by Maya Banks
“I only have two heat signatures now,” Zack said grimly. “They haven’t moved in half an hour. Same spot. Completely still. Seems suspicious as hell.”
Beau swore because he didn’t have time to check Ari’s position within the compound because they were seconds away from go time. His only choice was to go in and turn the entire building upside down to locate her.
The others readied themselves for the helo drop just yards from where the cells were located. It was the most likely place to stash prisoners, though now there were only two visible heat sources, where before there’d been three.
Beau should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. His pulse had accelerated upon learning there were three people housed in a single cell. It sounded too good to be true. But Ari had been there along with two others, and their heat signatures signaled that they were all alive. Heat meant life. They’d planned to go in guns blazing, using some serious shock and awe, cause as much confusion as possible, set up explosive diversions so the fuckers wouldn’t know which way was up or down and would have no idea where Beau and the others were coming at them from.
He forced himself to calm. One thing at a time. If Ari’s parents were in the cell, they’d go in, secure the two prisoners and stash them so they were out of the line of fire, and then Beau was going to take the entire compound apart piece by piece until he recovered Ari. Once he was assured of her safety, he didn’t give two fucks what happened to the rest. As far as he was concerned, this entire facility was evil and twisted and the world would be a better place without its existence. Because if Ari had indeed been a part of some fucked-up program disguised as a surrogacy organization then it stood to reason others had been as well, and if taking out the building and the assholes responsible for so much pain and grief saved others the same, then all the more reason to bring it down and reduce it to rubble.
With the helicopter now in position, Beau and the others rapidly descended the ropes, dropping to the ground below while the chopper hovered in place. As soon as they were in position, the helicopter streaked away to the designated rendezvous point, a designated “safe zone” that was easily defendable and where they could be assured of the safety of Ari and her parents.
In full military gear, they raced to the outer wall of a cell two down from where the heat signatures had registered. Dane and Zack quickly set the explosive that would create a large enough entry point into the facility so they could get in and hopefully out with at least Ari’s parents.
In thirty seconds, the explosive was set and Dane motioned for them all to take cover. As soon as everyone had ducked from sight, Zack triggered the explosion and a loud boom shook the ground. A large chunk of the stone wall simply disappeared in a cloud of dust and rubble and even before it cleared, Beau was on the move, the others falling into position as they one by one ducked through the opening and inside the gloomy, dank, dungeonlike building.
The first thing Beau registered as they surged out of the cell and into the long hallway was the sound of gunfire. Close.
Fuck!
A female cry arose, sharp in the ensuing silence. Then more gunfire. Beau’s pulse exploded and he rapidly motioned the others to be on the ready.
They spread out, quickly pouring down the hallway in the direction of the sounds of shots fired and the feminine cry of fear. At least he hoped it was fear and not pain.
When they reached the open cell door, a gruesome sight greeted them. Gavin Rochester had taken down two armed men and was systematically taking apart the third and only remaining assailant.
When the man managed to break away from Gavin’s enraged grasp and lunged for Ginger, Beau didn’t hesitate. He put a bullet through her attacker’s head and he dropped like a rock, mere inches from where Ginger stood, pale, frozen, eyes wide with shock and fear. In the attacker’s hand was a wicked blade, one he clearly intended to use to take Ari’s mother out, and if it weren’t for Beau’s sudden appearance, the man would likely have succeeded in his desperate attempt to lash out.
Gavin whirled, eyes cold, enraged, prepared to take on the new threat. He was an impressive sight even with blood dripping from multiple wounds.
“Stand down!” Dane barked. “We’re on your side.”
Beau took a step forward, careful not to trigger any violence from Gavin, who was clearly determined that no harm come to his wife.
“Ari came to us,” Beau said in a calm voice. “I’m Beau Devereaux. These are my men. We need to get you out of here now.”
Gavin visibly relaxed and now stark fear replaced his earlier fury. Ginger flew into his arms with a cry, burying her face in his chest as her body heaved with sobs. Gavin tenderly cradled his wife’s head with his palm, holding her tightly. His gaze lifted to Beau’s and the raw agony, fear and emotion in his eyes were stark. Beau nearly flinched from the very real pain in the older man’s face.
“Ari,” Gavin said hoarsely. “You have to find her. Save her. She let them take her. Wanted them to take her because she planned to destroy the entire damn building. She instructed me and her mother to remain in one spot so she could protect us and how she was able to do it I have no idea, but she erected some sort of force field around us. The bastards opened fire on us and the bullets just bounced off.”
