“Jesus,” Sterling said. “And here I thought I had an effed-up family. I’ll get into Taylor’s system all right. I want all those bullets. Every last one ever made.”
“That means getting the ones on base, too,” Michael reminded him.
“Artillery goes in and out of base all the time,” Sterling said. “I’ll create a shipping order with the Green Hornet coordinates, and we’ll intercept the shipment before Powell ever knows they’re gone.”
Michael nodded his approval. Cassandra couldn’t stay silent. “What if my father really is taking a stand against Adam?”
“Those Green Hornets may be the only weapon that allows the soldiers to survive a confrontation.” Michael looked at Cassandra—a long, hard stare. “The Renegades, not those bullets, are the best chance this country has to stand against Adam. Your father has forgotten that. I won’t let those bullets be used against our soldiers, and they will be if we leave them with your father.”
He turned back to Sterling. “Did you find anything on that hard drive about the crystal?”
Sterling shook his head, lips thin. “Nada,” he said. “Not one damn word. But at least we have the location of the bullets, and the information on the incoming soldiers who are meant to stand against the GTECHs. Diverting their arrival will delay Powell’s plans and buy us some time.”
“Zodius,” she corrected. “The soldiers are meant to fight Zodius. I still don’t believe my father is turning against the Renegades.” Determination rose in her. “I know you think he is, just as I know you think Red Dart is about torture, but it’s not. I have to go back and prove that. Then we can work with my father and shut down Adam.” Then more decisively, “Yes. I have to go back. Tonight. I can’t run.”
Sterling and Michael looked at each other, and Michael nodded to Sterling who turned back to his computer and began to key again. “Cassandra,” Michael said softly. “There is no maybe to any of this. Red Dart is a torture device, and the Renegades and the Zodius are both the intended targets.”
“Damn it, Michael,” she said, cursing when she normally did not. “You don’t know that.”
Sterling rolled his chair back and motioned to the monitor. Cassandra walked to the computer screen and sat down, staring at the scanned paperwork.
Cassandra’s world crumbled down around her as she read the documents to the chiefs of staff, the definition of Red Dart, the directives for its use: tracking and remote, intense torture. Her eyes burned, her chest hurt. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop the tears from falling.
The past rushed at her and collided with the future. The immunizations. The God-like complex she’d seen glimpses of. Did he ever think they were just immunizations? The lies. The loss of a man she’d considered a hero. Every action he took was to better himself, and every action seemed to lead to lives lost, lives in jeopardy. Her gaze went to that newspaper lying on the counter. All those women already affected, torn from families. Lost forever. And the ones who would be in the future.
Her gaze focused on a certain paragraph, and her eyes went wide. Her father was testing it on humans and GTECHs. She could barely breathe with the implications. If Adam were to use this on humans, he’d rule the world. If her father were to use it on humans, he could too. That last thought sickened her more than any other. She had to consider that might be her father’s ultimate goal. Oh he’d call it protecting his country, but it was really about controlling it.
She swiped angrily at her tears. There was no time for emotions. Not now. She turned back to Michael and Sterling, but it was Michael she looked at. “I’ll help you destroy Red Dart, but I can’t do it from inside Sunrise City. I have to be close to my father.”
“You’re going to the Renegades’ headquarters,” Michael said, snagging her hand. “You’ll be safe in Sunrise City.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t care what kind of danger I’m in. This is potentially the end-of-the-free-world we are dealing with. I can’t go.”
Michael eyed Sterling. “We’re leaving.” And before she knew it, they were in the hallway, her back pressed against the door, his big body in front of hers. Cassandra wanted to scream at him for bullying her. To scream at him for making her see the truth about her father. And she wanted to bury her head in his shoulder and just be safe, if only for a minute.
His fingers laced into her hair. “I know this is hard, sweetheart,” he said. “But the Trackers are coming for you. We have to go underground. Then we’ll find a way to fix this together.”
