Lethal Engagement

by Teyla Branton

  “Mari,” he groaned against my mouth. Panic layered the word.

  “Let it go.” Only half aware of what I was doing, I pulled numbers toward me. The Venezuelan ones beckoning the loudest. The thrill of the unknown surged throughout my entire body, the rush of adrenaline every bit as intoxicating as his touch. I felt powerful. Filled. Keene’s synergy, I thought. Emotions waved higher and higher to an impossible crest. The breathlessness was there again like it had been in the limo, but now there was a subtle difference. Keene was doing something different that didn’t steal my breath completely. See? I wanted to say. You can learn to control it.

  The kiss ended almost as abruptly as it had started. “What the hell?” Keene stared at air where another scene shimmered before us. Jungle, warm sun. Venezuela. His nostrils flared as he stepped away, arms dropping. The scene vanished, as did the kaleidoscope of colors and the numbers in my mind. The letdown made my knees sag before I stiffened them with the resolve that had gotten me through three years of marriage to Trevor.

  “If I were still mortal, that never would have happened.” Keene’s voice was satisfactorily jagged, but his words once again made no sense.

  “What? Why not? I’ve been wanting to do that ever since Venezuela. Wait, is this about you and Erin?” I was back to clenching my fists again, my body and mind screaming with anger. “Look, I’m not Erin. Maybe she chose Ritter over you because he’s Unbounded and she thought you weren’t, but I think it’s more because they belong together. I think she chose him because for her there was no other choice, not with him alive. But I’m not Erin. I’ll never be Erin. Maybe that’s the real problem—that you can’t get over her.” I waved a hand as if I didn’t care, hoping it wasn’t shaking like my insides or my traitorous knees. “Whatever, but don’t expect me to act like her. I think being Unbounded is the most incredible gift you’ve ever been given, but it doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

  He stared, his eyes not leaving mine, mouth slightly ajar. Wind out of his sails, I thought. That’s right. Who’s the woman now? His expression was slightly lost, and I had the urge to reach out, to recapture the moment of the kiss. But no way was I ever throwing myself at another man, especially one who was obviously hung up on a woman who happened to be one of my best friends.

  I’d rather fight Hunters with my bare hands and no backup.

  “And for the record, you didn’t almost kill me in Venezuela or Morocco. I could have shifted out at any time.” I grinned—okay, maybe it was more of a smirk. “Guess now the next move is up to you. But not right this minute, because it’s almost time to leave and I still have to get our weapons from Cort. Plus, I’m seriously annoyed at you.”

  I shifted to the door and yanked it open because I needed to be away from him. But as I stepped out into the hallway, glass shattered and an explosion rocked the mansion.

  I LANDED ON MY STOMACH in the hallway. A picture careened down the wall and slammed on the floor, barely missing my head. The Secret Serviceman was likewise on the floor, but stirring, so he wasn’t dead. No time for the questions flooding my brain. I had a job to do.

  I shifted into my suite, appearing directly behind Patrick where he’d sat at the table, but out of Lucinda’s line of sight. Or at least that had been the plan. I always remembered exact dimensions of a room, having once stepped into it—like one of those oddballs on TV who never forgot anything. Except my ability only had to do with numbers and spaces and calculations. Everything else I forgot like the rest of the world.

  Neither Patrick nor Lucinda was where I’d left them. Looked like Keene and I weren’t the only ones taking advantage of some private time. They were wrapped in each other’s arms in the double doorway between the bedroom and sitting room. Patrick swung out an arm to steady them as their lips parted.

  I leapt up from the floor, one of my knives slipping into my hand. More numbers appeared in my head, though not as prominent as when Keene’s synergy had been at work. My instincts warned me to shift away from the house altogether, but I wasn’t leaving Patrick. When I could identify no immediate threat, my heart rate ratcheted down to a level that permitted me to push the numbers away from my seeking mind.

  “Oh, Mari,” Lucinda murmured. “I didn’t hear you come in.” Her gaze dropped to the black knife in my surprisingly steady hand.

  Keene burst through the door, his gaze going first to me and then to Patrick. “Everyone’s okay,” I said.

