I didn’t have any kinds of nulls here that would suck down the kind of power he was manifesting, plus I’d been in such a hurry to get to Price that I’d left my pack with the others. I needed to help him get it under control before he did something seriously awful, like taking out this part of Colorado. If he even could gain control at this point.
I wiped my palms on my thighs and stretched out a hand to him. “Price. It’s me. Riley. I’m here. I need you to calm down.”
His dark sapphire gaze flicked around the room and eventually settled on me. His muscles bunched, his jaw jutting. He lurched toward me, fists raised.
“Get the fuck away from me, bitch,” he rasped. “Go to back to hell where you belong.”
I recoiled before I realized he didn’t believe I was actually there. My heart galloped in my chest. His face twisted. His eyes darted and flickered as if he saw things I couldn’t. Probably he could. A dreamer could have locked him into a hallucination. For him, it would feel real.
“It’s really me,” I said. “I’m Riley.” Yeah, because repeating myself was totally a winning argument. I bit my lip. I hadn’t thought I’d have to prove myself to him, which was idiotic. I should totally have anticipated that, given that they’d be screwing with his head. I had no idea how to convince him. Anything he knew about me could have been plucked from his mind by an FBI dreamer, which meant it was impossible to come up with something only he and I knew about to confirm my identity.
He moved so fast I didn’t see him coming. His hand closed around my throat, and he slammed me back against the wall. He held me there, his fingers curling into my windpipe like he’d rip it out. His face pushed close to mine, his nose pressing up against the skin below my ear. He sucked in a deep breath.
My body responded before I could think. Thank goodness for all those training drills when I was younger. I scrunched my shoulders high and pressed my chin hard against his hand. I grabbed his wrist, digging my thumbs into the tendons. He was impervious. Abruptly, I changed tactics. Keeping my chin clamped against his hand, I reached across with my left hand and grabbed his wrist, keeping it locked to me. At the same time, I used my right hand to grab his arm above the elbow, pushing sideways so that the joint strained backward. I pivoted my hips, shoving with all my might. I kicked my leg out to drive his leg out from under him. If he didn’t let go, his elbow would break.
I wasn’t all that sure he was in a state of mind to care.
Abruptly, he released me and staggered sideways. Before he could snatch me again, I attacked. I was too close to the wall to twirl a roundhouse kick into his kidneys. Instead, I punched him there. I heard the breath huff out of him. I kicked the side of his thigh. I was aiming for the knee. Ten pounds of pressure on either side of the joint was all it took to break it. Or would have if I hadn’t missed. Even so, the thigh kick was enough to drop him to the floor. I knew from experience it hurt a hell of a lot.
Unfortunately, Price didn’t give in to his pain. He bounded to his feet and swung around. I held up my hands flat before me to forestall him. Miraculously, he paused.
“It really is me,” I said. “I came through the trace to get you.”
He glared at me from beneath his lowered brows, his black hair hanging across his eyes. His unshaven jaw was dusted black, highlighting the hollows and contours. He looked like he’d lost twenty pounds. His skin stretched tight over the planes of his muscles. Veins and tendons stood out in relief. He took a step toward me.
“Riley isn’t here,” he gritted between clenched teeth. “You are some FBI bitch made to look like her. If you’re even here at all and not just in my head.”
“Why can’t I be Riley?” I demanded. “You have to know I’d come rescue you.”
“No. Riley would never be that stupid. If anybody’s coming for me, it’s Gregg.” He scowled, as if annoyed that he’d been made to talk so much.
“He couldn’t make it, as it turns out,” I said. “Besides, I totally would have come for you whether you or he wanted me to or not. If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I don’t abandon people I love. Hell, I don’t even abandon people I barely like. Anyhow, I love you and I am here. For real.”
“I don’t think so. Get the fuck out of my head!” He balled his fist and punched himself just above his ear. I winced. He did it again.
“And you call me stupid,” I muttered.
“What?”
“I said, you call me stupid, but you’re the one hitting yourself in the head. If you really want to crack your skull like an egg, you probably should get down on the floor and whack it on the cement.” I glanced around. “Or the corner of that table, though from the looks of you, you’ve already tried bashing yourself to death.”
His cell was a square of concrete. All of it looked like it was made to be washed down and disinfected. Smears of blood here and there explained why. A drain in the center of the floor told me I wasn’t wrong. The only furniture was a steel table bolted on one side of the room, about five feet or so off the wall. Underneath was welded a locked steel box. No doubt to keep the essential torture tools handy. Up in the middle of the ceiling was an eye-in-the-sky camera, probably with microphones to catch everything Price said. It was totally blind and mute now, though, thanks to Leo and Jamie.
I fixed my attention back on Price. Luckily he hadn’t taken advantage of my momentary distraction to attack me. I drew in a breath and let it out slowly. Right now he was my enemy, and I had to remember that. He would hurt me if he could. Maybe kill me.
“Is it helping?” I asked. I waved a hand toward his head. “The whole bashing yourself in the noggin thing?”
“You’ll never get what you want from me,” he said.