“How?” she demanded. “How do we do that when you want my father dead, and no matter what, I can’t want that. I can’t.”
“Cassandra—”
“Do you want him dead? Say it. Say it because I need to know.”
He bent at the knees, coming eye-level with her. “What I want is your safety. You’re my priority right now. You won’t survive the night if you stay here. You have to survive if you want to fight.”
He was right. She knew he was right. But hiding felt wrong. Guilt was eating her alive. “I helped my father. I stood by him. I—”
He kissed her. A deep, passionate kiss, filled with the gentle strength she’d always loved in him. Gentle. No matter how demanding, how stubborn, he’d always been gentle.
“We’ll find an answer,” he said. “But we have to leave now. Okay?”
She nodded, unable to find her voice. She was running, but only because Michael was right. She had to survive to fight. And she was going to fight like she’d never fought before.
Lucian found Adam in the center of his coliseum—Tad by his side with a smug look on his face, as if he mattered or something. They stood between a row of thirty wolves and another row of as many soldiers—a formation Adam favored when training the wolves for combat. He planned to use them to herd humans when he was ready for takeover. To herd and kill as needed. Those damn wolves. Lucian would never get used to those beasts walking amongst them as if they were above higher forms of life, just because they were joined with Adam.
Lucian exited a stone staircase as Adam lifted his hand and then threw it down. The wolves and soldiers charged at one another. Adam and Tad backed away, walking toward Lucian, Tad by Adam’s side, as if he belonged there instead of at his feet. Tad couldn’t see he was just another dog, lapping at Adam’s heels. But he would. Soon.
Lucian would see to it. Because Lucian had a plan to turn Michael and Cassandra’s time together into their end and his beginning. By night’s end, he would not only see to it that Cassandra Powell was dead, he’d frame Michael as her killer. Powell would be furious, devastated—vulnerable to Brock’s Red Dart probes. And Michael would be captive, inside Zodius City, ready for his punishment. Lucian would be his replacement, and Tad would be nothing.
Brock pulled his truck to a stop under the bridge and killed the lights. Pitch dark surrounded him, and silence, but for the rush of tires over the concrete highway above. The whistle of the wind came soft and low, and Brock stiffened, flipping open his center compartment and removing a Smith and Wesson. It might be hard to kill a GTECH, but he knew how to make his shot count.
Abruptly the wind gusted. Brock tensed as the truck shook with the violent impact. A roar of thunder followed, providing some comfort that it was Mother Nature rather than a Wind-walker. He relaxed marginally, but with the comfort of that steel weapon against his palm.
From a distance, headlights turned down the street, high beams that cut through the fog. A white van pulled to a slow halt a few feet from his truck, lights illuminating the droplets of rain as they nosedived to the pavement.
He sat there and so did the driver in the other vehicle. A silent standoff of sorts, until Brock accepted with a twist of his gut that he had to get out. He had orders. He shoved open the door and held on to the gun.
Rain fell steadily now, and his shirt clung to his skin, but he ignored it. He aimed the gun at the panel door and knocked. It slid open, and to his shock, big blue eyes
framed with long, sleek, raven hair greeted him. The woman was striking, the smile she offered him sweet enough to charm a battalion of soldiers. What the hell was a woman thinking, meeting a guy under a bridge alone?
“Come in, Lieutenant Colonel, before you wash away.” Her voice was smooth like whiskey, a throaty sensuality rasped from its depths.
His gaze shifted to the medical bed and monitors behind her. “Who are you?”
“The person who is going to hand you the world, Brock. If you want it. But you can call me Jocelyn.”
Slowly, he lowered the gun, and she backed away from the entrance to give him room. He climbed in and pulled the door shut behind him.
“Lie on the bed and roll up your sleeve,” she ordered, apparently unconcerned about the water he was dripping all over the place. His nostrils flared with the scent of her; it filled the cabin, the odd but arousing mixture of vanilla and cinnamon.
