ENTANGLED (43 page)

'I just want to tell you something
.'

The thought sprang into her head, and she couldn't help lifting a hand to her temple.

It was coming from the man below. Pouring out with his noxious darkness. Trying to force her to react. To reveal herself.

She looked around for a weapon and wondered what Greenway wanted to make her do. What this was all
for
.

There was a thick stick, a little longer than her arm, caught in the foliage of the branch she was crouched on. She worked her way towards it, and got a good grip. Whatever the trigger was, she wasn't playing. Greenway had gotten it wrong.

It came again, insidious and frightening, and she took a deep breath and dropped out of the tree, free falling towards the man below.

They could take her back over her dead body.

Or his.

She slammed into him, using the branch across his back and shoulders, and he let out a sharp, eerie cry before he crumpled like a dry autumn leaf. She held herself off the ground only at the very last second. It took more energy than she'd bargained for, because of the speed of her drop, but she managed to land without a sound next to the body she'd brought down.

There was no light out here. The stars and a fingernail moon provided the only illumination, and she couldn't see his face. His body was thick-set, strong without any sign of softness. She shivered as she remembered the wisps of black, reaching for her.

Though she would swear he wasn't one of the orderlies, he was strangely familiar. And he was dead.

The sound of footsteps running in her direction made her leap up into the tree again, this time just above the body, in the dense foliage of the lower branches.

“Rennie?” A low whisper, a woman, who was little more than an outline to Kel. She bent over the body. “Shit.” She stood still, and Kel had the sense she was communicating with her colleagues.

There was something familiar about her, too.

Had she met them? While Greenway played with her mind?

The woman turned sharply towards the left, and another shadow seemed to flow towards her.

“Any sign?” The rough, low voice made her heart lurch with fear, and she knew she was afraid of this man she couldn't see, would have sworn she'd never met.

She started to shiver, cold and nerves wracking her body, and she lifted herself off the branch an inch into the air, so it wouldn't shake. She could feel her energy draining from the effort.

The woman turned in her direction and Kel's heart hammered in her chest. “Where's Tom?”

“Gone after the army boys.”

“She never killed anyone we asked her to in training.” From the sound of her voice, the woman had turned back to the body on the ground, and Kel's panic eased a little.

“Guess when her own life's in danger, Greenway's pet does have claws after all.” There was something gleeful in his tone.

“The trigger doesn't work. It makes her come after us, not come to us.”

“Then use it knowing she'll be attacking, not making nice.” He stepped away, his shadow separating from the woman's. “Not that she ever did. She fought Greenway every step of the fucking way. Her resistance level was too high for us to ever trust her in a live op, but he wouldn't listen.”

“He thought her talents would be useful. More useful that the other failures.” The woman toed the body on the ground. “Guess he was right.”

Kel had to ease herself back onto the branch. Before she came crashing down. There were others?

The woman looked sharply in her direction again. As if she'd heard that tiny scrape of her shoe on bark. And then suddenly hands grabbed her from below, threw her down.

With one last burst of energy, she landed feet first and leaped away, like a rubber ball, completely unprepared for the hard, sharp smack against her shoulder, the echoing retort of a gunshot.

She hit the forest floor on her side and slid through the leaves and dirt, trying to find some last reserve of strength. She came up with nothing. Nothing but pain.

Two faces peered down at her.

“Well, Kelli. Nice to see you.” The man was nothing but a shadow, his face in complete darkness as he leaned over her. She had never been more afraid in her life.

This man had hurt her before. Her body was screaming it at her. She tried to get her legs under her, scrabbling on the loose debris of pine needles and soil, and he put his foot on the shoulder he'd shot. Leaned his weight into it.

She couldn't help the scream that wrenched out of her, ripping her throat raw as it escaped. Lights flashed in front of her eyes and she tried to curl into herself, panting.

The woman dropped beside her, silent, and grabbed her hands. Kel saw the glint of handcuffs.

No! She would not go back
.

Both of them suddenly snapped their heads up, dived away as a shot sounded, so loud, so close, Kel made herself even smaller on the ground.

Another shadow reached her, Nate's gentle hands moving her to her back. “They get you?”

“Left shoulder.” She gasped the words.

“Let's get to the car.” He lifted her as carefully as he could, and she saw someone who had to be Giles, gun in his hand again, sweeping in a slow move, left to right.

And then they were running, Nate holding her close to his chest, Giles half-turned to keep an eye on their back.

He shot twice, and she heard a cry as someone went down.

Nate reached the car, put her across the backseat. Without a word, Giles took the driver seat, and Nate crouched next to her in the footwell in the back, and they took off.

From what seemed like a long way down, she heard another shot, wasn't sure if it was Giles shooting out or someone shooting in.

And then Nate's hands where on her shoulder, and there was a heat, a searing heat, everywhere. Her shoulder was on fire. She must have made a sound, because one hand came up to brush her hair back from her forehead.

“Shh. You'll be all right.”

She didn't remember anything else.

Kel came awake with a cry.

Nate turned to the backseat, and saw her staring wildly around the car, looking like a refugee from a war camp. Dawn was just breaking, and the early light illuminated her ripped and blood-soaked t-shirt. Dirt smudged her cheek and there were twigs and pine needles in her hair.

Her eyes widened as she caught his gaze, and her hands went to her shoulder, pressed down on her skin.

