One Wrong Move (36 page)

The air around her changed. She glowed, eyes sparkling, a nimbus of light gathering around her. “I could get through it.”

She flicked a coy glance at Rudd. “It would be fun, to do it in front of her.”

Rudd grunted. “I don’t have the stomach for it at this hour,”

he said. “There’s a more sanitary way, one that doesn’t involve bodily fluids.” He gestured at Nina. “Hit her again.”

Anabel pouted, but she turned to Nina, hauled off—

“No!” Aaro shouted. “No, don’t. I’ll, uh . . . I’ll lower the shield.” He said the words without even knowing if that mechanism was within his voluntary control. He would make it be.

Please.

Dmitri chuckled. Anabel lowered her clenched fist. She gripped his face in her hands. Her dangling blond hair tickled his neck.

So beautiful to look at, and she smelled sweet, too, but something stunted and unclean squirmed behind her eyes. He recoiled, every muscle rigid.

“Open wide, big boy,” she cooed.

For a moment or two, he didn’t think it was going to happen.

He strained to visualize the vault doors. Thank God he had something concrete to imagine. He had Nina to thank for that.

For that, and a million other unnameable things. He pushed that thought away. No tender thoughts of Nina with that mind-raping hag hanging over him.

Even so, he seemed to feel Nina, reaching out. A gentle touch, holding him up. He clung to that hand in the darkness, and pictured those vault doors. The image formed, clear and sharp. He shoved them open, slowly, from the inside. They creaked . . .

first a crack, wider . . .

Anabel drove inside, violent and eager. He jerked, fighting nausea, panic. His heart thudded as she flailed around inside his naked inner self, hacking and slashing. “I’ve got him!” Her voice trembled with excitement. “Ask the questions now! Quick! I don’t know how long I can hold him. He’s very strong! Hurry!”

Rudd cleared his throat. “Did Helga Kasyanov enhance you with psi-max?” he demanded.

Aaro yelled, as Anabel plowed through his mind, prodding and pinching. He could not speak, so it was a damn good thing she answered for him. “He never heard of psi-max or of Kasyanov before yesterday. His friends in Portland asked him to help Nina Christie.”

“All right then. What are the effects of the new formula?”

Another assault. He tried not to cry out. He felt torn apart.

“He doesn’t know much.” Anabel sounded disappointed.

“Just what Kasyanov said. He heard a recording, of Helga babbling. She said then that the formula will stabilize the psi, but only if you get the B dose in time, within three days. Four, max.

Helga croaked at day five. When I saw her in the ICU, she looked like shit. Like she was melting down from the inside.”

“One more question, before we toss you in the trash.” Rudd’s voice vibrated with anger. This time, he let his coercive power thunder through the words, driving them into Aaro’s head like a hammer driving a pick. “Where are the B doses?”

The double invasion was agony. He almost lost consciousness at the noise, the blinding lights, the pain. He was screaming, but he could not hear his own voice. He writhed, flopped. Air rushed past his face.

Thwack,
a sideways whole body blow. The world had turned ninety degrees. He was on the floor. Gasping for breath.

“No idea.” Anabel’s voice was sullen. “No fucking clue. Whatever Helga told them, it wasn’t enough. I got something about a library. Something about a grave. Wycleff. Skeletons. A grave. A party. That’s it. It’s nonsense. Garbage. He doesn’t think they’ll find the dose, that’s for sure. He’s afraid she’ll die. He’s scared shitless.”

“How sweet, that he cares,” Rudd muttered. “I’m moved.”

“Yeah, maybe we could speed things up for him,” Anabel said.

“Put him out of his misery.” She aimed a vicious kick to his thigh. “He’s in love with her. They’re fucking like bunnies, every chance they get. Love in the face of certain death. Like,
La
Bohême,
or something.”

“I’m not interested in his sex life,” Rudd snapped. “Focus.”

“Wycleff?” It was Roy speaking, now, though he could not turn to see. “Why Wycleff? That old goat’s been dead for years.

Maybe that’s what the grave part’s about. Or maybe Helga was just delirious.”

“Shut up, Roy,” Rudd said. “I didn’t ask for your input.”

They left Aaro forgotten on the floor, coughing as blood ran from his nose down his throat, and turned to Nina.

“You do know that if you block Anabel, we will punish him,”

Rudd told her. “Understood?”

“Yes.” Nina’s voice was amazingly even. “I get that.”

