by Abby Blake
* * * *
“She’s asleep,” Davin whispered as the need to protect her wound through him. It was quite likely that in a gunfight the woman would be more than capable of protecting herself and them, but she had a heart of gold, and the gift of her trust was priceless.
He vowed then and there that he would never give her a reason to regret giving it to them.
“Okay,” Darrick said telepathically, obviously not wanting to wake the exhausted woman. “I’ll head over to the mall and buy some provisions. I’m pretty sure I saw a camping store, so I’ll grab some overnight gear in case we need to spend a night or two in the mountains.”
“Good idea. Get some wet weather gear and jackets as well. This time of year shouldn’t be too uncomfortable, but I’d hate to risk our beautiful lady simply because we didn’t plan ahead.”
Darrick stood beside the bed, his hand smoothing over Sandra’s blonde tresses almost like he couldn’t deny his need to touch her. “I’ll be back quickly. Keep her safe.”
Davin had the silliest urge to give his brother the finger. Darrick might be older by a few minutes, but he’d never tried to boss his younger brother around either. It just proved that Sandra had affected them both deeply. It was nice to know that they were on the same page.
Hopefully, Sandra was, too.
Chapter Nine
“Do you see any movement?”
Darrick shook his head as he swept the area with the high-powered binoculars once more. They were still miles away from the entrance to the facility, but at this stage they were more worried about running into people from The Agency than the professor’s cronies. They’d at least be able to talk their way into a facility run by their father’s men, but an agent was liable to shoot them on sight.
“We don’t shoot on sight,” Sandra said, her voice laced with amusement. “You’re more likely to be immobilized by a strong telekinetic.”
“Seriously?” Darrick asked. “Isn’t that dangerous? Doesn’t that risk stopping the heart?”
“It does,” Sandra agreed with a nod, “but we’re well trained.”
“We?” Davin asked with a slightly croaky voice. “You can do that?”
Sandra nodded, and doubt wobbled into Darrick’s idea for their future. Hell, as much as they seemed to know about each other, and even with their link growing stronger each day, they were still managing to keep secrets.
Davin turned to Darrick and asked, “Do you think that’s where our telekinetic skill came from?”
“Maybe. But with all the experiments we’ve been subjected to over the years anything is possible.”
“Experiments?” Sandra asked in a voice that clearly conveyed her disbelief. “I thought you worked for the professor.”
“We did work for the professor,” Darrick said as his irritation escalated. “That didn’t exempt us from the type of experiments he did on others.”
“Oh, boohoo,” Sandra said sarcastically. “At least you were free to come and go. Not like Alana or Jenna.”
“What the fuck?” Davin asked, sounding confused and irritated as hell.
Darrick turned to face Sandra. “I wasn’t asking for your sympathy! What the fuck is wrong with you, woman?” He couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. Two days ago they’d seemed like they had the perfect relationship, yet in the span of five minutes it had all gone to hell. He backed away when he realized he wanted to hit her. Not the type of spanking a Dom would give his naughty sub, but a vicious assault like the one her ex-husband had given her. Fuck. He stepped further away.
Davin glanced at him sharply, obviously sensing the thoughts in his head. Darrick moved toward his brother but froze suddenly. “I can’t move,” he sent telepathically, as anger and fear brawled for dominance in his mind.
“Told you I could freeze your ass,” Sandra said with no small amount of glee.
What the hell was happening to them? They were acting out of character, and he had no idea why.
* * * *
Davin could feel his own irritation rising and had no explanation for it. It was like something in his brain had been switched off, a type of impulse control that was somehow suddenly missing.
A frantic thought occurred to him. He had no idea if it would work, but he needed to do something quickly before Sandra decided to immobilize him as well. He tore the gloves from his hands, moved quickly to the two people in the world most important to him, and placed a hand on each of their arms.
The download of memories started immediately, but this time he tried to send them on, tried to create a loop between the three of them so that they were all watching each other’s memories together.
He felt his own irritation lessen as the avalanche of memories overwhelmed all other thoughts. He could sense Sandra’s growing calm and noticed that she’d released his brother from her telekinetic hold.
Davin had no idea how long they stayed like that, but in the back of his mind he realized that like this they were vulnerable. They were unaware of anything outside their little circle, and that was never a safe thing.
He managed to slow the influx of memories—a little surprised that he was able to do so—before he tried to communicate telepathically with Darrick and Sandra.
“Something is affecting us. Something external.”
“You’re right,” Sandra replied quickly. “But what?”
“Years ago, the professor experimented with toxic neurochemicals that disrupted the control center in the brain, but I thought the research was abandoned because the test subjects became enraged…” Davin’s thoughts trailed off as he realized that the professor had probably achieved exactly what he’d wanted from the experiments. “Do you think Dad transferred the research to this hidden facility?”
“That’d be my guess,” Sandra said as she rubbed her forehead above her left eye—exactly the same place where Darrick’s headache was forming. “So how do we get out of this? If Davin stops the flow of memories, we’re liable to go back to trying to kill each other.”
“Can you walk while the memories are flowing?” Davin asked them both.