“You healed me.” She rubbed the spot where that bastard's bullet had gone straight through her back and out the other side.

He hoped Giles had killed him, but didn't pretend they'd be that lucky. His anger had fueled his healing, and he didn't feel nearly as wiped out as he should for the damage he'd fixed.

“Thank you.” She spoke in a whisper, and closed her eyes for a moment. “I…thank you.”

“If you want to thank me, you can promise to never exit a car moving at eighty miles an hour ever again.” He jerked his thumb at the window, covered over with plastic he and Giles had rigged with tape. He thought he was over that but, no, he guessed he was still pissed off. Beside him, hands on the wheel, Giles flashed him a warning look.

Kel blinked at him. “You think I did that just for the hell of it? I wasn't in control when I blew the window.”

That stopped him dead.

“Who did have control, then?” Giles asked into the silence.

She couldn't stop rubbing her shoulder, and Nate remembered the way she'd screamed when that bastard had stepped on her wound. He clenched his fists. Then she lifted both hands to her head, rubbed her temples.

“That's the question, isn't it?” She laughed. “The big question.”

“Keep it together, Kel.” He spoke sharply, afraid if she lost it now, they would not like the result.

“I think Greenway implanted a verbal trigger in my head. Only it's gone wrong. It doesn't work the way they meant it to.” She watched him as she spoke, and he admired the control she was forcing on herself.

“Well, shit.” Giles changed gear as they turned onto a highway.

She lifted stricken eyes to his. “Those people back there, they all knew me by name. I knew them, too. They felt familiar.”

She flopped back against the seat and closed her eyes. “There are others like me, others the trigger doesn't work properly on. They're out there somewhere. Scattered because your commander wanted to close Greenway down. Those two who caught me...” She drew in a shaky breath, opened her eyes again. “The trigger worked on them. They work for Greenway. They spoke about ops.”

Giles whistled. “A paranormal black ops team under Greenway's control? That should have given him major ammo against the Colonel. Why didn't he use it? If he had a successful team, he'd have been untouchable. He'd have been allowed to keep anyone he wanted.”

“Unless the good doc hasn't told anyone. Maybe there's more money in private enterprise.” Nate felt a headache brewing. “More control.”

“And what did it matter giving the others up, anyway, when the trigger didn't work on them? They're broken.” Kel crossed her arms over her stomach, looked out the window. “Like me.”

Nate forced himself into her space and grabbed her hand. “You are not broken.”

She studied him, calm, dry-eyed. “I'm sure as hell not myself. I need to look at the files I stole from Greenway's office. See if there is any information on what he tried to do. And...” she bit her lip. “I'm going to see if I can track down the others he let go. Break them out of whatever cage he delivered them to.”

His reaction was gut-deep. “No.”

She lowered her eyes, then lifted them again. Drew her hand out of his. “I'm sorry, Nate. I don't answer to you. I will always be grateful for hooking up with you and Giles. You helped me get free, saved my life. But I'm not crawling into a hole and wondering when Greenway is going to come find me. Not when there are others like me out there. Stuck in the hell we were in, with no one to save them.”

He sighed. Turned in the seat. Watched the Merc eat up the road.

“Would certainly bring unwanted attention to the facility if we sprung some of the former inmates.” Giles pulled down the sun visor as the sun rose higher on the horizon.

“Giles, I don't expect you to get involved...” Nate sensed Kel's double-take as she looked at Giles properly. He was still way too thin, but otherwise, he was no longer at death's door.

“Seems you have a good effect on me.” Giles grinned at her in the rearview mirror.

“We're all sticking together.” Nate tried to keep his hands relaxed on his thighs.

“Why would you do that? Why would you help me?” Kel leaned between the seats, and he smelled the forest in her hair.

“Yeah, Nate. Why wouldya?” Giles drawled.

“We're a good team. And... I don't want you out of my sight.” He ignored Giles, spoke only to Kel.

“I'm not changing my mind about finding the others.”

He nodded. “All right. But we make a plan, and we stick to it. No flying to the ceiling or out of windows.”

She started. “You didn't like the ceiling thing?”

“Nate doesn't like anything he hasn't authorized in advance, unless it's him doing it.” Giles said.

“Well, guess we're in for a fun time, then.” Kel smiled, leaned in and brushed a kiss on his cheek.

And as the press of her lips on his skin burned him bone deep, the bastard of it was, he thought she might be right.

When I was invited to contribute to this amazing anthology by Edie Ramer and Misty Evans, I hesitated. Not because I didn't want to be involved—I did—I simply hadn't written anything contemporary and paranormal before.

I write historical fiction, and my historical series, published through Simon & Schuster imprint Gallery Books,
IN A TREACHEROUS COURT
(out now) and
KEEPER OF THE KING'S SECRETS
(due out in February 2012), is set in the court of Henry VIII.

I wondered if I was up for the challenge of not only writing in a different genre, but in a different story-form as well, never having tackled a short story before.

As you can tell from the length of this one, I'm still working on getting the short-story form perfected, but I certainly enjoyed writing in this genre, and love even more that my first foray into it is for such a good cause.

One of my critique partners, Liz Kreger, who has also contributed to this anthology, is still fighting cancer, and her strength and courage are a constant inspiration to me. My grandfather, my mother-in-law and my aunt died of cancer, and any small part I can play in helping to find a cure for this disease is something I'm proud to do.

I hope you love reading this story as much as I loved writing it.