Authors: Shannon McKenna
It splintered. Suddenly, hands grabbed him, trying to drag him off the table, but he couldn’t calm down. He kept screaming, flailing. Wanting it to be Aengus in the rubble, blood running from his nose.
People reached in to help Aaro out as they dragged Miles away. Aaro sat up, panting, wiping blood from his face, and looked at Miles, patting his tux jacket as if checking for broken ribs.
The crowd of civic-minded guys who’d subdued him dragged him down, getting themselves kicked and slugged in the process, but they knocked him to the ground at last, and sat on him, en masse.
Success. Aaro had signaled success. He’d done the job he set out to do. So why the fuck was he crying? Six guys on top of him, no way to wipe his nose as he hitched and sobbed. Horrified people in evening wear, staring down at him as if he were a threat to their way of life.
The security guys arrived. They jerked him into a painful hammer lock and hauled him through the ballroom with grim dispatch. Down a hallway. Into what looked like a security office.
Full of big guys, all looking at him with unfriendly eyes. Yep, he was in for a rough night.
The door burst open, and Miles’s stomach thudded down, like two ton of cold, hard lead punching through rotten floorboards.
Harold Rudd stormed into the room. “Where’s the asshole who destroyed . . .” He stopped, and stared blankly at Miles, for a long moment.
“You,” he said, with vicious emphasis.
“Yeah,” Miles said, swallowing hard. “Me.”
Aaro allowed himself to be helped out of the wreckage, holding his prize tight against his body under his arm. He accepted a napkin from somebody, to mop up the blood from his nose.
He was genuinely shaken. Who knew? He’d seen Miles practice, had even sparred with him a few times. He was strong and fast and gifted, sure. But he had not known that the guy could flip a switch and go flat-out fucking insane. And it had been absolutely believable. He was practically feeling guilty for having boned Miles’s nonexistent wife.
He shook off offers of help, using a few jabs of delicate coercion to intimidate away the most insistent ones, and limped through the crowd. The library tower dug painfully into his armpit. Every step he took felt like swimming through tar. He wanted to run, sprint, fly to Nina.
Stay normal, dickhead. Invisible.
Neat trick, with blood streaming down his chin. He got out on the terrace. The people who were watching him melted away, with a sudden, overwhelming desire to be elsewhere.
The terrace was deserted. It was raining, with gusts of chilly wind. Nina would be cold in nothing but that skimpy wrap. He’d been an idiot to send her out here alone. He picked up the pace, turned the corner. And stopped, very suddenly.
“Hey, Sasha,” said Dmitri.
“You’re sure, sir? The guy has definitely had combat training,”
the security guy said doubtfully. “He had two firearms on him, and he might even be hopped up on some performance-enhancing drug. God knows what he was planning. I strongly suggest that you let me—”
“I’m sure,” Rudd said. “I can handle him myself. For God’s sake, he’s handcuffed, right?”
“But, sir, ah, I strongly recommend—”
“I need to be alone with him.” The edge in Rudd’s voice made the hairs in Miles’s neck prickle up, like nails on a chalk-board.
The security guy blinked, and started backing away. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, sure. Let us, uh, know if you need us, sir.”
“Of course.” Rudd smiled thinly. “Good-bye.”
The man practically stumbled over his feet to get out the door fast enough. The click of the door closing was the knell of doom.
Miles tasted blood in his mouth, and licked it away. It wouldn’t be the last.
Rudd walked over to him. “Where is Anabel?”
“I didn’t hurt her,” Miles said.
Thwack.
The guy backhanded him. “That wasn’t my question.”
Miles licked away more blood. “I left her upstairs.”
Rudd went to the door, yanked it open, bawled for the security guy. Ordered them to search the place until they found Anabel.
“We shall see what she has to say when they find her,” he said.
“I’m sure she will enjoy helping me interrogate you, don’t you think?”
Miles’s tender places recoiled. Anabel and her sharp stick were going to catch up with him a lot quicker than he’d dreamed.
“I imagine she fucked you, hmm?” Rudd said. Miles shook his head, and Rudd rolled his eyes. “Of course she did. I know my Anabel.”
“You don’t know me,” Miles said.
“Neither do you, you arrogant little shit,” Rudd hissed.
“You’re going to know yourself a whole lot better by the time I’m through with you. So tell me, Miles, why you came after me here.
Tell me all of it.”
