by Jaime Rush
“And it’s dark,” Rand added. “Now I can clearly see that you’re a woman.”
“Uh…that’s good to know.” She wasn’t sure quite how to take that. Zoe had to admit that she was probably a teeny bit sensitive because of her lack of curves.
He was assessing her for damage as they continued down the tunnel, but she tried to ignore him.
“You’re limping,” he said. “Did you twist your ankle?”
“I’ll be okay.”
He swooped her up, his arms strong. He didn’t grunt in exertion, thank God.
“You don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do.”
Oh, no, he really didn’t. Strange things were happening to her body. First, she’d forgotten all about her ankle pain. The side of her breast rubbed against his hard chest, and her hip was pressing his six-pack stomach. Her hands, curled around his neck, brushed against the ends of his hair. In the dim light, she saw the bulge of his biceps, but his face was still in shadow.
It had to be all that motorcycle vibration. It had a, uh, stimulating effect. Except that after a few hours it had a numbing effect instead, but now it was back to that stimulated level. The faint scent of soap she smelled on him wasn’t helping. She loved the smell of clean male, no cologne to interfere.
A few minutes later the tunnel dead-ended in a wall. Petra punched a code into a keypad, and the “wall” became a door that would keep out hordes of gladiators. It slid to the right, opening into a chamber.
Petra turned around with a sheepish look. “If you think Rand’s bad, you’ll love my brother, Eric.”
“Why, what’s wrong with him?”
“Oh, you’ll see.” She opened the door and gestured for Rand to go first.
Finally, she was going to get answers to all of this craziness. She was going to find out why people were trying to kill her, why they’d killed Cyrus. She was going to find allies. For some reason, she felt nervous. Being carried wasn’t helping. She was pretty sure she hadn’t been carried since she was a child. One thing was for sure, she didn’t feel like a child. Even worse, her nipples were tight; gawd, I hope no one can see them through my shirt.
He carried her into a large room, illuminated only by the lights in a kitchen.
Petra waved toward a hallway that led out of sight. “I’ll get the others.”
“Can I freshen up first?”
“Sure.”
Zoe turned to Rand. His face was covered in yellow-and-purple bruises and a few healing cuts. “Did that—are those”—she gestured to his face—“from back there? ’Cause if so, you got it a lot worse than I did.”
He let out a laugh. “No.” He turned his arm and showed her a red scrape along his flexed biceps. “This is my only injury from the accidental tackle.”
She was studying his bruises, a sympathetic wince on her face, when she realized she’d been staring at him. She cleared her throat. “Please put me down. I’ll be fine.”
He walked through the front part of the room, which held a huge dining-room table, past a desk, to a burgundy pit-group couch like she hadn’t seen in anyone’s house since she was a kid.
“I’ll put you on the couch.” He didn’t give up easily. First at letting her up, and now at setting her down.
“Really. I’m okay.”
He gingerly set her down on her feet, lightly settling his hands on her hips in case her ankle gave out. At least she thought that was why he’d done it.
Now that she was used to his bruises, she took a better look at the man himself. His dark hair had blond tips, and the blond strip of a goatee ran from below his lower lip to his chin. A spike pierced his eyebrow, and a bar lanced the top of his ear. He was compact, muscular without looking artificially built, and she’d felt every inch of him, thank you very much. His previous beating had been contained to his face; his torso was perfectly unmarred. And in blue jeans and nothing else, he looked absolutely yummy.
His gaze swept her again, and he lifted her hands and inspected her arms. “No scrapes? Bruises?”
She looked, too. “I don’t know about bruises, but I don’t see any scrapes.”
Their gazes met, and she felt the oddest swirl in her stomach. What was going on inside her? She’d been around delicious guys before and never felt like this. She turned and looked at the room instead. Each wall was a different, vibrant color, and an equally vibrant painting adorned each one. An artist’s easel filled the other corner.
“Who the hell is this?”
She followed the source of the harsh voice to a man advancing out of the hallway with narrowed, icy blue eyes and dark brown hair. She turned to Petra. “Let me guess: your brother.”