“I want to get you out of here where you’re safe,” I said. “And I wouldn’t mind having those two weeks you owe me.” Not that that was going to happen soon. “What about giving me the benefit of the doubt? That I’m really Riley, that I’m really here, and that it’s time to escape? Couldn’t hurt, could it?”
His bark of laughter startled me. “You don’t think I’m that stupid, do you? We escape”—he put air quotes around the last word—“and when we’re supposedly elsewhere, I spill all my secrets to you?”
He had a point. I frowned. What could I do to prove myself?
“Shit,” I muttered. I wanted to pace, but I didn’t dare turn my back on him. I worried my upper lip between my teeth. I still held his trace. Could I do something with that? I ran my fingers down it.
“What was that?” Price jerked upright, his eyes widening. “What did you do?”
I smiled. “What I do. I’m a tracer, remember? I’m touching your trace.”
I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. Immediately, he began shaking his head.
“Right. That tactic is more clever, I’ll give you that. But I still don’t believe you.”
He was bound and determined not to believe me. Not that I could blame him. The FBI was out to break him, and he had to assume everything that came at him was a ploy. I had to do better.
Maybe I should just drag him out through the spirit dimension. Maybe the trip would prove it. And if it didn’t? He was still cruising for an overload, and it was going to happen soon. If anything, the air in his prison cell had grown thicker and heavier with magic.
Well, if just running my fingers over his trace had startled him, what if I . . . ?
I yanked hard on his trace, then jumped back when he jerked toward me.
“Christ!” he yelped, and for the first time, his angry armor cracked and I not only saw but could feel his shock and terrible fear. Immediately, his expression closed up and his emotions shut back down. “I’m done with you,” he said and turned his back on me. “You’re not here and you’re not worth my time or attention.”
I took the moment
to scan Price from head to foot. Despite my frustration, I was overjoyed that he hadn’t lost his mind. They hadn’t broken him. Even naked and mentally tortured as he clearly had been, every inch of him oozed pride, toughness, tenacity, and explosive energy. Not to mention incredible stubbornness.
Most of me wanted to take the moment to punch him, knock sense into him somehow. I would have if he wouldn’t have cracked my skull in return.
It occurred to me I could have Leo and Jamie build a cage around him. No, Price was too close to full-on cascade. I needed to get him out of here before he totally lost control. Too many people could die otherwise, including and especially my family. That meant pulling him through the spirit dimension to somewhere he couldn’t do a lot of harm, and where the FBI wouldn’t find us.
The only viable option I could think of was my house. I couldn’t take him out into the wilderness. He wasn’t dressed for the cold. At least at home I had monster nulls that could help contain his power when he went off like Mount Vesuvius. Hopefully I wouldn’t end up like all the statues in Pompeii.
“Have you thought about the possibility that I might really be Riley?” I asked, taking one last chance on convincing him. Having his cooperation would be a lot more helpful than fighting him. “I mean, if I am actually who I say I am, and I’m here to rescue you, then you’re wasting time. I haven’t asked you a single question. I haven’t tried to control you. Think about it.”
He spun around, and his expression was feral. As in, insane rabid wolf. All he needed was a little bit of foam to complete the picture. “I told you to leave,” he said in a flat, implacable voice. “Now I’m going to make you.”
I stepped back. Big mistake. He leaped at me. I ducked under his outstretched arm and jammed my shoulder under his hip. I pushed and rolled around his back at the same time.
One thing about Price is that he’s smart and he’s got crazy good fighting skills. He’d anticipated my move, and instead of losing his balance, he put all his weight on his other leg and twisted out of my way. I crashed through the hold and fell forward, catching myself on my hands in something like a downward-facing-dog yoga pose.
Before I could recover, he picked me up and slammed me down onto the steel table. My head bounced, and the breath whooshed out of me. I jerked my feet up to my chest, intending to jack them into his stomach even as he jammed his forearm against my throat. Instantly, I gagged at the pressure on my Adam’s apple. Panic flared. I clawed at his face.
I’ve got curves. And by that, I mean I’ve got plenty of boobs and what I’ve been told is a luscious ass. At the moment, my boobs were seriously getting in the way of getting my feet up high enough to pry him off. All the same, I levered one of my feet up and got my toe under Price’s jaw. I kicked out as hard as I could. He lurched backward. I rolled off the other side of the table, coughing and gasping and keeping the table between us.
“Helluva way to treat your girlfriend,” I said. Sort of rasped in between the coughing. “I’m not sure I want to spend two weeks alone together after all.”
He lunged at me again. “Bitch!”
He vaulted over the table, and I dodged around the end. His fingertips caught my collar. I twisted free and got the table between us again. The black of his eyes had swallowed the blue. Whatever reason he’d been clinging to seemed to have vanished. Worse, the pressure of the magic in the room had doubled, and the rainbow colors prismed through the air all around me.
“I will kill you, just like every other time I’ve killed you,” he said in a singsongy voice. “Maybe this time you will learn that I will never let you use Riley to get to me.”
I don’t know what would have happened next if Dalton hadn’t shown up. One second he wasn’t there, the next he appeared just inside the door. Before Price realized he was there, Dalton chopped down on the back of his head with the butt of his gun. Price crumpled.