  Patrick stepped back from Lucinda but angled his body as if to shield her. “What’s happening?”

  “No one came in here?” Keene asked. “Nothing through the window?”

  “No. What was that noise?”

  “Small bomb came through the hall window.” I hurried to the door, where Keene was already stepping back into the hallway. Patrick and Lucinda hurried after us.

  The Secret Service agent was up, gun in hand, pushing his body against the wall to peer out the ruined window. He swore under his breath. “They found us.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  A trickle of sweat came from his close-cropped brown hair, skidding down the middle of a forehead creased with stress. His cheek was bleeding from several cuts, probably made by the shattering glass. “Don’t worry about it, ma’am. We have it covered.” He pressed a button on the transmitter fastened to his lapel. “Everyone’s okay up here.” As he finished speaking, the black agent who’d led us to my suite earlier barreled up the stairs, gun drawn.

  “Perimeter secure,” he said, urging Patrick back into my suite. By his size, the man must have been a football player at one time, and he didn’t seem averse to using his body in corralling us.

  Stepping around him, I marched over the broken glass to the window, ignoring the disapproving stare of the agent there. “Please, miss, if you’ll just stay back.”

  How annoying that he didn’t know my true nature, couldn’t know that he was in far more danger than I was. Ignoring the hand he placed on my forearm, I stole a glance out the window. I’d expected Hunters, but instead a handful of women with signs crowded on the sidewalk. They stared at the house in confused fascination.

  Keene came after me, sending the agent by the window into more fits of scowling. “What do you bet one of them has Hunter connections?” Keene kept his voice low, for my ears only.

  “Maybe it’s time to find out.” I started back down the hall.

  “No, Mari.” Keene stayed close as I entered my suite—too close. “The Secret Service will handle this.”

  “We need to know.”

  He sighed, his glance flicking to the bathroom that connected to my sitting room. “I’ll cover for you.”

  “You watch Patrick.” For the moment, at least, Patrick and Lucinda were fine, and the black Secret Serviceman, whose name I couldn’t remember, looked ready to defend them with his life.

  I headed to the bathroom, shifting the second I’d locked the door, appearing across the street in the shadow of the neighbor’s house. Sirens now filled the air, and the women were moving into the street, looking around nervously.

  One woman who carried an oddly-shaped duffel bag separated herself from the group and moved purposefully in my general direction, though I was sure she hadn’t spotted me. I shifted again into the cover of a pine tree at the edge of the property. She dropped the sign proclaiming Sex with me = Unbounded child, and picked up speed. By the time she was level with me, she was running.

  Shifting from cover to cover, I followed her as she cut through the neighbor’s property. On the far side, where the property bordered another street, a white van waited at the curb, a vinyl Hunter symbol plastered on the side. A man opened the sliding door, motioning toward her. “Hurry, hurry!”

  All my instincts begged me to intercept the woman. I still had my knives. I might be able to take them by surprise, or at least her, but my cover would be completely blown, and that meant I wouldn’t be able to be there for the next attempt. They’d just send more.

  No time, I thought.
Stifling frustration, I contented myself by taking a video on my phone as the woman threw her bag into the van with a loud clunk and herself in after. Tires squealed on the pavement as they took off, the sliding door still gaping.

  The sirens were louder now, strident and insistent. Many police cars by the sound, and I knew this area would soon be overrun, the plants perhaps damaged. Too bad because the garden was beautiful, despite the cover of winter that still shrouded the foliage.

  I reached mentally for the numbers, not to take me back to the house, but to Cort. I appeared in a sitting room as luxurious as my suite at Patrick’s mansion. Cort was alone in the room, Jace and Noah nowhere in sight.

  “Hey, you’re late,” Cort said.

  “My weapons?”

  He immediately picked up on my tone. “What happened?”

  “Bomb tossed through a window. We’re all okay, but we’d better be prepared for more.” I’d feel a lot better with my regular knives, and that gun they made me carry might come in handy.

  He hefted an oversized duffel bag from the very red couch and tossed it to me. “Let me know if you need us.”

