
“My scalp has to be smooth,” he told her.
She watched for a moment, and came to a silent conclusion. “Wait.”
“For what?” he growled. “I want to get on with this.”
“Just wait for me.” She hurried back into the bedroom and grabbed the stool in front of the vanity, setting it down in front of the bathroom sink. “Sit,” she said.
He did, setting the razor and shaving cream by the sink. Dani pulled off her own shirt, displaying a peach-colored bra.
He liked it, judging from the pole-axed look on his face. “Dani? What the hell?”
“What? Is something wrong?” She fizzed a fluffy cloud of shaving cream into her hand, and slapped and slathered it onto his jaw. “Don’t move. I’m busy.”
She took her time. In fact, she stalled shamelessly, turning the interlude into a long, slow seduction with every stroke of the razor. Bending over him, letting her tits spill halfway out of the peachy bra right in his face. She was sorry to take off all his hair, but it was so short, it would probably be as long again in a few weeks anyhow, and what the hell, it was a great opportunity to memorize every detail of him. The shape of his forehead, the bold slash of dark eyebrows, the chiseled angles of jaw and cheekbone. Ridiculously gorgeous. The lines around his mouth and eyes spoke of toughness and endurance and never giving up.
They just did something to her heart. Squeezed it so hard, it hurt.
Shaving him revealed all the data ports, too. He was going to need a knit hat to cover up all his cyborg mods once they were out in the world again.
If he made it out into the world again.
Dani pushed that thought right back down into the dark. She was living the moment. To the last possible second.
When she’d gone over his jaw and scalp for the umpteenth time, she soaked a washcloth in hot water and slowly wiped off all the goo.
Shaved, the effect was striking, throwing his male beauty into sharp relief. Made it outsized, extreme. He looked insanely sexy that way. Oh surprise, surprise.
He glanced at the mirror, lips twitching in a rueful smile. “I look like an android.”
She shook her head. “Not at all. You’re the hot futuristic fantasy man. Ready to fulfill my wildest sexual fantasies. In zero gravity. So you can spin me around any way you like.”
The look in his dark eyes heated. “Oh yeah. Got any other unfulfilled fantasies, Dani?”
“I do,” she said. “Plenty.”
They gazed at each other in silence for an achingly long time, hearing only the slow drip of the faucet into the sink.
“Give me my memories back,” he said. “And I’ll fulfill any fantasy you want. Until the end of time. I will be at your service. One hundred percent.”
His eyes glittered as she slid her fingers over the velvet smooth skin of his scalp, sliding down his neck, and into the thick, bunched muscles and tendons of his shoulders. His hands rose up, fastening around her waist.
“Dani,” he murmured. “We don’t have time.”
“You started it,” she said.
“Because you took your shirt off. I think you’re gonna have to own this one.”
“OK.” Dani reached behind herself to undo the clasp on the bra. She tossed it away. “Owning it.”
“Oh fuck,” he whispered. “Not fair.”
“But you get me.” She shucked her jeans and panties, kicking them away. “That is, if you want me.”
He rose to his feet, shoving down his jeans and kicking off his shoes, but Dani pushed him back down onto the stool.
“Stay there,” she said. “We’re not going to that bed.” She meant it. If this was the last time they made love—and it really could be the last time—she didn’t want to even think about shackles or data ports or the incredible danger of what he wanted her to do.
Luke pulled her down onto his lap. She straddled his hard, muscular thighs. He burned her deliciously with his life-giving heat. The fierce energy of his kiss sparked something defiant and hungry inside her and she kissed him back aggressively, demanding m
ore. Pulling him closer. One big hand clamped her to his body, the thick hot club of his cock against her belly. He lifted her up, pressing his mouth hungrily to her breasts.
Erotic pleasure shocked a cry from her mouth, and her whole body was taken over by the throb and thrum of intense awareness. He made tender relentless love to her breasts, his hand between her legs caressing her clit and plunging deep inside her pussy.
She writhed, craving more. All of it. Forever.
He held her so easily. She lifted her damp face from his shoulders. Licked her lips and tried to speak. “Luke.” Her voice cracked. “Please.”
He lifted her up and positioned her right over his cock. Forcing himself to slowly glide his thick, hot cock inside her quivering pussy folds. So good.
Her breath caught on a soft whimper. She loved that deep, slow shove inside her. So deep now. Pulsing himself inside her. Rocking her on his hard, massive thighs.
“Too much?” he asked.
She laughed at him. “Oh no,” she whispered. “Fill me up. All the way. And rock me just like that.”
He did so, staring up into her face as he moved her body skillfully over his cock. After a few minutes of slick, pulsing bliss, he stood up suddenly, cupping her ass.
“Luke? What the hell?”
“Keep your legs wrapped around me.” He gave her a kiss that blotted out everything with sensual sweetness.
Then she gasped at the shock of cool wall tiles against her back, her legs draped over his arms, her ass supported by his big hands. Wide open to the heavy strokes of his cock. Calculated to drive her into a hot frenzy of mindless delight.
She abandoned herself to it. Nothing else to do, here at the edge of doom, the brink of the fucking abyss. She would take what she could, and beg for more.
She came, hard. So did he, seconds later, letting go with a shout and exploding into her.
Silence, broken by rasping pants for air.
She didn’t look at his eyes, aware that the ecstasy was over. It was replaced by growing dread.
Maybe this was the last time. So be it. There was nothing left to do now but see this nightmare through. All the way to the end.
In My Skin Page 20
