She was scared to find that she needed him, more than just his help. Never before had she allowed anyone other than Bobby to get so close to her. Inside her soul. But Rome had somehow done that without her knowing.
The fact that they had learned she was terminal made her crave him even more. Her heart was breaking little by little just thinking that every second she spent with him could be her last.
She’d told Rome she loved him. How could she say that, knowing her world was falling apart? How could she think she even had the right to say it?
But no matter how she looked at it, she knew it was the truth. She couldn’t help herself. He made her feel like she wanted to give everything she had to him in ways she hadn’t even thought possible. Her heart. Her soul. He’d somehow been able to reach inside her and claim them.
Again, she wondered what kind of life awaited them. Always waiting for it to end.
She seriously doubted she could ever go back to swimming while possessing a psionic power. She couldn’t even imagine what her coach was doing right now, wondering where she was, why she hadn’t come back from her trip home. The meanie hadn’t wanted her to visit Bobby in the first place. Was he mad? Worried? Kicking her off the team? How would she explain everything that had happened? No doubt she’d fail any
drug test they’d administer, and who knew what kind of advantage she’d have in the water now?
So, no, she could never go back to competitive swimming. Also, she was sure she’d been fired from her job by now. All her friends—what would she say to them? Could she ever go back to anything she’d had before?
A slow fury smoldered in the pit of her stomach. No. She seriously doubted she ever could return to life as normal. Jeff Donovan had taken that away from her. Taken everything away from her. Her brother. Her swimming. Even her natural life.
It was a good thing she was going to die anyway. Her life as she knew it was gone.
The simmering fury threatened to blossom. Her mind began to swarm with rage at everything she’d lost. Glancing at the thick green foliage surrounding her, she remembered the solitary vow she’d made not long ago in a forest just like this one. Right after Bobby had died in her arms, the fury had consumed her and she’d sworn revenge. Now she had the means inside of her to enact it. Bobby had given her the serum. And she would use it for him.
She stopped walking and forced the anger to recede. Her heated vision cooled as she gazed at the swollen creek, misting and brisk as it rushed over cragged rocks. The fresh water was shrewd in the paths it chose to flow through the wild terrain.
Harper realized that’s what she needed to be. Razor sharp and in command of her power. And not afraid to use it.
She scanned the majestic trees and foliage. The sentries stood tall and sure, branches reaching out to provide the unparalleled balance of beauty and power in nature.
Calling to her. Reverent and reassuring. Enticing
and elevating. Illuminating the energy that stirred within her body and mind.
Suddenly she wasn’t afraid anymore. Like the protected undergrowth at the base of the trees, she knew she wasn’t alone. She had Rome’s savvy at her back. She had Bobby’s creation inside her. And she had enough grit and confidence in herself to face what lay ahead.
Steeling her resolve, Harper swept her attention to the creek. She had to give in to the power. Control. That was the key.
Focusing on a rock under the swiftly gliding water, she beckoned her psi power. A familiar flush of cold filtered through her body, quickly followed by a rush of heat. She concentrated hard, imagining that she was lifting the rock out of its submerged home in the creek’s bed.
Her vision tunneled, blurring around the edges and centering on the sunken stone. Almost in a trance, Harper raised her hand slowly and with it, the basket-ball-sized rock. It shimmied, the cold water cascading from its surface as it hovered in the air, mere inches above the racing creek.
Another rose. And another.
A surge of energy crackled from her head to her hand. With her open palm, she guided the rocks across the water’s surface, bringing them just a body length from where she was standing. Her eyes widened as she watched the objects frozen in the air, just like the bullets before. But this time she was making it happen, not just reacting.
Raising her other hand, she beckoned the energy to erect a shield. Like a breeze ruffling her sleeve, the psipower rippled down her arm and dashed from her hand to form an almost invisible bubble caging her body.
Cool. Very cool.
“Harper.”
With a start, she whipped around to face the unexpected intrusion, swinging the rocks along with her. Rome ducked as they hurled just over his head to crash against the boulder behind him, shattering into small chunks behind him.
Oh, poop.
“Rome,” she moaned, realizing she had almost taken his head off accidentally. “For goodness sake, please don’t sneak up on me like that.” At some point she’d have to break that habit of his.
“That was amazing,” he praised, standing from his instinctive crouch, brushing the remnants of the rocks from his broad shoulders, clearly in awe.
