Riding the Storm (34 page)

"I
know how scared you are. I'm scared too," he admitted. "I've never
been in love before."

He
allowed himself to take his eyes off the road for a second, because he needed
to look into hers after his admission.

"You
love me?" she asked, stared at him and crossed her arms in front of her.
Not exactly the moment he'd hoped for, but then again, what the hell was? And
for the first time, he didn't care about going out on this particular ledge.

"Yeah,
I love you. And I'm going to do whatever it takes today to keep you safe,"
he said, and then felt a jolt of electricity down his spine and clutched the
wheel hard. "Haley, something's wrong."

"What
do you mean, something's wrong?" Haley asked, shaken out of the I-love-you
moment she hadn't been sure how to handle.

Then
she sucked in a breath like she'd been burned, because, oh, shit, she'd rather
deal with the love stuff. Ahead of them, black clouds rolled in like a series
of inverted tidal waves. A white wall of hail obscured the road only yards
ahead.

"Tell
me you're doing that. Are you doing that?"

"Hell,
no." Remy slowed, but they plowed into the weather so hard, she flinched,
certain the windshield would break from the force of the ice balls beating down
on them.

The
noise, deafening and painful, made her shout into her headset at the other team
members. "If you guys are outside already, take cover. We're in for some
rough weather."

Rough
and… wrong. Not one forecast model had indicated even a possibility of weather
like this. And the striations in the cloud formations, the shape of the hail…
she'd never seen anything like it.

Ice
crunched beneath the Humvee's tires as Remy steered through the obscuring veil
of precipitation. Visibility fluctuated, but she could make out a shape ahead.
She squinted, gasped at the same time Remy bit out a guttural,
"Fuck!"

He
slammed on the brakes, and she grasped the Oh Shit bar as the vehicle skidded
and spun back-end first into a gully, just missing the four black sedans
blocking the road.

"Not
good," Remy muttered, slamming the Humvee into first gear and gunning it
out of the ditch. Three more vehicles moved into position in the road, coming
from the direction they'd just traveled, trapping them.

"Uh,
Remy…

"Yeah,
I see. We're going right through them. Hold on."

He
stepped on the gas. The engine cut out. Men in cammie jumpsuits swarmed out of
the cars. Some carried weapons. Others, she suspected,
were
weapons.

Remy
grabbed her arm and yanked. "On the floor." Then he smiled. The nut
actually smiled. "Time for some twisters."

Nothing
happened. If anything, conditions improved. The hail had turned to rain, though
wind still whipped through the narrow valley.

"What
the fuck?" The concentration on his face turned it red. Veins bulged in
his temple. "Something's wrong. I can't do shit!"

Haley
peeked over the dash. A tall, lean man moved toward them, his hands empty, his
gaze trained on Remy. He made a brusque motion with his hand, and a shot rang
out; the driver-side window shattered.

"Get
out of the vehicle," he shouted, and Remy bared his teeth, shook glass out
of his hair.

"Fuck
you."

The
man shrugged. "Do you want your father alive or in pieces?"

Remy
swore under his breath. "Let Haley go. Release her, and I'll
cooperate."

"Remy,
no," she whispered harshly, but he didn't acknowledge her.

"Itor
does not negotiate."

Remy
opened his mouth to say something, but only a strangled grunt came out as his
body was pinned against the seat. "I hate these fucks!" he spat.

Men
closed in on the truck, and panic sent Haley's heart into overdrive. She scrambled
toward Remy, but the passenger door flew open, and hands seized her feet. She
screamed, kicked viciously, relishing the thud of her heels connecting with
flesh.

Remy
bellowed in rage. "Get your goddamned hands off her!"

She
grabbed the seat, dug in with her fingers, but another set of hands joined the
first, and a rough yank broke her grip. The sharp bite of a needle stung her
thigh, and then she was on the freezing wet pavement, a woman bent over her,
leering. The woman yanked Haley's headset off and crunched it beneath her boot.

"You're
a serious pain in the ass, Ms. Holmes," she said in a tinny Russian
accent. "If my orders weren't to bring you in alive, I'd gut you and leave
you to bleed to death in the road like a car-struck deer."

Remy's
curses and threats buzzed around her head, and she wondered if the Itor people
were as impressed with his creativity as she was. She was pretty sure some of
the things he proposed doing to them were anatomically impossible, but then,
she didn't think it was possible for her to be carried away by evil scumbags
and not care.

Whatever
had been in the syringe had been good stuff. It wasn't until she'd been placed
in the backseat of one of the sedans that she began to care.

Because
she could no longer hear Remy's shouts. She could, however, hear his roar of
pain.

"Shit!"
Annika ran as fast as she could, her feet crunching through hail, her wet
clothing sticking to her like she'd climbed out of a pool. She arrived at
Remy's Humvee, where it had been left in the ditch. Ender was already there,
testing the engine, which wouldn't turn over. Wyatt skidded to a halt next to
her.

"Son
of a bitch," she panted. "It was a fucking trap."

Ender
rarely passed up an opportunity to bluster, but he remained tight-lipped, his
expression as grim as Wyatt's. By mutual, silent consent, they ran back to
Ender's Humvee, climbed inside, Wyatt in the rear seat, Annika in the front
passenger, and then Ender let loose the tirade he'd been holding back.

"How
the fuck could we have gotten it wrong? That trailer is the only logical place
for them to hole up, and there's no way they could have seen us coming."

Wyatt
snared the maps out of the back of the vehicle. Ender took a handful, and
glared at Annika. "You afraid you'll get a paper cut, princess?"

"Shut
up." She peered out the window, looking for a visual on whatever was
making the hair on her arms stand up with a static sensation. "I think… I
think I can find Remy. Or at least get us in the general vicinity."

