by Angel Payne
“Three days ago.”
She blinked. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
“And…?”
Within a second, she saw they’d come to the hardest part of the conversation for Caspar. He studied the condensation on his water glass for a long moment. “I know you love him,” he finally murmured. “And that’s why I’m going to give this shit to you straight.”
“I appreciate that,” Zoe returned. “I…think.”
The man planted both his elbows on the table. “You know how you thought it would be bad for him?”
Damn.
“Sí,” she whispered.
“Well…it’s been bad.”
“Mierda.”
“As you know, Shay negotiated some things into his surrender to Adler. One of those things was the release of all the other Big Idea subjects into his mother’s care forever…so Shay’s been ‘it’ in terms of test subjects for the man.”
“Ay Dios mio.” She locked her own fist to her mouth but the sorrow welled and spilled, anyway. “That higueputa doesn’t deserve to be pissed on by a rabid gutter rat.”
“I can’t do any better than that so I won’t try.” Caspar waited a second before reaching to grab one of her hands. “But Zoe, we also have firsthand accounts that he’s been heavily sedated through most of it. I know that’s not much help, but stop and take a breath. At least he’s been out of it. They’ve kept him in a nearly vegetative state a great deal of the time. I don’t think Adler wanted to risk another escape attempt, despite the presence of Stock’s guards on a round-the clock basis.”
“It does help, Caspar. Thank you.” She wasn’t lying. The knowledge that Shay wasn’t cognitive of his torture made the news a little easier to bear. A very little.
“Wait.” Caspar winced. “I’m afraid the rollercoaster’s just starting.”
“Of course.” She drenched it in grim sarcasm.
“Giving him the sedation for so long has been like keeping a drug addict on a constant fix. They’re not sure what it’s done…to his short-term memory.”
Zoe yanked her hand back. The entire center of her chest felt rammed by an I-beam. She was so stunned, even her tear ducts refused to function. “H-how short term?”
“Like I said, they’re not sure. And we won’t be sure, either…until we get him out of there.” He waited through the moment it took Zoe to wrench her head up. Then spike him with a don’t-bullshit-me stare. “Yeah. We’re going in as soon as we can get the mission together, including the undercover operatives for it.”
Zoe nodded. Correction, swung her head like a spastic bobble head. “Oh. Okay. Good. Good.”
But she glanced away, biting her lips. Who’s really the bullshitter of the night, girlfriend? Did she truly believe this was “good?” What would she do if they broke Shay out again but he had no recollection of who she was or what they’d shared? “Short-term memory” sounded like a damn accurate description of a few shared days of passion before he went back under Adler’s knife…
Caspar’s grip, now wrapped around both her hands, yanked her back to the rollercoaster. The agent gave as good as he promised. This was a premium ticket ride, for sure.
“Zoe. I’m telling you all this…because we want you on the op, too.”
One upgrade to the super premium ride, please.
“Me?” Her echo sounded as foggy as she felt. “Wh-what? How? Why?”
She corrected herself about thinking Caspar at his most stressed a minute ago. As the agent closed the cover on his smart pad then folded his white-knuckled hands on the table, Zoe could’ve sworn she saw red start to bleed up his neck. “The conditions of Shay’s surrender…how much did Tait really tell you about them?”
The fog in her brain thickened. Or maybe it couldn’t escape past the tribe of heathens pounding a strange refrain through her heart. She shook her head, unable to understand the feeling. She should be jumping up and hugging Caspar. He was offering her the chance to be there when they rescued Shay. Hell, she’d hold open the car door if that’s what they needed.
Even if he doesn’t recognize you? Or remember what he shared with you?
“Why would Tait leave anything out?” she finally challenged. “I don’t under—”
“What did he tell you, Zoe?” The question was gentle but Caspar’s face was raw demand.
“Everything, I guess. I wasn’t exactly in the best emotional state when we talked, you know?”
“Good. So you know about Adler’s plans for the breeding.”
