Remember Jamie Baker (9 page)

I opened my mouth and shut it again as I processed his words. I’d never thought about it like that before. Ryan patted my hand and said, “Okay, here’s how it’s going to go. From now on I’m not Ryan Miller, your fiancé who loves you more than life itself and has spent the last six months looking for you and refusing to believe that you were dead. I’m just a random guy on a plane who hit the lottery when it comes to seatmates. I have no expectations, and there’s no pressure for you to like me back. I’m just a friendly guy, curious to talk to the amazingly hot woman sitting next to me.”

It was a really sweet thought, but I was skeptical. “I’m not sure that’s possible. How could you ever separate yourself like that? You can’t just turn off your feelings, and you can’t forget the past any more than I can remember it.”

Ryan wasn’t deterred at all by my cynicism. “But I
do
have to get to know you again. You’re right that you aren’t the same person as you were before. Neither am I. Our experiences shape who we are. Your personality is still the same, but the things you’ve been through have changed you. It’s the same with me. The past six months have taken me so far from the guy I was before. Even if you did get your memories back, I’m sure we’d still have a lot of adjusting to do in our relationship. We’d still have to get to know each other again. You’re right that we can’t go back to the way things were. That’s impossible, so it would be a mistake to try. But that doesn’t mean we can’t start completely over.”

I bit my lip, considering his proposal. He had a point. Maybe he wouldn’t ever be able to let go of his feelings for me, and he’d always have memories that I didn’t, but if he could really start over, then maybe it was possible for us to be friends. “All right,” I agreed hesitantly. “I guess we could try it. But, if it’s okay with you, could we try to be just friends?”

“Just friends?” Ryan crinkled his nose at the thought.

I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling at the pout on his face. His antics were softening me, and I wasn’t about to let him know that he was getting under my skin. I had a feeling he was the kind of guy who, if given an inch, would take a mile.

“Yes. Just friends, please.” I gave him a look that I hoped was convincing. Hard to do when my mouth dried up every time I looked at his lips. “I just got out of a really messed up relationship. I need a break. I’m not really ready to start dating again.”

Ryan’s pout evaporated and he shrugged nonchalantly. “Okay.”

I was surprised at how easily he’d agreed to it. I’d expected more of a fight. Suspicion crept into my mind when he chuckled to himself as he settled back into his chair. “What?” I demanded.

“What do you mean, ‘what?’”

I was
so
not falling for the big, innocent puppy-dog face he gave me. I narrowed my eyes at him and he grinned even bigger. “It’s nothing,” he said. “I’m cool. We’re good. Just friends. Should be fun.” He snickered again.

I don’t know where the cocky attitude came from all of a sudden, but I found it so infuriating and made the cabin’s lights flicker again. Ryan glanced up at them and raised an eyebrow at me, trying his hardest not to laugh. It was so annoying, and yet it was going to make me laugh, too. I’d have rather fried the plane and sent us all plummeting to our deaths than let Ryan know he was amusing me. “Are you trying to make me crash this plane?” I hissed. “What is so funny?”

“Nothing,” Ryan insisted again. “I’m just a random guy with no memories of you, remember? I don’t find anything funny about this situation.”

I was so ready to kill him. “Just
tell
me,” I snapped, loud enough to earn strange looks from the rest of the ACEs.

Ryan attempted to smooth out his face. “You may not remember,” he said, “but you telling me to get lost and me completely ignoring your request is sort of our MO.”

“What?”

He shrugged. “You’ve made us try the ‘just friends’ things before, and you’re not very good at it. I give you a week at the most before you kiss me.”

My jaw hit my lap.

Ryan took in my expression as if he’d been waiting a lifetime to see whatever look was on my face. With another laugh, he leaned over and kissed my cheek. “It’s good to have you back, babe.”

After the plane ride
—which I luckily fell asleep on, and was not awake to make us crash during landing—I found myself in the back of another transport truck, squished yet again between Ryan and Tyson while the rest of the ACEs stared at me.