She took several deep breaths, trying to calm her racing mind. She was practically gushing inside at being able to control her power. It was addictive. That would make revenge so much easier. “What’s going on?” she asked, putting a lid on her excitement, wondering what drove him here after her.
“Nothing. I just missed you,” he answered with a sweet smile.
She gave him a skeptical look, adding a smile to soften it.
“C’mon.” He took her hand in his and kissed the inside of her wrist, sending pleasant little shivers up her arm. “We need to work on a plan before they can mobilize. And I made breakfast. Well, lunch.” He looked at his watch, then at the overcast sky.
He was right. Though they’d escaped from the facility, the bad guys now knew she and Rome were onto them. The two of them needed to stay on the offensive. Plus she wanted to end this sooner rather than later. She was getting real tired of being on the run.
“Good idea. Let’s plan.” She gave his hand a squeeze. Besides, she was ravenous. The psi power seemed to give her an appetite now instead of fatigue. The quick self-healing must be kicking in faster as her body adapted to it.
And after a sideways sizing-up glance at Rome, she realized her hunger wasn’t just for food.
“Let’s just round them up and kill them,” Harper suggested mildly as she took a bite of her sandwich. Sounded easy to her. Especially given her newfound control.
“No,” Rome said in flat disagreement, blunting her gusto. “There’ve been too many casualties already. Besides, we want them to be accountable. Make them pay.” She watched him pop a corn chip in his mouth, keeping his clear blue gaze locked on hers.
“Right,” she concurred while she chewed. “Make them pay. With their lives.”
“No.” Rome leveled her with a definite agent-type glare.
“Okay, then,” she said, peering at the map they’d sketched of the facility and surrounding area. They pooled their knowledge and observations with the data from the laptop to create it. “What do you suggest?”
Rome’s face became pensive and his eyes unfocused as he looked toward the window and the forest beyond. They were sitting on the high stools at the island in the middle of the kitchen while sharing a lunch of turkey sandwiches, corn chips, and fruit.
And fresh-baked brownies. To their utter gratitude, the caretaker of the cabin had stocked it to Rome’s specifications before they’d arrived yesterday. Lucky for her, those specifications included brownie mix.
“Rounding them up is a good idea,” he said after a few minutes of quiet contemplation. “It’s a big place, but it has only a couple entrances and exits.”
“So that should make it easier.” She reached for a chip from the open bag. The salty crunch in her mouth almost made her groan in delight.
“Maybe.” He picked out an orange slice and bit into it, licking the juice from his lips. She almost groaned again. “We’ll need to draw them out without too much commotion. We don’t want to provoke them or get trapped ourselves. If we can get them out front, it could be doable.”
“Use me as bait.” Harper shrugged and took a large gulp of water. That was the most logical thing she could think of. They wanted her. She wanted them.
Let’s get together.
Rome was silent. A tiny muscle twitched in his jaw while he stared at her. She turned her full attention to him, wondering what would make the clear blue in his eyes storm so violently.
“No,” he whispered, and shook his head. Clearly the idea did not appeal to him.
“Why not?” she asked, ignoring his troubled look. “It’s me they want.”
“They’ll kill you.” He shook his head again. “We’ll find another way.”
“I’m already dead,” Harper said, wondering at his adamant caution. Regardless of her imminent demise, she didn’t think the faction wanted her dead as long as they thought they could squeeze the serum out of her. Maybe with Rome’s experience with this sort of thing, he sensed they were through trying.
But she still didn’t see the problem. Hadn’t he seen her moving rocks? Plus she could heal fast. She was near invincible.
Taking the last bite of her tasty sandwich, she glanced at their sketched map again. When she went to Bobby’s lab, she’d used his direct secret entrance. Yesterday she and Rome had used a back door.
But as she’d explained to Rome on their walk back from the creek a few hours ago, the one problem they were going to have was that her psionic powers didn’t work indoors.
Rome had protested, citing their first encounter together. Bobby’s lab was different, she’d clarified. He’d been impressed that her brother had crafted sunshine for them. And for the same reason the plants were able to draw strength from the lights, her powers had worked in there.
When in natural daylight, she flourished with vitality. So they needed to draw the faction outside to have a chance.
“Here,” she said, pointing at a spot on the map. She circled her finger around the front entrance, which, according to the layouts, as well as to what Rome knew, was a square, concrete walled area with two small depots bordering an open patio, a mix between a square and a U shape. Almost like a gladiator pit from a Roman coliseum. How fitting.
