Seduced by the Storm (18 page)

She
knew Sean inside and out, knew exactly how he’d handle this situation.
"He’s got men looking for you, but because they didn’t find you right
away, he’s scaling down the search, making it less obvious. He’ll have figured
out that I’m MIA, and he’ll think you have me."

"Then
that’s how we’ll play this."

"I’ll
be your hostage." Smart. The longer Sean believed she was on his side, the
better.

"He
did something to me in the office. What exactly is his deal?"

There
was an unspoken rule amongst special-ability operatives, something that went
along the lines of
Never reveal another agent’s special gifts
. Sean was
a childhood friend, a confidant, a lover…but he’d turned into something
sinister, a stranger she barely recognized, and she didn’t owe him anything
anymore.

"Faith?"
Wyatt’s warm hand came down on her shoulder, to give her a gentle but firm
squeeze—a not-so-subtle message telling her that they might have just had sex,
but playtime was over, and he had a job to do. "I need to know what I’m up
against. All of it."

"Yes,
of course." The words were crisp, as devoid of emotion as she could make
them. She had a job to do too. "He can tap your energy."

"Yeah,
I got that. But how bad?"

"He
can drain you so that in seconds you’re nothing but a quivering blob on the
floor. Or worse. You only got a very mild taste of it."

"That’s
just great," he muttered.

"There’s
something else you should know. It’s difficult for me to use my gift on him,
and vice versa."

"Why?"

"Sean
and I go way back. We grew up together. Developed our powers together. And we
learned to recognize each other’s power signatures. We can’t completely block
each other, but we at least get a warning."

"Soon,"
he said so close to her ear she felt the scrape of teeth, "we’re going to
have to talk about how well you know good ole Sean."

Her
breath hitched, but before she could catch it, Wyatt turned her and caged her
between his arms and the door. "But first, we need to work out what we’re
going to do with the machine. Because I don’t want to battle Sean and his goons
and then have to fight you."

Her
sense of self-preservation kicked in, and she reached deep for her power,
prepared to do whatever was necessary if he even thought about doing his
neck-snapping thing.

"I
won’t allow you to destroy the machine."

"And
I won’t let you take it."

The
sound of footsteps on some grating above them created a tense silence, though
she wouldn’t be surprised if Wyatt heard her heart pounding crazily. When the
men had passed, she lifted her chin and met his hard gaze with an equally hard
one of her own.

"Do
your orders specify that you have to destroy it while on the platform?"

He
narrowed his eyes at her. "No. Why?"

"Then
let’s take it, and once we’re safely away, we can decide what to do with it.
There are probably a million ways you can destroy it once we’re in the
air." And there were a million ways she could either convince him to let
her have it, or deal with him so he’d have no choice but to let her have it. The
odds tipped in her favor if they could just get off the platform with the thing
intact.

"I
don’t think so."

"Dammit,
Wyatt. I’m not going to back down on this. I need that machine, and I will do
what I have to do. Whatever it takes."

"What’s
this really about, Faith? I’m going to be real fucking disappointed if it’s
about money, after all."

"It’s
about family," she said gravely. "If I don’t get that machine, my
sister dies."

Family.
Again with the family. The universe was trying to tell him something about
synchronicity and karma—all things Sam was always talking about.

Look
for the signs, Wyatt, look for all the signs.

Faith
held his arm. "I know you might not understand…what you said before, about
your own family, about not being close with them…"

"If
you’re fucking with me—"

"Why
would I do that? I’m letting you take me as a hostage. I saved your ass and
your life. I’m turning against my childhood friend."

"And
former lover," he pointed out, mainly because that still chapped his ass.

"Exactly.
I need this machine."

"I
can’t let it get into the wrong hands."

"It
won’t. I just need to get my sister
out
of the wrong hands." She
fumbled in her skirt pocket and pulled out a cell phone. "Here—you want
proof, this is the best I can do on short notice."

He
watched the small screen, saw the woman Faith said was her sister, tied up,
looking beaten and bruised and begging Faith for help. He heard the man’s voice
in the background as well, instructing Faith on the first steps toward assuring
that Liberty went free and unharmed, and his stomach twisted. His own family
was destroyed—ACRO was his family now, an amazing fucking family at that—but
sometimes Wyatt longed for closure, for real answers about what happened.

He
looked at Faith’s face and saw a pain there that couldn’t be faked. He felt his
own pain every time he thought about his half brother.

He
knew he was skating on cracked ice, that someone who would do anything for a
family member would do
anything,
including hand over a machine that
could kill half the world’s population.

Her
powers were strong, but he still had his most important talent—he’d hate to use
that against her again, but if he had to, it would stop her from trying to
crush his internal organs with her mind. Because
that
would be a real
fucking drag.

"We’ll
deal with the fate of the machine after we secure the motherboard and get the
hell off the platform."

"That
works for me," she agreed.

"You
owe me and ACRO for this, babe. Now, let’s move. My fucking life is in your
hands if that Stowe motherfucker gets through—you know that, right?"

"I
know that, Wyatt. I’ve never been great at working as part of a team, but I’m a
quick study," she said quietly. "Now, how are we going to move around
this installation without getting you caught?"

