Authors: L. J Charles
Women. Eamon barely controlled the itch to slap Fion. “Like what?”
“Put a hex on it. I don’t know. Something.”
He straightened, adjusted his pants, and headed down the hallway toward their sleeping quarters.
Hex his ass.
CHAPTER EIGHT
KAIMI FOUGHT THE NAUSEA ROILING
in her stomach. It was up to her to stop this. She’d have to find a way to contact Fred when Eamon and Fion weren’t around, and…and what? Would Fred even believe her, since Fion was the team lead? She grabbed a jar of nutrient mix off the shelf and fumbled, barely catching it before it shattered on the stainless steel lab bench. Backing away, she gulped air, then fisted her hands, released, fisted, released until she got control of the shaking and could prep the constant-temperature controlled bath for her fragile seedlings. Plants first. Traitors second, but only because she didn’t have a clue how to stop Eamon and Fion’s betrayal. Yet.
Normally, Kaimi would have prepped the solution before her hike, had it ready, but such a large find of the precious plants had been totally unexpected. Her mind tingled with anticipation. And then she noticed some of her blood had dripped into the bath. It was contaminated for sure, but delaying the transfer of the fragile roots while she mixed another batch of nutrient would probably kill the seedlings. She worried her bottom lip while she bandaged the gash on her palm. If only her knife hadn’t slipped.
Too late now. She’d been in such a hurry to protect the roots, she hadn’t paid attention to her injury. Had thought the bleeding stopped after she shook hands with Eamon. A shudder trailed down her spine. Touching him had been…disturbing. Jayme’s brother. And he’d all but denied they were related.
What would happen when Jayme came after her? And he would. Just as she’d do whatever was necessary to find him if their situations were reversed. Wait. Maybe Fred suspected that Eamon and Fion were traitors. Maybe that’s why the CIA had loaned her out. But wouldn’t they have briefed her? Damn, but she should have taken more covert classes. She’d tried to get messages out when their supplies were delivered, but Fion took care of that paperwork, and she usually made sure Kaimi was tasked with a project to keep her well away from the delivery people.
With a sigh of regret, Kaimi pushed all thoughts of traitors from her mind and checked the temperature of the bath. These plants were surely the breakthrough she’d been waiting for, and she had to go and contaminate their food source. Not one linger over regrets, she made a notation about the anomaly, then added a question mark and filled the top with a smiley face. Maybe blood wouldn’t hurt the seedlings. Still, it made the experiment null and void, and she was almost positive these babies held the last ingredient she needed to create a curative formula. She’d process one of the seedlings for histologic information, and nurture the others until she had the base formula perfected and ready to mix with her latest discovery.
Roots or leaves? No matter, she had time to process both while she figured out what to do about the traitors in her midst. She rubbed the back of her neck, pushing the collar away from her skin. Since the eavesdropping incident there’d been an uncomfortable niggling in the back of her mind, and it was traveling down her neck. “Well, damn.” Her whisper escaped into the humid room. Why hadn’t Jayme mentioned that he had a brother? Yet another fragment of anomalous information to keep her nerves on edge.
Fred contacted Kaimi every Friday for an update on her progress, but had steadfastly refused to answer any questions about her family or Jayme. Having never been part of a black ops project before, she had no knowledge of the protocols, so she’d accepted the strange parameters surrounding her situation. But it had been six months, and there was still no sign that she’d be getting a furlough.
And
with this new information, she really needed a face-to-face with Fred. Or someone who knew
something
about what was going on. She’d never come so close to attacking a colleague as when Eamon had gotten in her face, and if she wasn’t very careful, she’d blurt out something incriminating. No telling what her
partners
would do if they learned she was privy to their traitorous scheme. Kill her, no doubt.
Nutrient bath prepped and at a constant temperature, she locked down her work area and hustled across the compound to the team’s living quarters. Time to get her babies into protective custody. She’s set a Huna energy shield around them, just like she had her personal space, but she truly hated leaving them alone with Fion and Eamon nearby.
