Unleashed (TalentBorn Book 4)

by C. S. Churton

  That snaps them out of their stupor. Dillon, the one with the tactical mind, clears his throat. The others pivot their heads to look at him, relief softening their faces. He looks a little uneasy, but sets his jaw.

  “Go big or go home, right?” he says with a grim smile. “There’s no sense in backing out now.”

  A couple of the others nod their assent: Becky and Lewis, Greg. Emma and Leo look distinctly uneasy. Useful to know. Takes a certain sort of person to run headfirst into a conflict. Dillon turns to me and holds out his hand, eyes on my newly-acquired paintball gun.

  “If you don’t mind, ma’am… since you’re just here to observe.”

  I hand it over with a barely supressed pout. He’s just a little too good at this. He takes Scott’s gun, too. Seems like overkill.

  “Becky, Leo. You’re the best shots, you get the guns.”

  “Not you?” I ask with a raised eyebrow. He shakes his head.

  “They both shoot better than me.” He hands the weapons over to his chosen marksmen, leaving himself unarmed. “You two take the flanks. Lewis and Finn, you’re our scouts. Dead ahead, working round any guards we see. Everyone else, fall in behind. Harvey, guard our rear. Protect the weapons at all costs. If Becky or Leo go down, recover their weapons and keep moving. Any questions?”

  “Just one,” I say, even though he’d directed his comment at his team, not me. He indulges me with his attention anyway. That’s the good thing about having a reputation as a badass. “You don’t want to know what the prisoners told us before we executed them?”

  He shakes his head, catching me by surprise.

  “Why not?”

  “Prisoners lie,” he says. “Especially when they know they’re about to be, um, executed.”

  “What the hell did you do before you were an Ishmaelian? Wait, on second thoughts, don’t answer that. Crack on, general.”

  The team of nine head off, working their way methodically through the undergrowth. I watch them go, making a mental note to ask Alistair to mentor Dillon. He’s got a natural talent for tactics and leadership. The Ishmaelians are going to need both.

  “Not bad,” Scott says. “Might make half-way useful soldiers of them yet.”

  “They missed the radios.” I gesture to my earpiece. “They let themselves be rushed. But not bad for their first rodeo. Can you sense anyone else between here and the base?”

  Scott shakes his head.

  “Nope. They’re home clear.”

  “Excellent. Remind me to rub Nathan’s nose in it next time I see him.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Anna, help me.”

  My eyes fly open and I gasp in a deep breath, then let it out slowly in the darkness of my room. Just a dream. Iain’s plea was just a dream. A garbled message from my subconscious. I’m trying, I promise him. I glance at Scott lying beside me, but my nightmare hasn’t woken him. Good. He gets little enough sleep as it is, between me thrashing all night, and Ephraim’s constant demands on his time. He needs to rest. That’s why I haven’t told him – told anyone – about Iain being missing. And if any of them happen to have noticed I’ve been a little on the quiet side, well, it’s not like I don’t have reason enough anyway.

  I lie against the warm pillow and close my eyes, letting sleep start to creep up on me again.

  “Anna, help me.”

  My eyes open again and my heart starts to race.

  “Iain?” I whisper. I shake Scott’s arm gently and he groans in response.

  “Scott, wake up,” I hiss in his ear. “I heard something.”

  He opens his eyes, instantly alert and utterly motionless as he strains his ears. I listen too, but there’s only silence. Did I really hear him? Maybe I drifted back to sleep without realising.

  “Are you sure?” Scott asks, his voice a low rumble. I shake my head but he sits up anyway and swings his legs off the side of the bed.

  “I’ll check it out, just to be sure. Stay here.”

  He leans in to plant a kiss on my forehead but I duck it and scramble off the bed.

  “Forget it, I’m coming too.”

  He opens his mouth to argue, then snaps it shut again with a nod.

  “Let’s go.”

  He tosses yesterday’s clothes to me while tugging on his own, and we both pause at the door. I know what he’s thinking – if some of the Ishmaelians are planning to ambush us, they’ll be lying in wait on the other side of this door. But it’s not Ishmaelians I heard. At least, not those ones.

