Captivated (Talented Saga #3.5) (3 page)

“
Over there,” Henri said, nudging
my arm and pointing towards a non-descript building with
double-glass doors. A woman with graying hair and a white,
knee-length lab coat walked through the doors, a cigarette clamped
between her lips and a lighter in one hand. I changed course, and
headed directly for her.

“
I’m looking for Talia Lyons,
where is she?” I panted, noticing for the first time how winded I
was from the sprint from the hangar.

The woman eyed me suspiciously
while cupping her free hand around the end of her cigarette, and
lighting the tip. I wanted to rip the cancer stick right out of her
mouth and crush it beneath my sneaker. Henri’s hand on my shoulder
was the only thing that stopped me.

“
And who are you exactly?” the
woman asked, blowing a cloud of smoke in my direction.

“
I’m her team captain, Henri
Reich,” Henri answered quickly. “We were given clearance to see
her.”

I was proud of Henri for
stretching the truth. Captain Alvarez had given us leave to come to
Kansas, not to see Talia, though. That decision, he’d said, was up
to her attending physician and the Director.

“
Ms. Lyons is in recovery,” the
doctor said pointedly. “She can’t have visitors.”

Henri started to protest, but I
was beyond reasoning with this woman – whoever she was – and pushed
past both of them. Once through the double doors, the pungent
mixture of bleach and antiseptic assaulted me. My stomach roiled
with disgust, the smell bringing to mind sickness and
death.

Being a Hunter, I was accustomed
to spending time in Medical. More than one of my missions had left
me in need of treatment. But this facility was nothing like the
state-of-the-art facility we had at Elite Headquarters. The
furniture in the main lobby was shabby, the cinderblock walls
yellowed and chipped, the linoleum floors peeling. The knot in my
stomach tightened, the thought of Talia being treated at this
sub-par excuse for a hospital sickened me.

I tried to feel her, locate her
presence within the building, but couldn’t. What that might mean, I
wouldn’t even allow myself to think.

Two sets of double doors were on
either side of an empty reception area. I picked the set on the
left for no reason other than I had only two to choose from and a
fifty-fifty chance of getting it right.

Three right turns later and no
shortage of suspicious glances later, I found her. The hallway was
a bustle of activity, men and women in matching green scrubs
filtered in and out of a room at the very end of the corridor. Two
blonde men stood off to one side of the room, the younger gesturing
wildly with his hands. The older had his arms crossed over his
chest, a grim set to his jaw.

“
Awesome,” I muttered under my
breath, “two McDonoughs.”

While I’d planned on avoiding the
Director, that appeared impossible. He literally stood between me
and the reason that I’d come: Talia. Mentally, I prepared myself
for the confrontation, recalling Henri’s words about being
diplomatic, whatever that meant.

I marched towards the father and
son duo, ignoring a tall brunette woman who tried to tell me that I
didn’t belong here. There was nowhere else I belonged more than at
Talia’s bedside.

“
What was I supposed to do, Dad?
Just let her die?” Donavon McDonough demanded angrily. Neither he
nor his father had spotted me yet.

“
You were supposed to follow
protocol. We have no idea what the repercussions of this are going
to be,” the Director hissed back through clenched teeth.

I cleared my throat loudly,
alerting them to my presence. As entertaining as their spat was,
eavesdropping on family drama held no appeal. After coming all this
way, I was going to see Talia.

“
Mr. Kelley,” Director McDonough
said, turning his attention on me. His steel grey eyes registered
no surprise at my presence. I took that as a good sign. If he were
expecting me, then maybe he would allow me to see Talia. Not that I
needed his approval. If he said no, I would fight my way past him.
Just let him try to stop me.

“
I want to see her,” I said, the
urgency clear in every syllable.

“
No way,” Donavon interjected
before his father had a chance to refuse me.