The air left the room. Which then tilted and swam behind the field of fuzz that conquered her vision. “The—the—”
She swallowed, battling to focus on the act to ground her senses again. No use.
Breeding.
Had she heard the word wrong? Right. Because this anguish was exactly what her imagination would have thrown together as the bomb she wanted Caspar to drop. Because she was so keen to remember the weeks that followed Tait’s visit, telling her about the ambush at the mining camp and all its horrible fallout. Two of Melody’s nurses, dead from the explosion. John Franzen with a bullet in his leg and Ethan with a rough graze on the shoulder. Dan Colton in an intensive care burn unit.
And Shay…gone.
She’d waited, counting the days, praying her body had already started to grow a part of him. But like clockwork, on the twenty-eighth day of her cycle, her period had started. It had been the day before Thanksgiving.
It had been a really shitty Thanksgiving.
Ry had forced her out of the house for the day-after sales, helping her redecorate the bathroom she’d obliterated in her grief.
“Okay.” Caspar laced his fingers as he gritted his teeth. “So Tait didn’t tell you everything.”
She gulped again. “Guess not.” Caspar’s answering silence was a gift—not easily given. She could feel the urgency in his energy, sensing they were scrambling the mission fast, but he allowed her a long minute to push through her tumult of shock and pain. “So, Adler plans on using him as a stud horse? That’s the deal?”
“You have a pretty good grasp of words.”
“I also have a good grasp of not being okay with this.”
Caspar meshed his fingers tighter. “But you might have to be, Zoe. At least for one day.”
“Caramba. En tus sueños. Beso mi culo!”
“Do you want to get Shay out of that place or not?”
She pushed up from the table, unable to sit still with rage roiling like this. While refilling her water, she rebutted, “Why me? You planning on sneaking me in as his fuck buddy? If that’s the case—”
“She’s already been selected.” The red inched further up Caspar’s neck. Zoe would’ve called out the shit and enjoyed embarrassing the crap out of him if it weren’t for the more pressing matter at hand: the concept of Shay with his cock inside anyone but her.
“Of course she has.” She took a long drink of water. That was supposed to help in the whole composure recovery thing, right? “And let me guess. She’s as tall as an Amazon with legs to her neck, breasts like a pin-up, and big, brown Bambi eyes. Wait. Her name is Bambi.”
“Her name is Buffy.”
She snapped her fingers. “Damn. So close.”
“And yeah, she’s blonde. And actually, a pretty nice girl…for a high-end hooker.”
Screw the water. Zoe jerked the fridge open and reached for the Chardonnay. “This just gets better and better. So what’s my role in this whole ‘op,’ Agent Menken? Do I get to hold the bimbo’s purse and makeup kit while she mounts the man I love?”
She watched Caspar debate his answer to that. He even glanced to the front door, obviously considering the choice of accepting her version of no fucking way and leaving. At this point, Zoe verged on agreeing with that decision. Undercover operatives. She’d be there in the pretense of someone else, having to conceal her feelings. She wasn’t certain she’d be capable of success.
In the end, Caspar stayed put and co
ntinued on. “They won’t let the woman be alone in the room with him. They want an impartial observer to accompany Buffy, to ensure that full consummation happens.”
That did it for Caspar’s blush. As the red rose to his forehead, Zoe repeated, “Full consummation? You mean…they want somebody to report back that Shay…”
“Performed his duty. In—a matter of speaking.”
Zoe downed the whole glass of wine. Then poured another. “And you want me to be this—watcher—person? Why?”
Caspar reopened his smart pad. Zoe suspected the motions were just for something to do, but how could she fault him? This was one hell of a strange conversation. “When the breeding takes place, they have to pull Shay off of many of his sedatives. We’re not sure how he’s going to respond to the change. He’ll be close to fully alert for the first time in months. If he gets agitated, he may resist our efforts at extracting him, and we won’t have a lot of time to pull this thing off. We need him to be as calm and cooperative as possible.”
“So you think I can somehow calm his beast?”
“If it comes to that, yes.”
“Even if he doesn’t remember me?”