The incredulity in his voice was evident, but Beau only nodded because none of this information surprised him. He’d witnessed firsthand just how powerful Ari was. But fear skittered up Beau’s spine, because the protective shield had obviously been breached, which meant that Ari had faltered at some point. He shook off the paralyzing, gut-wrenching thoughts of her being incapacitated. Hurt. Dead. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—go there.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about your daughter’s power, sir,” Beau said. “Now, we need to go and I need you to tell me every single thing you know so we can find Ari. But you and your wife have to be out of the way and safe.”
When Gavin started to launch a protest, Beau immediately shut him down.
“With all due respect, sir, if you love your daughter, if you want her safe and alive, then you’ll go with my men and you’ll remain out of the way. We can’t afford any distractions or hindrance and you would be both. Let us do our jobs. I will not rest until I have her back.”
The last statement came out fierce. Not the words of a man simply doing his job. There was a wealth of emotion in those words, but they slipped past his lips, heavy on his heart, determination beating as incessantly as his pulse.
Gavin’s eyes flickered and he stared hard at Beau in response to Beau’s choice of wording. His gaze narrowed, almost as if he were trying to discern Beau’s interest and whether it was purely professional or if it was . . . personal.
Ginger too looked up, turning to face the man who’d just declared he’d save her daughter. She studied him even as Beau’s men surrounded them and began herding them toward the door.
Ginger paused when they reached the point where Beau was standing, waving off the efforts of his men to get them on the move. She reached out and gently touched Beau’s arm.
“What is my daughter to you, Mr. Devereaux?” she asked softly.
“She’s everything,” Beau said bluntly, not even trying to disguise his own vulnerability, the wealth of emotion he was sure shone in his own eyes.
It should have made him crawl right out of his skin to make such a personal, open declaration in front of two people who were strangers to him as well as his entire team of operatives. But he didn’t give two fucks, because damn it, she was everything. His everything. Without her, his life would be incomplete and he didn’t give a shit who knew it.
Ginger squeezed his arm and then to his surprise, she leaned up on tiptoe and brushed a kiss across his cheek.
“I think my daughter could be in no better hands,” she whispered. “Bring her back to me, Mr. Devereaux. I’m begging you. Bring our baby back to us.”
Beau gently touched her elbow, guiding her toward the hallway so they could be taken to safety.
“I will get her back,” Beau vowed, including Ari’s father in his sweeping gaze, one firm with resolve. “You have my word.”
Just as they reached the cell where the explosives had carved out an exit through the wall, the ground beneath them quaked and rolled, nearly knocking Ginger off balance. Gavin made a grab for her, securing her against him as they all looked around in bewilderment.
The entire building began to shake. The walls vibrated. Dust kicked up and swirled. Objects began flying around the air in a vortex that resembled a tornado. In the distance, loud cracking and splintering sounds erupted. Harsh shouts of fear, muffled by even more quaking.
The sound of grown men screaming in fear and pain sent a bone-deep chill through Beau.
Again the floor literally rolled beneath their feet. A crack appeared in the concrete, rapidly snaking its way along the floor, opening up, widening. Then more. Like a spiderweb, smaller cracks burst through the floor and raced in all directions. It was like experiencing an honest-to-God earthquake. A huge one.
Unease crawled up Beau’s spine even as he shot an urgent look in Zack’s direction. Dane’s expression was grim with the realization that had hit them all. Only Ari’s parents seemed bewildered and uncertain of what was happening. But everyone else knew.
Ari’s powers had been unleashed and this was only the beginning. Beau knew that the full extent of her powers had yet to be tested and that she was capable of so much more than that which she’d come into in a very short period of time.
“Oh fuck,” Beau swore.
“What?” Gavin demanded.
“What’s happening?” Ginger cried.
The desperation in both their eyes was evident. Fear. Worry for their daughter. They had no idea what Ari was capable of. They’d only gotten a taste of the full extent of her powers. Hell, Beau himself was certain he had seen only the tip of the iceberg and that now, unchecked, Ari’s rage would be a terrible thing to behold.
With the threat of her parents’ lives hanging in the balance, Ari’s fury would know no bounds. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to save the people she loved. And Beau was terrified for her. Because though Ari was steadily coming into her own and growing more adept at directing and focusing the awesome scope of her abilities, she was extremely vulnerable in the aftermath. She could die from a massive brain bleed or suffer a stroke she never recovered from. The probability of her incurring a debilitating injury was extremely high, and unless Beau got to her fast, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to save her.
“What the hell is going on?” Gavin barked. “Is my daughter in danger?”
Beau looked up at Gavin as they shoved out of the hole in the wall and stood outside the shaking building. Pieces of the roof, shards of glass from broken windows and even pieces of the stone exterior littered the landscape. Ari was taking down the building and everything in her path. With her in it.
“Sir, your daughter is the danger.”