“Bingo,” Petra said under her breath. “Eric, this is Zoe. She’s an Offspring.”
He blinked in surprise, and Zoe almost wanted to laugh at the dumbstruck expression that juxtaposed his beefy fierceness. He aimed that look at Petra. “Explain.”
“I went upstairs for some fresh air.”
He raised his eyebrow. “Wait a minute. You go up for fresh air and come back with an Offspring.” He looked at her. “A hot-chick Offspring, no less. Just like that?”
Petra did laugh. “Yeah, kinda funny, isn’t it?”
“Funny’ isn’t quite the word I’m thinking right now. “Weird.’ Bizarre.’ ‘Suspicious,’ to start with.” He looked at Rand. “Where do you fit into this?”
“I tackled her. I thought she was one of the enemy.”
“A male enemy,” Zoe added.
Rand let his gaze slide down her. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
Eric was also looking at her. “Man, you thought she was a guy?”
“It was dark!”
“Which still doesn’t answer my initial question.”
Zoe raised her hand. “Uh, can I use the bathroom, please? I really want to clean up.”
“Sure, this way.” Petra led her down a hallway to the third door on the left. “Do you need any clothes?”
“I bought a few things in Key West.” She tapped her bag. “Be out in a few minutes.”
Questions crowded her mind as she showered, found a hair dryer in the cabinet, and did a quick dry. At least it looked as though these people would give her answers, unlike Cheveyo.
She grimaced as she looked in the mirror. She had no gel to slick her hair, so it was all soft curls, which made the black streaks look strange. She ran some water back through it again and grabbed her makeup bag. Dark red lipstick, matching rouge, powder…yeah, she’d have to remove it before she finally crashed into sleep, but no way was she facing these people without it. She pulled out the stretchy top with bleeding roses on it, along with black lace panties, and bit off the tags. She slid back into her black pants and the platforms she’d stuffed in her bag. She needed to be her. Zoe Stoker. Different. Separate.
She emerged and followed the murmur of voices into the large, well-lit room…and stopped. Their conversation stopped as well. Five people, all in their midtwenties like her, took her in curiously, assessing. She felt like the new girl in class, simultaneously craving their acceptance and trying not to care.
Petra and Eric sat on the couch with their legs propped on the coffee table.
Petra said, “Everyone, this is Zoe.”
She waved for her to come into the room, making Zoe feel pretty lame lingering in the hallway like a scared rabbit. With a nod, she walked over to the desk and perched on the surface, keeping a bit of distance between herself and the others.
“That’s Amy and Lucas,” Petra said, pointing to a couple sitting by the easel. Amy also had short hair, though hers was brown and frizzy. Lucas had dark, wavy hair and incredible, blue-gray eyes that reminded her of Cheveyo’s. Amy sat on his lap, and his arms loosely circled her. To have someone hold me like that, especially now…Zoe pushed away the thought and nodded to them.
Petra’s mouth quirked. “And you’ve met Rand.”
He sat on the carpet with his arms propped on his knees. Des
pite his bruised face, he was gorgeous, with high cheekbones and sea-green eyes. This was so totally the wrong time to be revved up on a guy. So why did she feel the kind of spark she’d witnessed between Petra and Cheveyo?
No way was she going there with anyone here. She just wanted answers.
Eric leaned forward, aiming his attention at her. “What’s your story, morning glory?”
Before she could ask the same back, Amy lifted a hand. “I remember how frustrating it was when you and Petra kept me in the dark, while I answered all your questions.” She gave Zoe a sardonic grin. “Not to mention being kidnapped and drugged, which at least you get to avoid.” She looked at Eric again. “Tell her what’s going on. She’s not the enemy; she’s one of us.” She gave them a mysterious nod.
