Reclaim: Project Xol

by Amabel Daniels

  I wrapped one arm around his neck to hoist myself up. After I wedged my hand from pressing against his chest, where his heart beat so furiously fast under his hard chest, I slid it up to grip his hair. As I pulled his lips to mine and claimed them on a hot gasp, he shifted one arm under my ass to pull me up. My legs locked around his waist and he didn’t wait for a second more to thrust into me.

  One fast, hard drive and he was seated deep inside me.

  I cried out at the pressure and perfection of him filling me. Oh my God. Yes…

  There wasn’t any room to arch back because as soon as he reclaimed our kiss, he pressed me to the tiled wall and pumped into me. In and out he punched his hips, bringing me faster and higher to an orgasm that detonated me into a shuddering, whimpering mess. He held me up, the muscles in his arms bulging harder as he hugged me to his heaving chest. Twice more he drove into me before he came with a low, guttural growl.

  Bonelessly spent and sated, I let him hold me there as we caught our breath. Cooling water streamed over us, yet I still couldn’t summon the will to move. In his arms…yep. That was my perfection.

  We stared into each other’s eyes as he stroked hair from my face. This was all I needed to soothe my soul. Him. Each time we came together it was just as potently overwhelming as the last, this connection we’d bonded with each other in such a short time in lousy situations.

  And later, we would be running straight to the enemy, threatening everything we had.

  Chapter Nine

  Luke

  While Cassidy napped after our shower, I snuck back over to Tramer’s room. I’d dozed with her for a while until someone down the hall started playing music. It wasn’t overly loud, but so somber and sad. Latino tunes that befitted mourning. The emotions it dredged up in me were unsettling enough that I couldn’t fall back asleep.

  We agreed that one night would help us all. One evening to rest and recover. Recharge before whatever we could face with this Elena woman. Cassidy woke from her nap and I was grateful she didn’t argue the decision we’d made without her. Seemed we were all beat and needing a decent sleep.

  When we woke up and got ready to go the next morning, we were fresher. In mind, at least. I was energized and ready to finish this business with Project Xol so I could really begin with Cassidy. Love? I snorted at myself as I sat in the driver’s seat while the others got in.

  Love?

  What a stupid thing to have on my mind when our lives were in danger. I wasn’t going to discount what I felt for Cassidy, but the time to consider our fledgling relationship would be better after this ordeal. So with that anticipation on back burner, building something even more with Cassidy than this lust and adrenaline-driven chemistry on the run, I was eager to go and be done.

  We went to the café that Hendrick had referenced to and all three of us trooped inside. Cassidy was the least confrontational of us, so it was she who went to the counter to ask where Elena’s sister’s place was. Tramer and I sat at tables in the dining space with coffees to watch over her. We’d ordered food as well, to come off as ordinary people and not a threat.

  It was the most painless interaction we’d had since arriving in Mexico. While hesitant at first, the barista called for her superior and that man told Cassidy an address for the Casal sisters.

  The drive there was short and thickened with tension by the minute. None of us spoke and we all kept close stares on our surroundings.

  Would we really get to the bottom of it today?

  Would Elena be there and willing to help us?

  Were the vials going to be there, or were they still in the hands of whoever had ransacked her home—or workspace?

  Questions flailed at me even throughout Tramer’s phone call with Fox. He was thinking a step ahead, attempting to arrange travel back to the States. I applauded his optimism that we’d be leaving soon—after a success—but I was still too jaded to believe we were in the clear. We were only facing an even harder task at the moment.

  “That’s gotta be it,” Cassidy said from the passenger seat. She leaned forward and pointed at a duplex of apartments.

  Tramer hung up. His seat squeaked as he shifted toward the space between me and Cassidy.

  “Parking in the back?” he asked.

  I nodded and steered us to the rear of the building. It wasn’t so shabby of an area that I’d worry about someone mugging us in the daylight, but it was far from welcoming. Dirty walls, trash collecting in corners, and overflowing, stinking dumpsters waited for us in the parking alley.