God, I hated that kid. Where did
he get off telling me what I could and could not do? The fact that
he’d been sent as part of the extraction team instead of me,
increased my ever-present desire to hit him. The Director’s son
always annoyed me, but today the very sight of Donavon infuriated
me.

“
She is resting,” the Director
said simply.

“
And?”

“
And, Mr. Kelley, I do not want
you disturbing her.”

The only person I hated more than
Donavon was his father. Unfortunately, as the Director of Toxic he
demanded a great deal of respect, of which I had very little where
he was concerned. Still, the situation was delicate, and my
standing within the Agency tenuous. I decided to at least try my
hand at diplomacy before throwing caution to the wind and knocking
out anyone who dared get in my way.

“
I won’t disturb her, sir,” I
said, summoning all of my willpower to remain calm and
professional. “I just want to make sure she is okay then I will
leave.”

I had no intention of leaving, but
figured once inside her room the Director would have a harder time
getting rid of me. I was betting on him not wanting to cause a
scene in front of so many witnesses, something I wasn’t above. What
did I care what a bunch of doctors at some base in the middle of
nowhere thought about me?

“
She doesn’t want to see you,”
Donavon said, sounding like the over privileged twit that he was.
He crossed his arms over his chest, mimicking his father’s stance,
and stepped sideways to fill the doorframe of Talia’s room. The
arrogant prick might as well have peed on the doorway with the way
he was attempting to mark her as his territory.

I laughed bitterly, he’d lost the
right to call her his a long time ago. “Did she tell you that?” I
asked, taking a step in Donavon’s direction. The gesture was
supposed to be a threat, and Donavon perceived it that way, backing
up farther into the darkened space behind him. Apparently the
Director also interpreted my action as a threat because he moved to
stand between us.

The tormented expression that came
over Donavon’s features told me what he refused to say aloud, Talia
hadn’t said anything. Talia had been unconscious since the
extraction team had retrieved her from Nevada.

Pain clouded Donavon’s blue eyes;
I almost felt bad for him. He really did care about her. If he’d
been anyone else, I would have commiserated with him. He was the
only person who could possibly understand how I felt. As it was,
though, I couldn’t bring myself to feel anything but a burning
hatred that ate at my gut.

“
You being here will not help her
recover any faster, Mr. Kelley,” the Director said in a low voice.
“In fact, I imagine the effect will be quite the opposite. And my
son is correct, she doesn’t want to see you.”

While he had no way of knowing
that for sure, the words still stung. Sure, we had a fight, but if
she read my letter then she understood where I was coming from.
Deep down, I knew she wanted me with her now. She needed me. And I
needed her.

Someone coughed behind me, the
noise cutting through the tension between the Director, Donavon,
and me. I’d been so focused on getting to Talia, who was so close
now that I could feel her essence, I hadn’t heard Henri
approach.

“
Director,” Henri began in an
annoying, respectful tone that Danbury McDonough did not deserve,
“I understand that us showing up here is unorthodox, but if Erik
could just have a couple of minutes with her to see that she is
okay, we will leave.”

Donavon scoffed. “Don’t you get
it? She isn’t okay. She’s lost a lot of blood and the bullets
–”

A stern warning glare from the Director cut off the
rest of Donavon’s words.

She’d been shot? My legs became
jelly, and I stumbled to lean on the wall for support. “How much
blood did she lose?” I mumbled.

“
Enough to need a transfusion,”
Donavon answered at the same time his father said, “That is none of
your concern.”

“
Five minutes, Director, please,”
Henri tried again. “Just give us five minutes with her and I
promise we will leave in peace.”

Five minutes? Henri thought five
minutes would satisfy me? No way.

The Director took several long
moments to contemplate the offer, his desire to prevent a scene
warring with his even stronger desire to keep me far away from
Talia. The activity in the corridor had ceased, all eyes were on
our little group. No one bothered to pretend that they weren’t
interested in our discussion.

