“Now you’re fighting like a girl,” Sterling mumbled irritably. Both men were already getting up as he turned his attention to David, who was running down the alley, leaving Charles lying flat on his face in the middle of the street.
Sterling wind-walked and appeared in front of David.
“How did you—”
Sterling grabbed David and jacked him up against the wall, David’s feet dangling above the pavement.
“Give me the ICE.”
“Where’d you come from man?”
“That’s what drugs do to you,” Sterling said, digging inside David’s pockets and retrieving the vial. “They make you see things.” Sterling held onto David and turned in preparation to face the two bodyguards, but they had disappeared.
That left only Sterling, Charles, and David in the alley, and Charles was lying on the ground, foaming at the mouth. David threw an ICEd-up super punch that landed hard on Sterling’s jaw.
Sterling grinned. “Feels good,” he said about the time the wind lifted, and Caleb appeared at his side.
Caleb took one look at Charles and hit his headset. “Get me an ambulance and a military escort.” Every agency and hospital in town had been set up to notify a military hotline about all ICE-related activity, which went directly to Sterling, as he was the Renegade in charge of the inner city.
Caleb grabbed David from Sterling, his ability to sense human emotions, truths, and lies, about to come in real damn handy. But first he looked pointedly at Sterling. “You don’t know the meaning of ‘wait,’ do you?”
Sterling grinned. “You wouldn’t love me if I did.”
Caleb grunted and jerked as the dealer placed a well-planted knee in his groin. “That was really uncalled for,” Caleb choked out, pinning his captive’s neck under with his arm. “Now. Play nice, and I might let you live. I want the location of the ICE warehouse.”
“I don’t know that,” the dealer said. “You really think I know that?”
“Okay then,” Caleb said, seeming to believe him. “Who’s your source?”
Sterling turned his attention to Charles, bending down next to him and noting the blue tinge to his skin. He was dying. Damn it to hell. He would need the vial of ICE Sterling had planned to hand over to a scientific team desperate for samples.
The dealer’s barked laugh echoed in the alley. “Adam Rain. Adam Rain is my source.”
“Yeah?” Caleb demanded. “What does this Adam Rain look like?”
“Let me go, and I’ll tell you.”
Caleb growled in frustration and eyed Sterling over his shoulder. “He’s a waste of time. Hand him over to the army, and be done with him.”
The dealer squirmed worthlessly under Caleb’s tight hold. “I can tell you what you need to know! Just let me go.”
“Adam Rain’s my twin, you idiot,” Caleb muttered, lifting the man by his shirt so that his feet dangled off the ground and tossing him into the nearby Dumpster. Ignoring the man’s protests, he slammed the lid shut and used army-issued plastic cuffs to secure it.
Sirens sounded in the distance as Caleb kneeled beside Charles and withdrew a syringe from his pocket, quickly taking a blood sample before their company arrived. Caleb and Sterling shared a silent look, both knowing they were in a bad spot. For all they knew at this point, all ICE wasn’t created the same—maybe some of it killed, and some did not. All theories were good theories, not to be ignored when you had no answers. In other words, they didn’t know if they were killing this man or saving his life.
With a heavy sigh, Caleb said, “One day soon I’m going to make Adam pay for all of this.” He scrubbed his jaw. “Give him the ICE, but hold back a few drops for the lab.”
It was a good call, the right call. Sterling tossed the ICE down the dying man’s throat and pocketed the remaining contents of the vial just as the army arrived. Caleb excused himself to take a call, and Sterling waded through the erupting chaos created by the various official personnel.
Caleb returned, motioning Sterling to a location out of hearing range, and looked grim. “That slim list of six scientists our team thought might be able to develop a withdrawal antidote has turned into one. The other five were MIA when our teams arrived. We have to assume Adam got to them before we could.”
“What about the sixth?”
“We thought Adam had her,” he said. “But turns out she was in Germany the past few months. She showed up on our radar when she booked a flight back to the states. I want you to be there when she arrives.”
Sterling scrubbed his jaw. “Caleb, man, you know I’ll do whatever, whenever you need me to do it, but we need me here. I know these streets better than anyone, which makes me the best shot we have of finding that warehouse.”
“She’s from Killeen,” he said. “So are you.”
“At least ten of our men served at the Killeen Ft. Hood army base, and they’re all damn good soldiers. Surely one of them can handle this.”
“None of the others went to her high school three of her four years there. It’s a connection you can use to earn trust. We need this woman’s help, Sterling.”
Sterling went utterly still, warning bells ringing in his head. The same high school, the same years? That was a monster-sized coincidence, and Sterling didn’t believe in coincidence. The look he shared with Caleb said, as usual, they were in agreement. He didn’t either.
“What’s the woman’s name?” Sterling asked, though on some core level he couldn’t explain, he already knew.
“Rebecca Burns.”
