Enough to get him everything he deserved.
Noah Caldwell smiled. He could, he was sure, find a clean syringe.
* * *
The dream is always the same. It is the forest, aqueous green light bathing ferns and scant underbrush, and it is peaceful because she is hiking up the hill toward her car. She’s decided she will tell him no, that she’s done as he wanted all her life but this one thing she will not do.
Swiping at her forehead, flushed and smiling, she hops nimbly between stones. She’s always found solace in the greenness, the hush and then the chatter as the animals accepted her intrusion and went about their business. It had always been her escape from the strained breathlessness of the house, with regimented corners never out of place and regulations so tight even a stray hair is enough to earn that paralyzing stare.
Discipline, he always says. Make it your watchword, my dear. The warm approval when she sometimes measures up never quite balances out the cold chill of disappointment when she doesn’t.
The military, actually, was much more forgiving. Even for a girl.
Any moment now she will reach the trailhead and see him standing next to her old but lovingly maintained Volvo. That had been her first defiance, refusing to buy a new car when he made one of his broad hints that she could surely afford better if she saved a little. She will see the soldiers, standing in dusty sunshine with full kit and live ammo, and the confusion will carry her out of the woods until they stand in a loose ring around her, and he says It’s time to go now, my dear. The objections will dry up in her throat and a lifetime’s habit of obedience will make her docile until she asks What about my car? and one of them laughs, a short sharp cough of male amusement, and she understands too late that he hadn’t really asked her to sign up for the experiment because he cared what she thought. Instead, it was a mere formality; she’s going to make up for the error of not being the son he always wanted, and it’s going to start now...
* * *
She swam toward the surface of sleep; the darkness was soft, but not deep enough. The heaviness on the mattress beside her was not quite right, but it soothed her. An arm around her waist, slack and familiar. He made a soft sound, a low rumble, and the words made little sense.
You’re safe, he murmured into her hair. It felt so natural, and she tried to think of why before sleep claimed her again.
She half woke once more, when he moved slightly and his knees bumped the back of hers. There was no sense of confinement. Instead, it felt as if a heavy shield had been placed over her, enough room to breathe in absolute security. The nightmare hadn’t driven her to the television, free-associating desperately to stave off the hideous bleakness of fear.
Yes. Fear. Feeling.
Safezone. He makes the bad go away. The thought spun slowly inside her brain, then drifted lazily away as she fell back into rest.
The third time Trinity lay for a few moments between sleep and waking, before consciousness of the sound assumed its proper importance inside her skull.
A car door slamming. Well, it was a hotel, that was common—but too heavy, too crisp, too definite for the middle of the night. Something else, roughening her back into gooseflesh, the hollows behind her knees and before her elbows prickling, sweat glands tingling as full consciousness returned with a jolt. Cal moved, too, and the sudden coolness without his steady warmth chilled her far more deeply than it should.
She sat up, reaching for the gun—again, there wasn’t one on the night table. Habit, that double-edged tool. It could save your life or force you into a fatal mistake.
Cal, a tall, messy-haired shadow, drifted silently across the room to the window. “You heard that.” A whisper, but definitely not a question.
Trinity nodded. Then she realized his back was to her. “Yes.” The dry little word from her dry lips fell into the quiet, vanishing without a ripple.
“I don’t like this.” He peered carefully between the curtains, a slit left open to provide a view of the parking lot, carefully not touching them. “Hinky as hell.”
“We should move.” She was already on her feet. Her pillow, a crumpled pale ghost, spilled to the floor.
“Hang on. Let’s just think things through.” His calm was infectious, warring with the clear, undeniable instinct sparking through every nerve.
She actually shifted her weight from foot to foot, hitching her backpack higher on her shoulders, her mouth full of sleep and the syrupy bite of danger. In a few moments she would start actually hopping back and forth with something very much like impatience.