Most of the military personnel stationed in Colorado stayed at the base in Colorado Springs, where our plane landed, but the ACEs hung their hats in the nearby nuclear bunker called NORAD. It’s this huge, heavily armed top-secret base built inside a freaking mountain. I guess because PACs are so top secret, they needed a more private place to train than the rest of the military. They needed a place where they can use their abilities without other people learning what they can do.

When we finally reached NORAD, the mountain swallowed up the road. There was a small, unflashy tunnel sticking out of the side of the mountain that just seemed to eat the road. It reminded me of a turtle missing its head. On either side of the tunnel was a high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire like the fences that surrounded prisons. Other than that, there wasn’t much to see. It gave me the creeps.

As we drove into the tunnel and were consumed by darkness, my heart started beating faster. A few hundred feet into the tunnel, the truck stopped at a set of thick metal doors made of solid steel. I shivered at the sight.

“So,” I asked, swallowing back my nerves. I didn’t want these men to see my fear. “How many of you have powers like Tyson and me?”

“Just one,” Ryan said, and all eyes shifted to the large African man.

“Abiodun, right?”

The big man gave me a shy smile. “Yes, Angel. And I must thank you. You saved my life when you freed me from Visticorp. Their experiments would have killed me.”

His gratitude felt misplaced because I couldn’t remember actually helping the man, but I forced a smile anyway and said, “I’m glad I could help. Ryan told me a little about what happened after the explosion. I’m very sorry about your friends. I’ll do everything I can to help you get them back.”

“Thank you, Angel. That’s very kind.”

Again, his praise made me squirm. I shrugged. “We can’t leave them there. Plus, they got Teddy, too. I know he lied to me, and I want to kill him for it, but I can’t leave him with them to be experimented on. I’m going to get him back. And then I’m going to stop Donovan once and for all so that we can all be safe again. That man took my memory from me, and he’s going to regret it.”

I met Abiodun’s eyes and found nothing but grim understanding. He was in—no matter what we had to do to stop Donovan. “We will help you.”

“Hell yes, we will,” Tyson agreed. “With our powers combined, we could take on the freaking X-Men. Donovan’s going to be no match for us.”

“So…” I wasn’t sure if it was polite to ask Abiodun what his power was, but if we were going to work together, then I needed to know. “What exactly can you do?”

“We call him the Fireman!” Tyson boasted before Abiodun could answer. “The guy can light up like a torch. He throws a mean fireball, too. He discovered his power when he got caught in an explosion in a petroleum production plant in South Africa and
didn’t
get burned. The whole warehouse was reduced to ashes in minutes. Hundreds of people died and he just walked right out of the flames stark naked—clothes burned right off his body. He wasn’t even singed.”

I was stunned speechless by the story, but also horrified that he’d lived through his nightmare and had to remember it. I wondered if that’s what the explosion I was in had been like, and how I’d survived it. I didn’t think I was fireproof, but maybe there had been no flames. I’d still been wearing clothes when Teddy found me. I shuddered, but I wasn’t sure what I found more disturbing—Abiodun’s story, or the missing details of my own accident.

“I will show you sometime,” Abiodun said, breaking me from my thoughts. “We have a great training facility here on base. They’ve modified it to make it fireproof.”

“What about electricity—lightning proof?”

Every soldier in the truck perked up at the thought of seeing a demonstration.

“Not yet, Angel,” Major Wilks said, interrupting the conversation as he appeared at the back of the truck. We’d reached our final destination. “We couldn’t do much without seeing how your power works and the kind of damage you can cause. If you’ll allow us, we’d love to have you do your worst so that we can figure out what type of modifications need to be made.”

“My
worst?
” I thought of the crater in Las Vegas and cringed. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Well, perhaps you could take it a little easier on us than you did on Visticorp,” Major Wilks allowed with a chuckle.

He glanced around the group and clapped his hands together. “Romeo,” he barked. “Get the Angel to Dr. Haggerty in Medical. She took quite a beating today, and I want to make sure she’s okay. Everyone else, get some sleep. I have a feeling we’re going to have a busy day tomorrow. Dismissed, gentlemen.”

The guys all hooted and cheered, as if getting a few hours of sleep was the best news any of them had ever received. I completely understood. I was envious of them all. With a few welcoming greetings to me, they scattered like roaches, and were gone.

