Heartfelt (15 page)

Booker dropped his gaze and stubbed his foot against the grass. The mood around the group spoke volumes. “Where is Casey? What happened? I overheard some of the preserve’s men say Lara had escaped but they had caught Casey.”

Kennedy’s eyes were red and puffy. “Yes, they have him. But I think we should leave now, before they find us, too. I’m glad you’re safe, Lara.”

Lara’s gaze dipped and she nodded.

“No,” Asher said. “We can’t leave Casey here. We don’t know what might happen to him.”

“I know. I feel the same urgency.” Kennedy’s voice faltered. “But we’re not prepared to storm the preserve. We weren’t as prepared today as we should have been and look what happened.” She bit at her lower lip, eyeing the other colony cats.

Tizzy’s big eyes drew Conrad’s attention. She was as tough as any of them, but she looked scared. Others looked wasted and troubled. “Look, not one of us feels good about leaving Casey. Some of us have seen and heard things that were gut-sorrowful. This is not the time to attempt what would likely be a difficult rescue. I think we should leave now, not wait another minute that would allow them to capture us. The best thing we can do is leave.” He put on his best positive-action face and waited for a reaction.

“Is that what your ability sees as a solution here?” Quinn asked. His shoulders slumped as though Casey’s capture was more than he could stand.

“It is.” He nodded, fisting his hands. “But we’ll be back.”

They had to drive past the entrance, but they staggered their distances and Conrad felt the gate’s distance back away on the property kept them from detection.

His breathing was deliberate, slow, and steady. Casey’s capture weighed in his stomach like a sharp rock. He shook his head, disbelief crawling up his spine. Casey was the foundation of the colony. They couldn’t lose him. Eagerness to learn what the others had encountered unsettled him.

It was a dire situation. But it couldn’t cloud out his thoughts about Asia. He’d told her he’d text her and he had. Every time he checked his phone his heart sank. She hadn’t answered yet and that bothered him.

He pushed the pedal down, speeding the Rover to the front of the line of the were-cats’ vehicles. He ignored the frowns aimed at him. Getting to Casey’s house and holding Asia in his arms took priority.

Hopefully she would let him. The kiss he’d given meant something to him. He hoped hers meant the same thing.

• • •

One of Michelle’s cats brushed Asia’s leg and purred. She bent to rub its soft fur yellow fur. “Thanks, Jojo.”

In the other room, the colony cats plus their friends Sterling and Lacey, Ben and Jackson, kept up a low murmur of discussion. Asia tuned it out. Looking down at her mother lying in bed in Casey’s guest room, Asia tried to connect with her mind. She was getting pretty good at letting humans have their thoughts without driving her nuts. She’d expected it would take years to learn, but maybe her learning curve was short, thanks to her being a were-lynx.

But this moment was different. She wanted to communicate telepathically with her mother and get an idea of her mental state.

She touched her mother’s face, hoping a physical connection would enhance her ability. Her eyes closed, Asia silently spoke to her mom, asking for a connection, for her to reach out in her mind.

Nothing.

Consternation nagged at her brain. She’d always taken care of her mother and when she went away it was a mini-dying for Asia, until her mother popped back into her life and anger took over. This was something completely different. This was an interruption in her mother’s life that was not her mother’s doing. Asia’s heart broke over and over again.

“How is she?”

Though she had sensed when Conrad arrived at the house, she’d stayed with her mother. At the sound of his voice, she turned immediately. Her throat closed up. She stared at him, fear and confusion mixed with wanting so much, but she couldn’t move. It wouldn’t be surprising if Conrad was equally confused and frozen.

His eyes dipped to catch her gaze. “How are you?” He took two steps toward her, his eyes misty, his brow knitted.

Asia’s heart thudded in her chest. She took two steps and rested her head on his chest. She heard his beating heart and absorbed his warmth. “Better.” She raised her eyes to meet his. “How are you?”

His arms went around and pulled her in close. “I’m better now.”

They held each other, tight, and remained silent for what felt like a lifetime, one that carried so much past and the frailty of new possibilities.

But this was not their moment, and Asia knew it, and suspected Conrad did, too.