  “Ready?” Tramer asked, scooting to the edge of his seat. He was moving easier today, but the limp was still noticeable. I was impressed again by his first-aid know-how. When I’d gone to his room last night to help him, he’d already cleaned the wound with cheap booze from the minibar samples. Then he’d stitched himself up with an ease that suggested he’d patched up injuries many times.

  “Fuck no,” Cassidy whispered so low I barely heard her. But she clutched the door handle to open it and said louder, “Yeah.”

  I didn’t miss the shakiness of her deep breath.

  Almost done. We had to be. Then she’d never have to live in the constant fear again. Neither of us. I let the dream fuel me to move and I exited the van.

  We approached the apartment entrance slowly. I led and Tramer followed up at the rear, covering Cassidy.

  The door was unlocked and ajar by an inch or two. Still, I tapped my knuckle to the cheap wood, announcing our arrival. “Hello?” I called out. Wait, no. Wrong language. “Hola?” I tried again.

  Nothing.

  We entered the disaster. Hendrick had explained the vials had been stolen from Elena’s workspace while she was here with her sister, and that men had tossed the place because of some independent issue of theft. It wasn’t a shock to see such a mess. Belongings were strewn everywhere, some glass and ceramics busted into shards and spread about. Furniture sat on its side and some cushions were gutted, filling clouding out on the floor.

  Tramer strode in right past me and Cassidy, seeming impervious to the destruction that clung heavily to the pathetic space. “Senorita Casal?” he called out not too loudly. He headed toward the doorway that looked like it led to a bedroom when someone suddenly stepped out from another door.

  A young boy, not even a teenager. He gripped the doorframe and stared at Tramer’s gun, then him.

  “Hola.” Tramer lowered his gun and I kept mine out of sight as well.

  Cassidy and I waited while he spoke to the boy. His lips moved in timid replies, but I couldn’t hear him from across the room. Couldn’t understand a nervous word anyway.

  I caught Cassidy glancing at me, her lips set in a grim line. Was she just as annoyed she couldn’t follow along either?

  “She’s not here,” Tramer said to us after a moment.

  “Where is she?” Cassidy asked.

  Disappointment trickled in but I refused to let it get me down. If Elena wasn’t here, then we’d just keep looking.

  “He won’t say. It’s her nephew,” Tramer said.

  “Who did this?” I asked, gesturing at the room.

  “‘Bad men.’” Tramer huffed after he provided the translation, keeping his gaze locked on the boy who still stared up at him with wide, defensive eyes.

  “Cartel?” Cassidy asked.

  “No,” the boy answered.

  “Police?” she asked.

  Before the boy replied, footsteps came from the opposite doorway, from what looked like the kitchen.

  I noticed the gun first, then the steady hands that gripped it, aiming it at Tramer. She stepped without hesitation or clumsiness, coming into this living room with a familiarity that showed she knew exactly where every upturned obstacle was. Her lips twisted into a snarl as she eyed us all, keeping her weapon pointed at Tramer. Older—maybe in her forties, with gray sneaking into her black hair, she was dressed in tan shorts and a denim shirt with what looked like mud stains across it. Her high work boots slapped
louder with each step she claimed.

  In words too rapid for me to follow, she snapped at the boy and he took off running down the hall.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she asked in stilted English. While she focused her weapon on Tramer, she gazed at each of us.

  “We’re looking for Elena Casal,” Tramer answered.

  “Oh.” She raised her gun even more. “Of course you are.”

  Before she could shoot at our friend, Cassidy moved forward, in front of me. I reached for her but she yanked out of my reach. “Hendrick sent me to find you.”

  The woman cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Cassidy.”

  A tense moment passed while she seemed to consider Cassidy’s answer, lowering her arms a fraction. “Who’s he?” she asked, nodding toward Tramer.

  “A friend.”

  Again, her arms went up, like a last-minute warning before a bullet would go flying. “The policía is not an amigo in this house.”

  “He’s not a cop!” Cassidy argued.

  Damn. No one trusted the looks of that man. Tramer had an unflinching aura of authority.