“
Fine,” the Director said
breezily, decorum and the need to keep up appearances winning out.
“You have five minutes, Mr. Kelley, and not one second more. Then,
I want you to get back on the plane you took here and return to
Headquarters. You will make no further attempts to contact Natalia.
Once she is stable enough to transport, I will be taking her to a
secure location to recover. You will not come looking for
her.”

I opened my mouth to protest. Five
minutes in exchange for no future contact? That was a pretty shitty
deal.

“
This is not a negotiation, Mr.
Kelley,” the Director said before I could voice my objections. “You
can either agree to my terms or leave right now.”

“
Thank you, Director McDonough,”
Henri answered for me. He took hold of my arm and steered me
towards Talia’s doorway before I could comment.

Donavon refused to move at first.

“
Come along, son,” the Director
said and started walking away, gesturing with a wave of his hand
for Donavon to follow.

Finally, Donavon complied, ramming
my shoulder with his as he passed. If the situation hadn’t been so
dire, I might have laughed. The kid was ridiculous. He was no alpha
male, and pretending otherwise was pathetic.

Henri practically shoved me
through the opening Donavon vacated; he closed the door without
entering, allowing me privacy.

The room was completely dark
without the light from the hallway. Blinds hung over the windows
that lined two sides of the square space, but the panels were shut
tight.

I didn’t wait for my eyes to
adjust to the blackness. I used Talia’s weak essence to guide me to
her bedside. She was so small under the thin white blanket, her
body barely making a bump. Machines beeped and hummed as they
monitored her vitals. Her breathing was shallow but
even.

A hard plastic chair sat next to
her bed, and I settled into the seat. Now eye-level with her, the
fluttering of her lids and the slight twitching of her body was
apparent. I wanted to touch her, hold her in my arms. But she was
so fragile I worried she might break if I did.

Talia’s normally tan skin was
pale, waxen even. Dark tendrils of chestnut hair were splayed
across the pillow, several strands clinging to her cheeks. Without
thinking, I gently brushed the loose pieces, pausing when my
fingers skimmed her feverish skin. She was so hot. I placed the
back of my hand against her forehead to gauge her temperature; she
definitely had a fever.

My own hands were numb, cold with
dread. I cupped her cheeks in my palms hoping to cool her skin with
my touch. Even like this, sweaty and unconscious, she was
beautiful. Better still, she was whole, unbroken. Her vitals were
strong, the line on the heart monitor steady.

At my cool touch, she moaned
softly and turned her face into my palm. My breath caught, and for
the briefest second I thought she would wake up. I longed for her
lashes to flutter open so I could see the life in her purple
irises. No such luck, she continued to take shallow breaths, and
kept right on sleeping.

“
You are going to be okay,” I
whispered, stroking her cheek with my fingertips.

The movement underneath her
eyelids picked up, and the tempo of her breathing increased. Did
some part of her know I was here? Was that part of her was happy I
was? I tried mimicking her abilities, joining her in dream land.
See what she saw, feel what she felt. But mimicking her Talents
proved impossible, the fist squeezing my heart tighten. What did
that mean? Was it just because she was asleep? Or was it more than
that? Was her hold on life that thin?

“
Erik?” Henri’s soft voice called
from the doorway. “Time’s up, man. We have to go.”

“
One more minute,” I called back,
never taking my eyes from Talia’s face.

I memorized every detail, every
freckle dotting her nose and cheeks, the way her mouth twitched
almost imperceptibly, and how her long lashes kissed the dark
hallows underneath her eyes. I pressed my lips to her forehead,
praying that this would not be the last time I saw her. The
Director told me that I had to stay away, leave her alone to
recover. But once she was on her feet again, surely she would want
to see me. She was upset with me, she had every right to be, but I
couldn’t live with myself if I’d irreparably screwed up our
relationship. Just being near her made me whole, without her a
piece of me was missing. She filled a void in my life that I hadn’t
known was there until the first time we’d met.