Zoe simultaneously felt a glow at Amy’s defense of her and a chill at being one of them. She didn’t even know who these people were, what they were. “All I know is that one minute my life is normal, and the next, some guy is trying to kill me in my shop. I go on the run down to Key West, and no way could anyone find me, then some guy who turned into a panther saved my ass from a second guy who was about to annihilate me, and after a thousand hours riding on the back of a motorcycle, I’m here…” The power of her voice gave way to a tremble. “Yeah, I want answers.” She looked at Amy. “And I want to know about this kidnapping and drug stuff, too.”
Petra’s eyebrows furrowed. “Panther?”
Eric shot Amy a look of annoyance. “Lucas, keep your little woman in line. We don’t know who this chick is. What if they sent her here?”
Petra said, “Cheveyo brought her here. I know he’s not an enemy, and if he’s not, then she’s not either.”
Zoe met Eric’s suspicious gaze head-on. “I think we’ve just got to trust each other. This guy went to a lot of trouble to save me and bring me here without asking for anything in return. He supposedly put some kind of shield over this place. Sounds like he’s looking out for all of you.”
Rand was watching her, and she felt a tingle go through her body as his gaze drifted down her long legs to her shoes. “I say we trust her. Besides, we want to find more Offspring; well, one just got delivered to our doorstep.”
Eric scowled. “And how does this guy know where we are?”
Petra said, “He’s protecting us. Besides, if he wasn’t on our side, Darkwell would have found us already.”
“I still don’t like it. He knows too much, he’s supposedly on our side yet he won’t talk to us.” Eric settled his hard gaze on Petra. “Except you. And he’s another mind controller.” He clamped his hand over hers. “Stop.” To the others he said, “She’s a crack addict. Cracks her knuckles when she’s uptight, which is most of the time.”
Petra tucked her hands between her thighs.
Zoe let out a breath. “So tell me already, what the hell am I involved in here? Two different men have tried to kill me, and frankly, it’s pissing me off.”
Amy grinned. “She’ll fit in just fine.” She faced Zoe. “Without really knowing anything about you, we know that you lived near Fort Meade about twenty years ago, your mother or father died in an odd way, perhaps suicide, and you have a psychic ability that you may not even realize is psychic or an ability.”
The blood drained from Zoe’s face. For the first time in her life, she said the words, “My father walked into the office where he was working and killed three people and wounded four more. Then he killed himself.” And I may have inherited that, she couldn’t say.
Amy covered her mouth. “That was your father? Cyrus told me about that. Cyrus is—”
“Cyrus Diamond?” Zoe asked.
Amy leaned forward, her eyes wide. “Yes. You know him?”
“He was helping me find out more about my dad’s shooting spree. He called me last Thursday and said his digging had put us in danger. The next day I saw in the paper…he’d been killed.”
Amy turned to the others. “Zoe Stoker, one of the names on his speed dial. He told me she was one of his Offspring.”
“I was one of his Offspring?”
Amy got up and walked closer. “Let’s start from the beginning. Twenty-five years ago, two men created a top secret program called BLUE EYES that recruited people with psychic abilities to help win the war against terrorism. Their goals were to spy psychically on the enemy and find hostages. It’s called remote viewing.” Amy chuckled. “Yeah, I probably had the same look on my face when Cyrus told me about it. It’s the ability to see a place that is remote to you. Or, as we’ve found out, the ability to find someone so you can send an assassin after them. That’s how the guy who tried to kill you in Key West found you. And probably how Cheveyo found you.”
Amy leaned against the desk chair. “Darkwell, one of the men heading BLUE EYES, gave the subjects—our parents—some kind of ‘nutritional’ cocktail that boosted their powers. We don’t know what was in it, maybe pharmaceutical substances or illegal drugs. What we do know is that it also had another side effect: it made the recipients go crazy.”
“And sex-obsessed,” Eric added, and as though to illustrate, his gaze raked down her.
Amy waved away his comment. “Each of us had a parent in that program, which is why we’re called Offspring. That’s why your father went berserk and shot people. Why my dad killed himself, why Eric and Petra’s mom set herself on fire, and maybe why Lucas’s mom got into a fatal car accident.”
Rand added, “Maybe why my father embezzled money from the government, then shot himself when he was found out.” He didn’t look as though he believed that, though.