  I sigh, and stop creeping around. This is ridiculous. I was just dreaming. There’s no point in Scott losing any more sleep.

  “Anna, help me.”

  I freeze, and shoot Scott a look. He cocks his head quizzically and I cock mine right back.

  “You didn’t hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Iain.”

  “Iain?”

  “Is there an echo in here?”

  “Anna–”

  I shush him with a wave of my hand.

  “I’m in the woods.”

  Now that I’m paying attention, there’s a slightly etheric quality to his voice I hadn’t noticed before. Like maybe he’s speaking inside my head?

  “He’s in the woods.”

  “How do you– What’s going on?”

  “I’ll explain on the way. Come on.”

  I grab his hand and tug him through the door. I don’t shift because I have no clue what the answer to Scott’s question is, and I don’t know if the Ishmaelians are involved, despite Ephraim’s little speech about Iain being one of them. I wait until we’re outside the base before I say anything, I want to make sure we’re well out of earshot of any Ishmaelians who might be up at this early hour. We pass no-one and soon we’re out in the cool night air.

  Scott is still at my side, despite my lack of any sane explanation. I have no idea how Pearce ever tricked me into questioning his loyalty.

  “I heard Iain’s voice,” I tell him as we make for the treeline. “In my head.”

  “As in telepathy?”

  I nod, stepping carefully over a fallen log.

  “Anna, stop.” Scott’s hand lands heavily on my shoulder, pulling me to a halt. “This is a trap.”

  “What? No, it’s Iain, he wouldn’t–”

  “Iain isn’t an absa,” Scott cuts me off. “He doesn’t have a talent. And no-one on this base is a telepath.”

  “Shit.” I lean against a damp tree, suddenly dizzy. In my haste to believe I was saving Iain, I could have killed us both.

  “Then who?” I ask eventually.

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. I’m picking up a faint sign. It’s... off, but it’s there. We can track it. And then you can explain why you thought Iain would be hiding in the woods in the middle of the night.”

  Oh, yeah. Probably should have told him about that. I sneak a peek at his face to see if he’s angry with me, but he simply shakes his head with an indulgent look.

  “Come on, let’s get moving.”

  We creep through the woodland, pausing at every twig that snaps beneath our feet. The whole landscape is changed under the cloak of darkness and although I’ve spent days training amongst these trees, I couldn’t pinpoint where I am if I my life depended on it. Fortunately it doesn’t, because shifting doesn’t require me to know where I am, only where I want to be, and that’s easy: anywhere other than the middle of these creepy woods. Something rustles in the foliage to our right and I jump, barely supressing a gasp, only to chide myself as a fox darts across our path. My heart is still racing and I berate myself for being such a damned coward. I’ve gone soft since getting out of the basement; a worrying thought, because I never want to go back to being who I was before, any more than I want to go back to being the Anna I was in captivity.

  I shake off the adrenaline and keep moving, sticking close to Scott. Time enough to question whether I’m losing my edge later; right now we need to track down not-Iain and find out wh
at he – or she – is doing in our woods, and why.

  We must be getting close. Scott signals me to be silent and pulls a gun from his waistband. I didn’t see him pick it up, but suddenly I’m wishing I’d had his forethought. Better to be armed than not when creeping up on an enemy ambush in the middle of the night. On the other hand, losing my nerve or not, I am a weapon, and I will handle whatever we see when we get there. Besides, my way means there’ll be someone left alive to interrogate – someone who knew Iain was missing.

  I part the final branches and freeze on the edge of the small clearing. My feet feel like they’re made of lead, and my forehead creases as I stare at the prone figure. Scott pushes through behind me and approaches the figure cautiously, weapon drawn. I already know he’s no threat, but then I know this man better than Scott does and I’d recognise him anywhere. That’s Iain lying on the woodland floor, unmoving. Scott rolls him over, then quickly sets his gun aside and presses two fingers to the cop’s neck.