  “He’s our friend. He’s helping us.”

  “With what?” She brought her weapon toward me now and cast a glance at Tramer. He raised his hands in surrender.

  “To find Elena Casal,” I answered, more than peeved that she had a gun trained at me. We had her outnumbered, and from the wild, terse set of her lips and eyes, I could tell she was intimidated. But if she wasn’t anyone who would help us find Elena, we had no reason to linger here.

  “And who’s he?” she asked Cassidy.

  “My friend.”

  “You get around, eh?” She sneered at Cassidy. “Are you after Danita? She’s not here. Ran off with her sugar daddy.”

  “No. We’re looking for— Are you— Elena?” Cassidy asked.

  No answer.

  “Hendrick told me you were staying with your sister Danita,” Cassidy went on, seeming to accept this guarded woman was the one we were looking for. “Your workspace was broken in to, and you’ve been staying here. But someone came for your sister’s…uh, money.”

  Elena snorted a nasty sound. “They always wanted more and more from her. The fool thought she could one-up them and take their money.”

  All right, getting involved with the fringes of what sounded like prostitution or trafficking was more than we’d bargained for.

  I said, “We want to help you find the vials that were taken.”

  Once more, Elena brought her gun my way. “What do you know about them? Are you more of that woman’s immortal men?” She bared her teeth and stepped toward me. “Shall I shoot him, and see how he still stands? Huh? Are you one of them?”

  “Xol? He doesn’t have any Xol cure in him.” Cassidy sidestepped in front of me again, blocking Elena from hitting me. “No. We’re here to stop them. With your help.”

  “There’s no stopping them. She’ll never stop.”

  That was exactly what Cassidy had said, what Hendrick had told her. Elena had to be referring to Tami.

  “Well, I’m not giving up yet.” Cassidy crossed her arms.

  “Oh yeah? And what the hell do you think you can do about any of this? She’s got too much power to be stopped.”

  “I’ve got Scott’s data code. For the beta strain.”

  At this, Elena dropped her gun completely. Her arm hung loose at her side, but I didn’t for one second think she wasn’t a threat. Like a scared animal, she was too skittish to trust.

  She stared at Cassidy with such stillness it was as if she’d frozen in place. “Scott’s?”

  Cassidy nodded.

  “How’d you get that?”

  “Rosa sent me to get it for her.”

  “Is she all right? Have you seen her?” Something like hope flared in her gaze.

  “Not…recently. She called me not long ago.” Cassidy’s voice remained clear, but I could pick up on the uneasiness that lay beneath her words. She hadn’t seen Rosa in too long of a time, and the correspondence she’d received was frighteningly confusing. The letters and that one call. All practically begging her to stay safe. It was hardly a reassurance that Rosa might be okay.

  “Why would she ask for your help?” Elena asked too accusingly for my liking.

  Yeah, we were strangers showing up after she’d had some bad stuff happening, but I was getting tired of her guardedness. “Because she’s her daughter,” I snapped.

  Elena glared at me. “Nice try.” Before Cassidy could retort, the Hispanic woman said, “Just who are you?” She demanded this with the gun up, at Cassidy now.

  I gripped her shoulders to move her behind me, but she resisted, digging her feet in. “Rosa adopted me after my father died in the lab in Nottingham.”

  “You’re…you’re Scott’s daughter?”

  In a flash, she lunged forward and brought the gun nearly to Cassidy’s face. Tramer and I reacted in kind, putting our guns on her.

  “So you’re her daughter? Tami’s?” Elena spat.

  Cassidy’s back pushed into my chest as she inhaled a deep breath. “Apparently. Only learned of that a few days ago.”

  Spanish expletives flew from her mouth. “Did she send you here? For the vials?”

  “No. I’ve never met the woman,” Cassidy said, shoving Elena’s gun out of her face.

  I flinched at the contact, just waiting for a shot to sound off.

  Elena yanked her arm back and glowered at Cassidy. “Did she ask you to do her dirty work? Are you working for your mother?”

