The Protectors Series Bundle (A superhero romance anthology) (32 page)

Jansen muttered a curse. “Are you kidding me with the code names?”

Cassie grinned. “If my idiot brother gets one, I sure as shit want one.”

There was a flurry of activity in the guard tower. All Symone could see were shadows moving. From her vantage point, it was impossible to tell what was happening. After several tense moments, the door swung open, and Morgan stumbled out holding her left side. Alex tried to run to her, but Symone placed a hand on his shoulder. She shook her head sharply once. “No.” She pointed out three Trackers running from the east.

Garrett grumbled. Those guards must have been able to trigger the silent alarm. Just as the tree Trackers with guns took aim, Morgan vanished into the ether.

What the—” Garrett mumbled beside Symone.

But there wasn’t time to explain Morgan’s vanishing act and why she’d reappeared in the first place. They all had their powers, and they all had a tipping point when their powers were ineffective. For Morgan it was pain. If she was in enough of it, she’d reappear until she got it under control.

The two side doors burst open, and armed men spilled from the house like ants on a picnic raid.

“Show time,” Jansen said as he stepped into the clearing. “You boys are slow. Who lets the enemy raid their line without so much as a motion alarm? Sloppy work.”

Gunfire filled the night air, and Jansen rolled to safety behind one of the Jeeps parked to their far left. The remaining five of them sprinted out, using the full force of Cassie’s telekinetic power to support them. Cassie tossed Trackers aside like they were children’s toys. Never leaving Symone’s side, Garrett fired at the knees of the oncoming Trackers.

He made it no more than twenty yards when a bullet clipped him in the shoulder. The soldier in front of them was the same boy she’d seen through his memories. Taller now, stronger, muscles bulging.

When he spoke, his voice was monotone. “Safe. Right. When you went off reservation, Reaper told me what you were up to. You left me here to fend for myself. You’re a traitor.”

Garrett grimaced. “I’ve come back for you. You’re the only reason I’m back here. Look I’ll explain later, but we have to go. It isn’t safe. I’ll explain on the way.”

His brother shook his head and leveled a gun at him. “I don’t need an explanation. You chose a terrorist over your own family.”

Garrett darted a look at Symone. “Look, you have to listen to me, Michael. We haven’t been told the truth.” His words came out in rushed shouts as he struggled to be heard over the din of gunshots. “Symone—Reaper wants her back to do more experiments on her. She’s not a terrorist.”

Michael frowned, and he shook his head as if trying to shake a thought. “No I-I-I know what she is.” He leveled his gun again.

They only had another two minutes before Alex would open the portal again. They didn’t have time to argue with the kid. Desperate to diffuse the situation and get the show on the road, Symone threw herself in front of Garrett, her palms outstretched. “Look, I know you think—” Before she could call back her power, she actually witnessed the electricity zing through her hands and pass to Michael in a flash of light. The kid sailed ten feet into the air before landing in the grass with a thud, his weapon loose in his grip.

As soon as the sparks hit Michael, he shuddered and went down, but not before getting off a shot. Rolling out of the way, Symone crawled over to Garrett. “Get up, we have to go.”

He rolled, clutching the entry point of his shoulder. He moaned, but made no move to get up.

“Garrett, come on. There will be more coming. We have to go.”

The comm unit in her ear blared. “You all better get a move on. We have the device and have set the charges, this place is going up in smoke. Get your asses to the egress location.”

“We’re on our way.” Grabbing Garrett’s good arm, she wrapped it over her shoulder and pulled him into a sitting position. Why the hell hadn’t he already started healing himself? Unless—She leaned in and examined the wound. Two puncture points. Green fluid leaked out the smaller hole. Shit. Nisulin again. Those bullets had stripped him of powers. He was no better off than one of the kids right now. Worse, he probably hadn’t fully recovered from the last round with the Trackers.

“Listen to me, Garrett. You’ve been shot again with Nisulin. We’ve got to get you out of here.” Carrying his dead weight, she dragged him across the back lawn in an effort to get him to the tree line. His feet dragged.