  “He’s alive,” he says, and I release a breath I didn’t realise I was holding. “Just. We need to get him inside.”

  He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I break out of my trance and grab hold of them both, then dial up my fear and aim for the med-wing.

  *

  Doctor Cullen’s fingers are already feeling for a pulse as Scott lowers Iain onto the sole bed in the room. He looks tired, as if he’s just woken up – which he probably has, but his eyes are sharp and alert.

  “Pulse is faint and thready,” he says. He plucks a stethoscope from a table beside the bed and listens intently. “I need to get a line in. What happened to him?”

  I move back; it seems like wherever I stand I’m in the way, and I’m so completely useless right now I want to scream. Instead I try to gather my scrambled thoughts into a coherent sentence and answer the doctor.

  “I don’t know. We found him in the woods. He’s been missing for weeks – anything could have happened to him, I don’t know.” My voice is bordering on hysterical. I pause to take a breath, and Scott takes over, his voice calm.

  “He’s not an absa, but he seems to have a talent now. That’s how we found him.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “I’m not sure,” Cullen answers honestly as hooks up an IV to Iain’s arm. “I don’t like his heartrate, and his breathing’s laboured. He’s showing signs of–” He breaks off as Iain starts to retch and choke.

  “Help me roll him.”

  I stand there frozen as Scott grabs Iain’s shoulder and helps Cullen roll him onto his side. Yellow bile runs out of his mouth and pools on the floor, and the awful choking noises stop. Carefully, they roll him onto his back again.

  “Wake the on-call nurse. Now, please.”

  Scott takes one looks at me, and says:

  “I’ll go. I’ll be right back.”

  He disappears through the door while I stand around trying not to get in the way, being about as useful as a chocolate teapot and holding myself together just as well. Cullen works quickly, cutting away the tattered remains of Iain’s dirty t-shirt and pressing two small pads to his chest. Wires run from the pads to a monitor which immediately starts to beep and a green line dances across the screen in time with each beep. His heartrate. I’m not a doctor, but the beeps seem to be coming really close together. I press my fingers gently to the inside of my wrist and try to compare our pulses, but I keep losing track of my silent pulse against the machine’s loud mechanical beeps. Suddenly, the beeping intensifies, almost doubling in speed, and Iain’s whole body starts to shake. His jaw locks as he convulses from head to toe, his back arching up from the bed, like someone who’s just been hit by a high-voltage taser.

  Electricity is coursing through me, arching my back in agony. I see the door swing open as my eyes roll back, and Ryan comes into the cage. This is my chance to escape, and I can’t move, my entire body is immobilised. I want to scream with frustration but I can’t even do that.

  “Hold him down. Quickly, now.”

  I snap out of my stupor and hurry to Iain’s side, trying to shake off the flashback as I grab his arms and try to hold him down. He’s strong; I lean my entire weight against him and still I can’t stop him thrashing. The doctor inserts a syringe into the IV line and steadily injects it. Iain keeps thrashing a moment longer then sinks back onto the bed, drool trickling from the corner of his mouth.

  “You can let go now.”

  I realise I’m still holding him down and move my hands away.

  Iain’s breathing is almost back to normal – by which I mean so shallow I can barely see his chest moving, as opposed to snorting like a racehorse – by the time Scott returns with the nurse. I’ve haven’t seen her before – there were no nurses last time I was here – but she looks like she knows what she’s doing. Thank God. She’s pulling scrubs on over the top of a white t-shirt as she walks into the room, and doesn’t miss a beat asking the doctor what they’re dealing with. He replies with a stream of what may as well have been Gaelic for all the sense it makes to me, but none of it sounds good. He spares half a glance at me and Scott.

  “You two might as well get some rest.”

  I stare at him numbly, unmoving, because I can’t just leave Iain here. What if he– what if– I swallow.

  “There’s nothing more you can do,” the nurse says to us, her voice gentle. “The doctor needs room to work. We’ll call you if anything changes.”

  I nod reluctantly and shuffle out of the room with Scott hovering over me protectively. I know one thing: there’s no chance of getting any more sleep tonight.