THIRTY-FIVE
IT took precious minutes—minutes they didn’t have—for Beau to convince, or rather order Gavin Rochester to remain at the rendezvous point with his wife, the pilot and a very reluctant, displeased Eliza.
Dane had insisted Eliza remain behind and she was not chill with that at all. Her eyes had narrowed to glaring slits and Beau had heard more than a few curses tear past her lips. But when Dane had put it in the light of there needing to be at least two people on point to protect not only the Rochesters, but the helicopter as well, because if the helo was disabled, they were fucked in the middle of the desert, Eliza had grudgingly capitulated.
Still, Beau could feel the heat of her glare as he, Zack, Dane, Cap and Isaac rapidly made tracks back to the inner sanctum of the compound.
Zack walked ahead at Beau’s side, pulling up Ari’s position, as well as pinpointing the other heat signatures in the building. Beau’s eyes widened when he saw the screen flash and display the results.
“What the fuck?” Beau asked incredulously.
Dane caught up on Zack’s other side to peer at the device and then whistled.
“I’d say you’ve got one pissed-off hellcat,” Zack said.
Where before there were at least four dozen heat signals inside the building, there were now only a little over a dozen. As he’d noted before, heat meant life, and well, unless the device had malfunctioned, Ari had gone on a rampage and taken down three-fourths of the men responsible for holding her and her parents prisoner.
“Ari is here,” Zack said, pointing to a blinking light at the end of a long corridor. “As you can see there are three heat sources there. But none between the cell where she and her parents were held and the room she currently occupies. Which means she mowed down anyone in her way.”
“And none there,” Dane murmured, gesturing toward one of the hallways that was bare of any heat source.
“The rest are here.” Zack pointed to a concentrated area where ten dots overlapped one another on the screen. “If we get lucky, we can slip down that first hallway that is across the compound from where Ari is, take out whoever the two blips are in the room with her then take her, and get the hell out before the others decide to come looking for us.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Beau muttered.
Beau would normally be more proactive in planning missions down to the minutest detail. But he had no objectivity for this one and he knew it. He also knew he couldn’t trust himself to make sound, unemotional decisions. Not when it came to Ari.
So he’d allowed Zack free rein, which probably didn’t sit well with Dane, but if it bothered the other man he didn’t show it. All he displayed was his usual determination to see a mission through successfully. Beau appreciated that particular trait, now more than ever. Because this mission was deeply personal and if it went to hell, Beau would go right to hell with it.
As they approached the wall of the prison cells, the pitched roof in the middle of the facility simply collapsed and flames roared upward, licking toward the sky. Smoke billowed in black clouds and the fire began to race across the rest of the roof.
Ash, cinder and burning debris blew hard over them, pelting down like a hailstorm.
“Your girl is wreaking some serious havoc,” Zack said, awe in his voice. “I think I might be in love.”
Beau merely stared, more worried than ever, as they closed the remaining distance, picking up speed until they were at full sprint.
They ducked inside the gaping hole in the wall and streamed one by one into the hallway. Dane and Capshaw took the others’ sixes by turning so they walked backward, guns up, scanning the hallway behind.
When they got to the doorway that opened into a large circular room with a glassed-in dome, they paused only long enough to ensure Ari’s position hadn’t changed and that they weren’t in for any unexpected surprises.
The mostly vacant area of the complex they were standing in was likely at one time either a nurses’ station or a reception area with each of the corridors branching off housing different wings of the so-called hospital. Obviously the more serious threats to society were housed in the filthy, vermin-infested barred cells, and Beau was sickened that anyone would be treated with so little humanity. Even if the criminals were the worst sort of human beings.
Here they were reduced to the furthest thing from humanity one could get. Most animal shelters and, hell, modern prisons, for that matter, offered better accommodations.
But then the bastards who’d put their hands on Ari, who’d stuffed her parents into a tiny cell with deplorable conditions, deserved far worse, so Beau would reserve his judgment in the future before offering blanket sympathy to anyone.
“We got a problem,” Zack said grimly. He turned halfway so he stared at the hallway to the far lower right. “Got movement in the northern wing. Headed this way.”
Dane tensed, immediately shifted so his hands held a weapon in each. Then he nodded at Cap and Isaac.
To Beau and Zack he said, “Go and retriev
e Ari. We’ll provide cover here and make sure they don’t get past us. Let us know when you’re coming in, though, so neither of you gets your balls shot off.”
“Thanks,” Zack said dryly. “I’d rather not part ways with my dick.”
Restless, Beau started down the hallway. Toward Ari. Toward his life, leaving Zack to catch up. Or not. He wasn’t waiting another goddamn minute. He trusted Dane and the others to do their job and keep the men creeping toward them at bay long enough for them to tag Ari and get her the hell out.