His breathing was harsh and ragged.

“Just—” He let out a hoarse puff. “Leave.” Another hoarse puff rasped from his throat. “Me here. You have the device. Just go. You’ll be safe. Leave.”

“You’re the one who wanted to spend some quality time with me. Now you’re so eager to get rid of me?” Her legs pumped one after the other. Keep your head down. Almost to safety. Just keep your head down. You will save his life. She had to. She had a debt to repay.

But as they rounded the house to the front lawn, she watched as one by one her team disappeared through the portal Alex had opened. Jansen waited on this side. In her ear, she heard him say, “Leave the asshole, and get over here. We can’t keep it open for much longer.” He fired shots at the advancing Trackers. “I’m not leaving you behind.”

Symone judged the two-hundred meter distance between the two of them and the portal and took a scope of the Trackers. She knew the truth. With Garrett, she wouldn’t make it. He could barely manage the shuffle they had going now, let alone the all-out sprint they needed. “Leave him, Symone.” Jansen took a step toward her and Garrett. But she already knew the truth. She wasn’t going to make it, and leaving Garrett wasn’t an option. Tracker or not, he’d saved her life. And you can touch him. As selfish as that was, she wasn’t ready to let go of that yet.

She leaned Garrett up against the side of the house. She could try and pretend he didn’t affect her all she wanted, but she wasn’t leaving him behind.

Garrett nodded if Jansen’s direction. “He’s right you know. Norse god. He’s right. You have to leave me. It’s your only chance.”

A Tracker came around the corner, and Symone sent an electric charge his way without even thinking about how she’d managed it. She simply outstretched her hand. She stared at her fingers for a moment, then hit her comm. “You have to go, they have nisulin bullets. Alex keeps that portal open, and who knows what bullets are landing on the other side. I won’t risk the others. Go through it and shut it down.”

Jansen looked at her and shook his head. As if to drive the point home, the Trackers let loose a spray of bullets toward the portal. “Shit. Symone. I—”

She shook her head. “Go. I’ll get back. I’m too stubborn to die.”

She knew Jansen. His mutinous expression flitted over his face until he faced the inevitability. Shouting curses, he sprinted for the portal and dove through it, even as Symone witnessed the edges start to fold in. But before the portal closed, she watched in horror as two Trackers came out of the shadows headed for the barely open wormhole. Without a thought, she sent all her power across the expanse of lawn. Sparks flew out of her hands like lightning bolts and traversed the lawn with ease. The lawn lit up like the sun had come out to play. One of the Trackers was halfway through the threshold when he went down. There was an explosion on the edges of the gateway, and she sucked in a gasp of air. He’d had a bomb. Had she inadvertently ignited it? Were her friends okay? The lower half of the Tracker’s body slumped to the ground. The top half was nowhere to be seen. Bisected. She grimaced.

That was it. She and Garrett were on their own.

Chapter Sixteen

Cassie tried to claw out of Seth’s grasp. “Symone. We have to go back for Symone. Oh God, Seth. Let me go.” She could feel her power building, and she didn’t need him hurt as well. “Let me go.”

“Why? So you can force Alex to open the portal again? No. Baby, it’s too late. We can’t go back that way. We have to find another way to get her.” He hushed her. “You’ll hurt yourself if you keep going like this. Symone is strong. She’ll find a way. She knows how to take care of herself. She’ll rendezvous at a safe house and call.”

“You don’t know that.” She all but screamed at him as she sat up in the damp grass of the Lair. “She’s all alone out there. We abandoned her. Just like her parents and just like we let her leave before. Don’t you get it? She thinks she doesn’t belong here, and now we’ve gone and left her behind.”

Seth held her tight, whispering nonsense words in her ear. It took her several moments to realize he wasn’t hushing her. He was talking to their baby. Well shit. He was right. She did have to calm down. No telling what surges of power would do to the little alien growing inside her. Nodding, she inhaled deeply. “You’re right. Where’s Jansen, we need an alternate—”

It was only then that she surveyed the grounds. Something was wrong. No light came from the floods on the front lawn. No light came from the house. Was there a power outage? But why weren’t the generators on? She saw them then, half her team—Morgan and Alex lying unmoving on the ground. Jansen leaned over Morgan. Lisa had come running from the house with a flashlight and her medical bag. Half of a dead Tracker lay just a few yards from their position.

