Spy, Spy Away

by Diane Henders

  I gave her a grin. “I’m really glad you have a tiny hospital and a top-level security clearance. I’d hate to have to explain this in Calgary.”

  “I just don’t want to take a chance on you holding me at gunpoint when I try to give you your sedative.”

  I swallowed. “Let’s try it without. You know how much I hate sedatives.”

  She frowned, shaking her head, but I hurried on before she could speak. “I’ve been having therapy sessions with Dr. Rawling for the last two months. I think I’m managing my claustrophobia better now. I’d really like to give it a try.”

  It wasn’t a lie. Not really. Well, maybe a little teeny white lie. At least the part about the two months of therapy was the truth…

  “All right, we’ll try it.” She pulled an almost-convincing scowl. “Stubborn. But if I think you need a sedative, you’re getting it.”

  I mirrored her scowl. “Stubborn.”

  Lying on the table while the technician wedged my head into place with foam blocks, I concentrated on deep, calming yoga breathing.

  Slow, steady ocean waves.

  The MRI wasn’t even closed at the ends. I had been locked in a coffin-like crate and I’d managed not to freak out. I could do this.

  I ignored the small internal voice that reminded me I’d knifed a man and thrown a chair across the room immediately after escaping the coffin.

  Details. I hadn’t freaked out while I was in the coffin.

  I could do this.

  “Aydan, just let me give you the sedative. Your heart rate and blood pressure are spiking.”

  “No, I can do this. I know I can.”

  She sighed. “No, you can’t.”

  The warm fuzziness flowed over me before I could protest again.

  Chapter 6

  I cranked an eyelid open and glared at the blurry Dr. Roth wavering at the foot of my bed. “Damn… sed… tives…”

  “Rest.” She waved her magic wand and vanished.

  When I opened my eyes again, she was in sharp focus beside my bed, and her magic wand proved to be a stylus she brandished while she made notes on the computer tablet propped in the crook of her arm.

  “Better?” she inquired.

  “I really hate sedatives,” I croaked, fumbling for the controls to raise the head of the bed.

  “Not too high yet,” she cautioned. “You know, maybe you should discuss your rampant control issues with Dr. Rawling.”

  I took the joke as it was intended. “Yeah, look who’s talking. Bossy.” I gave the bed control another defiant poke, and she grinned.

  “I’d love to stand here and watch you go slowly mad, but the paramedics tell me I have a new customer on his way to the ER.” She scrolled rapidly through the data on her tablet. “I can’t find any physical problem that would cause you to lose consciousness, so I’ll agree with Dr. Travers that it was probably caused by your testing. Since she says you were unconscious considerably longer the second time, I’d suggest you limit your testing as much as possible. If the frequency or duration of unconsciousness keeps increasing, you could theoretically slip into a coma.”

  She peered over her reading glasses to fix me with a stern eye. “I want you here for at least another half an hour to make sure the sedative has dissipated sufficiently. For the next twenty-four hours, no driving, no drinking, no…”

  “…operating heavy equipment, making important decisions, yada, yada,” I finished. “I hate sedatives.”

  “Stop complaining and talk to your visitor.” She pulled aside the curtain to reveal Spider fidgeting in the corridor. “And behave yourself,” she added with a wink before striding away, already absorbed in conversation with an anxious-looking nurse.

  Spider sidled into the cubicle and lowered himself into the chair beside my bed.

  “How are you feeling?” He didn’t quite meet my eyes.

  “Fine, just a little dopey from the sedative.”

  In the silence that followed, he studied the cubicle curtain intently, his knee bouncing with nervous energy. When he started to pick at his cuticles, I laid a hand over his. “Hey, Spider, what’s wrong?”

  He twitched his bony shoulders, his gaze skittering over to make brief eye contact before sliding back to the curtain again. “Um… Aydan…” He swallowed.

  Even through the residual haze of the sedative, nervousness tensed my gut. “What, Spider? Just say it, already!”

  “Um…” Colour climbed his neck and set his ears aflame. “I have to tell you something, and I’m afraid you’re going to be mad at me,” he blurted.

