by Amelia Jade
Outside, she could see him and one of his friends setting the bike into the back of a big black pickup. As they finished that, his friends cast some glances back her way. Justin tried to get them to stop, but she could tell by their body language they were teasing him about something. One of them, slightly bigger and with the look of someone in charge, gestured back at the coffee shop. Justin shook his head, until the man she figured to be the leader of his group—whatever they were—pointed more firmly this time.
Justin, looking embarrassed, came back inside. His natural confidence, which she seemed to strip him of, tried to reassert itself.
“So, I ran out of here without asking you for your phone number,” he said without preamble. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to get it. Perhaps we can arrange another coffee date. Maybe this time I’ll drink something else, instead of forcing myself to have coffee just to fit in.”
She giggled. “I don’t currently have a phone,” she admitted. “It broke a week ago, and it’s actually been rather nice without one.”
His face fell, and finally she relented.
“But I am staying at the Royal Palace Hotel. Room 606,” she said. “Give me a call there once you get your ride all fixed up,” she teased.
“I will. You can count on it,” he said, giving her a small bow before he left.
Shay shook her head, amazed at how he could be so shy one moment, and then so confident the next. It was actually kind of cute. There was another element about him though, one that she hadn’t thought of until just then. She recalled the casual way he referred to someone attacking him, throwing—no, kicking—a door off their vehicle at him.
That sounded…dangerous. Yet it didn’t seem to faze him, as if he were used to it. Her eyes narrowed. Now that she thought about it, many of his movements had seemed swift and sure, even when he fled from her in embarrassment, he had never once seemed off stride. His voice and face had reflected one thing, but his body language…that had never wavered.
Who are you, Justin Renne? And who is kicking car doors at you? And how is it you make me feel so electric when I barely know you?
Chapter Four
Justin
The next morning he meandered into the command room, still chewing on a piece of bacon, with several more wrapped in a paper towel in his hand.
He stopped short as he walked through the door only to find Madison leaning against a desk, her attention focused solely on him.
“I didn’t do it,” he said immediately around the bacon in his mouth.
“I’m sure you didn’t,” she said with a snort, pushing herself upright. “Sit,” she said, gesturing at their “command table,” in reality a folding table with a four by eight sheet of plywood attached to the top of it.
He quickly followed her command, noting he was also the last one there. Better not bust the bacon out just yet. Avoiding further attention seemed like the smart idea then.
Justin sat down and eyed their commander. Madison had quickly earned the respect of both him and the other Sentinels. The four of them were a team, so it was no surprise to him that they all agreed on that fact, but the speed of his trust in her as their leader had caught him by surprise. When she had first appeared in their midst less than a month ago, she had been a shy, timid creature.
He watched her giving orders, demanding answers and accepting suggestions, seeing nothing of that former person in her. Connor had said she felt at home in the Underground, and it showed.
“Justin.”
Uh-oh. So much for avoiding attention.
“Yes ma’am?” he asked cautiously.
“I’d like to hear a little more about what happened to you yesterday. Your report was rather vague.”
He frowned. “There wasn’t much to report, ma’am,” he said respectfully. “Everything was going as planned. Nobody saw anything other than normal. Then, out of nowhere, this expensive-looking metallic-silver SUV pulled up beside me. The driver was clearly wearing standard Agency gear. There were two men in the back wearing suits. One of them didn’t look over, but his body language made it very clear he was in charge.”
“And the other one?” Madison prompted as he paused for air.
“The other one, the bald man with the scar,” he said. “He’s bad news, but not as bad as his boss. I have no proof obviously, just gut intuition inferred from their body language. But he’s also not human. He clean kicked the door off their vehicle and at me in one smooth motion. He’s either Extremis or a shifter,” he concluded, sitting back in his chair.
Everyone knew the likelihood of him being a shifter was less than zero. The Agency was anti-shifter through and through. Their entire purpose behind existing was to farm shifters for their blood, to give their abilities to humans. Justin knew they wouldn’t harbor one of his kind within them. The man was an Extremis Agent, a half-breed shifter given a dose of serum that gave him the abilities of a shifter, except for shapeshifting into their animal. They weren’t sure just how the science behind it worked, but they had seen the proof that it did, and that was enough for Justin. He shook himself mentally as he realized Madison was still talking.
“What happened after that?” she asked.
“I crashed, then I waited for the rest of the team to escort the target to safety, and then return for me.”
“And what did you do while waiting?” she asked. “That was not in your report.”
“With all due respect, ma’am, it had nothing to do with the mission, and was of a personal nature,” he said firmly, letting her know he wasn’t willing to go down that path.
Madison eyed him momentarily, then jerked a nod. Justin sat back into his chair. That was why he respected her. She trusted her team. If he said it had nothing to do with the mission, she believed him. His crew knew what he had been doing, but he had asked them not to share it with anyone else just yet. They may give him grief, but they would honor his request.
