Whispers in the Dark (36 page)

She slowed in her walk. She’d felt safe with them, but she hadn’t been. Maybe that was her reality. Maybe she’d never be safe with anyone. She’d allowed herself to be reeled in by the fantasy of being able to rely on someone else. To have someone to protect her. Hope had been fierce within her after dealing with cold, hard reality for so long.

And the minute she’d let her guard down and allowed herself to depend on someone else? She’d been thrown over some psycho G.I. Joe wannabe’s shoulder and nearly tossed off a cliff.

Say it with me. Safety is an illusion.

Nothing like a good shot of optimism to boost her spirits.

Seeing an empty bench by a bus stop, she sank down onto it, watching warily around her for anyone who looked remotely threatening. She needed to clear her damn mind. She needed to figure out what to do.

She had no money, no ID. If she got stopped by a cop for any reason, she was so screwed. She had stuff stashed in a few places, but that didn’t do her any good when she had no way to get to it.

Damn it. Grace wasn’t talking. Shea’s head splintered when she even tried to call out for Nathan. She wanted to bury her face in her hands and cry like a damn baby, but she was too disgusted with herself to give in to that particular dramafest.

She sat for several moments and purposely blanked her mind. She rubbed soothingly at her temples and tried to shake off the aftereffects of the drugs they’d given her. It was the only explanation for why she couldn’t use her telepathy.

And then she panicked. What if it was permanent? Who knew what kind of crazy crap they’d given her? She quickly realized the absurdity of thinking such a thing. They wanted her abilities. They didn’t want to destroy them.

She sucked in air through her nose and then held her breath as she whispered Nathan’s name in her mind.

The stabbing pain nearly flattened her. She pitched forward, gulping desperately in an effort not to cry out. There was so much pressure in her skull, it felt like it would burst at any moment. Like a volcano. It literally felt like something was about to break apart in her head.

But then she heard him. A faint whisper, so light she wondered if it was wishful thinking.

Shea, where are you, baby?

Oh God, she couldn’t answer, could she? What if something did burst in her head? What if she had some freak aneurysm? What the hell was going on with her?

She rocked back and forth, trying not to let any sound escape.

“Miss, are you all right?”

Shea jerked her head around to see an elderly man sit down on the bench next to her. She nodded jerkily. “I’m f-fine.”

He gave her a doubtful look and she shot to her feet. She hurried away, knowing she probably drew more attention than if she’d just sat there, but she didn’t trust herself not to completely lose it and that would definitely gain her far more attention than if she simply walked away.

She hugged herself close and hunched down as she passed block after block. The streetlights blurred in her vision and she winced every time she inadvertently made contact with passing headlights.

It was like having a headache on steroids. The mother of all migraines. Every sound, every touch, every shard of light was so overwhelming that she couldn’t even process her thoughts. She couldn’t put together the simplest of plans and so she wandered through the city like some zombie.

She nearly stepped off the curb in front of a car when she was yanked backward. The hand on her arm was crushing, and she winced as she tried to pull away.

“Th-Thank you,” she tried to murmur but it came out as unintelligible garble. And then she looked up and her stomach bottomed out.

It was a face she’d seen many times in her nightmares in the last weeks. He’d beaten and brutalized her and been ruthless in his determination to extract the information he wanted from her.

Nathan had told her that it wasn’t just Grace these assholes wanted. He was resolute in his opinion that they wanted her just as much. They’d taken too much care not to seriously injure her.

So if they didn’t want her dead, and had no intention of killing her, she had absolutely nothing to lose by making the mother of all scenes.

As if reading her mind—who the hell knows, maybe he had—his grip tightened around her wrist until she let out a cry of pain.

“If you try anything, I’ll break your arm,” he hissed. “I will make you suffer unimaginably. If you cooperate, you’ll get to see your sister again.”

Her eyes widened in fear and her stomach clenched. Was this what had happened to Grace? Did these bastards already have her?

“Where is she?” Shea demanded, ignoring the roaring in her head.