They asked her the same questions, and got the same conclusions, but Nina didn’t shout or choke nearly as much as he had.

She just went rigid, trembling and silent, enduring it when they did their mind-rape-and-battery thing. Tough as boot leather.

Amazing.

Aaro couldn’t see her, no matter how he lurched or struggled or craned his neck. All he could do was watch her feet twitch and her toes curl in the fancy sandals Roxanne had brought, to go with the sexy new outfit. He tried to reach out to her, but he didn’t know how. That was Nina’s magic thing, not his. He couldn’t help her the way she had helped him. He couldn’t do anything. He was a useless fucking lump of dead meat. He wanted to hit himself.

Hate them, not yourself, silly.
It sounded like Nina’s scolding voice echoing through his mind, but she was busy gasping and jerking as they dug around inside her head.

He faded in and out of consciousness. Swam back to the surface to find Roy and Dmitri hoisting him upright. He stared up into his cousin’s gloating face. Spat blood into it.

Dmitri wiped the red spatter off. “You’ll wish you hadn’t done that while you watch me and Roy taking turns with your fuck buddy,” he said. “At least this detour is good for something. Always a pleasure getting laid, and getting laid by your woman, ah, now, that’s worth something to me. Plus, I’ll be able to read your mind while I do it.”

“Read my . . .” He stared at Dmitri, sickened. “You?”

“Oh, yeah. Me.” Dmitri’s smile was broad. “I’m a telepath, too. It’s in the family, after all, right? Maybe I got the latent ability from wherever Tonya got it. I love it. Doing . . .
this.
”

He dug into Aaro’s head, not as deep or hard as Anabel, but it hurt, having that squirming presence inside. Dmitri groped and probed . . . and laughed. “You’re as much of a sanctimonious prick as you ever were,” Dmitri said. “Always moping, agonizing about hurting people. Fucking wuss. You’d do anything for her, wouldn’t you? Never fear, cousin. Whatever you can do to her, I can do better. I’ll show you tonight, when the boss is gone. Over and over. In every hole she’s got.”

“That butthead psycho Rudd is your boss?” Aaro asked. “Oleg was better. Never grew up to be boss yourself, huh? Don’t feel bad. Some are born to lead and some to follow, you know?”

Whap.
Dmitri’s roundhouse to the ribs made him suck wind.

His cousin rubbed his knuckles and circled the chair.

“Stop,” Rudd ordered. “I didn’t give you permission to beat him.”

“You said he was mine after you questioned him,” Dmitri said.

“I’m not through yet,” Rudd snapped. “Where’s the last A dose, Anabel?”

“Found it in her purse.” Anabel approached, unwinding the bubble wrap that was wound around the syringe.

Aaro glanced at Nina. She was snowy pale, but eerily calm.

Her face had that carved-out-of-marble look, in spite of the blood trickling from her nose and lip. Wild hair, springing in all directions. Undaunted.

Anabel held up the syringe. “What are you going to do with it?”

Rudd gestured toward Aaro. “Inject it into him.”

“But . . . but it’s the only dose we have!” she protested.

“It’s garbage,” Rudd said. “A fairy tale. That’s all. Kasyanov’s dead. Without the B dose, what’s in this syringe is a slow poison.

If these two can’t tell us where the B dose is, there’s no one left alive who can.”

“No!” Nina’s unnatural calm had shattered. “No, please, there’s no reason to inject it into him! There’s no point! You don’t have to—”

“Did I ask for your opinion? Go ahead, Anabel.”

Anabel looked as if she were going to cry. “But there’s no other—”

“There never will be!” Rudd shouted. “Accept it! We’ll find someone who can duplicate the current psi-max we’ve been using, and content ourselves with that. I’ve been wasting pre-274

cious man-hours on a worthless treasure hunt. Score one for Kasyanov. She fucked us. We fucked her back. She’s dead. We’re flat even. Game over.”

Anabel turned and looked them over. “And them?”

“Take them to Karstow,” he said. “Lock them up together in the subbasement. Set up video surveillance. Should be entertaining, to watch them break down. We can contemplate our own narrow escape.” He wagged an admonishing finger. “It’ll be an object lesson.”

“But he’ll be on psi-max,” Roy said. “What if he manifests?”

“If it’s a dangerous talent, just kill him. But don’t damage his brain. I want a full autopsy. On both of them.”

Anabel shoved up Aaro’s sleeve. His muscles bunched up as he strained at the plastic cuffs. She punched the needle in, savagely.