“So the question is,” she said to the assembled group, “who the fuck are these guys?”
Justin glanced over at Jared. They had discussed this very fact the night before, in preparation for the meeting they knew was coming. That was after they teased him relentlessly for forgetting to ask Shay for her number.
He felt his cheeks heat at the memory. The two of them had been talking easily, but the moment he got up to leave, he had lost all control of his wit and charm. He felt like he was fifteen again, just developing his first crush on a girl and realizing how awesome they were.
The walk back inside had been worse. The small grin that pulled at her cheeks, the both of them knowing just how awkward he looked and was. Where the hell was the confident man that had been present just a few seconds earlier? Thankfully Shay had taken pity on him and given him her information, but Justin couldn’t remember the last time he had been in such an uncomfortable situation like that. She turned him into butter, and they had done nothing but talk!
Josh nudged him with an elbow. With a start he realized he had been daydreaming again.
Not the worst thing to get distracted by. She is quite beautiful…
“Justin? Earth to Justin?”
He blinked. Damn, Madison was talking to him again.
“Uh, yes?”
“I said, you’re the only one who saw them. Any ideas who they might be?”
He frowned, looking at Jared again for confirmation. The big shifter—their Alpha in codename and reality—nodded slightly, giving him the okay to reveal what they had discussed.
“I think the one who didn’t do anything might be this mysterious J we’ve heard so much about,” he said at last.
That revelation set off a buzz around the room from everyone but the Sentinels, who had discussed this very thing the night before.
“Are you positive?” Deanna asked from her seat near Madison. She was the second-in-command of the Underground, though that didn’t extend to control over the Sentinels. Her area was operations, securing supplies, vehicles, and arranging for
the transportation of the shifters his team extracted from within the city itself. She was the one who ensured they got safely to Genesis Valley, a safe haven for shifters.
Justin shrugged. “None of us have ever seen him, so I can’t compare visuals of course. But he had the demeanor of someone who expected to be followed, and who also seemed to be in complete control of the situation.” He grimaced. “If he’s not J, then whoever J is, they’re going to be a hell of a lot worse than we ever expected. I’m telling you,” he said with a shake of his head, “this guy had bad news written all over him.”
He looked around the warehouse as the others conversed about this possible revelation. Next to Madison was Deanna, and alongside them were Milos and Andre, two shifters who had worked with the Underground long before the Sentinels came into the picture. They had been glad to turn the dangerous parts over to the highly trained shifters out of Genesis Valley, and in return, the Sentinels had managed to find ways to keep them involved in the operation.
The only person missing was Auston, the data-cruncher of the group. He wasn’t part of the command staff, however, so he rarely attended these meetings. In the background, working away at computer terminals, were some of the other staff that helped to keep the Underground up to speed with the activities of the Agency. Madison had expanded this group after their previous leader, Flint, had been exposed as a traitor. The Underground was moving to a more proactive stance. They couldn’t stand by as the Agency worked its tendrils deeper into King City.
They had to fight back.
“J,” Madison said at last, as the low buzz of conversation subsided.
He nodded.
“They’re escalating things,” she said, and he could see her lip pull back in a silent snarl. “We’re getting under their skin.”
“That may not be as fun as it sounds,” Jared rumbled, the Sentinel leader’s deep voice silencing the others as he sat forward in his chair. “Whoever he is, they managed to track us with a scary efficiency. Unless anyone here believes that them showing up like that was just a coincidence?”
Nobody in the room spoke.
“I thought not,” he said, sitting back, having said his piece.
“Jared brings up a good point,” Madison said from the head of the table, nodding at the big man. “Either we’ve got another spy, or they’ve found a way to track us quicker than we ever thought possible.”
An idea entered Justin’s head.
“There’s a third option,” he said, his mouth working before his brain had finished processing the thought.
Madison looked at him. “Go on,” she urged. “There are no bad ideas here, except for the bad ideas.”
He chuckled. “How do we determine when to go after a shifter, to get them out of the city?”
She looked at him as if he had suddenly sprouted a second head. “We’re tracking every online shifter message board and forum that we can, as well as monitoring known local hangouts for shifters. In addition, we watch the Agency locals we know of. Whenever someone pokes their head aboveground, revealing they’re a shifter, we send them a note, so that they’re ready in case the Agency…” Madison trailed off as she saw where he was going.
“In case the Agency finds them and goes after them,” he finished.
“Holy shit,” Madison whispered.
“So now the Agency is doing the same,” he said.
“Shit,” Connor swore from his seat. “This just got a whole hell of a lot more complicated.”
That was an understatement. If the Agency had begun to mimic the way the Underground found people, searching for them instead of reacting to their appearance, it meant that all potential missions were now likely to be, as Connor said, complicated.
Madison turned away from the table, but not before Justin caught the angry look on her face. He didn’t envy her. Having just stepped into the shoes as leader of the Underground, and this was her first challenge after getting them set up at a new facility? It had to be tough. Beside him he could see Connor straining to keep himself in his seat, even as he wanted to go comfort her.
