The Protectors Series Bundle (A superhero romance anthology)

by Nana Malone

  From under Garrett’s outstretched arm, Symone watched Michael’s chin go up. “You bought into the pussy. You think I can’t smell her all over you?” Michael’s voice sounded tinny and vacant like his voice was computer automated.

  Garrett kept his voice low. “What did he do to you, Mikey?”

  “Nothing you didn’t already sign on for, big brother. He said he was going to cure me, and he did. He’s kept up his end of the bargain. Unlike you. Where were you when you were supposed to be looking out for me?”

  Symone side-stepped Garrett. “Michael, I know right now you’ve gone through the transition and the burn. Soon you’ll have access to some powers that you won’t understand. I know people who can help you so you don’t hurt yourself. And—”

  He glared at her. “I know you kill people. I know you’ve stolen weapons that threaten the safety of this country, and I’m bringing you in.”

  “I’m sorry. But no, you’re not. I’m not going anywhere with you, if it means going back to Reeser.”

  Garrett shoved his hands through his hair. “Michael, just come with us. You’ll see what Symone is talking about. None of this is the truth. You’ve been sent on a fool’s errand. I can’t let you take her.”

  Michael’s brows furrowed as if he hadn’t been prepared for an answer in the negative. “Then y-you’re going to die.” His eyes darted around the hall as if looking for an exit.

  Symone watched as his finger twitched on the trigger. Unhesitatingly, she outstretched her palm and channeled the energy. A spark of light exited her palm and hit Michael in the chest. Like before, he dropped to his knees with no resistance, twitching and shaking. With the pandemonium, the people in the lobby seemed not to notice them, bumping into them in their urgency to get out.

  Immediately, Symone ran to Michael. “Oh God, please don’t be dead.” She looked over her shoulder at Garrett. “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to give him enough of a blast to stop him from hurting you. Shit.” Yanking her gloves out of her back pocket, she tried to slip them on, but Garrett laid a hand on hers and stopped her.

  “No. We might need you to get out of here. Help me get him in the truck, then we’ll get to a pay phone and try the Lair again. We’ve got to get help. We’re sitting ducks, and Peter’s able to find us. We need them.”

  “Already on it. I’ve rigged the laptop to act as a Sat phone.” She tapped the laptop bag shed swiped from the room.

  Garrett reached over and grabbed his brother in a fireman’s carry. Thanks to Symone, all traces of Garrett’s injury were gone.

  “Your tech skills are kind of scary.” He frowned. When they reached the exit to the parking lot, he shoved it open and carried Michael into the night. The clouds from earlier had open up, and the rain came down in sheets. “I figured we’d just run to the nearest drug store and grab a burner phone.”

  She shook her head, torrents of rain splattering her now curling hair to her face. “No. All they need to do is check the cell towers for signals. We make one phone call, and they start looking for calls made outside the area. Of that handful, they start tracing them.”

  When they reached the car, he hefted Michael into the back seat. When he scooted back out of the car, rain clinging to his lashes, he asked, “Won’t they need time to do that?”

  “Unfortunately, no. They’ve got the government connections. Or at least shadow government connections. People who lack the scruples and would spy on their own mothers.” She tossed him the car keys. “This way, at least we’ll avoid immediate detection. It’s only temporary but—”

  A loud crack pierced the air. The sand at their feet kicked up and sprayed their legs.

  “Shit. We’ve got company, let’s get out of here.” Garrett drove for the driver’s side door.

  Symone held back. “Wait, you go.”

  He glared at her, his chest heaving. “Are you insane? They’re shooting at us. Get your ass in the car.”

  “No. Remember the café we passed on the way in? I’ll meet you down there in twenty. I need to take care of them first.”

  “Symone, no. You—”

  “If I don’t, they’ll be on our tail. They might be already, but I have to try and create some space.”

  He hung his head. “Symone, don’t—”

  Another crack broke through the sheeting rain. They both ducked. “I’ll be fine. I promise. I finally found you. I’m not anxious to die. Now get to that café, I’ll be right there.”