He
grinned. "Baby, I grew up on rigs and platforms. Took my first steps a
hundred feet above the ground. Cut my teeth on steel cable. I can get us where
we need to go."

She
went up on her tiptoes and brushed her lips over his in a feather-light kiss.
"Very sexy."

They
moved swiftly but cautiously between piping and beneath out-of-the-way support
beams, the sound of machinery drowning out the clank of their footsteps on
metal plating. The familiar odors of oil and hot steel brought back memories of
doing this same thing as a kid, when offshore platforms had been his
playground.

This
was his turf. Sean and his city-civilized minions didn’t stand a chance.

The
accommodations module loomed ahead, and his mind worked quickly. No way would
they be able to waltz in—Sean’s goons would be watching his quarters.

When
Faith cocked a questioning eyebrow at him, he winked and scaled a pipe running
along the backside of the module. She followed, didn’t complain when he opened
the cover on an air duct barely large enough for them and squeezed through.

The
going was hot and dusty, but they made it to the ceiling above his room with a
minimum of wrong turns. As quietly as possible, he pried the vent grating loose
and dropped into his room, where he changed quickly, grabbed the important
things, like his cell phone, weapons and ammo—one round definitely had Sean’s
name on it.

Faith
whispered from the air duct above, where she’d remained. "Hurry. We still
have to stop at my room so I can get a bag for the motherboard."

He
looked up. "We don’t need a bag."

"It’s
specially made. Waterproof and crushproof," she insisted, and something in
her eyes told him he wasn’t going to win this one, and that they were wasting
precious time. He climbed back into the crawl space and led her to her
quarters. Once they were there, they both climbed down. They’d go on foot from
here.

He
guarded the door to her room, watched as she took the bag from the closet.
Watched as she placed the stuffed animal she’d had on her hotel bed the day
they’d met inside, and he turned away and found himself both smiling and
sighing.

This
mission was too personal for both of them.

He
snared two sets of coveralls and hard hats from a deck locker as they made
their way to the weather lab, and once they were dressed, they used the
hide-in-plain-sight ruse to work their way toward the weather lab.

It
was game on for both of them.

Two
guards stood at the entrance to the main offices, unarmed but no doubt deadly.

"Sean
said that since the module housed the company offices used by legitimate
workers, he couldn’t have men toting semi-automatic weapons hanging
around," she whispered.

"Probably
I-Men," he said. Probably excedosapiens with minor abilities—which still
made them more dangerous than the average, well-trained soldier. "I want
the one on the left first."

"Got
it," she said, and they both sprang into action, a fucking thing of
beauty.

Their
skills were complementary when they weren’t being used against each other, and
the guards went down like a choreographed dance Wyatt would’ve enjoyed if the
situation weren’t so mind-blowing dire, with Faith doing the immobilizing so
Wyatt could kill them in a quick and quiet order, assembly-line fashion, snapping
necks efficiently to preserve his telekinetic powers for when he’d really need
them.

"Cameras,"
she said, and Wyatt quickly disabled them by blowing out the internal wiring,
and did the same with the coded locks on the door.

"I’ll
take the alarms on the inside—hold them off for me while I do that," he
instructed.

"The
men inside aren’t going to give you a problem," she assured him.
"Trust me."

They
opened the doors and burst into the lab that housed the massive wall of computers
that made up the weather machine, and were greeted by three men who had been
hunkered over the weather equipment. Faith standing there with her arms crossed
was enough to have them practically on their knees while Wyatt shorted the
alarms.

That
wasn’t going to stop Sean for long, though.

"You
guys meteorologists?" Wyatt asked, and one of them nodded. "Special
abilities?"

All
of them shook their heads vigorously. They were definitely Itor, but like ACRO,
Itor employed people who didn’t possess special abilities but who were the best
in their fields.

Wyatt
glanced around, jerked his head at the closet at the rear of the lab. "In
there. All of you."

"Wait,"
Faith said. She grabbed the nearest guy and pointed at the radar. "What’s
going on with that hurricane?"

"We
just turned it to the north. It’s going to move up the East Coast."

Wyatt
moved close. "Turn it out into the mid-Atlantic."

The
guy shook his head. "It’ll take a little more than a push of a button.
Once we turned it, the Bermuda High took over its steerage."

"Can
you weaken it?"

"Yes,"
the guy said cautiously, as if he wasn’t sure he was giving the answer that
would keep him alive, "but it’ll take hours."

"Shit.
Okay, get in the closet."

Faith
herded the three guys to the closet, closed the door, then Wyatt concentrated,
bent the lock so the door wouldn’t open.

"Motherboard,"
he said, and she pointed.

"There.
Get it out first and then we’ll have to destroy the entire wall."

"That
will be my pleasure," he said, and with her help they gently extracted the
motherboard, the key to the entire operation, up and away from the main
components. Faith slid it into the lined protective pouch she wore on her
person.

"Stand
back, baby." He methodically began to blow out the computers, screens, the
hard drives and even the keyboards for good measure. The TVs and phones went
too, and one by one he lifted them and flung them against the far wall, until
every single component was thoroughly destroyed.

The
most important thing left to destroy had, however, just entered the room. And
when Wyatt turned with deadly force to connect his fist to Sean Stowe’s face,
he knew he was taking his life into his hands in more ways than one.

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