So she slid her other arm through the second backpack strap and headed for the door. Two quick flicks of her hand had it unlocked; she pushed the handle down silently—
“Let me.” His hand closed over hers, and he pushed her back, carefully. She let him, retying the button-down around her torso with swift efficiency.
She felt...clear. Rested. So good, in fact, she found it troubling. Was she simply losing acuity, or did his presence somehow halt deconstruction?
I’m not exactly in this game to play it safe.
How had he managed to stretch out on the bed without her noticing? Sleeping through such a thing was inconceivable for an agent. She wanted to ask, but the restlessness all over her skin mounted another notch.
Cal checked the hall, sniffed. Tensed just a little, and his own scent took on a much darker, colder undertone. His left hand stiffened, his fingers spreading, and he pushed her back even farther, his touch gentle against her breastbone.
His left hand was suddenly full of a very nice 9mm, dull finish, no extended magazine.
So that’s where he hid it. Calculations sparked inside her skull. This is very bad.
He checked the hall again and moved, Trinity right behind him despite his obvious desire to leave her in the room. It was either chivalry or trying to keep her bottled so she didn’t escape while he dealt with whatever problem was looming in the very near future.
Trinity sniffed cautiously, and her eyes widened. Male, dark haired, and with a peculiar, very familiar tang of burning metal and pain to the strong, soaking, mildly unpleasant scent.
It was another agent. And that metallic note, the burning and painful nose-rasping, was so familiar because she’d carried it herself for a few months.
It was the scent of surviving induction.
Trinity moved.
* * *
A quick strike upward; Cal blocked it, but her other hand twisted the gun out of his grip—he wasn’t expecting trouble from her quarter. She ducked away from his grab, her reaction time much quicker than his, especially operating at full capacity now.
“Go!” she whisper-hissed, then ran, the entire world slowing down as her body called on every erg of virus-soaked speed it had access to. At the end of the hall, the door to the stairwell was opening by slow, silent degrees, and a stray current of air-conditioning had brought the scent to Trinity’s sensitive nose.
There was a certain relief in acting too swiftly for second thoughts.
Sliding, carpet burning against her jeans as she hit the door to the stairs, slamming it back into the attacker with enough force to break a bone. Only a temporary measure, her left foot jammed under the lever and her shoulders providing just enough friction to stop her. He was against the door, pushing it closed, probably guessing her next move. Still, the angle was good, and she cast quick glances left and right, the terrain springing into relief inside her head. Forty percent chance he’s alone; a net would alert us too soon. Calculate likely position.
The gun jerked up as information flooded her. She squeezed off a shot; a chunk of the door evaporated and silence was no longer necessary. She rolled aside, waiting for the reply—he didn’t shoot back, simply yanked the door aside and barreled through. Black hair, wide shoulders, slightly shorter than Cal, navy canvas j
acket and jeans, engineer boots that probably gave him less secure footing but also protected his ankles to a higher degree. A faint sheen on his temples, his metabolism running high, and the dust-hot night outside still clinging to him.
A perfect shot from this angle, Trinity on her back parallel to the wall and her arms braced, the gun unwavering and her whole hand tightening, squeeze don’t pull, the shooting range and its beautiful collection of angle, trajectory, velocity spinning inside her head.
Cal arrived, striking the other agent, and Trinity’s arm jerked, throwing the second shot wide to avoid hitting him. Chances of another shot just dropped 70 percent. Irritation flashed through her and away, so she took the next best option, her foot pistoning—the knees were easy to take out, but the other agent was already moving, ducking the strike Cal intended for his throat and taking himself effectively out of Trinity’s strike range.
Stupid men. She could have solved the whole situation. Trinity pulled her knees up, threw her feet out and fish-jumped upright; Cal drove the other agent back into the doorway, the two of them deadly silent except for exhalations of effort and strike impacts, both of them fairly equally matched in speed. Cal was taller, his reach longer, but if the other agent had survived induction, his abilities were a question mark at best, and—
Just as she calculated the angle least likely to cause injury to Cal, again, he dropped his weight and rammed forward, tumbling them both out toward the stairs. It was a positively idiotic move, one no trained agent should have even contemplated.
