Safe (The Shielded Series Book 1) (5 page)

He reached forward and put his hand in hers. With a tug, she pulled him
to his feet and they ran to the hovercopter.

She didn’t let go of his hand. Not when she climbed into the craft. Not
when he climbed in right behind her. Not when they settled in their seats. Not
when she signaled to Ghared to get the hell off that roof.

The hovercopter ascended vertically, leaving Foster’s building a flaming
beacon below them. Banking around the neighboring buildings, the craft jetted
toward Emerge Tech’s walls.

Foster let go of her hand then to lean forward to Ghared. “Those walls
have a security field above them.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Ghared shot him a sideways glance. “But I got in, didn’t
I?” He reached over and smacked the leg of his copilot—Zeke.

Darina had been surprised to see Zeke in the hovercopter, but Ghared told
her he hadn’t wanted to leave the kid behind so soon after a seizure. She
immediately regretted calling her buddy for help, but he was the only one who
could get them out of there in one piece.

She loved him for not leaving Zeke behind, even if the kid looked pale
and groggy in his seat now. His dark mass of hair was sticking out at odd
angles as if he’d been ripped out of a death-level slumber, which he no doubt
had been. She fought the urge to pull Zeke into the back seat and into her lap,
wanting nothing more than to comfort him.  

Foster leaned back in his seat beside her. “Is our pilot’s confidence
warranted, or should I be concerned?” He touched the gash on his forehead and
frowned at the blood dotting his fingertips. He unzipped his pocket and
extracted his tablet.

“I wouldn’t have called someone incompetent for help. I make a point of
only associating with useful people,” Darina said, watching Foster power up his
tablet and attempt—unsuccessfully—to doctor the gash in his forehead.

She slid closer to him and held out her hand for the tablet. After he
slid it into her hand, she focused on lining up the injury in the tablet’s
viewfinder. She absolutely did not notice how beautifully green his eyes were
or how long his dark eyelashes were or how wonderfully that black stubble
framed his tempting lips. She barely registered the artistic way his tattoo
swirled up from his neck to his ear. Nope. Didn’t see a thing.

Grumbling to herself, she scanned his wound and it sealed itself. She
reached under the pilot’s seat and grabbed a first aid kit, which no doubt was
an antique to Foster. Rummaging around in it, she found a cleansing wipe and
gave him one to wash the blood off his forehead.

As she stowed the first aid kit back under the pilot’s seat, she said,
“You’ll live.”

“Thanks.” His voice also sounded as if he had tried—and failed—to not notice
anything about her face as she’d tended to him.

Nodding, she peered out the front window of the hovercopter as Ghared
approached the walls and security field. Her buddy’s work-roughened hands
tightened on the yoke as he rocketed them toward the place where the walls met
at a ninety-degree angle.

“Number Two.” He poked Zeke in the arm and the kid jolted in his seat.
“You only agreed to come with me if I let you engage the field infrared camera.
Quit napping. It’s time.”

Darina smiled in the backseat. Zeke was forever bugging Ghared about
flying. Whether it was building crafts, operating them, or enhancing them, the
kid wanted to know it all. She knew Ghared let Zeke fly his crafts sometimes
when he thought she wouldn’t find out. Didn’t he know she always found out? She
didn’t stop the boy’s secret flight lessons though. Who knew when Zeke might
need to know such skills? She wasn’t going to get in the way of something that
could potentially save his life or the lives of others.

Like right now.

Zeke lifted his head from where it had been resting against his seat.
“Ready. Just tell me when.” He yawned, his voice scratchy, and again a maternal
wave crested over Darina.

“This is your son?” Foster craned his head a bit to get a better a look
at Zeke.

Darina nodded.

“Give me the medicine.” He held out his hand, looking at the bulge in her
pocket where the bottle was tucked.

“What? Now?”

“It works immediately.”

She dug into her pocket and handed the bottle over to Foster. He leaned
to the front seats again as he unscrewed the top and drew some of the liquid
medicine into the dropper attached to the cap.

“Take this,” he said to Zeke.