Nina screamed for him, though she hadn’t screamed for herself.

Nina’s mouth was still moving, but his blood pressure was going south, and he could not hear her. Just his heart thudding, very fast, very loud. Falling, falling. Gone.

Nina fought back the fear.
Don’t faint
. She stared at Aaro, willing him not to be dead. He didn’t seem to breathe, and his mind didn’t respond when she reached out with hers.
Don’t faint.

It was just her, now. All up to her. She had to come up with a plan for them both. Something brilliant, amazing. Hah.

Pay attention, goddamnit.
She focused in on the conversation.

“. . . us to take them to Karstow now?” Anabel was saying.

Rudd frowned. “Not you. Dmitri and Roy can take them to the Karstow facility. You’re coming with me.”

Anabel looked put upon. “But Roy—”

“Roy can make do with Dmitri. They’ll manage without you. I know you were looking forward to playing with your new toy, but I need you with me at that fund-raiser for the Greaves Institute, remember?”

“Fund-raiser? I have to leave those two fuckups all alone with the captives to go and be arm candy at a cocktail party? Are you serious?”

“I will decide what’s relevant, Anabel, not you. This is Greaves, remember! I have to present my gift! Maybe if you’re lucky, your toy will still be alive in a couple of days. You can amuse yourself then. We have flights booked from New York, but at this point, we’ll save time driving there directly. Besides, someone has to transport the model, now that Roy will be babysitting these two.” He grabbed a handful of Aaro’s hair, making his head loll. “Roy, come out with us. I want you to move the boxes of the model from your car into mine, and you might as well carry the man out while you’re at it. I have no intention of leaving this place until he’s safely locked in the trunk of your vehicle.”

Roy sliced through Aaro’s cuffs and caught his limp body with a grunt of effort as it sagged. He hoisted Aaro over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, cursing as he staggered out the door.

Rudd gave Dmitri a narrow glance. “Roy will be back in a few minutes, to load her up, too,” he warned. “Do not damage her.”

“Can we, uh, you know . . . ?” Dmitri waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Might as well have our fun before she falls apart.”

Rudd’s nostrils flared in distaste. “Oh, I suppose,” he said faintly. “If you must. But I repeat. Do not damage her. I want to observe what the drug does to her at Karstow. Is that understood?”

“Crystal clear,” Dmitri said.

Rudd left. Anabel shot Dmitri a warning glance, and followed.

Nina’s fear kicked up, tenfold, until it choked her, but Rudd’s words kept echoing.
Greaves Institute. Greaves. Greaves?

The thought evaporated as Dmitri yanked her hair, and leered into her face. His hot breath was sour. She struggled not to gag.

Be clear, be quiet.
The less he read, the better her chances of taking him by surprise.

“This would have been more fun with Sasha watching,” he said. “But fuck it, I’ll manage. I see he’s tarting you up. You’re showing your tits now. Very pretty.” He squeezed one, hard enough to make her gasp, her mind shield roaring up to protect—

Whack,
he slapped her. “Drop the shield, bitch. Or I’ll break your nose.”

She blinked, eyes watering at the umpteenth blow to the face.

It was excruciatingly difficult to lower it. But she’d done it when Anabel read her. To protect Aaro. So she knew she could.
Still.

Lake water in the moonlight. Not thinking. Mind open, empty, so very
still. Opening . . .

He jabbed into her mind as soon as he felt the yielding. She read what he had planned for her, freezing it somewhere in her head, not allowing herself to react.

Empty. Calm. Still water. Moonlight.
“What you have in mind requires taking these cuffs off,” she said to him.

“Shut up, bitch. I’m on to your tricks.”

“No tricks.” She smiled at him.
Still mind. Clear water. Moonlight on a lake.
“I could never pull one over on you. So I won’t try.

I’m not stupid. But I’m a telepath, too, you know.” She peeked up through her lashes. “Don’t you think that could be . . . interesting?”

Dmitri’s eyes narrowed. His face was like a ruined, nightmar-ish version of Aaro’s. Like, and yet horribly unlike.

“What would be interesting?” he asked slowly.

“You and me,” she said, trying to sound coy. “Minds open.

Joined. Have you ever done that? Joining mentally during sex?”

She gestured with her chin toward the door. “Sasha can’t do that.

He can’t read me, and won’t let me read him, so that door is closed. But with you, it could be, like, total union. It’s just so intriguing, you know?”