The kitchen was empty, and her seedlings appeared to be in perfect condition. She scooped them up, drained the sink, and hurried back to the lab. Fion must have crossed paths with her, because she was sitting at her worktable going over the latest series of slides they’d made from the bark and roots the natives used for euthanasia. Better Fion than her. The destructive elements of this formula gave her nightmares. But once a week she still forced herself to study the chemical properties as diligently as Fion did, only not for nefarious purposes. Kaimi not only wanted to find an antidote, but if she could also figure out how to render the formula inert, there wouldn’t be as much pressure to create an antidote.
Fion looked up from her microscope. “You okay? Eamon gave you kind of a hard time.”
Kaimi glanced at Fion, then turned away to unlock her area and arrange the armful of seedlings in the nutrient bath. “Is he always that belligerent?”
“Yeah, pretty much. Well, ever since the multiple sclerosis hit. He wasn’t that way in school.”
“School?” Maybe she could worm some useful information out of Fion. That’d be helpful. Kaimi rinsed the nutrient bath off her hands, and then reached for a towel, stopped. The bandage had come loose and the cut on her hand was practically healed. She dried her hands carefully, rubbing at the red line where the knife had gashed her palm.
Fion turned back to her microscope. “We were at university together. That’s how we got assigned to this project. The Dean’s father worked with the Resistance during World War II, and he followed in his father’s footsteps. Not in resistance, of course, but the Dean does consulting work with MI6.” Fion shoved the slide she’d been examining to the side, then slipped another one under the microscope.
Pieces of the puzzle surrounding Fion and Eamon settled into place in Kaimi’s head, but they still didn’t fit together well. Why would they sell out their countries like this? For money, of course, but there had to be more, and damn, but she was determined to find out what it was. She cast a glance at the controlled temperature bath, plucked one of the plants from it, and cradled it in her hand. “I’m going to my room to make some drawings and write up a report on this baby. See you later.”
“I’m not cooking supper, so it’s going to be leftover stew.” Fion’s voice trailed after Kaimi.
Leftovers were fine with Kaimi. If she could avoid kitchen duty to work on her healing formula, hot dogs would have been fine. And she hated hot dogs, as un-American as
that
was. She pushed thoughts of food from her mind, and while she walked, whispered sweet nothings to the seedling in her palm. Silly, maybe. But she always talked to the plants she worked with, and when anyone asked, she would swear they grew stronger because of it.
A chill slithered down her spine.
She spun. Nothing behind her.
That’s what you get, Kaimi, for focusing on your work instead of your surroundings.
The self-scolding didn’t do a thing to chase the chill away. She opened the door to their shared living quarters, cautiously checking the kitchen for anything amiss. Surely neither Eamon nor Fion had spotted her lurking outside the kitchen door earlier. They would have confronted her right away and…eliminated the problem.
Nothing visibly wrong in the kitchen, but now she was having a serious case of cutis anserina, better known as gooseflesh.
Ridiculous. She was the only one here other than Eamon, and hadn’t Fion mentioned something about him taking a nap? She couldn’t trust either of them. At all.
EAMON DROPPED THE EDGE OF
the curtain, letting it fall back into place. Jayme’s girlfriend was definitely up to something, and the way she was protecting that plant, it had to be damn important. He’d secured listening devices in the living room, kitchen, and the women’s bedrooms while they were at the lab. The bitch’s room was booby-trapped, but he worked around it. Good thing Fion had warned him, because she was right about there being something fucked-up about her digs. He figured she was like a vampire in reverse. She’d have to invite him in. A chuckle cut loose from his chest. Planting the bugs had been a much better use of his time than sleeping, although staying awake for the past thirty-six hours was taking a toll on his ability to concentrate.
He sat on his bed and listened. What the hell? Was she singing? He should have planted a camera in her room. Might have provided a good show. Leaning back, he listened. Quiet. Probably not much going on in that crowded do-gooder brain of hers. He gathered the papers he’d lifted from her desk and began to read.