  “Spider, have I ever gotten mad at you?”

  “Well, no…” He dared a sidelong glance at me before returning his gaze steadfastly to the curtain. “But this is… well…”

  He gulped again. “I read your mind. When we were… when I was controlling you. I could see… personal stuff…” He shot me an anguished glance. “I’m sorry, I stopped right away as soon as I realized… but I couldn’t help it, it was just there and I…” He hunched his shoulders as if expecting a blow. “I couldn’t help it. I’m really, really sorry.”

  A cold wave swept over me, my heart plummeting to the bottom of my chest.

  Oh, God.

  All my personal demons and secrets stripped naked and spread-eagled in the harsh light of another’s eyes. All the secrets I guarded that weren’t even mine to share…

  The air refused to enter my lungs.

  “I’m really, really sorry…” Spider’s agonized apology echoed in the distant buzzing that surrounded my head.

  Oh, God.

  Oh, God.

  A torrent of heat made me light-headed, sweat prickling my skin. My ability to think and act returned in a rush and I seized his arm.

  “Everything! Tell me everything you saw! Every detail!”

  “I’m… sorry…” The words jerked out of him, and I realized I was shaking his arm violently.

  With an effort I relinquished my hold and patted his hand instead. “No, I’m sorry, Spider, I’m not mad at you, I’m just really freaked out. Can you please tell me what you saw?”

  He blushed to the roots of his hair. “It was… um…” His colour deepened to an unflattering shade of purple. “You and Kane, um…”

  Shit, shit, shit!

  I held my voice under tight control. “What else?”

  “That’s all, I swear! As soon as I realized, I stopped right away and put up a… a… I don’t know, like a shield or something so I couldn’t see inside your mind anymore.” He hid his face in his hands. “I’m really sorry.”

  I drew a long, slow breath. “Seriously? That’s all you saw?”

  “I swear.” He gave me a miserable glance through his fingers. “I’m really sorry.”

  Heedless of Dr. Roth’s admonition to lie flat, I jerked up in bed to fling my arms around him. “Spider, you are the best of the best! You are the only person in the world I would trust with this, and you are the only person in the world with enough integrity not only to not snoop through my brain, but also to have the guts to tell me about it.”

  I squeezed him tighter. “You’re amazing! You’re, you’re…” Words failed me and I planted a big smacking kiss on the side of his head, the only place I could reach. “Thank you!”

  “Y-you mean… you’re not mad?” He straightened slowly, hope rising on his face.

  “Spider, you goof, I’ve never been so not-mad at anybody in my life! You’re just…” I hugged him tightly again before releasing him. “You’re the best!”

  His ugly flush drained away into the pink of pleasure. “Really?” A smile illuminated his face, his eyes clearing. “You really mean that?”

  “Abso-fucking-lutely!”

  “Thanks, Aydan!” He beamed at me. “I was so scared you’d hate me. And I promise, I won’t say anything to anybody.” He leaned closer, his eyes glinting mischief. “I kind of suspected it anyway.”

  I planted an affectionate elbow in his ribs. “You just shush. And anyw
ay, it’s not what you think…”

  I trailed off. He’d seen inside my mind. It was exactly what he thought.

  “How much did you see, anyway?”

  His blush told me everything I needed to know.

  “Never mind,” I said firmly. “Forget I asked. In fact, forget we ever had this conversation… SHIT!”

  Spider twitched violently. “What?”

  “Shit, shit, goddamn sonofa-fucking-god-damn-” I stifled myself and clutched his sleeve in a trembling fist. “Do you have a secured phone on you? Call Stemp! It’s an emergency!”

  At his wide-eyed headshake, I scrambled off the bed and dove for the locker beside the bed, the IV line yanking my hand painfully while I scrabbled at my waist pouch. “Fuck-fuck-fuck-goddamn-fuck…”

  The room dipped and swirled around me. I concentrated fiercely while my pouch receded down a darkening tunnel.

  On my knees. Head down.