I scrabbled around the table and fell to my knees beside him and pulled his head up onto to my knees. Blood smeared one of my hands. Words clogged my throat. I stroked his face.
“You’re okay. I’m with you. I’m going to get you out of here.”
Abruptly, the steel door melted away, and my family stepped inside. Mel came first, followed by Leo and Jamie. Arnow was next and finally Taylor.
“Are you okay?” Mel asked.
I nodded.
“Jesus, Riley! What the hell did he do to you?” Jamie rushed in and gripped my chin, tilting it to see my neck. His hand shook with fury.
“I’m fine. A dreamer’s been at him. He doesn’t know it’s really me. He thinks I’m a figment of the FBI’s imagination.”
Jamie’s faced hardened, his upper lip curling. He said nothing. I couldn’t tell if he was still pissed at Price or the FBI. Didn’t matter.
“Get some clothes for him and some shoes. I’ve got to get him out of here before he goes nova.”
Dalton responded, swiftly disappearing out of the room.
“Nova?” Leo repeated.
“The cascade is peaking,” I said. “I don’t know how he’s held on this long.” I would have thought knocking him out would have released his stranglehold on the magic altogether. Then again, he’d been suppressing his talent for a long time. It was probably something he did automatically, on a gut level. Like breathing.
The others exchanged looks.
“Give me something for his head, would you?”
Taylor handed me a stained microfiber cloth from her pocket. She’d grabbed it at the hangar. I pressed it to the blood leaking from Price’s head. That’s when I caught sight of the other woman through the doorway. She stood back in the shadows of the outer room. She was tall, with dark hair. That’s about all I could see of her.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
I didn’t hear the answer. Price’s eyes flickered, and he stiffened. His eyes opened and met mine. Time stretched as I waited for him to decide what to do.
“What happened?” he asked finally.
“Dalton hit you on the back of the head.”
He frowned. “Dalton? The asshole working for your dad?”
“That’s him.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“Helping to rescue you. Spying for my dad. Who knows what else.”
He reached up to touch my neck. I was pretty sure I was wearing a black-and-blue choker necklace of bruises. A flicker of something flashed through his eyes, then vanished. Anger returned. His hand pulled back. I half expected him to hit me.
He twisted his head and glanced past me. “What are they doing here?”
“I told you, they came to help me break you out.”
Scowling again. “Where’s Gregg?”
I didn’t know if I ought to tell him, but maybe it would motivate him to believe me. To believe in me. Inwardly, I snorted. Like I was Santa Claus or Big Foot or something. “Savannah Morrell has him.”
His eyes widened, and he rolled away onto his stomach and then up to his feet. “What?”
I got up, the microfiber rag wadded in my fingers. “After you were arrested, he and I got pulled into a trap. I got away. He didn’t.”
I wrapped my arms around my stomach. Guilt balled in my chest. That I got away. That Touray hadn’t. That I hadn’t stayed to help him. I drew in a breath and blew it out. If I’d tried to help him, I’d have been captured and no one would be out to help either of the two brothers. At least I was free and could organize a rescue. Sometimes retreat was the smartest thing to do.
To my surprise, Price grabbed my shoulders and jerked me to him. “You’re okay?”
“Asks the man who tried to choke you to death,” Jamie said. “Let go of my sister and step back or I’ll rip your head off.” His tone was utterly calm and utterly cold. He meant every word. I guess that meant he’d decided to blame
Price for hurting me.
Price ignored him, his attention riveted on me. He brushed my throat lightly with his fingertips, but his expression remained shuttered. I had no idea what he was thinking. At least he seemed to be leaning toward believing I was actually who I claimed to be.
Snaking steel curled between us and wrapped his torso, arms, and hands. His fingers straightened and his arms dropped to his sides. Price fought the pressure, but though his muscles strained, he was completely incapacitated. He didn’t seem to notice. He kept his gaze fixed on me like I was his lifeline. Or maybe it was the predator in him, fixing on his prey with single-minded intent.
At that point, Dalton returned with a blue jumpsuit, a shirt, and a pair of loafers and some socks.
“We have to go. Now.”
“What’s going on?” That was Arnow. She was back to looking more like her professional self, this time with a sleek designer pantsuit. Her hair was pulled up in an elegant chignon, and she wore a pair of stiletto heels.
I wanted to roll my eyes. Who wore heels like that on a mission? But then again, this was her professional agent look. I supposed if she’d shown up in boots and fatigues, someone might have twigged to the fact that she was up to no good. Of course, in my experience, she was always up to no good, no matter how she was dressed. Her very presence should have set off warning bells.
“There’s a small army on the way. Someone managed to call in the cavalry before everything shut down. They’ll have to come from the city. Your people’s diversion has kept them busy til now,” Dalton announced out of the blue.
“How do you know?” Leo asked skeptically.
Dalton gave a little shrug, and I knew exactly how. Vernon. And they were clearly in real-time communication. I exchanged a look with Taylor, and she nodded sour agreement.
Whisper of Shadows (The Diamond City Magic Novels) Page 17