Jocelyn kneeled by his side and wrapped a rubber tube around his upper arm. Holy crap! This was happening; it was really happening. He was getting his injections. He watched her as she withdrew medication from a vial into a syringe, and his cock stood at attention. He was aroused. By her. By that needle about to deliver him to a new life. She was older than he first thought, maybe in her fifties, but could pass for forties. But it didn’t turn him off. No, nothing about this woman turned him off. She was fucking amazing.
Those amazing blue eyes caught his—amazing crystal blue eyes. “General Powell told me you are aware of the risks, but I’d like to hear that from you,” she said. “Because there is no turning back. Everything about this program is experimental.”
“No risk, no reward,” he said, lost in the sea of her stare.
“My philosophy, exactly.” She held the syringe up and tapped it. “Ready?”
“I was born ready.”
Her lips lifted at the corners. “I’ll bet you were.” She tapped the syringe once more. “But we’ll talk about the side effects a little later.”
Something about her words set him on edge. Didn’t doctors do that beforehand? But it was too late for questions. She bent her dark head and injected him. The liquid was cold. The anticipation, hot. The darkness, almost immediate.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
After three hundred miles of stormy weather and dark highways, Michael pulled the Range Rover that the Renegades had left for them at a Vegas hotel into the parking lot of a storage facility. It was stockpiled with weapons and rarely needed motorcycles, but they’d need a bike tonight to get Cassandra through that canyon.
He was feeling edgy, ready for a Zodius confrontation, certain it was coming the minute they hit the dark depths of the canyon. What he wouldn’t do to be able to wind-walk her there. Or even airlift her to Sunrise, but that would make them a big target, one Adam would have no qualms about shooting down.
Cassandra lay on the seat next to him, her blonde hair draped over the cushion as she slept—hair he knew felt like silk and smelled like honeysuckle. He wanted that woman more than he wanted his next breath.
He scrubbed his jaw, silently cursing his sorry, selfish existence. And he was a selfish bastard. If these past two hours of his wandering mind and her silent slumber had taught him anything, it was that. He knew he was a bastard. The selfish part, well, maybe he’d always been that too. Because just like at Groom Lake, he’d convinced himself that he and Cassandra were meant to be together. Talked himself out of it a couple times too, but mostly the opposite. Mostly he’d talked himself right into her bed and into her life all over again. Yeah. Selfish, fucking bastard.
And the danger of getting through that canyon to Sunrise City drove that point home. He didn’t want this hell life of war for her. He wanted her back in Germany, happy and safe. No. He wanted her in bed, beneath him. On top of him. All around him. Smiling at him. Convincing him there was something human left in him. Something worth caring about.
He hit the remote, and the door slid open. Cassandra stirred, groggily sat up, and stretched. “How long was I out?”
“Two hours,” he said, pulling into the building. “Which you needed. It’s going to be a hard, bumpy ride through the rain, and we need to move quickly.” He popped his door open, leaving her to exit on her own.
He needed weapons and a fast exit strategy. They were sitting ducks if they stayed in one place, out in the middle of nowhere, despite the Renegades surrounding them ready to offer defensive action if need be. But they were not human, and she was. Vulnerable.
Michael walked to the cabinets on the wall and yanked one open; at the same time, a voice in his head said you can fix that. Lifebond with her. Make her GTECH. Right. And what else would he make her in the process? The only thing he had any business doing was taking her to Sunrise and then leaving, working for Caleb from a safe distance.
He yanked another cabinet door open and pulled out body armor for Cassandra, telling himself to focus, agitated at where his thoughts kept going. The truck door slammed, and he turned to Cassandra, holding up the bodysuit.
“Hurry,” he said. “I need you in this body armor and us on the road in the next five minutes.”
“It’s huge,” she said, eyeing the bodysuit made for a man three times her size.
“We’ll make it work,” he assured her. “I want you as protected as you can be out there.” He tried not to think about those damn Green Hornets.
Trepidation flashed in Cassandra’s face as if she understood what he was telling her. Nothing good was waiting for them in that canyon, but there was no other way.