  Darkness clearing...

  “Aydan, what… oh, sorry!”

  I fumbled the phone free and turned as Spider whipped around to stare in the opposite direction. Distantly noting his scarlet ears, I hunched over to keep my head low and stabbed a shaking finger at the phone’s speed dial button.

  “Yes.” Stemp’s flat voice was the most beautiful music I’d ever heard.

  “Get Sam Kraus locked down, now!”

  “Stand by.”

  The empty line hummed, and I used the intervening seconds to process the combined evidence of Spider’s averted gaze and the draftiness in my nether regions.

  I was yanking the inadequate gown closed across my ass when Stemp’s voice snapped back on the line. “Report.”

  “Sam read my mind. Everything in my mind! He knows everything I know!”

  Stemp barked out an unintelligible word that might have been an expletive. “How do you know?”

  “Spider read my mind, too, when he was controlling me with the new network key, but he stopped as soon as he realized what was happening, so he only got the thing I was thinking about right before I went into the network. Which wasn’t anything classified, fortunately. He just told me now and I put it all together. I could tell when he was in my mind, it felt…”

  I drew a deep breath and slowed my babble, realizing my voice was rising as though I’d been sucking on a helium balloon.

  “…It felt heavy, sticky, syrupy, whatever you want to call it. And it lightened up as soon as he shielded himself from me. But when Sam was driving me, he was heavy all the way. And today wasn’t the first time. He did it for the first time over two months ago. He’s known for two months. That goddamn slimy bastard-”

  “Stand by.”

  A few moments later, Stemp came back on the line. “He’s secure. We’ve been holding him in the minimum-security facility since he was arrested in October. He’s being transferred to maximum security now. I’ll interrogate him personally. Good work, Ms. Kelly.” He paused. “Dr. Roth reports you’ll be discharged shortly. I’m glad you suffered no lasting ill effects.”

  I resisted the urge to gape at the phone. “Thanks,” I mumbled.

  The click of his disconnection was my only reply.

  “Aydan…? …ooohh…”

  Spider’s voice quavered into silence and I looked up in time to see him slump, his eyelids fluttering closed above chalk-white cheeks.

  “Shit!” I sprang to catch him as he began to topple off the chair, the detached end of my IV line drooling a crimson trail across the white floor.

  The room whirled again, Spider’s skinny form impossibly heavy in my arms.

  “Help…” My feeble cry floated into a darkening vacuum. Knees melting…

  “What the- Nurse! Emergency!”

  Strong arms. Flying…

  The room stabilized, the bed firm beneath me again.

  “What happened?” Kane’s frown hovered above me. Scrubs-clad bodies bustled at the edges of my vision, their murmurs underpinning a chorus of electronic beeping.

  “Is Spider okay?”

  His frown deepened. “I don’t know yet. What happened?”

  “I just looked up and he was falling off the chair. Did he-”

  “The full story,” he snapped. “Your IV line was unplugged and the blood trail shows you were on the opposite side of the cubicle. What happened?”

  “No, it’s okay, that was just...”

  I tried to sit up, but his heavy hand landed on my shoulder just as the room did a tricky little sideslip. I let him press me back onto the pillow and clamped my eyes shut until the bed stopped wallowing through space.

  When I opened my eyes a few moments later, Kane grasped my shoulders and leaned down, worry and impatience creasing his brow. “Everything. Now,” he demanded.

  “Spider was just sitting beside me. We were talking when I realized…” I shot a glance around the curtained cubicle and decided on discretion. “…I had to call Stemp. Emergency.”

  Kane’s face tightened, but he didn’t interrupt.

  “I jumped out of bed to grab a phone from my pouch and I guess that’s when the IV line pulled off the bag. I finished my call, and when I looked up, Spider was collapsing.”

  He released me and straightened, opening his mouth to reply just as Dr. Roth strode in, her white coat decorated with smears of blood. She stuffed an errant wisp of hair behind her ear, further disturbing her formerly tidy chignon, and glowered down at me. “What were you doing out of bed?”