Wyatt
peered at her from over the top of a satellite photo. "How?"

"Something's
radiating a shitload of energy. Like a nuclear power plant. But different.
Bizarre. Almost feels artificial. It's got to be Remy working his weather mojo
or something." She pointed to the roiling black clouds overhead. "Did
you notice how fast those suckers came in?"

Ender
and Wyatt exchanged glances, and Wyatt shrugged.

"We
ain't got dick. Can't hurt to see where her spidey sense leads us."

Ender
started the vehicle, and Annika closed her eyes, let the tingle behind her lids
be her guide. "Head northwest."

The
truck spun out in the gravel and then hit the road with a burn of rubber.
Adrenaline careened through her veins, heightening her senses and enhancing the
electric sizzle just under the surface of her skin. She loved this part of her
job, the hunt, the chase, and then the climax of battle.

Hopefully
there'd be a battle. First, they needed to find Remy and Haley. If those
fuckers hurt Haley, Annika would shock every one of them until they looked like
burnt bacon. Haley might be an uptight prig, but she was the closest thing
Annika had to a girlfriend. And really, maybe she didn't know Haley as well as
she thought she did, because the woman at the hotel had more closely resembled
an untamed jungle woman than a parameteorologist with a stick up her ass.

Maybe
she'd taken to heart Annika's suggestion to make Remy horny. Good. Haley had
needed to get laid in a serious way.

Like
Annika had.

The
thought made a burst of heat explode in her gut, and she damn near groaned.
God, it had been good with Creed. Feminine instinct told her it could get even
better. She had no experience, and he'd been trying to be gentle, but if they
ever let loose on each other… oh, man. Images popped into her head like an old
reel movie—hot, wild, swing-from-the-chandeliers sex-fests, starring the two of
them.

She
shifted in her seat, aching already, inappropriately. An ACRO operative and a
potential operative had been taken. Sex had no business being on the brain.
Creed had no business being in her thoughts at all.

"Annika?
Still northwest?"

"Yes."
She opened her eyes and studied the cloud-choked sky. The electrical tug was
growing stronger… just as she knew the tug toward Creed would. Years of sexual
frustration had built up, and now that she had an outlet, she planned to use
it.

She
just hoped Creed didn't want more from her, because she had nothing but her
body to give.

Remy
grunted as his wrists were bound separately, arms spread and strapped to a
metal bar above his head. He was forced to kneel on the soft dirt of the barn
floor, his ankles bound together as well. He felt the second prick of a
hypodermic in his biceps and the medicine burned through his veins. Not a
sedative this time. No, for what was coming now, these assholes wanted him
wide-awake and ready.

They
hadn't simply relied on the sedative the first time either—they'd knocked him
over the head, and he was still seeing double.

He
looked up at his captors, a man and a woman, waited for the inevitable
questions about his abilities, but none came. Instead, the man walked behind
him and Remy heard the whir of something wooden and unforgiving whiz through
the air seconds before the slam to his kidneys jolted him forward.

The
woman crossed her arms and smiled.

Remy
didn't make a sound. At first. And then he forced out a long moan, right before
they hit him again. And again, and the cry that he let out was more anger and
frustration than hurt, but they wouldn't know that.

He
hated showing any weakness at all, but he'd learned long ago that giving people
what they wanted made things go easier on him. They wanted to think they were
hurting him so badly, he was going to let them.

What
they were doing was no walk in the park, but he'd had worse.

His
head ached and he wondered if they'd done something to him beyond pumping him
full of drugs, because he still wasn't able to conjure up as much as a
raindrop, no matter how hard he concentrated.

"Again,"
the woman commanded, and Remy steeled himself for the next blow, forced himself
to take stock of the situation.

The
woman was pretty—tall, blond, icy. She leaned close to him, whispered in his
ear, "Pain and pleasure, T-Remy. I can give you both." And yeah, he'd
be willing to bet she could.

But
when he didn't answer, she responded by running her hand down his T-shirted
chest, not stopping until her hand covered his crotch. "Why don't you give
me a chance? I know what you need."

"You
have no idea what I need, lady. And it's certainly not what you've got between
your legs," he said.

She
pulled away and the man delivered another quick slam to his shoulders.

"Manny,
put that down and get away from him. You as well, Oksana." The sharp voice
snapped him to attention, and the guy who'd been getting his jollies trying to
break Remy down did an immediate cease and desist. Oksana smirked one more time
and then blew Remy a kiss.

"See
you later, T-Remy. I'll make sure of that. You'll be a much better playmate than
your father."

Remy
dipped his head and retched. The cold sweat he'd broken out in was helping to
loosen the bonds on his wrists, but it was going to be a painful way to escape.

"I'm
sorry, Remy. Sometimes my associates take too many liberties. It's hard to get
good help these days." A British accent. Cultured. Smooth.

Remy
lifted his head, pissed that he'd started seeing double again.

The
man was shorter than he was, stocky, and he made no effort to hide the .44
Magnum he wore in a shoulder holster over a pin-striped, button-down shirt,
complete with a tie, like he was going out to dinner instead of conducting an
interrogation.

"My
name is Charles," the man continued. "Welcome to the party."

"Where's
my father?"

"In
due time, T-Remy. In due time."

"You've
got me now, so you don't need him for anything. Just let him go."

"Such
loyalty." Charles lit a cigarette and blew smoke rings, which hung in the
humid air.

"I
held up my end of the bargain."

"Ah,
but that's just it, Remy. You didn't follow the rules. You were supposed to
come here alone—and you have to understand, we can't take chances. Not with
ACRO breathing down our necks, even though the three ACRO agents who followed
you have been properly disposed of. But I'll bet you understand what it's like
to have ACRO trying to back you into a corner."