No sooner had they taken two steps down the corridor than the floors buckled and rolled like ocean waves beneath their feet. The walls shook, knocking already askew paintings down to clatter on the tile below. The ceiling and rafters creaked and groaned in protest, swaying until it felt as though the entire building was in motion. The sound was ominous, the signal of impending collapse.
Relying on Zack’s techno recon, Beau ran toward the end. Toward the one closed door that Ari was behind, paying no heed to the barren rooms that lined either side of the hallway. Zack was hot on his heels, guns in both hands, arms up, his piercing gaze missing nothing. Beau knew he was being reckless, but he counted on his partner to cover his stupid ass. Zack had never failed him yet in their rather short acquaintance.
Beau slowed only enough to let Zack catch up so they could kick the door in. But before they made any motion to do so, the door splintered apart, breaking free from its hinges and sailing down the hallway in pieces.
Both men ducked, barely in time to prevent their heads from being taken off.
“Down!” Zack yelled, shoving at Beau as he started to get to his feet once more.
A man went flying down the hallway after the door, crashing into the far wall. He punched a hole straight through the Sheetrock, forming a cavernous opening.
“Holy shit,” Beau said, his face a mask of shock. “She’s kicking some serious ass!”
“Uh, yeah. What was your first clue? Three dozen heat signatures suddenly vanishing? Oh wait, make that one more in the ‘ticked off the list’ column. Ari thirty-eight. Bad guys ten. Or maybe it was the huge-ass hole in the roof with an inferno blazing and erupting like a fucking volcano. Or perhaps—”
“I get it,” Beau muttered. “Smart-ass.”
Zack snickered but cautiously rose, humor disappearing from his features when he stared inside the now-open doorway.
“Beau,” Zack murmured. “You need to get in there. Now.”
THIRTY-SIX
EVEN Goon A’s smirk was now gone. Where before he’d been smugly assured that Ari didn’t have the guts to actually kill someone, uncertainty now marked his features and fear was stark in her eyes.
Good.
Because she meant goddamn business. Gone was any squeamishness whatsoever over causing the deaths of the assholes who’d killed her parents and dragged their bodies off like discarded trash.
Fury sizzled and boiled, hissing through her veins until a warm throb reverberated through her entire body.
“What did you do with them?” she demanded, her tone so frigid that she could discern an actual temperature change in the room.
A puzzled look furrowed his brow and then pain rapidly took its place when she applied pressure to his throat, momentarily cutting off his airway. He was solidly plastered to the ceiling, incapable of moving. He was completely paralyzed and capable of doing her no harm whatsoever.
“Tell me what you did with them or I swear to God, you’ll die an agonizing, long death and you’ll beg me to kill you and end it all,” she said in a dangerously soft voice.
She let off the pressure on his throat, but twisted his testicles painfully until his face was a mask of pain.
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he ground out, his jaw clenched and bulging as he breathed through the agony she was inflicting on him. “You saw what I saw. Whatever the hell kind of voodoo you performed rendered bullets ineffective.”
The mental strain she was under was fast sapping her strength and taking its toll. Blood seeped in a continuous stream from her nose and she could feel the warm slide of liquid down the sides of her neck.
She wiped her nose with the back of her arm, smearing some of the blood over her lips. It was a metallic, sickening taste in her mouth. The floor beneath her feet reacted to her psychic energy, vibrating and buckling, tiny cracks forming and then growing larger.
An ominous creaking sound filled the room as if the building were expressing its weariness and weakness. Lightbulbs popped, shattering and sending shards of glass in all directions. A few hit her, inflicting cuts, but she ignored everything, never wavering in her focus on the man above her.
The entire area was responding to the restless, wild energy flowing through her and around her. Her skin tingled as if the air was electrically charged and a continuous current flowed in a cycle.
She felt . . . otherworldly. Like someone in a fantasy movie. Magic or witchcraft. Whichever of the two fit. In this moment, she felt a rush of power so strong that she nearly fell to her knees. It filled her, consumed her, nearly overwhelming in its intensity.
Never had she felt so strong, capable of any feat no matter how impossible. Her spine stiffened and she straightened, resolve settling over her and instilling the will to do what she must.
Pain speared through her head, her body, making her feel as if her bones were shattering. Blood poured from her orifices and she could only imagine how horrifying she must look. She hoped to hell she scared the holy shit out of the little bastard pinned by the awesome force of her powers.
Some of what she was feeling had to be readily visible, because the goon’s face went white as a sheet and he stared at her, realization—and doom—flashing in his eyes.
“Yeah, you little fucker,” she whispered in an eerie voice. “Resign yourself to your fate and the embarrassment over being beat by a ‘little bitch,’ as you so succinctly put it. Well, this bitch is going to send you straight to hell.”