  “Sorry, I had an emergency. I-”

  “You didn’t have an emergency; you were an emergency.” She shot a look at Kane, lines of strain tight around her mouth. “She’s to stay in bed, lying flat, for at least half an hour. She’s in no danger; she only fainted because she got up too soon. The nurses will check in, but I’m counting on you to keep her under control. I have to go and…” She grimaced and gestured at the bloodstains on her coat before rushing away.

  I stared at the still-swaying curtain for a moment, guilt gnawing at me, before directing an imploring gaze up at Kane. “Can you go and check on Spider?”

  He frowned. “No. Dr. Roth made it clear you’re my responsibility.”

  A small jab of pain from the IV made me relax the fist I’d clenched. “Come on, John! I promise I’ll stay put. I have to know if he’s okay.”

  He was shaking his head when the cubicle curtains parted to admit a tiny brunette in pink scrubs, her glossy ponytail swinging as she hurried in.

  I sucked in a breath of relief mingled with fear. “Linda! Is Spider okay?”

  “He’s fine.” Her blue eyes sparkled with mischief. “He just can’t stand the sight of blood. When you detached your IV line, the clear solution drained out first so it took a few seconds before your blood started to escape. But as soon as he saw blood on the floor, he fainted.”

  “Oh.” I blew out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Oh, thank God.” The tension melted from my muscles, leaving me trembling.

  I waited until she’d finished checking the monitors before speaking again. “When you get a minute, could you please tell Dr. Roth I’m sorry? I didn’t mean to make her mad.”

  She patted my hand. “I will, but don’t worry, she’s not mad. It’s just that a little boy came in with a bad cut that needed suturing, but your security level makes you top priority. She was just stressed out because she had to leave him while she made sure you were okay.”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “Hey, it’s okay. Stuff happens.” She gave me her radiant smile. “That’s why they pay us the big bucks. Not. See you later.” She bounced out, leaving me alone with Kane.

  Oh God.

  “Are you all right?” He hovered over the bed, eyeing me worriedly.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Then why did you just groan?”

  I converted my next groan into a sigh and beckoned him closer. His brows snapped together and he shot a glance over his shoulder before leaning in. I whispered, “Can you drive me home when they let
me out? We need to talk.”

  His frown deepened. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “It’s not.”

  Chapter 7

  By the time Dr. Roth pronounced me free to go, my stomach was knotted despite the residual effects of the sedative. My nerves had slowly frayed while Kane and I made stilted conversation, and at last I had closed my eyes and feigned sleep, probably unconvincingly.

  When I was finally installed in the passenger seat of Kane’s Expedition, I read tension in the set of his jaw as we pulled out of the parking lot.

  Before he could speak, I held up a warning hand and extracted my bug detector from my pouch, scanning the interior of the SUV while he drove in silence.

  The sight of the steady green light didn’t make me relax.

  Shit, I didn’t want to have this conversation. Ever.

  Kane shot an impatient glance at me. “What is it?” he demanded. “What’s wrong?”

  I sank my head into my hands to avoid his gaze and vented the groan that had been trying to escape for the last half-hour. “Ask me what’s not wrong.”

  “Dammit, Aydan, tell me!”

  I couldn’t think of a good way to start. “Sam Kraus read my mind. So did Spider.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. “What are you saying?”

  I churned my fists in my hair before sitting up to face him. “Sam knows everything. Everything I know. Everything I’ve ever experienced, everything anybody’s ever told me in confidence…” My voice choked into silence, the enormity of the invasion twisting my stomach.

  The steering wheel creaked under Kane’s grip. “That’s bad.” His voice was controlled, muscles rippling in his jaw. “I presume that’s the reason for the emergency phone call to Stemp.”

  “Yes. He’s probably interrogating Sam right now.” My voice rattled in my throat and I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering at the horrible reality.

  Everything. Sam knew everything. All the secrets and terrors and weaknesses I’d concealed from the world behind barriers reinforced by long years of defensive habits.

  I was naked before him. Worse than naked. He had been inside all my secret places, violating me…