Zeke’s dark brown eyes flicked to Darina, an unspoken question in his
expression. They talked like that often. No words, just tilts of eyebrows,
slants of lips, twitches of muscles.

“It’s okay,” she said. “He’s a doctor. That medicine will help.”

“You told him about me?” A note of accusation laced Zeke’s words.

“Only because I thought he could help you,” Darina said.

“And she thought right.” Foster reached the dropper full of medicine
farther forward. “Take this, and you’ll feel brand new.”

“Nothing feels brand new anymore, pal.” Ghared shook his head and glanced
back at them. “Where the hell did you find this guy, Darina?”

“Ghared,” she warned.

“Fine.” He let out a few mumbles she couldn’t hear, but whatever he’d
said made Zeke laugh.

Foster still held the medicine dropper between the front seats. “Hey,
it’s up to you, kid. You can take it and feel awesome or not take it and feel as
if you’re stuck in quicksand.”

At that Zeke snapped his head all around to look at Foster.

“I always tell Mom I feel as if I’m in quicksand after a seizure.” He
looked at Darina. “Did you tell him that too?”

“She didn’t have to tell me,” Foster said before she could answer. “I
know.”

Ghared glared back at Foster now, his icy blue eyes narrowing, and Darina
wished Foster would shut up. Didn’t he know to keep his personal information
personal? She could almost hear the millions of questions popping into Ghared’s
head.

“Take it, Zeke.” She took the dropper from Foster, grabbed Zeke by the
jaw, and squirted a drop of the medicine into his mouth.

“Mom…” Zeke coughed and gave her one of those teenage looks—one that said
he wasn’t a baby and didn’t wish to be treated like one.

“Sorry, but I want you to feel better so you can do what Ghared’s asking
you to do. We’d like to not get fried at the wall.”

“That tasted horrible,” Zeke said, sticking his tongue out.

“I didn’t have time to add flavoring.” Foster sat back, his shoulder
pressing against Darina’s, making heat creep over her body again.

“I think what my son means to say is ‘Thank you, Dr. Ashby,’ right, Zeke?”
She shot the kid a pointed look.

Zeke had the good sense to look embarrassed by his lack of manners. He
turned in his seat to see Foster better. “I’m sorry. Thank you, Dr. Ashby.”

“Give that medicine a few seconds and you’ll be out of that quicksand.
Promise.” Foster folded his arms across his chest and looked out the window.

Ghared continued on his path to the corner of the wall as Zeke readied
the infrared camera. From where Darina sat, it looked as if they were heading
for a crash with the security fields above the walls, but she knew better.
She’d been flying with Ghared enough times to know he had many tricks up his
sleeve… even if the shirt he wore right now had no sleeves.  

“Now, Z,” Ghared said.

A high-pitched whine filled the interior of the hovercopter. It didn’t
bother Darina, but Foster stiffened beside her. When she looked up at him, his
jaw was clenched, his eyes closed. She warred with her hand, which thought
sliding onto his thigh would be the right thing to do.

It was not.

She ended up clamping both of her hands on the back of Ghared’s seat and
applauded herself for remaining sensible.

Barely.

“Whoohoo!” Ghared roared as he spiraled the craft downward.

Foster’s hands went to the back of Zeke’s seat now, his entire body
braced for whatever it was he expected to happen.

“Hey,” Darina said, her traitorous right hand resting on his shoulder. “Are
you okay?” She was the one who didn’t like heights, yet Ghared’s flying never
made her nervous. She was completely safe in his care, even if he didn’t always
think so.

When Foster met her gaze, the depth of his green eyes drew her in, and
she had this crazy desire to be alone with him.

“Yeah, I’m okay.” He let out a sarcastic chuckle. “I just always imagined
committing suicide in a less brutal way than flying, purposely, into a security
field.”

How many times had he imagined committing suicide?
From the looks
of his domicile, he lived the good life. What reason could he possibly have for
wanting to end his existence?

“We’re not going to die today.” She squeezed his shoulder and reluctantly
let her hand fall away.