“He’ll know the idea of you, Zoe. Though your face and name may not be familiar, he’ll recognize your scent, your voice, your touch. Tait informs me that he’s never seen his brother more connected to a woman. Though I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing you and Shay together, I’m inclined to believe that.” The ends of the man’s lips kicked up again. “You love him. I saw it, felt it, knew it from the moment you walked into my office. If Shay returns even half of what you feel for him, then you are the best ‘operative’ for this gig.”
While the assertion warmed her with joy, it was still a lot to take in. Zoe paced to the patio slider and opened it. Twilight was already beginning, bringing with it the colors in the sky that matched Shay’s gaze the most. How many times had she stood here in the last four months right at this time, to raise a hand and reach for the breathtaking mix of amber and gold and copper?
But it was impossible to touch the sky. Bringing Shay back had always been an equal impossibility…until now.
All she had to do was watch him “breed” with another woman.
“Okay, Caspar.”
She heard the agent turn in his seat. “Okay? You—you mean you’ll do it?”
“Sí. But only on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“If Buffy comes out of this with an accidental black eye, you all look the other way.”
* * * * *
Buffy was going to get her black eye sooner than later.
As the woman giggled again at one of Homer Adler’s lame jokes, Zoe gripped her clipboard tighter and readjusted her glasses with another girl growl. Oh yes, the woman was an Amazon—to the point that she wondered if Adler, Stock, and Newport had really found her in the middle of the Brazilian rain forest.
At least they were finally walking down the dingy gray hall in the warehouse now, making their way to Shay’s room. It had taken almost three hours to get here. After four security checkpoints, they’d taken an hour for lunch then another hour for she and Buffy to fill out so much paperwork, she wondered if she was actually helping draft a Congressional bill. If that was the case, then she’d just done so as Helena Troy—a cover name even two hours of pleading to Caspar hadn’t changed. The agent assured her that nobody in Adler’s offices would blink at the name after they looked at her disguise, a point Zoe had to agree with now. After a prosthetic nose, inch-thick glasses, and an outfit they literally bought for five bucks in a Salvation Army rejects bin, she looked like a cross between Emily Litella and the scarier side of Joan Crawford.
Just the look she wanted for seeing the man of her soul after four months.
Finally, Homer called the medical team to confirm Shay was “ready to shoot.” He and Buffy had enjoyed a really good guffaw at that one. Zoe survived the moment by imagining her fist in the bimbo’s left eye socket.
Just a few more steps, girlfriend.
She focused on the joyful certainty of it. Timing it to her steps helped, as well. Her heart certainly wasn’t going to cooperate with the effort. If it were capable of bursting out of her chest, it would’ve do so—then torn down the hall, escaped up the stairs they planned on using for Shay’s escape, and run around the block five times.
Buffy let out an especially loud titter. “Oh, my God!” she cried at Homer. The final word lasted at least ten seconds, making Zoe wonder if the Buff-ster was secretly a mutant, too. On the strength of that bray, she guessed a touch of donkey mixed with a bit of goat.
Wishful thinking.
“So what did the monkey say?” Buffy grabbed Homer’s arm like the fate of nations rested on the joke’s punchline.
“How about, ‘my name is Buffy; please punch me in both eyes, Miss Helena Troy?’”
Caspar’s answering snicker resounded through her head. It took a moment to identify the sound, since they’d had to embed her comm piece into one of her teeth like a filling. She told Caspar it made him sound like God. Right now, it was more like God eating a cracker.
“Breathe,” came the agent’s quiet reinforcement. “You’re doing well.”
“Which means I can hit her in both eyes?”
“Zoe.” God was back to his no-bullshit self.
“If she does conceive Shay’s kid, somebody better hope the angels pick from the right box when it comes to locking in the brains.”
“You need to chill, goddamnit. Focus on the plan. You know if we get the right opportunity, this will all go down before Buffy ever does.”
“That’s encouraging. Thanks.”