Zoe dropped the pen. “You’re saying my dad—that we all had parents—who died because of this program? It wasn’t just…normal craziness?”
Amy gave her a watery smile. “It’s a relief in a way, isn’t it? For a long time I thought my dad just didn’t care enough to stick around.”
“And it was because of this cocktail?”
“That and probably the stress of what they were doing.”
Lucas spun the chair he was sitting on and leaned against the back of it. “When your dad went berserk, the program was closed down and covered up. The government paid each family involved a big sum of money to appease their curiosity.”
Zoe ran her fingers through her hair, so stunned by all this she could hardly cringe at the fact that her hair was now dry and curly. “My dad had psychic abilities? And it was this program that made him crazy, not something psychological. So…” Did she dare voice the next part? “That means I couldn’t inherit that craziness since it came from something outside of him.” The relief at that!
Except Amy was shaking her head. “We inherited our parents’ enhanced ability. We don’t know about the crazy part.”
Zoe’s shoulders sagged. And then—”Wait a minute. We inherited a psychic ability? That’s what you said before, that I had an ability. But I don’t. I can’t see the future or…what did you call it? Remote-view?”
Eric pushed to his feet, grabbed up his empty milk glass, and walked toward her. He stopped a foot in front of her. “What makes you different from everyone else?”
She raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think I’m different?” She didn’t like people seeing through her.
“You’ve got ‘stay away’ written all over you.”
“Sexy but don’t touch,” Rand added, with a glint in his eyes.
Zoe bent one leg and propped her arm on her knee. Yes, a physical shield. Maybe they were right, but their assessments made her uncomfortable.
Amy was less confrontational. “We see it because we all have it.”
“What is crazy energy?” Rand asked. “Oh, you didn’t say that yet. Sorry.”
Zoe slid down from the desk, hands out to push them back. She aimed a look at Rand, whose pupils had dilated to pinpoints. “How did you know about my crazy energy?”
“I can see ten seconds ahead. I saw you saying the words.”
She took them in. “You’re all a bunch of freak
s.”
Petra grinned. “And so are you, my friend.”
Zoe narrowed her eyes. “Can you…read minds? Or, like Cheveyo, mess with someone’s thoughts?”
“Not that we know of,” Amy said. “We’re all kind of feeling our way around this. Cyrus told me that we have powers we might not even be aware of.”
Eric walked into the kitchen. “One of the things we suspect the Offspring have in common is some kind of bioenergetic ability.”
“Bioenergetic?” Zoe asked.
He poured milk into his glass without even looking. “Psychic. The ability to change energy.” He stopped pouring a millimeter before the glass would have overflowed.
Amy waved her hands a few inches above Zoe’s head and shoulders. “I see glows, colors around people that indicate their mood or intention. Offspring have a mix of all the colors, which is how I knew you were one of us. I thought that was strange enough, but now I’ve discovered I can talk to dead people. Or at least Cyrus.”
Zoe’s eyes widened. “You’ve talked to Cyrus after he died?”
Amy nodded. “He helped us once. It’s not an ability I particularly like, though.”
She glanced at Lucas, who said, “I used to get dreams and draw sketches of something that was going to happen in the future. Then Darkwell’s guys nabbed me, and he shot me up with that Booster stuff he gave our parents. Now I get this storm of images that feels like an electrical charge going through my brain.”
Zoe said, “They nabbed you?”
“It’s a long story, but they kidnapped me and took me to an old insane asylum. They were going to keep injecting me and testing my abilities until I died.”
Amy’s fingers twined together. “He was supposed to die after getting the fourth round. Thank God he never got that shot.”
Zoe’s hand went to her mouth. She felt as if she were in a horror movie.
Amy said, “Cyrus gave me enough information to help find Lucas.”
Lucas nodded toward Rand. “They got him, too.”
“Hauled my ass right out of a casino,” Rand said.
“So that’s what happened to your face.” Zoe could now see that his nose was slightly crooked.