A double whoop from the front seats made both Darina and Foster look out
the cockpit window. Darina had to admit it did look as if they were headed for
direct impact with the field, but doubting Ghared or Zeke would be a waste of
time. Together they would get them past Emerge Tech’s walls and security field
unscathed.

After that, she didn’t know what was going to happen.

Darina didn’t love that uncertainty. She’d kept herself and Zeke—and to some
extent, Ghared—alive by always having a plan and plotting her next moves. Now
the only thing she knew for certain was she had to keep Foster from falling
into Warres’s hands.

Because no one should be in Warres’s hands.

“Got it!” Zeke reported a series of numbers.

“Roger that, kid.” Ghared tipped the hovercopter on its side, and Foster
slid in his seat to spill over to Darina’s side.

She was about to tell the doctor to stay on his own side, but Ghared
flipped the hovercopter back to horizontal, and suddenly they were on the
outside of Emerge Tech’s walls, beyond the security field, flying over the gray
and broken streets of Boston.

“Up high, Z!” Ghared held his right hand out to Zeke and they slapped
hands in celebration.

“What just happened?” Foster asked. “I may have closed my eyes. Are we
dead?”

Zeke turned around in his seat, his skin a healthy shade of caramel, his
dark eyes wide and alert. “Total opposite of dead, man.” He looked at Darina.
“He was right, Mom. I feel great!”

Her heart swelled to quadruple its normal size at the sight of Zeke’s
smile. He was more alive than she’d ever seen him.

Foster, on the other hand, looked a tad green.

“We made it,” she said softly, touching his shoulder again. She had to
stop touching him. “We’re on the outside.”

He peered out the window at his right, down at the ruins of the city
below them. Raking a hand through his hair, he said, “How did he do it?”

Darina knew how he did it. The security field that extended from the top
of Emerge Tech’s walls was a giant dome of invisible panels. Each panel had its
own coding. Ghared used his tech geek skills to hack the code, but it could be
tricky to find which panel had shut down. The infrared camera could locate the
dead panel. Unfortunately only one panel could be shut down at a time, and
flying through it involved some crafty maneuvering.

Nothing Ghared can’t handle.

“Can’t give away my secrets,” Ghared said from the pilot’s seat. “Just
know that I have many talents.” He glanced back at Foster. “And trust me, you
don’t want to know about most of them.”

“Where are we going?” Zeke asked, saving Darina from having to say
anything about the possessive and protective vibes coming off Ghared in
tsunami-style waves.

She raised her eyebrows at Foster. “What do you say, Doc? Where are we
headed?”

Foster’s shoulders rose then fell as he inhaled deeply. He appeared to be
mentally reviewing his options, which she knew were few. He had to stay away
from Emerge Tech and the city streets. Warres had found him in both settings.
He also needed a quiet, remote place to continue his research and find that
damn cure.

“Can this poor excuse for a hovercopter make it all the way to Vermont?”
he asked.

“Hold it right there, asshole,” Ghared said. “Insult my bird again and
you’re getting ejected.”

“No one’s getting ejected,” Darina said, “but I do advise against
insulting our phenomenal pilot.”

“Have I told you I love you?” Ghared asked, reaching his hand back to
squeeze Darina’s knee.

“Not today,” Darina shot back, noting how closely Foster watched the
interaction. She and Ghared said I love you all the time, and they did love
each other, like siblings. In the aftermath they’d been left in, they’d built a
screwy little family. One cop, one jack-of-all-trades tech geek soldier, one teenage
GEC. They took care of each other and had survived this long. They had to be
doing something right.

But Foster probably didn’t think they were doing anything right. His
lifestyle couldn’t have been more different than theirs.

“I can continue my research into the cure at my Vermont property,” Foster
said.

“Vermont it is then,” Darina said. “Make sure we’re not followed,
Ghared.”

“That sounds like a green light to drive aggressively.” Ghared wiggled
his eyebrows at Zeke.

Foster’s hands went white-knuckled on the back of Zeke’s seat. “Something
tells me I should have taken my chances back there in that burning building.”

Darina shook her head. “No, that was certain death.” She gestured to the
pieced together hovercopter holding them. “Flying in this to Vermont for hours
out in the open has only a half certain death rating.”