“I think so, why?” Sandra asked, sounding a whole lot more confident than her emotions would suggest.
“Because my guess is it’s localized. Sort of like a perimeter of gas as you get closer to the facility. If we can just get through it, we should be fine.”
“That’s a pretty big guess…” Sandra said, sounding amused, but again her emotions belied the tone.
“No, I think he’s probably right,” Darrick said quickly. “You’re forgetting that at least in our younger years we knew our Dad pretty well. A circle of gas canisters with movement sensors would be exactly something the professor would do. We should be okay if we just head toward the facility.”
Sandra glanced at their equipment and vehicle. They’d driven as close as the dense scrub would let them. Now they would have to continue on foot, something that confirmed in Davin’s mind that their theory on the neurotoxins was likely correct.
They couldn’t afford to break the mental link they had via him, so their equipment would have to stay here. Thankfully they were all wearing the heavy jackets they’d bought earlier, and Davin at least had a thick coil of climbing rope slung over one shoulder. He was pretty sure Sandra wasn’t wearing her gun, but with her telekinetic ability she probably didn’t need it.
Davin nodded. Sandra gnawed on her bottom lip in uncharacteristic indecision but finally nodded her agreement also. Turning toward the facility, they continued their journey on foot.
* * * *
Sandra tried to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. The constant flow of childhood memories—hers and Davin’s and Darrick’s—was distracting, but she tried to control her curiosity. She was very grateful to Davin for the choice of memories that he used. She’d had a happy childhood, so it was quite pleasant to take the trip down memory lane with her men. She was a little surprised that their earliest memories were of love a
nd acceptance also. The professor had been a fairly decent, if somewhat unusual, father when Darrick and Davin had been very young. She could only guess that Davin was withholding the ones where things started going wrong.
They walked for several hundred feet before the trees thinned out and they were faced with something that brought to mind images of World War II movies. Every scrap of vegetation had been recently cleared away, leaving a swathe of empty land. It was only about thirty feet across, but the site gave her a very bad feeling. Whatever had happened here had been done deliberately. The words “no man’s land” kept chiming in her head, and it took a while to realize it wasn’t only her thought.
Davin slowed the memories to nearly a complete stop. “I’m going to let go of Darrick and we can see if the gas is still around.”
“Why him?” Sandra asked, feeling annoyed that they would protect her in this way. In this situation she was the trained agent, not their submissive.
Darrick laughed quietly. “Why me? Because, baby girl, I’m less dangerous than you.”
She felt her muscles relax just a little, relieved that they hadn’t underestimated her ability to protect them if the need arose.
Davin nodded, a smile gracing his lips as he slowly took his hand off Darrick’s arm and pulled Sandra more fully into his embrace. “How do you feel?” he asked his brother.
“So far so good,” Darrick answered as he moved around the small area without stepping onto the cleared land. “There was a distinctive smell back near the vehicle. At the time I assumed it was a flowering plant, but it may have been part of the gas release so that people in the know were warned of what was happening. I can’t smell it here.” He rolled his head on his shoulders, stretching the muscles of his neck for a long while as he took deep breaths. Eventually he said, “I think we’re okay.”
“Okay, honey, your turn,” Davin said as he loosened his hold on her and stepped away. Brief panic flooded her mind. She’d never been afraid of her telekinetic abilities before, but she’d never considered that she could one day be uncontrolled enough to present a danger to people she loved. But after a few minutes she nodded and relaxed just a little.
“Me, too,” Davin said with a small smile that telegraphed his relief as loudly as his emotions did. “Now what was that I heard about ‘no man’s land?’”
“It looks like a minefield,” Darrick answered.
“My thoughts exactly,” Sandra added. “The last thing we need is to telegraph our approach with an explosion or three. We need to get over it without setting anything off.”
“But how?” Davin asked. He lifted the coil of rope off his shoulder, yet it was pretty useless to them if they had no way to secure it to the other side. Unless…
“Were you any good at long jump in high school?”
Both brothers looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. Hell, maybe she had. She hadn’t actually tried using her telekinesis to make a person fly, but she knew from both Theresa and Jenna that it was possible. And Sandra had slammed the odd bad guy off their feet a time or two.
“Long jump? Not bad, I suppose. Above average maybe. But there is no way I can jump across that.”
Sandra used her telekinesis to lift Darrick off the ground. “What if I gave you a bit of a push?”
“A push?” There was that look of incredulity again.
Sandra shrugged. “Our only other choice it to turn back.”
“Fine,” Darrick said as he ran a hand down his face. “Come here, beautiful.” She moved into his arms and held on tight.
“I can do this,” she said, her confidence growing as she thought it through. Davin must have anticipated her next move because he turned and climbed into the tree behind them. He chose the space where a sturdy branch protruded from the main trunk, wound the rope around it just above the limb, and used a series of complicated knots to secure it firmly.
Davin jumped down to the ground and handed the other end of the rope to Darrick. “Time to fly, bro,” he said with a wicked grin. Darrick glanced at the nylon rope in his hand and back at his brother.