  “I will. But the police are there now. We’re fine.”

  I shifted back to the house, spying not only the coordinates of the bathroom, but the combination of numbers that meant dark green. Keene. He was still close by, guarding the door.

  I ran the water a bit before leaving the bathroom and dabbed at the skirt of my suit with a washcloth. Somewhere I had picked up a stain, and this gave me an excuse for having stayed inside the bathroom that long. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to change before we go to the school,” I announced as I joined the others in the sitting room.

  Patrick and the others looked at me blankly. “What?” I said, adjusting the heavy black duffel on my shoulder. Noticing it, Keene took the bag from me.

  “I can have your secretary cancel, Mr. Mann,” said the black Secret Serviceman from the door where he stood guard. “Or if you’re still going, we’ll need to call in backup until this is investigated. We have a counter-sniper team in place on the roof, but we’ll want more agents for possible crowd control.”

  Secretary? That was the first I’d heard of Patrick having a secretary. One more person to check out. These agents at least seemed to be on the up-and-up.

  “No, we’ll go.” Patrick gave me a smile. “I’ll let the school know we’ll be a little late.”

  “I’ll call for backup then.” The agent pulled out his phone and stepped into the hall.

  Keene’s arm brushed mine, sending a jolt of awareness through me. Not his ability, not the numbers and colors, which I suddenly craved, but just him. His glance at me was controlled. Contained.

  That boy needed a little loosening up, and I had some excellent ideas on how to make that happen.

  Later.

  I thumbed on my phone and played the video, making sure the sound was muted, then passed it to Keene. He glanced across the room to where Patrick was talking quietly with Lucinda. “Let’s get this to Stella, and to Cort and Jace. Better them than the police.”

  I had to agree.

  He handed back my phone and pulled out his own. “Patrick already let our people know about the school visit, but I’ll make sure they do another sweep in the area, just in case.”

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER WE LEFT frustrated reporters without a story and unsatisfied police officers canvassing the neighborhood. Both groups had questioned, with no result, the sullen women outside the house, who were angry at being suspected of anything besides wanting to have Patrick’s love child. The Secret Service had called in reinforcements and made sure no one followed us.

  We’d all had to change, and now I wore the blue suit and skirt I’d unpacked less than an hour earlier. Keene, Patrick, and I were wearing wireless earbuds and microphones. My mics were embedded in my earrings. Keene and I were also fully armed with our regular weapons, and we made sure Patrick was too. After the explosion in the mansion, we weren’t taking any chances.

  Lucinda chattered nervously all the way to the grade school, but as we approached, she spied more vehicles from the media waiting for us. “I can’t do this,” she whispered, her regal face paling and her voice becoming strangled. “Not even as only a friend.” Her eyes locked onto Patrick’s, as if she’d been cast adrift in an ocean and he was her only chance of rescue.

  There seemed to be no women lining up outside the school to throw themselves at Patrick, or Hunters threatening to take him out, so it was difficult to understand why Lucinda seemed so paralyzed.

  Patrick hit the limo’s intercom. “Drive around the block again. Stop when I tell you. My fiancée’s friend has decided not to join us. One of you needs to go with her for a while to make sure no one follows. Thank you.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Lucinda said. “I’ll just walk around a bit. Maybe do a little shopping. Or go to my self-defense class that I’m missing this morning. I’ll meet you back at the house.”

  For a moment Patrick looked ready to lean across the seat and gather her into his arms, but he remembered in time. “He’ll follow you for a few minutes. Just in case. We have extras with us now anyway.”

  She nodded, an apologetic crease appearing between her brows. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “It won’t always be this way. When this is all over, we’ll go away somewhere.”

  I hoped for their sake he was right. I didn’t know what Lucinda thought, but “all over” was further away than I cared to think about for a man that was both the president’s son and the only publicly known Unbounded.

  After we let her off, and one of the agents in a car behind us emerged to follow her, Keene said quietly to Patrick, “So, Luce thinks we’re Homeland Security.” With all the excitement, I’d forgotten about that, but apparently it bothered Keene as well.