Foster looked a little freaked, but the left side of his mouth turned up
in a slight grin—a grin Darina wouldn’t mind seeing again.

Mikale paced in his office. Sometimes that space felt like a kingdom. Roomy,
inspiring, productive. Today was not one of those times. Today it felt as if
the walls were closing in on him. He’d traversed the perimeter of the room
about twenty times and still none of his associates were calling in. How hard
was it to take down one man?

Foster is good, but not that good.
The man knew science, not
evasive maneuvers. He had no tactical skills. He wasn’t a fighter.

Mikale had searched the streets leading to Emerge Tech, but found no
traces of Foster, so he’d returned to his headquarters, not willing to risk
going beyond the walls himself.

His tablet buzzed on his desk.
Finally.

He tapped the earpiece wedged in his ear. “Give me good news.”

“What if I don’t have any?” Dugan, one of his trusted associates, asked.

“Goddammit, Dugan.” He peered out the window of his office. They’d been
operating out of an abandoned warehouse outside Boston for months now. The
exterior of the building looked as decrepit as its neighbors, but inside had
been totally remodeled. The space was filled with state-of-the-art equipment
most people wouldn’t dream of getting their hands on, but Mikale had his
connections… and his money.  

“I don’t know what happened to him,” Dugan said.

“The camera footage you shared clearly shows his burning domicile
building and its collapse. If he was actually inside—and we don’t know that for
sure—how could he have gotten out?”

“He had help, sir.”

“Help? From whom?” As far as he knew, Ashby worked alone. He reported to
Emerge Tech and had colleagues, but he never worked with partners—not since
they’d been partners.

“Check your tablet.”

Mikale walked to his desk and sat at the high-backed chair. He tapped the
screen of his tablet and watched as pixels arranged themselves into the face of
a woman. A breathtaking woman with unusual hazel eyes and auburn hair that
framed her face. Her skin was a lovely caramel shade. She had a fierce look on
her face, but he couldn’t help noticing how full her lips were.

With lips like those…

His body tightened in spots he’d neglected since unleashing his deadly
plague. Taking down the human population required all of his attention. He’d
forgotten the simple pleasures. This woman made him remember pleasures… not all
of them simple.

“Who is she?” he asked, though something about her looked familiar.
Something in the eyes.

“Sending info now, sir.”

A data file came up on the tablet. He scanned it, reading aloud. “Officer
Darina Lazitter, Boston Police Department. He’s hooked up with a cop?”

“Think she’s playing the role of bodyguard. One of our guys obtained
footage of her and Ashby at Emerge Tech’s gates earlier today. Maybe she was hired
by the company,” Dugan said. “Some of our people reported a hovercopter taking
off from the roof of Ashby’s building before it crumbled.”

“And where is that copter now?”

“That’s the thing, sir. We had sight of it heading to the security field,
then it was gone.”

“Gone? It can’t be gone, Dugan. Hovercopters don’t just disappear.
Certainly not one a simple cop has access to. And I don’t think Emerge Tech
would have access to cloaked crafts.”

Mikale thought about his collection of vehicles in the garage adjacent to
their warehouse base. He loved anything that rolled on the ground, flew through
the air, or swam through the water. He knew how to drive them all too. If he
didn’t have invisible vehicles, no one else did.

“I don’t know. The copter was there one moment, then poof. The next
moment it was nowhere. Maybe they flew into the security field and got fried.”

Mikale shook his head though Dugan couldn’t see him. “No. Even if the cop
didn’t know about the security field, Ashby would. He’s lived within Emerge
Techs walls long enough to know it’s protected by more than the physical walls.”

“Maybe the cop knew another way in and out. We have our ways so the cops
probably have theirs.”

That was possible, but in a hovercopter? Mikale got his team in and out
on the ground. Having worked inside Emerge Tech’s walls, he knew how it ran and
what its weaknesses were. It also helped that one of his projects as an Emerge
Tech employee had been working on those walls. All Mikale had to do was
memorize the code for one of the panels and it was as if he had his own key.