Twenty-four hours later…
Houston, Texas
Three months of hiding was long enough. Becca pulled her blue Volvo to a halt in front of her quaint, two-story stucco house surrounded by miles of grassy hills and droopy willow trees, ready to embrace whatever the future might bring. She came from a family of fighters—of military men and the tough women who knew how to hold their own. She could almost imagine her father and brother crawling out of their graves to shake sense into her if she didn’t fight to the end.
Battling the strong wind gusts that threatened a midnight storm, Becca somehow managed to shove the car door shut, her black cotton dress flapping around her knees, her loose, long hair lifting around her shoulders. It was near ten o’clock after a tiring day of travel, so her baggage was going to have to wait until morning. Anxious for the comfort of home, Becca hurried down the sidewalk hugged by a stone border she’d laid with care a year before. The high moon peeked from the cloud cover, casting the path in dull light. A smile touched her lips as the house came fully into view, a sense of knowing this was where she belonged, where she was strongest. Her territory, her turf.
Her smile was short-lived. As she reached the stairs leading to her porch, the motion detectors flickered to a soft glow before they should have. Poised for flight, Becca’s heart thundered in her chest as a man stepped from the corner, the rocking chair creaking with his exit. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, with thick blond hair, the stranger seemed to consume the porch, to consume the very air around her.
When she should have turned to dart away and reached for the cell phone in her purse to call for help, she found herself staring at him and not because he was absolutely gorgeous—tall, broad, and defined, the kind of drool-worthy body and good looks that fantasies were made for.
There was something familiar about this man, something that stirred a distant memory of a youthful crush that sent a magical shimmer of warmth through her limbs.
“Hello, Becca,” the sexy stranger said in a deep, sandpaper-rough baritone.
Becca blinked at the remarkably familiar voice, a ripple of awareness becoming full recognition. It couldn’t be—he couldn’t be here—could he? “Sterling?”
“It’s been a long time,” he said softly.
“I…I can’t believe you’re here.” But he was. Sterling Jeter was standing on her doorstep. This was an older, even hotter version of the boy she’d onc
e known—a man now, his face more defined, his body more sculpted—but there was no question, it was him. “How are you here? How is this even possible?”
“I’d rather explain inside, if you’ll invite me in.”
The wind gusted, lifting her hair and then her skirt. Becca gasped and grabbed the hem, pushing it back into place before Sterling got a bird’s-eye view of her unmentionables.
Recovering from her near-exposure, Becca expected to see amusement in Sterling’s face, but frowned as she watched him scan the yard, as if he were looking for some unknown threat.
“We should really go inside now,” he said, his gaze settling back on her face, and though he hadn’t moved, there was a new edge to him, a sense of increasing discomfort.
Unease flinted through Becca, her own senses tingling with awareness, telling her that something was behind her, watching her, stalking her. It was all she could do not to run up the stairs toward Sterling. Instead, she hesitated, forcing herself to remain in place. No matter how sexy and familiar Sterling might be, she hadn’t seen or heard from him since high school.
Caution prevailed, despite the continued tingling sensation of being watched from behind, telling her to run for cover. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here or even how you found me.”
“Invite me inside, Becca,” he said, his voice low, tense, bordering on a command.
She opened her mouth to speak and stopped when a droplet of rain smacked her forehead. That was all the encouragement she needed to go with her instincts. Becca ran up the stairs toward Sterling.
CHAPTER TWO
With his GTECH senses screaming in warning, Sterling followed Becca inside her house, leaving his team covertly nestled around the exterior perimeter. He shut the door behind him, welcoming any added barrier between them and the Zodius, who he was certain were nearby.
Becca turned to face him, close, so close that the soft floral scent of her insinuated into his nostrils and warmed his blood. Close enough that he could see the infinitesimal specks of amber sunshine and honey in her gaze. She was a woman now, beautiful, confident, with curves in all the right places, and the most amazing mouth that made him want to claim the kiss he’d never managed to steal.
They stared at one another, the air crackling with a mixture of unmistakable, surprisingly clear and present shared attraction along with something edgier, darker, that said she’d probably smack him if he kissed her. And he’d deserve it for standing her up so long ago, even welcome it if it would get the past out of the way. But there was more to what was in the air between them—uncertainty, distrust. She was on edge, suspicious of him, which only made him more suspicious of her. The coincidence of her involvement in something so near to him—her months in Germany could have easily been spent in a lab with Adam Rain—encouraged caution. Even so, his eyes traced those lush lips again, heating his blood.
His gaze lifted to her cautious one. “You should lock up,” he told her, wanting to do it himself, but afraid he’d put her more on edge if he seemed like he was trying to hold her captive.
She set her purse on the slim mahogany table against the wall. “Locks will slow my escape if you turn out to be some sort of crazy stalker.”
Good thing he didn’t lock the door himself, he thought with amusement. His lips twitched at the playful accusation, though he knew she wasn’t completely joking. “Since when does a crazy stalker wait for an invitation to come inside?”
She crossed her arms in front her. “I’ve heard stalkers are quite patient and calculating.”