“Yeah, thanks.” She could feel his hesitation, but also his need to protect the woman he loved and his twin brother.
“You love me?” Sandra asked, slightly distracted by the revelation. He gave her another one of those incredulous looks.
“How can you be such a strong empath and miss that?” She felt heat blossom across her cheeks. She had sensed the emotions but had dismissed them as spur-of-the-moment happiness, not the forever kind of love she could now feel coming from both men.
“Sorry,” she whispered. Davin and Darrick pressed against her.
“Don’t be sorry, baby girl. Just love us back.”
“I do,” she said quickly and couldn’t help grinning at their feigned surprise. “But you already knew that.” Both men nodded and kissed her cheeks at the same time.
“Let’s do this,” Darrick said as he moved away. “Ready?”
Sandra and Davin moved out of the way, trying to give Darrick as much space as possible for his run up. Without preamble he bolted toward the deserted area and leaped into the air. Sandra used her telekinetic ability to help him across to the other side, surprised when it was much easier than she thought it would be.
Darrick landed safely, managing to keep the rope up off the ground, and then turned to tie it to the tree behind him. Davin climbed up the tree on their side, tested the strength of the knots, and then grabbed the rope with both hands, swinging down so that his legs hung a few feet off the ground. He bounced several times, the rope pulling tight but not showing any signs of weakening.
“Okay, honey,” he said as he dropped to the ground. “You first.”
She nodded and turned to climb the tree, but Davin simply lifted her up to the rope. Sandra hadn’t really gotten around to asking them what sort of training they had, but considering their confident actions, she thought they’d perhaps had at least as much military-style training as Jenna.
“Pretty much,” Davin confirmed as he let go and stepped back. Sandra dangled from her arms for a moment before lifting her legs and hooking them over the rope. Cross-legged, she used her hands to drag herself backward across the expanse. By the time she reached Darrick, the muscles in her arms were burning, and she had cause to regret not following her fitness routine as vigilantly as she’d done before she’d met these men.
Darrick grinned and grabbed her legs as she swung down. He managed to make sure every part of her touched every part of him as he lowered her to the ground. “So mind-blowing sex doesn’t count as a fitness routine?” he asked in a teasing voice.
“I wish,” she said with a smile so wide her cheeks began to ache. If only life were so simple.
She glanced up to see Davin starting to shimmy across the expanse the same way she’d done. He was almost all of the way across when a creaking sound made her heart leap into her throat. Barely able to breathe, Sandra watched as Davin picked up the pace and scrambled the rest of the way. Fortunately, the rope held, and Davin dropped to the ground not far from them.
“We’re going to have to find another way back to the car,” he said looking up at the rope where it was attached to the tree. “It might hold, but I’d rather not risk it.”
Darrick nodded his agreement, grabbed Sandra’s hand, and turned toward the facility once more.
* * * *
Davin watched his woman smile shyly at his brother. It was a continual source of wonder that Sandra could be such a confident and capable federal agent, yet so trusting and loving. She was exactly the type of woman the two of them needed. The fact that she was submissive in bed was pure bonus.
Sexy thoughts flashed through his head, and the two people in front of him turned and glared at him. He smiled but tried to keep his wayward thoughts under control. They needed to concentrate, and even if the facility was abandoned, it was possible that any other security measures were still active.
In the end the facility was quite a dis
appointment. A crumbling perimeter wall, a handful of empty, dilapidated buildings, and dust. Lots and lots of dust.
Darrick glanced around them. “This doesn’t make sense. This is nothing like the floor plans I found. I was expecting a three story building with dozens of rooms—office space, labs, medical facilities. None of this would have been adequate for the experiments Dad was doing—even if the buildings hadn’t been abandoned before we were born.”
Davin shook his head. He couldn’t sense anyone nearby. Not even a hint of life—animal, human, or otherwise.
“So, now what?” Darrick asked. They hadn’t really given any thought to what they’d do after coming here. But with the facility nothing like they were expecting their immediate future seemed rather bleak.
But just as he was about to give himself permission to wallow in despair, the complete absence of life made him stop and reassess. They were in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. If this place were truly deserted, the animals and vegetation would have reclaimed it by now.
“Someone’s here,” he sent to both Sandra and Darrick, very careful to shield the communication from other telepaths. They both remained casual, Darrick holding Sandra tightly to his side as they poked around the discarded junk as if they were tourists to a ghost town. “I think the facility is underground. Stay alert.”
He barely got the telepathic warning out before several green laser dots appeared on his chest and stomach. Davin glanced over to see Darrick and Sandra in the same predicament. He lifted his hands above his head, realizing if whoever held them in their gunsight wanted them dead they would already be riddled with bullets.
“About time you two got here,” a cranky old voice said.
“Dad?”
Davin couldn’t believe his ears, but when the man stepped out of one of the buildings, he could barely comprehend what he was seeing. He wanted to ask a million questions starting with “How the fuck did you escape?” but he held his tongue.
“It would have been easier if you’d told us about this place,” Darrick said with a wide, confident, and—hopefully the professor wouldn’t notice—fake grin on his face.