I climbed out of the truck, expecting to see something straight from the Syfy channel, but the room we were in just looked like a warehouse that they used as a garage. It was a large room filled with various military vehicles. It was a little impressive knowing that the entire thing was beneath the ground, but otherwise it was nothing spectacular.

Ryan held a door open for me that led into a long corridor. Again, it was nothing to write home about—light beige walls, linoleum floors, and fluorescent lighting. It was a hallway like any other in an office building, just with less décor and no windows. I sighed, disappointed. “For a top-secret military base, this is kind of a letdown. I guess the military is more about function than form.”

Ryan nodded, frowning at the walls. “The building could definitely use a little personality, but the training center is nothing to scoff at, and you should see the command center—so awesome.”

We turned a corner into another corridor that looked exactly like the last one, and came to an open door. Bright light spilled from the room into the hallway. The infirmary matched the same decorating scheme as the rest of the compound—spotless, cold, and impersonal—just more brightly lit. It looked sort of like a cross between a regular doctor’s office and a small hospital.

It was a lot larger than I’d expected, and had a lot of equipment all crammed into the one office. It consisted of labeled cupboards and sterilized counters with a couple of examination cots. Behind them was a variety of very expensive life-saving equipment. I recognized the MRI machine from my visit with Dr. Rajeet this morning. Had that visit really only been this morning? This day definitely won for Longest Day Ever.

A woman in a crisp military uniform sat with her back to us, hunched over a desk. She was poring over a folder of files that looked suspiciously like the ones Dr. Rajeet had shown me. Ryan knocked on the open door and pulled me into the room. “Dr. Haggerty?”

The woman swiveled in her chair, beaming a bright smile at Ryan. She was as harsh-looking as Major Wilks—a military woman to her core. Somewhere in her mid-thirties, she was tall and slender with pale skin, dark-brown eyes, and brunette hair pulled back into a severe bun. If not for the warm smile that seemed out of place on her, I might have been afraid to sit on her exam table for fear she’d take pleasure in torturing me. I wondered if the smile was always there, or if she simply had a weakness for Ryan. I was guessing the latter when she stood and greeted him, saying, “Heya, Goldilocks!”

Ryan looked at me and sighed playfully. “The ACEs have a thing for nicknames.” As if I hadn’t figured that one out yet. “Romeo and Loverboy are bad enough, but the good doctor here likes to torment me the most with Goldilocks.”

I resisted a grin as I glanced at his shiny golden-blond hair styled very much like Captain America’s. (After the Cap gets his modern makeover. Not his dorky World War II haircut.)

“Could be worse,” I said, voice flat. “Your hair could be
green
.”

Ryan scanned my hair, then dropped his gaze down the entire length of my body and back up. His expression turned to one that made my pulse spike and my mouth dry up. “I think it’s hot.”

I scoffed. It was definitely
not
hot.

“What made you decide to go green, anyway? I thought you hated it.”

“What do you mean? It’s always been this color.”

“Underneath, maybe.” Ryan pulled a phone out of his pocket. “You went to great lengths to make sure no one ever saw it. You always wore colored contacts to hide your eyes, too. See?”

He handed me his cell phone, and I gasped at the image on the display screen. I’m not sure what I found more startling: the raven-haired, jade-eyed girl looking back at me, or the fact that she was sitting on a bed with Ryan in what looked like a college dorm room, scowling playfully at whoever had taken the photo. Both Ryan and I had lipstick smeared all over our faces. We’d clearly just been caught making out.

Ryan laughed at the look on my face. “I see you’re still not a fan of my favorite picture of us.”

I had to shut my eyes. This one photo of my past was more than Tony had given me in the last six months. So many cruel lies.

“Jamie? You okay?”

“Sorry.” I took a calming breath and shook away the bad thoughts. “I’m fine. It’s just…Tony—er, Teddy told me we didn’t have any pictures together because we’d been locked up in the lab and Visticorp didn’t allow us to get our pictures taken. How could I have been so gullible?”