  Once in motion, Garrett didn’t look back, just hopped in the driver’s seat and engaged the four-wheel drive. Sand sprayed everywhere.

  As he drove off, Symone turned her attention to the three Trackers hoofing it toward her with their guns up. Not willing to risk a nisulin shot, she stood still, accessing her core of energy.

  Visualizing electric bombs, she stretched out her arms, wondering how far they would travel. Twin spheres ejected from her hands like bright balls of lightning. As the rain hit each sphere, sparks flew.

  The first Tracker she hit flew back as his body contorted and jerked. Immediately his partner took cover behind a Chevy that was parked on the bluff. Running, each stride disturbing puddles and pools, she stooped by the downed Tracker and checked his pulse. She didn’t find one. A cold icy fist formed in her gut. She’d actually killed him.

  Then she cause sight of his biometric gun. Nisulin. Well at least it was in self-defense. She caught site of the second gun. Standard issue Glock. He’d wanted to incapacitate her, then kill her. So much for the torture and kill angle.

  Booming thunder cracked the night sky, chased by a firecracker pop. She dove out of the way, but still, she felt the lancing burn in her side. Clutching her hand to the pain, she hobbled behind a Jeep someone had forgotten to pull the cover on. Beneath her feet, the sand thickened to mud-like consistency. Pulling her hand from the wound, she hissed as the rain washed away the blood. Just what she needed, but at least it wasn’t a nisulin shot. She’d heal.

  Even as the thought formed, the tingling that always accompanied her healing began. Her body rejected the bullet, pushing the lead out of the wound. Soon, there would be nothing left of the wound, not even a scar.

  Blindly reaching around the front of the car, she fired a standard energy flare. Anyone hit with it should only be incapacitated. She hoped. But no telling what would happen with the rain. Maybe she was electrocuting them.

  In full crouch, she duck-walked around the back of the Jeep. The Chevy was four cars away. If she could get the jump on him, that was two down and only five more to go. She could do this. Their future depended on it.

  Dropping onto her hands, she verified the Tracker held his position. Over the rain, voices drifted on the howling wind. Only as she got closer did she realize that he was yelling into a walkie talkie. “She killed Aimes. Fucking lightning bolts out of her hands.”

  A blurred whirl sounded with static on the line, and the voice came back. “Just drop her with a nisulin bullet, then kill her. We have our orders.”

  More static. “She’s not like any terrorist I’ve ever seen. Why does she have powers?”

  “Just do your job, I’m going after Garrett.”

  “We’re too late. He already took off with the kid. Probably halfway across state lines now.”

  “Shit. Reaper won’t be happy we lost him.”

  “You fucking blame me for this, and I’ll—”

  Another torrent of rain poured from the heavens, making it impossible to hear. Pushing herself up off the ground, Symone crouched. Angling her hand beneath the car, she aimed at the Tracker’s foot in the puddle and released a stream of energy.

  His hulking body sagged and partially rolled under the car.

  Symone leapfrogged over the downed Tracker. Bending down, she scooped up his walkie talkie. The rain drowned out her first attempts at speaking, so she shouted into the thing. “Are you there?”

  There was a low growl on the other end of the line. “What did you do to him?�
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  “The same thing I’m going to do to you if you come after me. Why don’t you slink back home to your keeper and live to torture another night?”

  “I’m coming for you, little girl.”

  Symone sighed. Always with the last word. Why couldn’t the bad guy ever just let anyone else have the last word? She sighed, standing to full height. Her eyes scanned through the dark for the best vantage point. The sand sucked at her shoes as she trudged through the mud. She left a clear path toward the tide pools on the surrounding cliffs. The Tracker would have to be an idiot not to follow her tracks.

  She didn’t want to kill him if she didn’t have to. Cassie’s teaching ran too deep. So did what Garrett had said—these men weren’t like the original Trackers from Gentech Labs. They’d been duped and lied to. They might be her enemy, but they were victims like she was. “Try not to kill this one, Symone,” she mumbled to herself.