Caspar didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure she’d hear him over the thunder of her heart, anyway. They’d arrived. If Homer’s all-stop didn’t inform her of that fact, the retinal scan next to the door certainly did. Buffy bounced a little on her bright pink strappy sandals, which perfectly matched her skimpy mini dress. Fleetingly, Zoe wondered if she’d just come off a shift with some businessman at the Bellagio. And wrestled back her hundredth desire to punch the woman.
Buffy didn’t help her cause by leaning over and whispering in a just-us-girls tone, “Isn’t this exciting? We’re making scientific history!”
Zoe forced a smile past her careening senses and churning stomach. Thank God she hadn’t eaten much for lunch.
Homer swung the door in.
Don’t lose it. Don’t lose it. Don’t lose it.
She commanded her feet to move. And her eyes to lift. And her hands to stay where they were, instead of going for the throats of the two men who already waited in the room for them with proud grins on their faces—next to the bed containing the nearly naked, completely unconscious form of the man she loved.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.
Caspar had tried to prepare her, but all he’d rattled off were the facts. The next-to-catatonic stillness. The shallow breaths. The skin that nearly matched his sheets for color. Well, his sheet. There was only one, draped across the middle of his body, though the cover accomplished very little at actually hiding the body part there. Even the cotton candy in Buffy’s brain didn’t miss it. Her stunned sigh was obvious in the room’s tense air.
Tense? That only began to describe this chamber. Zoe peered around, certain she couldn’t be the only one aware of it. The aura of despair. The stench of hopelessness. The palpability of brokenness.
She thought back to Tait’s vow at the Vdara, to put a dagger into Cameron Stock’s neck. She’d wondered how the man could talk of the act with such glee in his eyes—but wasn’t so confused anymore. A blade in her hand, driven into Adler’s carotid, suddenly became a very nice fantasy.
The bastard guided Buffy across the room. “Miss Buffy Walsh, I’d like you to meet the men who’ve made this research possible—Mr. Cameron Stock and General Kirk Newport. Gentlemen, I am pleased to present Miss Walsh, who has enthusiastically accepted our offer to be the program’s first
surrogate.”
Buffy curtsied and giggled. “Well, what’s not to accept about fifty thousand dollars?”
Stock took Buffy’s hand and leaned over it. “A pleasure, Miss Walsh.”
Newport only nodded like the corrupt asshole he was. “You’re doing your country a great service, my dear. A great service.”
“Oh. Gosh.” Buffy brushed down the front of her dress. “Ask not all the stuff your country does for you but how you can give back…right?”
“Sure.” Stock smiled indulgently. “That’s—uh—just fine, Buffy. Just fine.”
“Miss Troy?”
Homer’s prompting was sharp, as if it weren’t the first time he’d issued it.
“Huh?” she stammered.
“Zoe.” Caspar’s voice was a boom in her head. “Snap out of it!”
“I’m—I’m sorry,” she spluttered. “I was—uhhh—assessing the—uhhh—”
Dear God, what was Shay? Not their damn “test subject.” Rats in labs were treated better than this. The bed was nothing but a wide plastic mattress on a dark oak frame, and he was tethered to it by chains connected to metal shackles, his arms raised over his head and his legs stretched out toward the corners. He sure as hell wasn’t their patient, either. The fresh stitches and incision points proved that, as well as the pallor of his skin and the pronounced loss of his muscle tone. She couldn’t bear wondering about the last time he’d seen the sun or been allowed to even take a walk up the hall…
If she called him their stud horse, that came a little closer, though thoroughbreds weren’t shot up with so many sedatives that their arms rivalled a junkie’s for needle tracks. Circus animal seemed too kind, as well.
Today, he’d become nothing more than their whore.
And she swore that every breath she took and move she made in this room would be with one purpose in mind.
To free him from their filthy clutches.
“Yes, yes,” the general declared, seeming relieved that “Ms. Troy” returned the atmosphere to a businesslike tone. “Excellent thinking, Ms. Troy. Feel free to check everything out and—mmm—carry on, as they say. The men will be keeping the leather warm in the waiting room.”