“Seth,” she breathed. “What the hell happened?”

“Seems like some kind of EMP must have blown all our power. I think Symone finally came into her full strength. If Peter finds out she’s this powerful, he’ll never let her go.”

“I just wish she wasn’t all alone.”

Seth stroked a thumb over her cheek. “She’s not.”

***

At first, Symone could only watch the portal close in muted acceptance. But as she glanced back at Garrett, she knew she couldn’t have left him behind. Even if he had been their enemy. He wasn’t now. And he was willing to give his life to save hers.

Ticking her chin up a notch, she leveled her gaze on him. “It’s you and me. So I need you to cooperate. I know you don’t have any powers right now, but as far as I can tell, your legs work. So you need to use them. You’re too heavy to carry. Do you understand?”

Slowly, with his head lolling, he managed to bring it up and down once.

“Good, now I need to get us transport. Where are the cars kept?”

He angled his head to the driveway that led somewhere downhill, around the other side of the house. Fantastic. That was just too risky. They could just stay hidden here in the shadows until most of the troops went inside, but after their ambush, everyone would be on high alert and on the hunt for stragglers. It wouldn’t take them long to realize not all of them had made it back through the portal. Especially with Garrett bleeding all over the place.

“That’s not going to work. Total suicide mission. We’ll have to travel on foot once—”

An engine in the distance had her shoving Garrett’s body further into the alcove. He groaned in response. A Jeep pulled up to the barracks, and two men got out. One with a shaved head, bulging biceps and a no-nonsense mug. The other, with his dark hair and patrician nose, would have ice green eyes, just like his sister. Peter Reeser. A shudder of revulsion overtook every cell in Symone’s body. This was the man who’d stolen her childhood. Rage followed the nausea, and her body wrestled with her mind’s decision to stay put.

She’d kill Peter eventually. For now, her priority was Garrett.

“Can you morons kill the flood lights?” Peter shouted. Immediately the bright lights turned off, casting an even greater shadow on Symone and Garrett’s hiding place. “Someone want to tell me what the fuck happened here?”

One of the soldiers stumbled forward. Or maybe he was shoved. “They came looking for something, sir. The Terrorists we’ve been chasing. They came in hot with heavy artillery. And sir, they had powers like we do.”

Peter stared at the soldier like he was an insect in a petri dish. “How many casualties?” His voice was cool.

The soldier stuttered. “N-none, sir. Their leader, she didn’t want any of us killed.”

Peter closed his eyes and sighed. “Not us, you moron. Them. How many of them did you kill?”

The soldier blinked, not realizing now would probably be a good time to plead the fifth. “None, sir. Michael, the kid, clipped his brother. Arm, maybe chest. They had a human with them. He was hit before they disappeared.”

“What the fuck do you mean disappeared?”

“L-l-like he walked into thin air. But he was definitely hit.”

Peter closed his eyes and muttered a curse. He glared at the bald man. “I want them found. I don’t care what you have to do. I want them at the facility by sundown tomorrow.”

The squirrely soldier cleared his throat. “Um, sir. There’s one more thing.” He visibly swallowed. “They have your enhancer.”

Peter’s shoulders shook, and for a moment, Symone would have sworn he was chuckling. But he reached for his holster, unsnapped the restraint on his gun, and shot the soldier.

Symone gasped and covered her mouth. If he was willing to kill his own enhanced soldier to get to them, there was no stopping him.

The remaining soldiers scattered to their posts. Symone looked up at Garrett. His labored breath brushed her skin. “How are you holding up?”

“You mean besides being shot? I’m great.”

Sarcasm was a good sign. At least he had some fight. But she didn’t like how much blood there was. He couldn’t heal himself, and they needed time for her to be able to heal him properly. “Let me see if I can help. Maybe just stop the bleeding.”