Connor was a good mate for her, Justin thought. They made a good pair. Connor wanted to go up there and hold her, but he respected Madison’s authority, and would wait until a private moment to do so. Justin wanted that sort of relationship. He was envious of them, of that there was no doubt.
“So what do we do?” he asked aloud, forcing himself to concentrate on current events.
“They want to escalate?” Madison growled, spinning back around. “Then we’ll escalate right back.”
“What are you talking about?” Jared asked, looking around at his team.
Justin felt himself doing the same. Any escalation on the part of the Underground would involve his team.
“I’m going to call Valen and ask if he can spare a second Sentinel team here in King City,” she said calmly. “For starters. But we’re going to step up our efforts a bit. I want a full, on-the-ground scout of all three known Agency buildings. I want to know if anything breathes differently there. If they’re up to something, I want an idea of where it’s going to come from before it does.”
She turned to Jared. “Make it happen. You know the buildings. I’ll trust your judgment on how and whom to deploy, but get it done as soon as you can. We need more information before we start doing anything else.”
Justin whistled silently. Another Sentinel team? That would double their current numbers, making them a force to be reckoned with. He wondered if Valen, leader of Lionshead Mining Consortium in Genesis Valley, the company that trained the Sentinels, would agree to that request. It seemed unlikely, but stranger things had happened. He knew that Valen had three Sentinel teams at his disposal. With Jared’s team here in King City, he would need the other two in Genesis Valley just in case the Agency struck there.
The world was not as safe for shifters as it may have been just a few short years ago. Genesis Valley was the only safe haven he knew of. It had to be protected at all costs.
“Let’s go,” Jared said, the meeting at an end. He stood up and left, the rest of the team filing out behind him.
As he left the room, an image played itself through Justin’s head. It was of him, lying flat on his back, looking up at the sky as a beautiful face with greenish-blue eyes peered down at him with concern.
Shay.
He needed to see her again. Soon.
***
“I can’t stop thinking about her,” he said into the silence.
“About whom?” Connor asked, munching on some food or another loudly enough to be audible over their mics.
“Her,” he said forcefully, his eyes watching the house from his vantage point in the park across the street.
“Oh, that her,” Connor said. He was watching the rear of the house.
The single row of three-story homes in his section of downtown King City didn’t have much going for them. They were old, and while not in disrepair, the upkeep on them was certainly lacking as well. It was the little details that gave it away as an Agency stronghold. A new door, painted the color of the old one, but clearly made of high-strength steel, opened and closed much slower than a normal door. Or the window shutters. Again, painted to look old, but also made of military-grade materials. Justin suspected the windows themselves were bulletproof, but there was no way to test that theory without revealing himself.
There were more oddities, like the fact that so far two cars had entered a garage that could only fit one. Or that no one had emerged from the garage, even though it wasn’t visibly attached to any other building. Perhaps it was the shrubs out front that were positioned exactly four feet apart, which just so happened to be the necessary distance between auto-rising pillars, that would prevent any cars from ramming the place. There was no doubt about it; this was an Agency stronghold.
“Yeah, her,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“So go see her,” Connor said, the words partially garbled as he spoke with a full mouth.
/> “I’m kind of busy right now,” he explained, then his expression soured. “Though there doesn’t seem to be any excess activity going on here, does there?”
Connor responded with an agreement, just a noise at first as he finished chewing. “No, just the normal stuff. If they’ve got a big boss man here. Their extra security is far better than anything we could detect.”
Justin was forced to agree with him.
“Okay, let’s go downtown then,” he said, getting up from his prone position on the park bench, where he had been pretending to have a nap. His clothing was ragged and torn, making him look like a homeless person instead of the shifter he was. The only thing giving him away was his size, but he had affected a hunched-over limp that helped to disguise that fact, especially from a distance.
He kept up the act until he was out of sight of the Agency building. Then he doffed his disguise and fired up his spare bike. The first one was going to be out of commission for a while, so he had to take gentle care of this one, or else go back to using a truck.
Not an option. Two wheels or none!
“How did you know that she was the one for you?” he asked, speaking loudly to ensure he was heard over the roar of his bike as he cautiously threaded his way through traffic, ensuring he didn’t do anything to draw attention to himself.
They were headed downtown now, to the core, where the Agency’s headquarters building was. It would be much easier for them to watch it in concealment, but at the same time, they were venturing onto enemy turf. They had to be cautious, doing nothing to reveal their abilities where an Agent might be watching.
“Are you serious?” Connor asked from the relative quiet of his truck’s cab. “You’ve met this girl once. Don’t you think you might be rushing it?”
“Answer the question, Bravo,” he said, using Connor’s call-sign, as they were out in public.
There was a long pause. “It was her eyes, Charlie,” he said at last, using Justin’s own call-sign, letting him know he wasn’t happy about being forced into answering.