KAIMI WAS INTENSELY FOCUSED ON
preparing the fragile plant roots for addition to the formula she’d prepped the day before. The rack of half-f vials sat on the corner of her desk, waiting for this final ingredient. She made a fresh batch every evening, never giving up hope that she’d find the final component to make her healing formula viable. She’d discovered a hidey-hole in the back of her closet where she could keep them from prying eyes, not that she was typically distrustful of her colleagues, but there’d always been something unsettling about Fion. Maybe it was the nagging possibility of a link between M6342CN and this project.
She macerated the roots in some of the broth, and, pipette in hand, added three milliliters of the mixture to each of the vials.
The latch on her bedroom door clicked.
“Who is it?” she called, keeping her focus on the last vial lest she spill a single drop of the precious solution.
A hand closed over her shoulder and squeezed. The pipette fell from her fingers, and rolled off the desk, shattering against the floor.
A nauseating odor washed over her—river water and stale stew.
Kaimi twisted, shoving her elbow up and into his stomach. “Eamon Grady, what the hell?”
His grip tightened on her neck.
She ducked her chin and rolled, bringing both of them to the ground. The chair toppled, wood cracking on vinyl tile.
He pinned her, one knee deep in her belly. “You have it, don’t you bitch? Those vials contain the miracle drug that’s been making its way through the rumor mill for the past few months, don’t they now?”
A heady mix of fear and rage burned through Kaimi. He was psychotic. She was not. He was a traitor. She was not. By God, she’d win this battle. “No, it’s the antidote for the toxin.” Her voice sputtered around the pressure of his thumb on her throat.
An unholy glee sparked behind Eamon’s eyes. “You’d use the lab for that, not fucking hide it away in your room. How close is it to—?”
She held his intense stare, not flinching. He blinked, then glanced toward her desk. “Have you tested it?”
“No.” She jerked her body, rolling to toss him off. “Get the fuck off me.”
His chuckle crawled over her skin. “No time like the present.”
He kept one hand around her throat, and his knee bit deeper into her belly when he stretched to snag one of the vials from the test tube rack.
Enough with the bullying. She inched her hand toward the blade sheathed on her thigh.
Eamon pinched her mouth open, and upended the vial, pouring the mixture down her throat.
Her gag reflex was instantaneous, and some of the mixture came up, leaving a slightly bitter taste on her tongue. Spasmodic coughing took over, and Eamon let her up, but grabbed her wrist, twisted, and stared at her hand.
“How the bloody hell?” He ran his thumb over her palm.
Her perfectly healed palm.
CHAPTER NINE
THE ROOM SPUN AROUND EAMON.
The bloody bitch had found the formula. He grabbed a vial and chugged it. Reached for another.
Kaimi swiped the rack of vials onto the floor, shattering the glass, and spilling the precious liquid. The room was instantly clogged with an odd sweet-salty scent.
“You’re crazy.” Her shriek pounded into his head. “That hasn’t been tested, and now we’ve both ingested it with no idea of what damage it could cause.”
The room stopped spinning around Eamon, replaced by the familiar dizziness that came with the MS. He sat on the bed, yanking Kaimi next to him. “Togetherness. Ain’t it beautiful?” His grip on her wrist tightened, and he turned her palm toward a shaft of late morning sunlight that streamed through the window. “Not even a trace of the cut, and…”
He toppled onto the bed, muscle spasms cramping in both of his legs. He jerked her on top of him, his grip bruising her bones. “Stop it. Make the spasms stop.”
A scream tore from his lungs, and he lunged, rolling her beneath him. He yanked the knife from the sheath on her hip and laid it against her neck. “Don’t move. Don’t even breathe. It hurts my ears. Did you hear that? Hurts my ears. What kind of super drug is this?” No pain now. Fading. Muscles strong. He tightened his hold on her and smashed her wrist against the bedframe. The sound of her bones cracking hit his blood like a shot of amphetamine.