by Nikki Duncan
His own paranoia fueled each decision he made, from doing his grocery shopping at random times to the security protocols he’d put into place at home and the lab. After being shot at yesterday he wasn’t about to drop his guard. Neither was he going to reveal everything to his sister.
Sometimes not knowing was safer.
“Dana, I know this is scary for you. Trust me to handle things.”
“Fine. But don’t get so wrapped up in her you become stupid.” She checked her watch and pushed out of the chair. “The applicants you wanted back for the study will be here soon.”
“Thank you.”
“She’s blinded you.”
He laughed. “No.” But she could. “She intrigues me enough to want to learn more about her.”
“I’m watching you.”
Her tone clearly said she didn’t believe his claims, which was okay. It was comforting to know she had his back. Dana had been the one bright spot of his life. It thrilled him that she’d agreed to come out of her self-induced hiding to work with him.
“I’m glad you are.” He winked and slipped the contact lens schematics he’d been working on into his drawer and locked it. “Do me a favor and settle everyone in the white room. I’ll be right there.”
“What are you doing? What are you hiding?”
“I’m only making a quick phone call.”
“To Ava?”
“Give it a rest. You’re sounding more like a jealous girlfriend than my sister.”
“Resting.” She curled her lip up in the bratty sarcastic way she’d never outgrown. “I’ll see you in there.”
When she reached the door and had almost pulled it closed, he called out. “Dana.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you miss who we were? With them?” Our parents?
She leaned against the door and thought about her answer. That she didn’t blurt one out raised his suspicions that she was as conflicted as him.
“Sometimes.” Her eyes watered up and she shrugged. “Then I remember that we can’t get them back. We can only make the best of what we have now.”
“I love you, Dana. I’m glad every day that I have you.”
She swiped at her eyes and left him alone. Wishing he could’ve found a way out for them sooner was pointless, but he couldn’t stop himself. He would give almost anything to erase the pain she’d suffered and return everything that had been taken away.
For now, the best he could do was eliminate whatever threats were heading their way. Ava was somehow broiled up in the midst of it all.
Eston White had killed Channing for the x-ray lenses they’d developed together. Lenses H had agreed to test, not knowing they would fuse with his DNA the first time he put them on.
Now, the corrupt general was after the contacts that had molded themselves to H’s eyes, unseen unless he lowered his shields and used his abilities. Then they radiated a blue glow that lit up a small room.
The general was after him. Or would be if he learned the truth.
Recognizing the need for help, and the need to keep Dana and everyone else near his lab safe, he pulled out the card Agent Lawson had left.
He’d recovered the bullets from yesterday. The Feds could work them and see where they led.
While they worked the evidence, he would work on figuring out Ava. He needed to know exactly what made her so different, because he’d only nicked her shell.
After making the call to Agent Lawson and agreeing to turn the envelope over to Agent Burgess later that afternoon, H returned to work. He stepped into the room of fourteen waiting people and was disappointed to not find Ava there to audit.
He looked at Dana, thinking maybe the missing woman had gone to the restroom.
Dana shook her head. “We’re ready to begin when you are.”
He didn’t need lowered shields to feel Dana’s disdain. Yes, it was worrisome she hadn’t shown up. What surprised him was that he was more concerned she’d had a complication from her injury.
He couldn’t lower his shields and reach out to her in a room of witnesses, so he settled in to work.
One-by-one, he and Dana tested the abilities of their volunteers. By lunch they were left with eight people. He would’ve dismissed the man with the buzz cut, Simon, if not for the vibes bouncing off him toward Dana.
Not dangerous, but curious and interested. They didn’t make sense, and with all of his experience in reading people, H couldn’t pinpoint why.
Giving the volunteers a chance to mix and socialize without the pressure of being watched—as far as they knew—he headed to the kitchen to eat. He turned on the screen to watch them in the main dining room and settled in to see what would be revealed.
Interestingly, they’d paired into two groups. One with three men and one woman and the other with three women and Simon. If they made it past the next round of tests he would make more effort to learn their names, because at that point they would be committing to spending a lot more time together.
“I expected to see the brunette the doctor was so interested in.” One of the women sitting with Simon captured his attention.
She was blonde and had her back to him as well as the other blonde sitting with them, but he thought he knew which one she was.
“I know. Right.” A petite redhead chimed in, clearly looking for some juicy gossip. “You could practically see the sparks bounce between them during the test the other day.”
“Please,” another blonde sneered. “She won’t be back.”
“Why not?”
“She’s a study junkie. I saw her when I did a study over at Eston White a few months ago.”
H jerked. The metal tabs on the bottom of his chair legs scraped against the tile floor like an ungreased motor—noisy and grating. He would have to verify which woman spoke. If Ava was connected to Eston White he’d missed something major in reading her.
On the other hand, it would explain the memories he’d picked up from her head. She knew something about the contacts. A connection would follow since they’d placed Jefferson in Channing’s lab as a spy.
“I’ve heard of that place.” Simon chimed in, getting in on the gossip. “When were you there?”