  She picked a position behind the largest boulder. Once she incapacitated the Tracker, she could leave him here, and he’d be fine in the morning. Suffering from no more than a little exposure. She and Garrett had to put as much distance between them and the reinforcements Peter would no doubt send. Otherwise, she’d take him back and leave him near the lobby so he could get help. She tried to remember what Garrett had told her about channeling her power. Not coming from the place of anger or fear, but as if her powers were an intrinsic part of her. No different than breathing.

  Sloppy, trudging footsteps sounded on the rocks nearby, and she flexed her fingers. She could do this, she could do—

  From above, she heard the click of a gun safety. In a split second, she rolled away just in time for the bullet to ricochet off the mossy rock.

  The Tracker sneered at her. “You think I don’t know a trap when I see one?”

  She put her hands up as they circled each other in the small clearing. “I’m not your enemy. I swear to you.”

  “Oh yeah? Is that why my partners are dead?”

  She kept her hands in plain view and tried to keep herself calm and collected. “Your partners are dead because they tried to kill me. I didn’t want to hurt them.”

  “You can stop the act now. It’s just you and me. I won’t tell anyone. But be straight with me, you enjoy killing. Just what have you done to get Reaper so interested in you?”

  Stubborn cuss. “If I’m a terrorist, why didn’t Reaper tell you about my powers? In fact, why didn’t he tell you that there was a superhuman program before yours? Why let you walk into an ambush?”

  He shook his head as if trying to shake off the thought. “He said you were dangerous. Our mission is to bring you in.”

  She nodded her head in the direction of the gun. “Is that why you’re carrying around lead bullets? That part of the plan to bring me in alive?”

  “You resist arrest. You nearly killed us the other night.”

  “If I’d wanted you dead, you all would be dead. Between Cassie and the others, we have enough power to crush all of you. You’ve been lied to. All you have to do is think about it. None of it makes any sense. You’ve been fed a story that will jive with your need to be a good soldier. Love and country and all that. Reaper is a liar. Garrett saw that. You know it’s true.”

  The gun wavered in his hand. “Stop. You’re coming with me.”

  She took a step back. “I’m sorry. But I’m not. Take a message back to Peter for me. Tell him we’re getting stronger. We will be more powerful than he is eventually, and when we are, we’ll come knocking. Next time he won’t get so lucky.”

  He sneered. “You can tell him that yourself from a holding cell.”

  The corner of her lips tipped up in a smirk. “So sorry, but I have somewhere to be just now.” Focusing all her strength, she channeled that ball of energy in her chest, feeling it radiate through her body. She stared at her arms as she began to glow. The Tracker also stared in horror.

  A small electric current flowed between their bodies, and she could feel his fear and his need to keep believing in their cause. His already shaky belief in Reaper and the loss of his whole family shortly before he joined the Trackers made him hesitant to kill her

  “Wh—what are you doing to me?”

  “This will only hurt a little. You’ll be safe here, and you also won’t be able to follow me for a while.”

  “You think it’s you we’re after?” He chuckled. “We want the kid. You’re just the icing on the cake.”

  Michael? What for? “You’re not getting him back. “

  “After all the trouble Reaper went to get that kid? Keep trying to run. He’ll catch up to you.”

  She quivered ever so slightly when the electric charge settled into his nervous system and he started to tremble. She exerted enough will to have him sit in the dug-out cave. He’d at least be out of the downpour there.

  Leaving him, she ran as fast as the sand would allow. She needed to get to Garrett and Michael. Sticking as close to the rocks as possible, she avoided the main road. The rain had started to let up, but at this point, she was soaked through, and her hair was matted to her face.

  The back parking lot of the diner let out onto the beach. But considering the rain, no one had a death wish to get pulled out by the rising tide. Yanking her feet from the mud, she sighed in relief when she hit the blacktop. Rounding up on the car, she saw two figures in the back seat and immediately felt her hands spark to life. She’d have to watch her emotions if she didn’t want anyone to get seriously hurt.