“Get in the car,” he directed as a dark sedan pulled to the curb and stopped. “Do it or I’ll make you regret the day you were born.”

“Don’t you mean created?” she said in disgust.

He shoved her forward into the open backseat and then climbed in beside her. “Drive,” he directed.

Oh God, Nathan, I hope you can hear me. The drugs they gave me, it makes using my telepathy unbearable. The pain is horrific. I can’t do this for long. They found me. They have me again. Not the same as who took me from you. Different. The ones who had me first, the ones who tortured me. Help me, please. I was in downtown Charleston, but I have no idea where they’re taking me. I’ll try to establish a link when the pain is gone.

It was too much. She grabbed her head as tears streamed down her cheeks. She rocked back and forth moaning and sobbing. Her abductor looked at her like she’d lost her mind, and then as if realizing what she’d been doing, he yanked her head up by her hair.

She saw his fist coming and didn’t even try to dodge it. At the moment she welcomed oblivion with open arms.

CHAPTER 37

 
AS
soon as Nathan, Joe, Swanny and Donovan hit the front, where Steele was already waiting with his team, a wave of agony hit Nathan so hard that his knees buckled and he went down.

“What the fuck?” Joe demanded. He dropped down next to his brother and grasped his arm, trying to steady Nathan’s descent.

Donovan grabbed Nathan’s other arm and then bent over as he and Joe eased him to the ground.

“What’s wrong?” Donovan asked sharply. “Talk to me, Nathan. Is it Shea? You’re scaring the shit out of me here.”

“It’s Shea,” Swanny said sharply. “Something’s going on and it ain’t good.”

But Nathan wasn’t focused on his brothers. He was caught in a myriad of pain, like needles were poking into his head. The inside of his skull felt scraped and turned inside out. Dear God, was this what Shea was experiencing?

And then he heard her. So desperate, her voice cracking under the onslaught of agony.

Oh God, Nathan, I hope you can hear me. The drugs they gave me, it makes using my telepathy unbearable. The pain is horrific. I can’t do this for long. They found me. They have me again. Not the same as who took me from you. Different. The ones who had me first, the ones who tortured me. Help me, please. I was in downtown Charleston, but I have no idea where they’re taking me. I’ll try to establish a link when the pain is gone.

He roared his frustration and tried to scramble to his feet, but the lingering waves of pain—her pain—had crippled him. He couldn’t seem to be able to get anything to work right. Dear God, the horrific agony she was enduring and he was helpless. Goddamn helpless while those bastards had their hands on her again.

“Nathan, goddamn it, talk to me!” Van shouted.

“Get off me! Just get away from me. Give me a minute.”

Donovan backed off but Joe remained down, his hand locked around Nathan’s shoulder.

“Let me help you up,” Joe said in a low voice. “Then tell us what happened. We’re wasting time, man. Push through it. She needs your help. It was her, wasn’t it? Do you want me to try to get through to her?”

Joe’s words cut through the lingering pain and confusion and already Shea had faded away, gone from him, the blank void he’d grown to hate so much replacing the overwhelming torment.

His mind went quiet. So damn quiet. He preferred the agony over this blanket of silence because at least then he’d had a connection with her. He’d heard her. And now there was nothing.

He grasped Joe’s hand and hauled himself upward. For a moment he staggered and leaned into his brother. Joe wrapped his arm around Nathan’s shoulders and simply held on.

As soon as he got his bearings, he turned and stalked back into the house, leaving Joe and Donovan to call after him. He barged into the kitchen, where Resnick still sat there smoking that damn cigarette while Shea was in the hands of people who had brutalized her.

“You son of a bitch!” Nathan roared.

He knocked the cigarette from Resnick’s mouth in one punch. Resnick went sprawling to the floor and Nathan went down after him. The kitchen erupted in chaos as Resnick’s men attempted to intervene.

Sam and Garrett pulled their guns while Donovan and Joe attempted to pry Nathan from Resnick.