  Patrick gave us a sheepish look, his wide mouth for once not smiling. “I’m not sure how she got that idea. I went to talk to my dad last night about the situation, and afterward I met her in the gardens at the house and told her about you guys. I guess she just assumed, but it’s my fault. Talking about Unbounded, or even Renegades, makes her nervous, so I sort of avoid it.”

  “Talking about Unbounded makes her nervous?” That made me nervous. What did she have against Renegade Unbounded?

  “It’s complicated.”

  “We’re listening,” Keene said. “Because we need to be sure she’s not a danger.”

  Patrick glanced down, blowing out an exasperated sigh. “She’s not a danger.” He brought his gaze back up to meet Keene’s. “Okay, I’ll tell you, but I don’t want you saying anything to her. That guy, Cullen, who faked being me for that entire year? Well, he hurt Luce physically. It was bad. She left and broke up with him. But you know how Unbounded genes are. She ended up pregnant, and when she told him, he forced her to get an abortion. And I do mean forced.” Anger made his tone sharp. “They didn’t just kill the baby, they took it all out. Guess the Emporium wanted to be sure there wouldn’t be any claims down the road. She’ll never conceive again. They stole that from her. From us. I don’t care for myself because I love Luce more than anything, but I know she mourns the children she’ll never have. And the fact that she can’t have my children. No matter what, I’m going to take care of her. She was hurt because of me. Because she loved me.”

  “We had no idea.” I reached out and touched his hand, and Patrick clung to me.

  Several long seconds passed as Patrick struggled for control, the honk of horns and engines from the traffic around us sounding loud in the quiet. “Took me hours to get her to listen when I came back, but eventually she did, with a little help from Noah and my father. We were happy in Europe until the announcement. Anyway, Luce may look weak, but she’s really strong inside. She still has nightmares and sometimes she looks at me like she’s remembering someone else, but she’s a survivor. If she made it through all that, she can make it through anything. And I’m going to help he
r. I have a lot to make up for.”

  “It wasn’t you,” Keene reminded him. “You were every bit as much a victim.”

  “But I can still father children. And I can’t forget that it was someone who looked exactly like me that did this to her. Look, I know my time with Luce will be comparatively short, but I’m going to do my best to make her life everything she wants. I take care of the bills, I’m encouraging her to get her masters, she has a therapist, and we enrolled her in self-defense classes so she won’t feel so helpless. I think she’s happy.” His eyes took on a pleading look. “Maybe it’s not necessary for her to know you two are Renegades. She realizes the Secret Service agents don’t know you’re undercover, but maybe exactly where you come from isn’t important.”

  “I don’t think it matters,” I said.

  Keene glanced out the window where we had once again pulled up outside the school building. “It’s your decision.” Disapproval filled his tone.

  “A lot of people don’t tell all the truth,” I said pointedly. To Patrick, I added, “Go ahead and protect her. I would.” I caught Keene’s gaze and smiled. He blinked as if I’d taken him by surprise. Guess he thought I was holding a grudge, but now that I’d had time to think about it, I knew his choices made sense to him, even if they were wrong to me.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s do this.”

  I started to open the door, but Secret Service was already there. Patrick emerged behind me, placing his arm around me and nodding to the reporters as the pictures began. There were more reporters now than there had been before we dropped off Lucinda, perhaps having decided the school visit was worth their time after news of this morning’s attack hit the airwaves. The sky had lost its earlier gray, easing into a calming blue, pillowed by the occasional puffy cloud. A perfect, beautiful day to be alive, even in the midst of all the attention, or perhaps because of it.

  The Secret Service rushed us inside. The hallways were clear, guarded by more Secret Service, and a large metal detector, now shoved against the wall, told me everyone had been checked for weapons. The school children weren’t assembled in a gym as I’d expected, but in a large classroom—a kindergarten classroom by the looks of it. There were only about thirty children of varying ages, their faces representing every race living in the DC area. So this is a photo op, not a real school assembly. I’d bet there were as many Secret Service on the premises as children in this classroom. A video camera in the back of the room recorded everything, but only five reporters were present.