She pulled away and smiled. “Thanks for all you did this afternoon. I didn’t want to leave you alone, but since I did, I trusted you to be able to take care of yourself. Of course you could.”

Conrad beamed, but let her continue.

“So once I got her back to the meeting place, Booker and Shaun checked Mom quickly and urged me to get her to a stable place. That’s why Shaun and I left before you got there.” She turned her back to him. “It was the hardest thing to do, Conrad.”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “It was the right thing to do.” She leaned into him and let the sense of him flow through her.

“I’ve been trying to make a mental connection with Mom. It’s not working. I’ve asked her to open to me and nothing has happened.” She turned around to him and saw him studying the situation. Minutes passed. She hadn’t actually asked him for a solution, but apparently he meant to give her one.

“Try again. But instead of listening for her words, just pay attention to the moment between you.”

“It’s worth a try.” Asia grounded herself, took in deliberate, full breaths and let them out, emptying her mind of any extraneous activity. She closed her eyes, narrowing the input to her brain. Mentally, she reached out to her mother, as a child seeking a mother’s love.
Mom, I’m here. It’s Asia.

The connection took hold. It carried a void to Asia, just as it had in her previous attempts. But it wasn’t a void. She’d missed the delicate presence of her mother in a connection with a place of no thought. A place empty of stimuli. Her mother’s mind was empty of the constant stream of thoughts inherent to humans, but she inhabited her mind and her body, and in this state, she gave Asia assurance.

Asia held the connection for as long as she could bear it. Seconds passed into minutes. Then she released the connection and collapsed to the floor, sobbing.

Conrad joined her on the floor and pulled her into his arms. He placed a soft kiss to her forehead and sat there with her, silent.

“You were right. There was a connection.” The experience, the touch with her mother in that way naturally informed Asia’s understanding of life. “Things are not what they seem.”

Conrad chuckled. “I guess we of all creatures should expect that. Funny that we don’t.”

She sat upright and looked into Conrad’s face. His easy smile, his intense brown eyes, all that and more and she knew he was so beyond what he seemed, as well. “Thank you. Your suggestion was brilliant.”

He pulled her to her feet. She took another look at her mother and then up at him again. “Let’s let her rest. I imagine the Valium will wear off soon.”

In the hall she stopped. “I think my mom has suffered from the drugs she’s been pumped with. They’ve created a sort of wall between her conscious self and the world. I don’t know why, and if she could talk I’m sure we’d find she doesn’t know anything about it.”

“Can she be revived from this state?”

“She’s very much alive. But I don’t know if she’ll return to being the person we know. There’s too much I don’t know.”

Conrad slanted his head and studied her. The air between them trilled with expectation. “I know this is not the time, but, well, what happened at the preserve between us … it meant something to me. I don’t want us to ignore it as though it didn’t. So, later, when the time is right—”

Asia placed her fingers against his lips. “I know. I want to talk about it, also. It meant something to me too.” Longing in her heart reached for satisfaction, but this was not their time, not yet.

Conrad walked beside Asia into the living room to join the others. What Asia had experienced with her mom moved inside of him. His heart demanded attention for what he’d just witnessed. The edges of his body felt soft, malleable.

But he couldn’t remove himself from the pain the colony, especially Michelle and Kennedy, was suffering.

Considering what had happened to Casey, Michelle appeared fairly collected. Shaun sat close to her on the couch, her hand on top of Michelle’s and Izabelle in her lap.

Asia crouched in front of Michelle. “We’re getting him back, Michelle.”

Tears brimmed Michelle’s eyes. “I know, Asia. It’s just hard to think of him in that horrible place. Shaun hasn’t told me much, but I know anything to do with TNG is horrible.”

“I know. We’re not going to waste any time. We’ll rescue him before anything unthinkable happens to him.” Asia stood and directed her gaze to Kennedy, hunched up on the floor near the window. “He’s going to be okay, Kennedy. You can help us make sure.”