He helped her into the suit and then bent down, rolling up the too-long legs and sliding the zippers into place. His hands finally settled on her waist.
Suddenly, they were staring at each other, his heart in his throat. He looked away. So did she.
Their gazes collided again as he said, “I never meant to hurt you.” Words he’d spoken before, but he’d say them a hundred more times if that’s what it took for her to believe him. He needed her to believe him.
“I know,” she said softly. “You just couldn’t help it.” She laughed, but not the laugh that lifted his spirits. “That’s why my mother warned me never to fall in love with a soldier. Because it hurts.”
He went completely, utterly still. She loved him? Did she just say she loved him? “What did you just say?”
She wet her lips, that sweet pink tongue glossing her full bottom lip. “I…I said that I—”
A loud crash sounded on the roof followed by another and another. The radio on his phone buzzed. Michael grabbed it.
“A dozen Zodius and double that in wolves,” Sterling said. “Come out blazing, and do it now.”
Michael snapped the phone back in place and grabbed a helmet for Cassandra. “We’ll be okay.” He kissed her hard and fast. “Do exactly as I say, when I say it.” She nodded, terror in her eyes, and fitted the helmet to her head. He grabbed a helmet for himself and then climbed on a motorcycle.
In seconds, he had the bike cranked and hit the remote to the doors. Then they were flying through the exit, and despite his instinct to use the wind as a shield, he restrained himself. Anything he used against the Zodius he might be using on the Renegades as well.
The instant they cleared the building, rain pounded them, blurring his vision. Wolves lunged at them from all directions. Cassandra screamed as they nipped at her feet, and he was damn glad he’d insisted she wear the armor.
Michael cut and swerved, unable to reach for a weapon and still control the bike. The wolves were everywhere, right, left, front, back. Too close to use the wind without it affecting the steadiness of the bike. But there were no bullets, and he thanked God for that. The Zodius wouldn’t dare shoot one of those wolves for fear Adam would kill them. It was a ridiculous, though convenient, weakness he forced upon his men.
Somehow Michael maneuvered through the pack without ending up flat on the ground. The instant he hit the edge of the canyon, he revved the e
ngine and blasted past the trees. Gunfire replaced the wolves, canvassing their path. Michael called on the wind, erecting a barrier until it fell. Then did it all over again.
But the bullets kept coming, and in an unprotected moment, a spray of bullets pierced the tire of the bike. Time stood still as the bike skidded from beneath them. Michael could think of nothing but Cassandra, and instinctively, he used the wind to cradle their fall, creating a soft cushion over the ground.
The instant they were down with mud splattering around them, terror ripped through Michael as he tore off his helmet, trying to see Cassandra in the rain. He found her a few feet away, sitting up and yanking off her helmet. In a flash of movement, he was on top of her, covering her from gunfire, about to roll to some nearby trees for cover when he heard weapons cock above him.
He turned to find himself looking up at the barrels of a dozen weapons, no doubt loaded with Green Hornets. Wolves growled at the soldiers’ feet. Lucian stood front and center, obviously leading the attack. Lucian, who had always wanted power, but had never gained anything more than Adam’s disregard.
Behind the Zodius, Renegades materialized, pointing guns at their heads. “These might not be Green Hornets,” Sterling yelled. “But they’re going right through your men’s heads.”
“Not before Michael and Cassandra are dead,” Lucian assured him. “Back off, asshole.”
Michael’s eyes latched onto Lucian’s, and he could see the panic in his eyes. Lucian was backed into a corner. The only way to save himself with Adam was to shoot Michael and Cassandra, and then fade into the wind.
Michael didn’t give himself time to consider the repercussions of his actions, because there was no good answer, no right one. Anything he did with the wind would be temporary, and then bullets would fly. And then they might well die—not only he and Cassandra, but the Renegades here with them. No, there was only one option that gave them any hope of surviving. He grabbed Cassandra, and he wind-walked with her, praying she would survive.