The question of why he’d done so was a complex matter she had no resources for at the moment. Was he deconstructing, as well?
Analyze. Diving in unprepared held very little chance of success, and even less of helping Cal in the confined space. She still hurried through the doorway, concrete walls and floor, metal banisters, rolling—they had gone down an entire floor and were now on the second landing below her. Dim lighting, the greasy humidity of sweating concrete. Scuffling, more strikes, bouncing around and giving her a fairly accurate idea of the dimensions of the stairwell. Her pulse was high and hard, her breathing rolling in deep round swells, and she was sweating lightly, all well within combat tolerances.
Another gunshot roared, its brief flash lighting the stairwell for a moment. No whine of a ricochet, just a soft thudding as a body poured down the stairs. A sharp copper reek of blood, and everything inside Trinity jolted sideways, all calculation stopped for a single tearing moment.
Oh, God. A disjointed, illogical thought, a copper tang on her tongue, her heart terrified-leaping as her pupils dilated, every edge and crack standing out in sharp relief. She clattered down the stairs, the manshape on the landing rearing up in front of her—and she caught Cal as he almost fell, his bloody hand reaching vainly for the banister.
“Jesus,” he whispered. “Come on, that won’t keep him forever.”
“You’re injured.” She ducked under his arm, relief at his survival warring with an unsteady, explosive weight inside her chest.
“He got me.” Strained, uneven, he almost fell over again; Trinity dragged him up the stairs. “I got him, too, though. He’d not going to walk until that heals... Ah.” A short, coughing bark of pain. “Need another exit.”
“You’re bleeding too much. We have to—”
“Get out of here now. First aid later.”
Of course, he picked this particular moment to be logical. Trinity hauled him upright again, her fingers curled around his belt. He still had the gun, keeping it carefully pointed down and away even when he almost toppled. Trinity took a deep breath, her legs turned back into obedient pistons, and they spilled out through the doorway into the hall they had just vacated less than two minutes ago. Small scurrying sounds all around—too much noise, the hotel would rapidly become an untenable morass of witnesses. She propped Cal against the wall, took two steps away and yanked the fire alarm handle so hard the metal tab wrenched free; she tossed it back into the stairwell and ignored the resultant whooping and braying. Cal, his face graven, stared at her, his blue eyes too dark because his pupils were dilated, too.
He looked much smaller, his left hand clamped to his thigh, blood welling between his fingers. His lips moved, and she had no trouble deciphering the words.
Get out of here. Go.
She could, she supposed. It might even be the most logical, efficient path. She might even be able to return to Felicitas and retrieve fragments of her records before she died.
Why are you helping me? Holly Candless had asked, shivering with shock, pale and rumpled.
Because I might be next, Trinity had essentially replied, but that was not the whole truth, because the truth was too frightening to bear conscious examination.
Trinity glanced down the hall, back at the stairway door, closing with majestic slowness.
First, she decided, he was going to need a tourniquet and his own backpack.
Then she was going to get him out of here.
* * *
Cal faded in and out for a little while, every small movement a spear rammed through his leg again. It had grazed bone but missed the femoral artery, luckiest shot of the week, but he wasn’t feeling as lucky as he could have.
Especially since he was alone in the cab of the blue Chevy pickup, it was dark as sin, and he suspected he’d lost a lot of blood.
It isn’t so bad. Better than Kiev. Playing catch-me with both the Ukrainians and Moscow’s hatchet boys had been interesting, complex and almost fatal even for him. Time shivered, threatened to fold over and trap him in the train depot, a Soviet-era pile of concrete and rebar, his contacts gone up in smoke and the entire city a hostile zone. Then coming home, the standard psych eval and other nonsense, and Tracy’s messages...getting worried about you, Stephen, can you give me a call?