  *

  By eight a.m., Scott’s sick enough of my pacing – not that he’d ever say anything – that he suggests we should go and check in on Iain – after we get some breakfast. I roll my eyes but don’t argue because he’s probably right. No sleep and no food is not a good combination, especially given that my talent relies on my glucose levels. The canteen is already half filled with Ishmaelians, and as we make our way to the kitchen hatch I barely notice the looks they’re giving us. It’s not until we’re sitting down with our plates and steaming mugs that I look around with a frown, wondering what the hell I’ve done to upset them this time, and trying to decide if I really care. I don’t get much further with that chain of thought before Alistair appears beside us, with a plate in one hand and a mug in the other.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  He hooks a chair out with his leg and slides into it, setting his plate down on the table and taking a sip from his mug. I’m not really in the mood for company, but it’s Alistair, so I don’t object.

  “I hear you two were busy last night.”

  Office gossip. There really is no getting away from it. Scott swallows a bite of toast before answering.

  “You heard about that, huh?”

  I note absently that he doesn’t actually give Alistair any details, instead fishing for what Ephraim’s righthand man already knows. I frown while pushing some sort of mush around my plate. I trust Alistair. He’s a big part of the reason we were able to rescue Scott when he was snatched.

  “I heard you found Iain in the woods and he’s in a bad way. I don’t suppose you feel like telling me how you knew he was out there?”

  Scott glances at me and I shrug, still pushing the gloopy mess around my plate; I have no idea what it started out as. What do I care how much Alistair knows?

  “Anna heard him calling to her. Telepathically.”

  “He’s not gifted,” Alistair says carefully, eyeing us both.

  “He wasn’t,” Scott agrees, “before he went missing.”

  He lets that sink in for a moment, then the Ishmaelian sets his mug down on the table.

  “We need to know where he’s been.”

  Scott glances at the clock on the wall and nods.

  “Let’s go see if he’s up to talking.”

  We abandon our half eaten – or virtually untouched, in my case – plates of food and head down to the med wing
. The sense of unease in my stomach grows worse with every step until I’m pretty sure I’m going to puke before we make it. I don’t, but it’s all I can do not to lose the tiny amount of breakfast I ate when we step through the door.

  The single occupied bed in the room is surrounded by a dozen machines that bleep and flash incessantly, and in the middle of it all lies Iain, pale and shrunken, with a half dozen tubes running in and out of him, some with clear liquid, some with what’s obviously blood.

  “How is he?” Scott asks the doctor redundantly. The answer’s right in front of us, clear as the fluid pumping into him. He’s worse. Much worse. Dying. I’ve been here before, with Scott, losing him by degrees. My stomach rolls. I can’t go through that again. And yet again, it’s because of me. My fault. Iain would be out pounding a beat somewhere, oblivious to talents and secret government organisations and rebel outcasts if he hadn’t crossed my path. Living. All my fault.

  “We’ve stopped the fitting, but that’s the best I can say right now.”

  “Any idea where his talent came from?” Alistair asks, appalling me with his clinical attitude. It’s his friend lying here – a member of his team! How can he be so cold and objective?

  “I don’t know, but it’s killing him. His body’s acting like it’s rejecting a foreign organ.” He looks to Scott and then me. “It would really help if we knew what happened.”

  “Can you wake him?” Alistair presses.

  “Are you joking? It’s all I can do to keep him alive right now.”

  “Easy doc. We need to know where he’s been. Everyone’s lives could be at risk.”

  “Wait, you don’t think–” I break off halfway through my sentence, because it is what he thinks. And he’s right. Who else could be responsible for this but Pearce? But we have to know for sure – and find out what he’s got planned. Alistair’s right, there’s too much at stake. Waking him up is out, but I’ve got another idea.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Anna.” Iain’s face lights up with a smile that quickly becomes a frown. “Am I dreaming?”

  “I dunno,” I say with a shrug, deliberately keeping my tone light. “Do you normally dream about burly Scotsmen?”