  Cassidy pushed away from me and gripped Elena’s shirt. She hauled her in close. “Yes. I am helping my mother. Rosa. I don’t know Tami. All I know is she isn’t going to get away with any more of this fucked-up science.”

  After the women faced each other for too long of an antagonistic moment, Elena spoke up. “You want to end it, huh?” She crossed her arms and leaned back on one foot. “How?”

  “Hendrick sent me to find you, to help identify whatever you needed for the beta strain. He said you’d know how to destroy it, before Tami can get to it.” Cassidy glanced at Tramer as he walked closer to us.

  “Where is he? Hendrick?” Elena asked.

  Cassidy shook her head. “He was taken from I-95—”

  Elena swore again. “The cartel?”

  We nodded.

  “I told him not to come through Acapulco. I told him! He refused to come from the north, to avoid the university. Tami has spies there.”

  “After the beta strain?”

  Elena shrugged, shoving her gun into her waistband. “No. Just a normal operation of making monsters.”

  Hearing this woman vehemently loathe Tami and the Project assured me she really was on our side. “Are all the vials gone?”

  “Those imbeciles.” She shook her head and rubbed at her shoulder. “Danita… She attracts trouble. I never should have come here. My workspace was trashed by the same idiots she’d pissed off. They thought to get to her through me, thought I would have money that they felt owed to them because she screwed them over. Maybe they thought she’d play nicely if they ruined her sister’s life.” A bitter laugh shot out. “Too bad they didn’t know Danita never valued me.”

  “Then they came here?” Tramer asked.

  Elena nodded. “More revenge. She stole from one of the johns and…” She waved a hand in a halfhearted dismissal. “I’d thought I could stay here until I cleaned up at work. But they were too impatient and came here too.”

  She splayed her hands out, gesturing at the mess. “They broke the vials I’d brought here with me. They’d already broken the first ones in the freezer in my workroom.”

  Cassidy perked at that news. “So…the beta strain material is already destroyed?”

  I shared her enthusiasm, but it sounded too good to be true.

  “Sí. Except…for one.”

  “One what?” Tramer asked.

  “
I kept one vial back, at my work.”

  “It wasn’t destroyed?” I asked,

  She shook her head. “I’d forgotten about it in another storage freezer, and when I found it while I was cleaning up the mess, I hid it. From Hendrick, really. The last I spoke with him was weeks ago, when he’d visited to verify the vials were safe here. I thought I could hold on to it until he came back—when he deemed it safe to move it. He could take it and do whatever he wanted with it. Those vials were his and Rosa’s, not mine. And they should have been safe with me if not for Danita’s bullshit. I’d had those vials at work for years. And only now they’re an issue.”

  “Why now?” I asked.

  “Because almighty nutcase Tami clearly wants something more.”

  Something more that involved this limited supply of the beta strain. This had to be what Rosa ultimately wanted me to retrieve for her.

  “I wanted him to think all the vials were lost so he wouldn’t come back here and bring more trouble. He’d been worried about the Project finding him. They knew he and Rosa had the other half of the code to the genetic sample, so he was trying to hide but still keep in touch with me to warn me about the new research. I…” She rubbed at her shoulder again and dropped her gaze for a moment. “I didn’t want him to have another reason to return, to put himself at risk if those monsters were following him.”

  Then that solved it. One vial remained. As soon as we destroyed it, we’d be done. And Zero could delete Scott’s code.

  “You say you have Scott’s code?” Elena asked.

  “Yes.”

  “On you?” The older woman peered at Cassidy’s backpack.

  “No. In a safe location.”

  For the first time since we’d met her, Elena smiled. Grinned, actually. It hinted at unbridled triumph.

  “Then take me to my work. And we’ll see about stopping the puto from any more of this, how did you say? This…fucked-up science.”

  Chapter Ten

  Cassidy

  We piled into the van. Elena and Tramer sat in the back and Luke drove. I twisted back to face the woman who’d been so hostile at first. After what she’d endured, I didn’t blame her for her defensiveness. I was only glad she’d finally listened to me and was willing to help.