As Dugan had said, though, that was an on-the-ground way in. Less liable
to be spotted on the ground than taking an airborne route. It would also take
some pretty sophisticated flying to get through a single dead panel in the
security field above the walls, assuming someone else had been able to hack the
code.

“So we have no idea where Ashby and his bodyguard are?” Mikale clenched
his teeth.

“Not at this time, sir, but we’re optimistic.”

“Glad someone is.”

“We’ll find them.”

“If you don’t…” He let that thought go unfinished, knowing Dugan could
fill in the blank for himself.

Mikale ended the call and removed his earpiece, tossing it to the desktop
in disgust. Rubbing his forehead, he tapped his tablet and opened a picture of
his mother. Laurette Warres had been a formidable woman, raising Mikale on her
own. When she’d fallen ill, all his brilliance did him no good in trying to
save her. He regretted what he’d had to do instead.

He could build impressive prosthetic limbs with Ashby, but stopping his
mother’s body from withering away was beyond his grasp. She’d given him
everything, and he couldn’t give her a simple thing like life.

Doesn’t seem fair.

He was working on justice though. Justice for her death. Justice for
getting kicked out of Emerge Tech. Justice for Ashby’s attempt to stop his
plague from doing what it was designed to do. The planet needed a cleansing and
who was Ashby to stop that?

Mikale stood and looked out the window again. “You can’t hide forever,
Foster.”

****

The hovercopter hummed along as Foster’s thoughts bounced around his
skull. Over the last few hours, he’d done about a thousand things wrong. He’d
almost gotten caught on the city streets by Mikale’s associates while obtaining
samples from bodies afflicted with the disease. He’d divulged his secret of
being a GEC to someone he’d just met. He’d mixed medicine and administered it
to a patient he hadn’t checked physically or given an official diagnosis. He
let two other strangers in on his GEC secret. He’d agreed to let his new
acquaintances into his Vermont sanctuary. He was about to put the lives of the
others who lived in Vermont in danger.

And he couldn’t forget his growing attraction to his bodyguard. An
attraction he should be pushing right out of his mind. Immediately.

He glanced at Darina without moving his head, hoping to be discrete. She
was looking out the side window of the hovercopter, her right knee pushed into
the back of the pilot’s seat so her leg dangled. Her right boot wiggled.

Is she as nervous as I am?

Probably not. Officer Darina Lazitter didn’t strike him as the type to
get nervous over anything.

Except her son.

Foster regarded the back of Zeke’s head. What had prompted Darina to take
in a GEC? Especially one who had seizures. He knew firsthand how difficult it
was to live with someone with that condition, never mind keep a GEC hidden.
Foster had been genetically engineered at six years old. He’d escaped from the
company that had created him and survived on the streets for two years, alone
until the woman he considered his mother, Carielle Ashby, had taken him in.

He’d just had a violent seizure and was sleeping under a highway overpass
when Carielle drove by in her land cruiser. The first image he had upon waking
was of massive spiked tires.

“You look like shit, kid,” she’d said when she hopped down from the
driver’s seat.

He hadn’t said anything. He’d learned a while back that the less he
talked to people the safer he was. As tough as life on the streets had been,
the alternative—getting hacked to pieces by the company that made him—was far
less attractive.

“You hungry?” she’d asked.

Of course he was. Ravenous.

She’d held out her hand. “The streets are no place for a kid, even one
like you. I can give you food and shelter and a place to grow up to be
something, but you have to work at it. I don’t give something for nothing, got
it?”

For some reason, Foster had taken her hand and let her pull him to his
feet. He was still dizzy from his seizure so he stumbled into her. She caught
him easily and held him for a moment. It had been the first hug he’d ever
received.

It wasn’t the last.

Carielle had stuck to her word. She’d cared for him along with several
other GECs, kept their secrets, and made sure they all got proper schooling. When
she’d gone off to fight after the world went black, Foster had an unshakable
feeling she wouldn’t be coming back. She’d been the type to give her all for
the cause.

When he and the other GECs who had come to know her as their mother
learned of her death, he’d felt both sadness and pride. She’d made a difference
in his life and in the world. He’d never forget her.