“He’s tough, you know that.” Lara’s composure slipped as she recalled the horrible moment when she and Casey had been found. “Three men came at us as soon as they came into the building and found us going through their things. One grabbed me and one went after Casey. I fought. When the man punched me over and over, Casey busted away from the one after him and knocked him out. The other one, a huge, muscled man just stood back, watching. Casey put the second man out with one hard hit to his face. It put him to the floor. But the third man, the big one, came back at us. Casey motioned for me to go hide and I slipped out of the room, but watched through the half-closed door.”

Lara stopped to blow her nose and wipe her tears. Asia’s heart went out to Lara. She clearly was traumatized by all that had happened.

“The big man spoke to Casey from a few feet away. He called him by name, then he pounced on him and jabbed a needle into Casey’s neck. He went limp and I got out of there. I hated leaving him. I’m sorry, Michelle.”

“Lara, you did what was best for us all. You got out and you can help with the rescue.” Michelle narrowed her eyes at Lara. “Don’t blame yourself.”

Conrad cleared his throat. “We’re all feeling distraught about Casey. I don’t want to be crass, but we don’t have time to do much more than acknowledge it and move on.”

Michelle straightened her back and directed her attention to the colony cats. “I agree. If we don’t move quickly, we’ll lose Casey. TNG has a great subject in him for their plans to turn were-lynxes into warriors. That’s probably what they’ll attempt to do.”

“Or they’ll kill him,” Kennedy said, rising from her spot on the floor.

Silence permeated the room. Conrad ran his fingers through his hair, studying the faces of his friends. A plan began falling into place, but he needed to collect more information. “Either possibility is unacceptable, right?”

Agreement went up around the room, the obvious response.

“So we put that out of our minds. Let’s each share with the group what we learned today. Sterling and Lacey, Asia beat you to finding her mother, but I suspect you’ve been on the job searching for useful information, right?”

“Certainly,” Sterling answered, bobbing her head. Her brown hair fell in curtains at either side of her face, half obstructing her grim expression. She stroked another of Michelle’s cats, a brown-striped one named Tiger.

Lacey fingered strands of her long, wavy red hair. “I want to tell you all, I’m sorry for what has happened. TNG just won’t stop. It’s terrible. But Sterling and I made some calls and got an opportunity to get a conversation yesterday with the preserve manager and a tour.”

“How did you manage that?” Lara asked.

Ben laughed. “My wife is very persuasive.”

“And both our wives are good liars, when it comes to taking down the bad guys.” Jackson shot a careful look at Lacey.

“We can be quite creative, I agree, dear.” Lacey nodded at Jackson.

Sterling sighed heavily. “What we learned was devastating. The manager was forthright about the activities at the preserve because of our cover story. Our research suggested the preserve was actually a place for big-game hunters to pay huge amounts of money to shoot a trophy animal.”

Conrad shook his head. “Yeah, Asia and I discovered that this afternoon. The moron, a hunter, killed a lynx.” His stomach rolled over painfully. “We also saw rooms with men lying on beds, hooked up to machines that were pumping some kind of liquid into their bodies. Those rooms were different from the ones like we found Asia’s mom in.”

“It was eerie, seeing the room of men like that.” Asia shivered.

“Let me get to that in a minute,” Sterling said. “Lacey and I went at it as prospective hunters, and the manager willingly told us the lowdown. He boasted about how unique the preserve is, how they heighten the danger by feeding the animals live prey, and how they breed the animals to make them comfortable around humans.”

“Right,” Lacey said. “Feeding the animals live prey makes them more of a challenge; they tend to be wilder and antagonistic. And the cats that are bred are more comfortable around humans. Their natural defenses aren’t developed.”

“So they make an easier target. Oh, my God.” Kennedy’s voice seethed with disbelief. She buckled over, pain in her expression. “It makes me sick.”

“It is diabolical,” Asher said. “What else would we expect from TNG?”

Lara frowned. “Where do they get their live prey? Where do they get the exotic animals? It’s illegal to bring them into the United States.”

“Well,” Sterling started, “they have permits for the animals.”

Ben rubbed his chin. “I’m afraid anyone with the right connections can get permits.”

“You mean connections to officials who take a bribe, right?” Jackson asked. “Why doesn’t it surprise me that my father’s organization is in deep with the people who can provide what they want, at any means, for a price?”

Lacey put her hand on her husband’s arm. “It’s not your fault.”