Ryan’s arm slipped around my shoulders. “Don’t do that to yourself. It’s like you said. You didn’t have much of a choice except to believe him. It wasn’t your fault. You had no memory. He took advantage of you in the worst way. You can’t beat yourself up for it.”

I blushed when Dr. Haggerty cleared her throat to remind us we were in her office. She gave me a kind smile, then looked at Ryan. “Are you going to introduce me?”

Ryan’s hand fell from my shoulder to the small of my back, and he pushed me forward. The soft touch shot chills up my spine. Very, very good chills. Ryan sucked in a breath through his nose and rolled his shoulders as if suppressing a shudder of his own. It made me wonder if the chills I’d felt were physical and not just in my own head. Had Ryan felt them, too? Did that always happen between us?

“Dr. Haggerty, meet Chelsea’s Angel. The guys have taken to simply calling her Angel. Or Jamie works, too.”

Dr. Haggerty extended a hand to me, and her adoring smile turned curious. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, though I wish it were under better circumstances.”

At both Ryan’s and my confused looks, the doctor handed me a hospital gown. “Major Wilks called ahead and briefed me of your attack. Did you really put your head
through
a cement floor?”

I grimaced and offered a shrug, hating feeling like a freak. “Not all the way.”

Her eyes scanned my body and quickly zeroed in on my neck. Nobody had said anything, but I’d seen the bruises from where I’d been strangled after my shower earlier; they looked awful.

“Does your voice hurt?”

I shook my head. “It’s not bad. My neck’s pretty sore, though.”

She nodded as if that made perfect sense. “Anything else hurt?”

“Aside from every muscle in my body?”

“Yes, aside from that,” she said with a smile.

“I still have a raging headache. But the double vision, nausea, and dizziness have all passed.”

“That’s good. It’s probably just a mild concussion, then. I can give you something for the headache, but we need to do a CT scan and an MRI to make sure there’s no swelling, fractures, or internal bleeding. I also want to double check and make sure there’s no permanent damage done to your larynx.”

I’d known this was coming, but I still looked at the backless cotton gown in her hands and sighed.

“Quick and painless,” Dr. Haggerty promised.

“I know. I just…tests.” I shivered. “If I could have nightmares, I’m sure they’d be about being locked up and tested on.”

“I’ll stay with you,” Ryan offered while Dr. Haggerty said, “If?”

I answered Dr. Haggerty first. “I’ve never dreamed since the accident. I don’t know why.”

Dr. Haggerty cocked her head to the side. After thinking about it for a moment, she nodded. “It makes sense that you’d have a few other side effects from your brain damage than just the amnesia. The damage was mostly done to your medial temporal lobe, but not all of it.”

I sighed. “So you’ve seen Dr. Rajeet’s files, then?”

“Yes.”

I wasn’t surprised. If Major Wilks talked to Dr. Rajeet after the superbreak-in, of course they’d have asked for copies of my scans. “So…” I swallowed thickly, bracing myself for the answer to my next question. “Do you agree with Dr. Rajeet that the damage is permanent?”

Dr. Haggerty’s face melted into a sympathetic smile. “Yes. I’m sorry. Your memory is essentially dead, and there’s simply no way to bring it back to life.”

The news was just as crushing the second time. Ryan placed a soft kiss to the side of my head. “You survived, Jamie. At least we have that much.”

I sucked in a breath, forcing my emotions down, and nodded. He was right, after all. At least I was alive.

Dr. Haggerty handed me the medical nightgown. “Why don’t you go ahead and change, and we’ll get your examination over with? You look exhausted. I’m sure you’d like to rest.”

I nodded again, and both Dr. Haggerty and I looked at Ryan. He didn’t seem to know what we were waiting for. “Time for you to leave, Goldilocks,” Dr. Haggerty said.

The guy frowned—no, he
pouted
—at the request. “I’m going to stay with Jamie.”

I lifted the gown in my arms. “Not if I’m changing into this thing, you aren’t.”

Ryan’s eyes dropped to the gown and he grinned. It was a wicked smile that made my breath catch. He leaned down and put his lips to my ear. “I’ve seen you in a lot less, Sunshine.”