“Three months ago. I think she was a lab tech.” The woman leaned toward Simon and lowered her voice. “They’re way higher tech over there.”
“Maybe that’s the general’s influence. I prefer the lower-key approach.”
A juggernaut in his temple, H’s pulse pounded. General Scott. He fisted his hand, crumbling the sandwich.
Ava had now been placed at Eston White, a place known for more than research specializing in the mind. The administration at Eston White was responsible for evaluating incoming clients and identifying potential assets. Assets who became their next victims.
He’d used the information to barter for freedom, wanting everyone ever taken to be released. He’d had to settle for his and Dana’s release. His failure to save the others spurred him into doing what he could on the outside to prevent other children from suffering the same fate. So far, though the adult studies continued, there had been no new studies involving children at Eston White.
General Scott’s thirst for control hadn’t lessened. They’d proven that by planting Jefferson at Channing’s lab. Now they had someone in his lab.
Ava had played her role well and gotten close. Close enough he’d wound up in her bed. Worse, he’d gotten close enough to feel something for her.
The blonde needed to be more thoroughly checked out, but if it turned out Ava was the spy… He grinded his teeth and stared at the study participants on the monitor while he weighed the implications of their claims and Dana’s warnings.
He’d thought he’d gotten away.
He’d thought he could believe Ava’s claims.
He’d thought wrong and allowed her under his skin—a mistake he would never repeat.
He wouldn’t be duped again, but neither was he going to push her away. If she wanted to spy on him,
if she was the threat the FBI had warned him of, he would see her coming.
If it became a case of kill or be killed, he would kill.
Chapter Ten
“What the hell?” Breck rounded his desk in a rush and grabbed Ava’s chin. “Did this happen during the shooting yesterday?”
He turned her face from side to side, surveying the still-shrinking knot over her temple and the bruise covering nearly half her face. Breck’s almost tangible frustration congealed with the pain in her head. A shot of searing agony not unlike a dentist’s drill searing too deeply into a pained tooth without the numbing effect of Novocain sliced through her skull.
Vomit surged up. She collapsed the walls of her throat and swallowed it down. Wincing, she forced herself to maintain eye contact.
Holding her breath and grappling with the pain battering her from inside, Ava extracted herself from Breck’s grip and moved back. With the touch broken, the intensity of his anger lessened.
Shit. H was right about her. This could not be a good thing.
Her head throbbed to the point her eyeballs hurt, but she had a job to do. She closed her eyes and breathed through the worst of it before meeting Breck’s hard gaze. “Yes. We went down. A rock won.”
“You should have come in. We should have known about this.” Breck went to a nearby cabinet and pulled a cool pack from the first aid kit. He snapped the bag in half and massaged it for a minute before holding it out to her. “Did you go to the ER?”
“I was with a doctor.” She took the pack and eased into the nearest chair. “I have a slight headache.” If a jackhammer set on the annihilation setting can be considered slight. “But I’m fine.”
He pulled the pack from her hand and applied it to her head.
She screeched in pain and jerked away. Her hands rose up to block him from touching her again.
Breck glared. “That’s not a slight headache.”
“It was yesterday.”
“You need to see a real doctor.”
“No.” Whatever was wrong with her had started after she’d had sex with H. No. It had started earlier that morning. He’d claimed she was an empath. He studied it. He was who she needed. “I need to see Dr. H again.”
“He’s not a medical doctor. I want you to get checked out.” Breck’s tone demanded obedience. “You’re off the case until I’m satisfied you’re well enough to work.”
Irritation bounced off him and assaulted her. Her stomach rolled. “No.” She bore down on the pain and forced herself to straighten. “I can’t explain it, but whatever is happening to me isn’t something traditional medicine can fix.”
Hell, if empaths absorbed emotions from others and Breck’s had her ready to rip her skull open, she didn’t want to know what a hospital would do to her.
“I’m not buying some line of bullshit and putting you back in the field.”
“Breck.” Ava dug her nails into her thigh and turned away from the brightness of the sky beyond his window. “This isn’t me being stubborn. I’m genuinely convinced Dr. H is the only one who can help me.”
Breck leaned against his desk and studied her for several long minutes. She couldn’t read his thoughts, but the considerable weight of his responsibility pushed down on her shoulders. Combined with the tightening vice grip on her head, it took every ounce of strength she had to stay conscious.
“You used Kami as part of your cover with Dr. H?”
“To establish the connection with Channing.”
He nodded and pulled his cell from his pocket to dial. “Kami.”
He spoke softly, with the love he felt for Kami suffusing his voice and flowing out in gentle waves. Unfortunately, the sudden softness didn’t counteract the agony and he didn’t speak softly enough to prevent her from feeling each syllable as a single reverberation in her skull.
“Ava’s in my office. She needs your help. See you then. Thank you.”
He ended the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket. “She’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”
He moved to her side and helped her stand. Her legs shook. Her shoulders curled forward, closing in on herself. She pulled away, shaking her head. “Don’t…touch…hurts.”