Miles grabbed onto his encrypted computer image, and hung onto it. He had no clue if it would give him any protection against this guy, but it didn’t matter. It was all he had. So whatever.
Rudd tilted his head slightly, as if he were pondering some deep philosophical question. The sensation grew slowly, like a drum roll. It almost felt like pounding rain at first, getting louder, growing pressure.
It stopped abruptly. Miles dragged in a breath.
“You’re shielded,” Rudd said. His soft voice had a tone of utter betrayal. “You son of a bitch. How dare you.”
Holy cow. If that was how it felt when a person was shielded, he didn’t even want to imagine what unshielded felt like.
“Where did you get the drug?” Rudd demanded.
Miles shook his head again.
Rudd slapped him. “Who’s supplying you, goddamnit?”
“I’m not using any drug,” Miles said. “Evidently, it’s possible to block without using the drug.”
“Who taught you?” Rudd thundered.
“I taught myself,” Miles said.
“That’s a lie!” The sensation swelled again, stronger. He could feel the pressure in his eyes building, like they were bulging out.
Rudd’s voice faded out, and then blared. “. . . worries me. The fact that you know about the drug is troubling. That you can block against it even when not using, that’s even more troubling.
I do not want news to spread. Publicity would negate my edge, see?”
Miles nodded, not quite sure what he was agreeing with.
“You see, with your shield, I can’t get close enough to the inside of your mind to actually control your thinking,” Rudd said.
“But there is one thing I still can do to you.”
He snorted back some tears, some blood. “And what’s that?”
“Hurt you,” Rudd said.
Miles’s chest jerked with mirthless laughter. “Oh, yeah? What have you been doing so far?”
“Warming up,” Rudd said.
This time, it slammed down on him all at once. Vicious stress on every nerve, a pounding hell of noise, pressure . . .
When he came to, something was dripping from his mouth.
Blood, drool, who knew. Couldn’t focus his eyes to see. The pain in his head. Beyond all pain. It occurred to him that death might not really be so bad. Just cutting loose, drifting off to who knew where. Anywhere would be fine. As long as it wasn’t here.
“Who taught you to shield? Who else knows?” Rudd shrilled.
Miles shook his head. The Mack truck of nerve-induced stress bore down on him again, making him arch and shriek.
Death, be my pal. Make this crazy motherfucker fade away, and I’ll
go anywhere with you. Trusting as a little lamb.
“. . . important that you understand, Miles. That you cooper-ate. Let me in, Miles. We can help each other, see? It doesn’t have to be like this. It doesn’t have to hurt. Just relax. Let me in. . . .” The hypnotic pulse of the words beat against him. He almost gave in. He wanted to behave. Good dog. Sit, stay, roll over.
He wanted to be forgiven. It hurt so much. But he opened his streaming eyes, and looked up at the guy. Made the word with his mouth, but could not push it out with air.
There was no air. He met the guy’s eyes.
No.
Rudd shook his head. The noise again, louder than any of the previous times. He felt things start to shatter. Bones snapping, hearts breaking. The dark wave crested, higher, higher . . .
Sweet relief, when it finally broke, and washed it all away.
Aaro took in the scene. Nina, dress torn down to her waist, perched on the high wooden railing, bare feet dangling.
Dmitri lounged next to her, shoving a Beretta between her breasts.
Her eyes met his. He looked away. Hating to do it, but no tender messages now. He needed to be cold. Detached.
“Dmitri,” he said. “You found us.”
“Doesn’t she look nice this way?” His cousin caressed Nina’s tit with the gun barrel. “I like it, with the tits out and the shoulder covering still on. Sort of kinky. Like jeans with the ass cheeks cut out.”
“What do you want, Dmitri?”
He caressed her breast again. “I sure would like some of this, but I’m afraid the usefulness of you two has come to an end.”
Aaro took a step closer. Dmitri jabbed the gun against Nina’s sternum. She gasped, rocked backward, teetering.
Dmitri caught her. “Careful. No closer. I know all about your coercion trick. You’re just like Rudd, and your prick of a father. I might have known you’d go that way. You always were an over-bearing dickhead. But you can’t use it on me. I’m stronger than you.”
“OK,” Aaro said.
“You try any tricks, if I feel the slightest tickle, boom! Right through the heart! Over she goes.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Got it.”
“So?” Dmitri looked expectant. “Whip it out.”
“Whip what out?”
“Don’t play dumb with a telepath, Sasha. Especially not when your girlfriend’s sitting on the edge of a cliff. The B dose, ass-wipe.”