“What about it?” Rome asked, peering at the drawing while he chewed the last of his sandwich.
“Isn’t this a courtyard?” Harper tapped on the paper in the middle of the assumed structures, recalling the aerial maps they’d found on the Internet. “Let’s lure them here.”
She watched him focus intently on the map as he licked the crumbs off his fingertips. The spinning wheels in his mind were nearly visible in every flickering movement of his eyes.
He turned the map around several times, checking it out from different angles, and then sat back, raising his gaze to hers. Mimicking his pose, she leaned back in her bar stool as well, waiting for his competent assessment.
“It could work,” he finally said, though with obvious reluctance. He rubbed a hand over his head, clearly distressed about something. “If we could draw them out somehow, they would essentially be isolated.”
“And vulnerable,” she added, thinking about just how exposed they would be to her powerful psionic mind energy. In one crushing swoop, she could take care of all of them.
“Right,” he agreed, drawing out the word and giving her an odd look as he picked up a knife to cut the brownies in the pan. He handed one to her.
Holy cow, these brownies are good.
“Their only retreat would be back into the facility. The quad’s formation would work against them. But we need to get them there first.”
“So use me as bait,” she said again. Watching him chew his little piece of bliss, she caught the troubled look in his eyes. Was he scared for her? She had to reassure him. “I’m not afraid.”
“I am,” he said simply, his intense gaze burning into hers. “I’m afraid of losing you, Harper.”
Rome’s vulnerability touched a chord deep inside as no other words had before. His stark concern was both reassuring and disconcerting at the same time. But it wasn’t necessary.
“You won’t,” she insisted stubbornly. They would not lose each other. At least not this way. “I will not let them tear us apart like they did to Bobby and me.”
He just looked at her, his uneasy gaze still swirling, beseeching.
“I won’t let that happen to us.” She reached across the counter to clutch his chilled wrist with both of her hands. “I promise you, I will kill every single one of them before I let anything like that happen again.” She gazed squarely into his eyes and squeezed his hand in a silent vow, asking him to believe in her. “You won’t lose me.”
“I already have,” Rome said, sadness and frustration coloring his tone.
“What are you talking about?”
Rome lowered his gaze and looked away for a long moment. She sat there, just waiting. He finally turned to face her, his hand almost twitching in her grasp, as though he wanted to pull it away. She wouldn’t let him and tightened her grip.
“You’re losing yourself, Harper,” he said quietly. Well, that explained nothing. “You just want to go in there and wipe them out.”
“What’s wrong with that?” she asked, seriously wondering why he had a problem with the old eye for an eye. He should know much better than she did. This was his job, wasn’t it?
“Do you want justice or revenge?” he asked, yanking his hand out of her grasp and sliding off the stool to stand, his motions jerky and tense.
“What’s the difference?” She slipped from her stool as well to stand before him, nearly face-to-face. Anger simmered in the pit of her stomach, leaden and coarse. “I want retribution. I want each and every one of them to know just what they did to me. I want them to get what they deserve.”
He took a step away from her, shaking his head and clenching his jaw.
“Harper, listen to yourself,” he snapped, holding his
arms out wide, his eyes demanding. “You’re consumed by your need for revenge. And frankly, it’s really creepy.” Taking a deep breath, he gestured at her in frustration. “And it’s not you.”
Harper was livid. More than livid. Heated anger raced in her blood, and she fought with all her might to keep it down. To keep from lashing out at the one person she thought for sure was on her side. She took a deep breath and two steps back, struggling to control her budding rage.
“How do you know me?” she asked in a calm, still voice, narrowing her eyes. “You don’t know anything about me.”
He looked as though she’d slapped him. She certainly felt like doing it, but his expression said she didn’t need to. Her words had done the trick, cutting deeper than any knife could. She winced inside with the knowledge that she’d hurt him.
“I know that a few weeks ago, my life was hollow.” His rich voice was quiet now, almost disenchanted. “I know that now you’ve become the center of my world. That’s all I need to know.”
“That’s all you need to know?” she asked incredulously, comforted by his words and at the same time, restless from their message. But she needed to set him straight. “You need to know that a few weeks ago I was an Olympic hopeful, training for my swimming trials. Excited to spend some downtime with my brother. Now my brother is dead and I’m a fallen rogue with superhero powers, a fugitive from a covert and ruthless government faction that wants to dissect me like some lab rat in hopes that they can create supercommandos from the serum I inadvertently injected inside my body.”