  Garrett’s head picked up once she got within ten feet of the car. The familiar scent of leather enveloped her, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I was worried about you.” His voice was thick.

  “You didn’t need to be. Besides, Michael needs you more. Reaper’s not after us right now. He’s after your brother.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Garrett took first watch while Symone slept and healed. Because of him, or rather because of his family, he’d put her in danger once more. He’d checked her wound more than once, and sure enough, it was healing.

  In his twenty-five years, he hadn’t envisioned himself playing nursemaid very often, but here he was, watching over a woman who he’d probably loved long before he met her, and watching over a brother he would love till the end of his days, no matter the betrayals.

  As if he knew he was being watched, Michael stirred on the bed. His head moved from side to side, then his nostrils flared. At least Symone’s electroshock treatment hadn’t fried his powers completely.

  Michael visibly relaxed after a moment. When he spoke, his voice was gravelly. “Where am I?”

  “Somewhere safe for now.” Garrett cleared his throat. How can I ask my only family why they tried to kill me? “Michael, can you tell me why you were trying to kill me, bro? I gotta tell you, it’s a little unsettling.”

  Michael bent his arms at the elbows and pushed himself up into a sitting position. “I wasn’t trying to kill you. I—I didn’t mean to shoot you. It was like someone in my head was screaming at me to shoot, shoot, shoot. I was just trying to get you away from her. She’s dangerous.”

  Garrett had to agree there, but the danger was to his heart and not to national security or anything. Maybe they just had to come back to the trying to kill him question. “Michael, why is Reaper sending Trackers for you? What the hell are you doing away from Aunt Catherine’s? You were supposed to stay there until I came and got you.”

  Michael worked his jaw. “These commando types showed up on my doorstep about two weeks ago, said you were in danger. That you’d gone off grid.”

  Garrett frowned, two weeks ago, he’d still been a good little soldier boy. “They came and just took you?”

  “No, they had some papers that said you’d signed over custody to them or something. Aunt Catherine had no choice. They said they were taking me to you, that you were off the reservation, and they needed my help to bring you home.”

  Garrett sighed. Reaper had gone to great lengths t
o get his brother. But why? “So you’ve been with the Trackers for two weeks. Did they do anything to you? Hurt you in any way?”

  Michel’s brows furrowed. “This guy came in with dark hair and eerie green eyes. He told me he was going to help me sleep. Next thing I know, I get a shot in the arm. I wake up two days later and I’m sorta Superman. Except, not exactly bullet proof.” He shrugged.

  Garrett rubbed a hand over his eyes as he sat forward and placing his elbows on his knees. “Jesus, Michael. You never thought that maybe you shouldn’t go with them? Didn’t ask any questions?”

  “What the fuck are you so mad at me for? You’re the one who took off and stranded me in suburbia. Sorry if I thought you wanted to be with me. That’s the only reason I went with them. I mean, I’m not an idiot.”

  Shit. Well that went well. Garrett let his head sag. “Look. I’m sorry. We’re just dealing with some very dangerous people, and I’ve trying to keep you safe.” Garrett dragged his head up to stare at his brother. His little brother. The brother he was meant to protect. But because he’d gone off the reservation, he put him in danger. He frowned. Except, when Rex and Co. had gone to pick Michael up, Garrett hadn’t gone off reservation yet. Symone was right, Michael was the key to something bigger.

  “Michael, you say you lost two days. You don’t remember anything? Don’t remember being in pain? No one hurt you, did they?”

  Michael shook his head. “No. I was pretty disorientated when I woke up. That guy they call Reaper, he said I’d had a negative reaction to the sleep meds.” He shrugged. “I must have, because I don’t remember anything about those two days.”

  “But when you woke up you were fine?”

  Another slight shrug of his formerly thin shoulders. He looked too much like a man for Garrett’s liking. “More or less. I can smell everything now. And I mean everything. And I think I need an adjustment to my contact prescription, but other than that, I feel great. I went for a run with Reaper the other day, and I beat the guy. You’ve seen him—he’s huge. All those commando types are quick, and I held my own.”