Читать книгу Strangers of the Night: Touched by Passion / Passion in Disguise / Unexpected Passion - Меган Харт - Страница 22

Chapter 14

“We’ve arranged for you to switch shifts with the other nurse,” Vadim said via video call. “It seems she and her husband were the lucky winners of a weekend in the Poconos, and they haven’t had a real vacation in years. She was quite beside herself with excitement.”

Samantha had come in from a run, still sweating, drinking from a tall bottle of fruit water. She tipped her chair back to eye the computer screen. “It’s happening? You have confirmation?”

“Bentley cracked the encryption on the transfer orders. It’s going down tomorrow.”

“And if it doesn’t? If it’s a decoy?” Samantha didn’t like the sound of this. Most of the work the Crew handled dealt with the research and occasional hunting of creatures. Sometimes hauntings. Not double agenting for secret private organizations determined to raise an army of telekinetic soldiers. She was confident in her skills, but it all still depended on accurate information.

“Then we’ll arrange for you to switch shifts again.”

She laughed at that with a shake of her head and swallowed another gulp of water before capping the bottle and setting it on the desk. She leaned forward, wrists on her knees, to look closer at the laptop screen. She swallowed again, this time against a slightly bitter aftertaste that didn’t come from the drink. “Do you know how they plan to do it?”

“As the nurse on duty, you will be asked to give him an additional amount of sedatives in order to keep him calm when they come for him.” Vadim looked serious.

“And I’ll palm it?”

“No. You’ll have to give it to him, of course. He needs to be compliant when they take him out. No chance of him using any of his abilities, should they not have gone latent the way they believe. He’ll need to be controllable until you can get him to us, where we can keep him safe.”

This didn’t sound right to her. “But if he knows I’m there to help him...”

“He killed three men with nothing more than a twitch of his fingers, Samantha.”

“Years ago,” she countered. “And I’m willing to bet they deserved it.”

“We can’t risk him getting out of control. You could be hurt or even killed.”

“He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me,” she said, thinking of all these last months, of the scent of lavender, the tickle of fingertips at the back of her neck. Of the guard who’d been harassing her, the one who’d been put down so easily by something unseen.

“You can’t be certain of that, and we won’t risk it.”

Samantha frowned. “I don’t like the idea of drugging him, Vadim. It will make it too hard to work with him.”

“All you need to do is take care of the guards and get the van to the rendezvous point. We’ll be there to help.”

She still didn’t like it, but there was no point in pushing it. “Fine. So I give him the drugs. Then what?”

“They take him. You follow. Dispatch the guards. Take the van.”

“I’m ready,” she said quietly. It was what they’d spoken about early on, almost two years ago, when Vadim had first asked her if she’d be able to take on this responsibility. What she would be ready to do in order to save this man’s life.

Vadim paused. “Samantha, I don’t think I need to impress upon you how much we appreciate your contributions to the Crew. How valuable you are to us.”

“It’s always nice to be loved,” she said with a small smile. “But what are you getting at?”

“We’ve been aware of the Wyrmwood facilities for a long, long time. This is the first time we’ve successfully infiltrated. This would be our first successful extrication of one of the original Collins Creek subjects. We’re counting on your many skills to get Jed Collins out of there as unharmed as possible...”

“That would be the ultimate goal, yes. To get him out without being harmed, without anyone being harmed. Without bringing any attention to the Crew.” She studied him through the computer screen. “But that’s not what you’re getting at.”

“You’re important to us, that’s what I’m getting at.”

“More important than Jed?” Samantha asked quietly.

Vadim nodded, looking serious. “Absolutely. If it comes down to it, Samantha, and you feel you’ve been at all compromised, no matter where you are in the rescue, you get out. Even if it means leaving him behind.”

“Leaving him to die?”

“Yes,” Vadim said.

“I’m not going to do that.” She shook her head. “No way.”

“Samantha, Jed’s been kept in a high-security facility for almost the entirety of his life. The studies and tests they did on him before his skills began to deteriorate were some of the most highly controversial results ever to come out of a program like the Collins Creek experiment. The Crew’s been aware of him for a long time, but we’re not in the business of making soldiers. Nor in rehabilitating them...”

“He’s not a soldier.” She shook her head again, forcing herself not to raise her voice. “I mean, I’ve read the reports, too, and yes, there were all those tests, all the things they proved he could do...but he doesn’t do them. He can’t anymore. He hasn’t been able to, not in years. That’s why they’re going to kill him—he’s done being useful.”

“Samantha, I think you need to ask yourself something.” For a moment, she was sure Vadim was going to question her about the inappropriate sexual attraction she’d been fighting, but the older man simply said, “What’s more important to you? Saving his life? Or saving your own?”

Saving Jed’s life, or saving her own.

It seemed like a simple choice, didn’t it? It wouldn’t even be the first time she’d had to face a choice like that, and look, Samantha had her damage. Everyone did. Hers was that she’d been raised by a man who’d taught her how to kill someone with her bare hands before she’d ever learned to drive a car. She’d grown up in bunkers and safe houses, surrounded by weapons and preparing every day for the end of the world. If it came right down to it, she’d always known that if there was a choice between saving her own life and that of another, she was going to look out for number one.

That did not mean she was the sort to cut and run, though. She never would’ve agreed to take on this job if she hadn’t believed with everything inside her that not only could she protect and rescue Jed Collins when the time was right, but also that he was worth making the effort for.

* * *

As a child, Jed had not understood what a full belly felt like. In the compound, there were no regular mealtimes. Deprivation was constant. Fasting had been considered a way of praying and starvation a blessing.

He’d rarely been hungry since coming to Wyrmwood, but his stomach grumbled now. He’d been avoiding finishing his meals. The bitter undertaste of the drugs had kept him from it. They were trying to sedate him beyond the pills he was regularly given.

Scarier than that was the fact nobody had said a word about the unfinished trays he sent away after every meal. Two days since his last session with Ransom, and Jed had barely nibbled some dry toast and eaten a handful of nuts. He’d expected to be called down to the doctor’s office after the first day of not eating.

It was time, he thought. Or would be, soon. The thought didn’t upset him as much as he thought it would.

Still and silent, he closed his eyes. Let his breathing slow and deepen. He was far from sleep, but even if they were still somehow monitoring his brain waves, it wouldn’t matter. He didn’t have consistent brain waves, nothing that could be called normal, even for himself. It had been one of Ransom’s greatest frustrations, that inability to compare and contrast the test results to see if they could re-create what happened when Jed used his abilities.

He sent out some tickling tendrils of thought, creeping like mice along the edges of the room. To the door. Around the frame. Through the cracks. Whispering into the hallway. Inching like a worm in the patterns on the tile, toward the nurse’s station.

He stopped, startled enough to open his eyes before forcing himself to close them again, shifting as though he were dreaming. That was silly. He hadn’t dreamed in years, though none of the unseen observers would know that.

Samantha was in the chair behind the desk. Playing a game of solitaire with real, physical cards. The edges soft and worn. Her fingers moved quickly, flipping the cards. Matching. Laying them down.