Breathing heavily from her long tirade, she just stood
there staring at him. A blank expression covered his face, as if he had no idea what to say. Heck, she had no idea what she wanted him to say.
Harper shook her head slowly, calming her tangled nerves. She was tired. So tired of what her life had become. She wanted to end this once and for all so that she could begin to move on in what little time she had. Was that so wrong?
“I’m just becoming what I need to be to make sure Bobby’s murder gets avenged,” Harper added after the long minutes of charged silence.
“No.” Rome’s voice was low and unyielding, his eyes brimming with anger and accusation. “You’re becoming the very thing Bobby tried to prevent.”
“How can you say that?” she roared, fury in every fiber of her being.
“Why can’t you see that?” he barked back. Stepping closer, he was now just a breath away, his steely gaze drilling into hers. “Bobby risked his life, his last moments on this earth, to save the serum and make sure you got that flash drive of data. He put everything there for you so that you could take that information and do the right thing.”
She shook her head, fuming, wanting to lash out at him yet knowing somewhere deep down that he had a very good point.
She just didn’t know whether she could let it go so easily. She’d made a vow. But maybe Rome was right. Maybe justice was the right thing.
Rome’s strong hands clasped her upper arms gently, rubbing her flushed skin with soothing motions.
“Harper, these are genuine,” he said quietly yet forcefully as he gripped her biceps. He rested his hands on her chest over her heart. “This is genuine.” He then
lowered his hands to grasp hers and pull them up, hugging them to his chest. “Your strength comes from inside you, not some artificial serum.”
Harper stilled, willing herself to believe what Rome was saying. Wanting so badly for it to be true. She knew her physical limits. And yet the psi power could extend those limits to cease this horrible nightmare.
“I don’t know if I can believe that anymore, Rome,” she whispered, desperately wanting to trust in herself, but not quite sure she could. Her need for revenge was a thirst she didn’t think she could quench without destruction. She wanted to fight. That was her nature. But Rome’s voice battled within her to be heard.
“Harper, this is the right thing to do,” he said, his blue gaze boring into her. “Sometimes doing the right thing isn’t always the thing you want to do.”
His words reached out to embrace her as if a heavy cloak of responsibility. Though Rome wholly believed in her strength, she didn’t know whether she could bear the crushing weight.
“Bobby trusted you,” Rome continued, folding her hands tighter against his warm body. “He trusted that you’d do the right thing.” He leaned in and placed a kiss on her forehead, the tenderest kiss she could ever imagine. “And I trust you, too. Isn’t that enough?”
Was it? It would have to be.
“I guess so,” she answered, still unsure. But knowing that Rome had such strong faith in her went a very long way.
She shook her head to clear away her anger and uncertainty. They had a job to do. And no matter what plan they came up with, she was going to make sure justice was had.
One way or another.
“I still don’t like it,” Rome grumbled, his gaze riveted on the map resting on his lap.
Her gaze was riveted to the same area, but for a very different reason, his being naked and all. They’d released some of their tension by spending some heated time in the big bed and were just now finalizing a plan to bring Jeff and his faction to justice.
“Your opinion is beside the point,” Harper said, lounging on her side. Her head was propped in one hand while her other traced a scar on his sturdy knee. “It’s the best option, and you know it.”
Rome’s searing glare nearly branded her. But she knew that he knew she was right. Revisiting the plan of using her as bait was still troubling him. But no matter how much it rubbed him the wrong way, it was the quickest and easiest solution to drawing the faction out of the compound. And he had to know it.
“I know it, but I don’t have to like it,” he said grumpily with a heavy sigh. He reached for a prepaid cell phone as it trilled, one of the many untraceable phones in his secret stash from the car. He pressed the button on the phone to answer it. “What?”
After a few seconds of watching his delicious lips as he talked in curt phrases, she rolled onto her back and thought about the plan they’d hatched.
Right now she assumed Rome was talking to a trusted contact to help with reinforcements. Bringing down the splinter group would take more than the two of them, Rome had said. They needed backup if they were going to round up and bring in the Five Watch faction, and Rome knew good people he trusted who could help.
The plan was simple. Harper would contact Jeff and claim she wanted to surrender and work together.
Whether Jeff believed her was irrelevant. Both she and Rome knew the call would be enough to entice the jerk to meet her. And she knew the magic words to make him agree.