“I don’t have fourteen years of patience, which is how long it’s been since we last saw each other.” Especially where she was concerned. In fact, he was pretty darn sure he was going to give in to temptation and kiss her if he stood in this tiny hallway a minute longer. “Is there someplace we can sit down and talk?”
She studied him another several seconds, her intelligent gaze sizing him up before she motioned down the hall. “This way.”
Sterling flipped the locks into place and followed her into a shiny, all white, rectangular-shaped kitchen that sparkled with the kind of perfection you expected of a soldier’s home. But then, she’d grown up a soldier’s daughter, so that didn’t surprise him.
She brushed the windblown brown silk of her hair from her face and motioned to the table, offering him a seat, but without any indication that she planned to sit down herself. He arched a brow. “You’re not going to join me?”
“Not until I know how and why you’re here,” she said, leaning against a counter. “And frankly, I’d rather you sit while I stand. It makes me feel like I have a running chance if this reunion turns bad.”
Sterling chuckled and grabbed a wooden chair from the table, straddled it, and rested his arms on the back. “Happy now?”
She studied him a moment and then said, “No. No, I am not happy. I feel like I am in the Twilight Zone. And I can’t think of one reason why the boy who stood me up for a date fourteen years ago would show up at my doorstep out of the blue like this. How did you even know where to find me?”
Damn, there it was. The reason he deserved to be slapped. “That night—”
She held up a hand. “I don’t need to know.”
“I want—”
“Please don’t,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s awkward. It’s over. And actually, just thinking about how I sat in that library for hours waiting for you is making me ridiculously and irrationally mad.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Maybe you should just tell me why you’re here.”
Damn. He wanted to explain the past, and he’d push the issue, but that prickly instinct telling him something was wrong just wouldn’t let go of him. “We need your help, Becca.”
“We—being who?”
“We—being my special operations unit.”
“You joined the army?”
He nodded. “Fourteen years ago.”
She blinked and seemed to process the timeline to their missed date, but didn’t comment. “Why in the world would a Special Operations unit need my help?”
“There’s a highly addictive street drug being circulated around the general population. And when I say addictive, I mean once you use this drug, you can’t stop without dying. If we don’t come up with a method to safely wean people off the drug, we’re looking at mass casualties. We’re hoping you can help us make that happen.”
“Oh God,” she said, paling. “I want to help. I do. I will, but I’m an astrobiologist, Sterling. I don’t know the slightest thing about street drugs.”
Sterling. Damn he wanted to hear her say his name again, which he was pretty sure meant he was too personally involved to be objective, but he’d be damned if he was passing her off to someone else. “This isn’t a typical street drug,” he continued. “The drug is created from military technology, and by that I mean of an otherworldly nature.”
The look of utter horror on her face defied his suspicions she had knowledge of ICE before this. She sat down next to him, the space barrier between them forgotten. “Please tell me I’m misunderstanding, and you don’t mean an alien organism, because an alien organism in our environment could have devastating, unpredictable results. Maybe not immediately, but over time. It’s what we fear at NASA, what we work sunup to sundown to prevent.”
He scooted his chair a few inches to face her. “I don’t know if you would call this an organism. Then again, maybe you would. We don’t know at this point exactly what we’re dealing with. The lab reports have an unknown component. What we do know is that almost three years ago, the army created a serum made from a DNA sample obtained in a…shall we say, a unique aircraft, back in the 1950s. They proceeded to tell a group of two hundred soldiers they were being immunized against a chemical agent the enemy had obtained. Those men became what we now know as GTECH Super Soldiers. Not long after the injections were completed, the DNA that created the serum was destroyed, and with it the ability to repli
cate it. Our scientists believe this street drug is a synthetic recreation of the serum.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “He really went through with it.”
Sterling stiffened. “He who? What does that mean, Becca?”
She drew a taut breath and expelled it. “I was approached by someone named General Powell several years back to help with what he was calling the ‘Project Zodius’ immunization program.”
“Powell was responsible for recruiting soldiers under false pretenses to Area 51,” Sterling confirmed, “then injecting them with the DNA.” And then trying to control his creations with torture devices that their immune systems destroyed, but he left that part out. “So he approached you and then what?”
“I was eager to help save the lives of our soldiers,” she said, a tightness to her tone that made him suspect she was thinking of her father and brother, both killed in combat only a few years before. His mind slid to Caleb, and Sterling wondered what was worse. Losing a family member you loved to war, or fighting a war against your only remaining family member, as Caleb now had to.
“I was intrigued too,” she continued. “The scientist in me reveled at the chance to study the unknown.”
“But you said no.”
“I had to. Powell wanted this immunization ready for use in a few months. I knew he was treading on dangerous territory, pushing too quickly with an unknown pathogen, and I wanted no part of it. In fact, I went to my superiors and requested they get involved to ensure he was stopped.”
“And what happened?”
“I was told to leave it alone in no uncertain terms. As in, told it would be dangerous to pursue any action against Powell, with a distinct underlying threat. I was shocked.” She paused. “Are they dead? The men he injected?”
“You didn’t let anything happen. Powell was too powerful. No one could have stopped him.”