That was why he’d built his Vermont sanctuary—the sanctuary he was about
to expose to people he wasn’t entirely sure he should trust yet.

Send me a sign, Mom.
Not that he believed in signs. Signs weren’t
scientific.

“Relax.” Darina’s voice made Foster jump.

He angled to face her, willing himself to at least appear relaxed. “What
makes you think I’m not relaxed?”

She laughed, her face turning into something truly artistic. “Instinct
makes me think you’re not relaxed, Doc.” She slid her right leg down and turned
to lean against the hovercopter’s door so she faced him. “I can
say
you
can trust us,” she waved her right hand out to encompass herself, Ghared, and
Zeke, “but you’re not going to trust us until we
show
you why you can.”

“You kept Mikale’s men from grabbing me. You got me out of a burning
building and out of Emerge Tech,” Foster said. “You’ve probably already shown
me.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Sometimes people take a little more
convincing.”

“Well, I believed you were motivated to protect me because Emerge Tech
was giving you a hefty paycheck to do so.” He looked out the window for a
moment then turned back to her. “But now… who knows what is going on back
there? Mikale might decide to demolish Emerge Tech altogether. He has his
reasons for wanting the company to go down in a fiery blaze.”

“I read somewhere they fired him for stealing. Is that true?”

“Yes, but he was in a situation. His mother was ill, and Emerge Tech
wouldn’t let Mikale bring her inside their walls so he could care for her. He
stole supplies to take to her. When he got caught, he was fired immediately.”

“What’s the status of his mother?”

“I heard she was dead.”

“You and Warres were partners at Emerge Tech?”

Why did he suddenly feel as if he were in an official interrogation?

“Yes.”

“And after he got fired…”

“We didn’t speak anymore.”

“Some friend.” She gave him a disgusted look.

“Maybe there’s more to it than you think, Officer Judgmental.”

Her lips turned up, and he forgot to be pissed at her assumptions. “We
have some time to kill. Tell me the story.”

Foster settled into his seat and raked his hand through his hair. He
needed a shower and a drink. Maybe the drink should come first. He traced the
outline of his tablet in his pocket and waffled over the right way to begin the
tale.

“Mikale got fired. Emerge Tech has a policy that as soon as you are no
longer an employee, you must leave the premises immediately. They actually have
security escort you out. A team boxes up your personal shit and sends it to
you. You can’t have any interaction with any colleagues, friends, no one as you
leave.

“I watched Mikale walk by our lab. I stepped out and called his name, but
the security guards shook their heads and kept walking, ushering him along.
Mikale looked back once, and I figured that was his way of telling me we’d
catch up later.”

Foster cleared his throat, the memory of his best friend and partner
being shoved out like a criminal upsetting him all over again. True, he
shouldn’t have been stealing supplies, but times were tough and his mother was
seriously ill. The company could have been more sympathetic, especially
considering the excellent work Mikale Warres had done for them.

“After I finished working for the day,” Foster continued, “my plan was to
head over to Mikale’s domicile which was right next to mine. I wasn’t thinking
he’d be kicked out of there too. Only Emerge Tech employees get to live inside
the walls.

“At the last minute, I got pulled into an emergency meeting regarding the
blackout. We were working on getting power back to the rest of the globe and
were close to figuring it out—Mikale and I in particular.” He looked at Darina
here. “I’m not bragging.”

“I didn’t say you were.” She motioned for him to continue.

“The meeting lasted hours, and by the time I got to my domicile, Mikale’s
was totally empty. I mean, cleaned out. No trace that he’d ever lived there.”
Foster felt as if he were reliving that terrible day all over again as he told
the story. Not his favorite day. “When I got to my domicile, a handwritten note
was stuck to the door.”

“What did it say?” Darina leaned closer, either to hear him better or
because she was interested in the story. Her eyes were so focused on him he
felt a little like a specimen under a high-powered microscope.

“It said,
Find me
.”

“But you didn’t find him?” Her voice had a note of accusation in it. She
didn’t know. She wasn’t there.