It took the combined efforts of Donovan, Joe and Swanny to finally get Nathan off Resnick. No one made a move to help the man from the floor. He slowly picked himself up, wincing at the injury to his arm that was still unattended. He wiped at the blood that streamed from his nose and mouth and he backed up until he leaned against the counter.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Resnick demanded. “You’re supposed to be out looking for Shea.”

Nathan lunged for him again and Sam placed his body between his brother and Resnick, his gaze boring into Nathan.

“He went crazy outside,” Donovan explained. “Something happened to Shea, and he went nuts and stomped in here to kick the shit out of Resnick. Not that I have a problem with that, but I’d like to know what the fuck is going on.”

“That makes two of us,” Garrett spoke up.

“You did this to her,” Nathan choked out. “You stupid son of a bitch. You took away her only means of self-defense. Those goddamn drugs you gave her make using her telepathy impossible. She’s in unimaginable pain every time she tries to communicate. You can’t
imagine
the agony she’s enduring.”

Resnick went white and he looked like he was going to be ill. “No, that’s not what should have happened. It’s experimental, yes, but there haven’t been any side effects. It just prevents a person from focusing enough to maintain a telepathic connection.”

“I felt what she’s feeling,” Nathan yelled. “She felt like her head was going to explode, like something was breaking inside her skull, but she bore it to reach out to me because those assholes have her again. Do you have any idea what they did to her the last time they had her?”

Resnick slowly shook his head, his face going paler by the second.

“They beat her. They tortured her. For days she endured hell because she wouldn’t give them information about Grace. After she escaped, she asked me for help. She’d tried to do so before, but they kept her too drugged to maintain a pathway. And now because you’re a stupid fuck, she’s back in their hands and she can’t give me any goddamn information because you shot her full of drugs that prevent her from using her gift.”

Resnick’s hand shook as he dragged it through his hair. “You have to know I didn’t intend for this to happen.”

“I don’t know anything,” Nathan snapped. “You claim to care about her. You think she might be your sister. Where the fuck do you get your idea of family from? What is
wrong
with you?”

“Save the insults, okay? I fucked up. I just wanted to protect her. I had no idea that you and she were involved. I didn’t even know how the hell she ended up with KGI. I thought I could remove her without having to explain anything. I wanted to protect her and Grace without anyone finding out about their abilities. I still don’t know how she got involved with you or how she knew to ask you for help.”

“Because she saved me,” Nathan said in a fierce voice. “She heard me out of all the other voices in the world and she answered. We formed a bond long before we ever met face-
to-face, and I’ll be damned if I let you or anyone else break it.”

Joe slid his hand over Nathan’s shoulder again. “No one’s going to do anything. We’ll get Shea back.”

Just hearing the conviction in his brother’s voice settled Nathan. As he glanced around the room at his other brothers and Steele and his team members, he saw the same conviction in every one of their faces.

Garrett turned to Resnick, his eyes so cold they’d freeze a polar bear. “It’s time for you to start talking. We need every piece of information you have on this lab where you and Shea were conceived or created or whatever the fuck you want to call it. We need names, organizations, and we need to know who’d have an interest in them now. Or who would even know about them.”

“Do you have their abilities?” Sam asked as he took a step closer to Resnick.

Resnick shook his head. His nostrils flared and his lips flattened into a thin line. “I was a…failure. A dropped experiment. Disappointing results. They went back to the drawing board after I was born. It wasn’t until many years later that Grace and then Shea were born.”

“So what, you just hung around the lab? I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around this,” Ethan said. “It doesn’t add up and it damn sure doesn’t make sense.”

Resnick lit another cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke. “There wasn’t anything else to do with me. I was the first. They didn’t have a plan for what happened if I didn’t yield the results they were looking for. After me, they adopted out babies that didn’t work out. But they kept me.”

“Who is they?” Nathan asked impatiently. “We’re wasting time here. I’m not interested in your life story.”

“The project was started during the Cold War. At first the U.S. was primarily interested in psychic and telepathic powers. They wanted a way into the heads of people in positions of power. They wanted their secrets. It sounds far-fetched, yes, but then a whole lot of secret research is pretty damn unbelievable.