He hadn’t even told her his name. She’d died believing him Stephen Martell.
“Don’t...” A cracked whisper. “Don’t go.” Who was he asking? Trinity had probably left him here; it was a smart move on her part. Why she’d bothered to haul him out of the hotel and into the truck, the bleeding slowing but not nearly rapidly enough, was a mystery. He’d lost the world for a little bit, then when he came back, he was in this choking absolute darkness, the passenger seat of the truck pushed as far back as it could.
Don’t go.
It was ridiculous, really. The world was a merry-go-round; you just held on to your own horse and tried not to puke. Reaching out for anything else in the whirl, even someone right next to you for a few turns, was an idiot’s move. You’d lose your own grip, and the machine would chew you to shreds.
Sounds. Metal clashing. He cast around for a weapon. His backpack was somewhere around here, it had to be, he could remember her grabbing it—or maybe she’d taken his gear and liquid resources, too. Had she thought he was dead, or just...
A faint edge of light appeared, snuffed out. Christ, it was dark. Where the hell had she parked him? At least she hadn’t left him on the side of the road. Charitable girl that she was. He couldn’t blame her—it was a smart, logical, absolutely textbook move.
His door opened, letting in a burst of stuffy air full of motor oil and rust. He struck out blindly, and she slapped the feeble punch away. “It’s me.” Low and husky, and her smell rolled over him in a wave. She’d been sweating a little, and the iron-tang of approaching desert dawn clung to her, as well. Gleams from her dark green eyes, her hair a softly rumpled mess, a dark T-shirt instead of the tank top and white button-down. She propped him back up in the seat, peeled blood-crusted denim away from his thigh and clicked her tongue slightly. “Good. It’s closing up.”
“You came back.” He didn’t mean to sound like a five-year-old, wondering at a magic trick.
“I had to get supplies.” The slight crackling was a pair of Walmart bags. “Fresh clothes. Food, water. We’re going t
o cross as soon as you can walk.”
“Listen to you.” He cleared his throat; she produced a bottle of Evian, held it to his lips as if he was a child. Blessed coolness slid down his throat. He hadn’t realized he was so parched. He coughed a little when she took it away. “You don’t even know where we’re going.”
She cocked her head, looking up at him, her fingers probing at the wound. It had closed, but it was still angry and tender, and he’d rip the fragile tissue if he moved too quickly. He’d limp, and that would make him stand out. A limping man and a very pretty woman, just the sort of pair that would stick in someone’s memory. “Perhaps that’s why I returned.”
He opened his mouth to tell her that was a lie, but a fractional lift of one corner of her beautiful mouth socked him right in the gut. “Did you just make a joke?”
“Logic does not preclude humor.” She returned her attention to the wound. “You’ll have to eat, to speed the healing. I brought greens and cheese sticks. Vitamin C tablets and a jar of peanut butter, too. Those, with some sliced jicama, will give you the required nutrients.”
“Great.”
She paused for a moment, thinking. “Now you’re being sarcastic.” Did she actually sound amused?
“I hate greens.”
“I anticipated you might. They’re in liquid form.”
“Oh, that’s so much better.” She doesn’t just smell good. This woman’s flat-out amazing.
“Or you could deny yourself the nutrients, and—”
“Hey.”
“What?” She looked up again, and his left hand found the back of her head, fingers tangling in her honey hair. He pulled her forward, and his mouth met hers again.
This time there wasn’t a mouthful of blood in the way. She tasted of healthy effort and darkness, that blue tinge to her scent deepening, a gasp into his mouth flavored with softness. His fingers tensed, the silk of her hair wrapping around them in a web he never wanted to struggle free of, and he could feel the gold in the strands. He pulled her closer, off balance, her hand landing above the wound to brace herself and the pain didn’t matter, because she was right there, he was drowning in her and she’d come back for him.