“What happened to you?” His quiet voice, filled with concern, only added to the weight pushing down on her.
“You’re too much, Breck.” Ava sank back into the chair and held her arms up in a pointless attempt to block him.
Stubbornness rose in him, as if he was preparing to argue. Instead, he turned and left the room, closing the door softly behind him.
The air cleared. The splitting pain in her head didn’t abate, but the weight eased from her shoulders. Tears blurred her vision and even sitting she was horribly dizzy. Defeated, she rested the uninjured side of her head on the arm of the chair. She wasn’t certain what was going on with her, how she could be what H claimed, but somehow it was tied to him.
Since meeting him she’d felt slight energy bursts along the surface of her brain. Only in the water had they subsided entirely. H had to know what was happening to her.
“Ava.” Kami’s hand rested on the back of her hair. “Come on.”
Ava opened her eyes and met Kami’s gaze inches from her own face. Rather than the weight of stress and anger and responsibility that had shrouded Breck, she felt love and peace from Kami. If she couldn’t control what she felt, she much preferred Kami’s influences.
“When did you get here?”
“Just a little bit ago. Breck asked me to take you to Dr. H.”
“Okay.” She allowed her eyes to drift closed again to block out the light. “It hurts so bad.”
“I see that.” Kami eased herself under Ava’s arm and eased her out of the chair. “Breck’s cleared a path, so we shouldn’t encounter too many people.”
“What’s wrong with me?” Each eyelash and hair along her temple delivered fire-hot shards of agony with every blink and shift.
“We’re going to find out.” Kami assisted Ava’s wobbly steps all the way to the car.
Once she’d been settled in the passenger seat, Kami placed a damp hand towel over her head, displacing some of the weight by using the back of the headrest. With the light obliterated and the coolness of the towel easing the fiery paths in her skull, she slowly regained the ability to think.
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“Breck gave me the address. We’re about five minutes away.”
“Good.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“A little.” It was like there’d been too many people around and she could suddenly feel everything they felt. Now, cocooned in Kami’s car, she only felt her friend’s concern.
She peeked at Kami from beneath the corner of the towel. Kami was the first real friend Ava had ever had. They’d clicked immediately the first time they met. They’d bonded over the complications of being call girls caught in the murderous web of a Madame and in the weeks since busting up the operation they’d become even closer. The last thing she wanted to do was upset Kami or her new fiancé—Ava’s new boss. “Is Breck angry with me?”
“No. He’s terrified for you.”
“I don’t want to let him down. I want this to work out.”
“Honey, he knows that.” Kami rubbed her arm as she slowed for a turn. “And he apparently has faith in you to finish this assignment, regardless of whatever is happening to you.”
“What do you mean?” Ava ran her tongue over her teeth. Dry, almost cottony, it stuck awkwardly to the roof of her mouth when she tried to talk.
“He gave me orders to pass on to you. First and foremost, the next time you’re wounded on the job he’s to be the first to hear about it.”
“I think I got that when I walked in to his office.”
“He’s a bit chauvinistic when he cares for someone. Consider yourself lucky you’re still working.”
“I do.”
“Good. You’re to email him a report, leaving nothing out
.”
He would be disappointed. She wasn’t divulging the details of sex with H. As far as the shooting, she wasn’t sure what to include. She didn’t exactly know what had happened.
“He thinks,” Kami continued, “whatever is going on with you is only going to help your cover with Dr. H.”
“Likely so.” She pulled the towel back a little more. The sun was bright, but not blinding to the point of debilitation. She’d never had migraines, but she just might understand what they felt like now.
“Did he get anything on the shooting?” She’d called Breck the day before as soon as H had left her alone to change back into her street clothes.
“I don’t know. Just worry about you for now.” Kami cast her a pained glance. “You sure you’re up for this?”
“I have to be.” She steered to conversation back to the case and any information Breck had passed through Kami. Thinking and talking hurt, but it helped sidetrack the worst of the pain. “Did anyone talk to Dr. H?”
“I don’t know, but Breck is normally more easygoing when a case is working.”
So they had nothing, which meant either the shooter cleaned up, or H had. It explained his absence when she’d left the lab, but why would he cover up the evidence someone had been shooting at them?
“Given the circumstances, Breck’s giving you the lead on this. Handle it your way.” Kami pulled into a parking slot in the mostly empty lot of H’s lab. “I’m going to go in and get Dr. H. Before I do, will you try to promise me one thing?”
She didn’t have the energy yet to think too hard let alone raise her head off the headrest. “Sure.”
“Finish this for Channing. If he created those lenses, he wouldn’t want to see people being hurt over them.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Kami nodded tersely before getting out and hustling to the lab. Enclosed in the car, completely alone, Ava tried to figure out what had happened to her. What exactly was it H was doing during his studies and had she missed him doing something to her?
She had to find some answers before she filed her report to Breck. He hadn’t been her boss long, but she already enjoyed the job, the team, more than the years she’d been with Whitestone. Until learning the truth just before meeting Kami, she’d thought she was part of an altruistic plan to safeguard and protect the country.