“What do you care about the B dose?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just care because you care. Pull it out.”
Nina had tried to cross her arms over her chest, but Dmitri knocked them apart again with the barrel of the gun. “Don’t hunch. Stick ’em out . . . yeah, that’s it. Arch your back. Yeah.
Better.”
He slid his arm around, far enough to squeeze and grab and pinch. Nina’s eyes were shut, her face dead pale, and stiff.
Rage grew in that pressure chamber. He struggled to stay cool.
“The B dose, Sasha.” Dmitri prodded Nina’s breast with the gun.
Aaro pulled the tower out from under his coat. Dried wads of glue at regular intervals were dotted around the base where it had been fastened down. Inside the tower was a roll of bubble wrap.
Aaro pried it out. The small squares of rubber popped out of their little frames, tumbling around his feet.
He unwound the bubble wrap. The wind whipped the plastic stuff from his hand, twisting it away and twirling it upward. Three syringes were inside, prepared and capped. Rubber banded together.
They looked so small and ordinary. And they were life. The future.
Dmitri shoved Nina forward off the railing. She stumbled to her knees as she hit. He pushed her before him, yanking back a handful of her hair and shoving her with the gun at the nape of her neck, which twisted her head back at a painful, contorted angle.
She lurched toward Aaro, her eyes fixed on his.
“Nina, take the syringes,” Dmitri said. “If you don’t want him to watch your face disappear. These things make a hell of an exit wound.”
She reached out. He brushed his fingers over hers as he pressed them into her hand.
“Take off the rubber band,” Dmitri said. She peeled it off.
“Now we’re going to play a game. Nina, take one of those syringes, and throw it out over the railing.”
“What?” Her voice cracked.
“You heard me, bitch. Throw it. Or I shoot.”
Still, she hesitated. Dmitri whacked her on the shoulder with the pistol. Aaro flinched, as she stumbled forward with a grunt.
“Throw it!” Dmitri yelled. “Now! You stupid whore!”
“Throw it, Nina, for God’s sake,” Aaro said softly.
She screamed as she threw the thing, a shrill, agonized sound.
They all watched its long arc, how it turned, end over end, until it vanished into the darkness below.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it? Now take another one. Throw it, too.”
Nina turned to Dmitri, and shook her head. “No.”
“Not an acceptable answer.” Dmitri hit her again with the pistol, this time her ribs. She was crying. Aaro did not watch. He could not get distracted.
Floating. Cold.
“Were you planning to take the B dose together? One for him, one for her! Aw, that’s so touching. Maybe I’ll just give these last two syringes to you and let bygones be bygones, what do you think?” Laughter rang out, harsh and crazed. “Oh, wait! I forgot about you dropping spiders in my hair! And strangling me with the phone cord!” He yanked down his shirt, showed them the scabbed line across his throat. “I don’t think so, bitch! Throw the fucking syringe, before I count to three. One. Two—”
“No!” she shrieked. “No, I won’t! We’ll die anyway, and the bullet is a better death, so
no!
”
Dmitri hooted. “It’s not up to you. Give me those!” He groped around her body for the syringes, the gun barrel tangled in her hair. Nina screamed and writhed. A syringe flew, and bounced on the wooden floorboards. The other, Dmitri yanked away, and flung out over the railing. His howl of triumph blended with Nina’s shriek of despair.
Everything that syringe had meant for them, gone.
Aaro put it aside. Floating . . . waiting . . . until the gun barrel angled away from her head . . . almost . . . almost . . .
now.
He pounced, mentally.
Bam,
the Beretta went off. Dmitri spun, yelling. His arm jerked upward, suddenly out of his control. He shot into the air, then at the side of the building. A bullet zinged off the railing, leaving a splintered gouge.
Bam. Bam.
Aaro had to struggle to control him. He wasn’t very good at it yet. Lots of swerving, fish-tailing. He drew the SIG.
Bam. Bam.
One bullet caught Dmitri in the shoulder, one in the thigh. He fell against the railing, clutching the wounds.
Nina was huddled on the ground, her streaming eyes set off by a dark, dripping raccon mask of makeup, hands clamped over her. He ascertained in an instant that she had not been hit, and put it aside to concentrate on the shaky hold he had on Dmitri’s mind. The close contact felt foul, like wrestling a writhing venomous insect. But the bullets had cracked Dmitri’s focus. He had the guy in his grip now.