Authors: Suzanne Brockmann
“No one knew,” Mac said. “Well, except for Diaz. I’m pretty sure he suspected.”
Back when she’d first arrived at the Institute, when she was still a Potential, she’d tried to seduce first Joseph Bach and then Stephen Diaz. Tried and failed. And Diaz had not only turned her
down, but he’d also stopped her when she’d later gone shopping for a lover among the other trainees and recruits. He’d told her, in no uncertain terms, that if she were going to ignore the strong suggestion that she remain celibate, she should get her groove on well off-campus.
She looked at Elliot now. “Did you seriously think, all this time, that I’ve actually been celibate? Me?”
He blinked. “I guess … I didn’t think about it. I mean, in retrospect, it’s kind of ridiculous. Although … You’ve been busy, and busy people don’t always … I mean, I haven’t. Had sex. For three years now.” He frowned. “Whoa, that’s a long time, isn’t it?”
Mac nodded. “And there’s a difference between not having sex and being celibate in the way that the trainees are encouraged to be celibate. Come on, seriously? Does anyone
really
believe that we gain anything from redirecting our sexual energy? Obviously, I don’t, because I haven’t been redirecting. But Diaz? He’s definitely been following the program. Except we both hit fifty-percent integration at the same time, and I did it without torturing myself. I didn’t put this in my report tonight—you know, the one on the Hempford takedown …? But I wanted you to know, in case it had something to do with Diaz electrocuting you in the hall—”
“He didn’t electrocute me,” Elliot said.
“Whatever. But that wall of pain that we used to hammer the joker?” Mac said, “Diaz’s contribution was to open up a giant can of sexual-frustration whup-ass. He not only hasn’t had sex in years, but he hasn’t allowed himself
any
kind of sexual release, so …”
Elliot laughed his disbelief. “You can’t possibly know
that
.”
“Yes,” Mac said, nodding emphatically. “I can. The guy doesn’t even masturbate. When he opened
that
up, and aired it out, it was kind of like getting hit with a wrecking ball. Or, more accurately, a pair of wrecking blue balls.”
“Holy crap.” The joke was lost on Elliot, who was back to staring into his coffee, his eyes slightly out of focus.
“You know, if you’d asked,” she told her friend, “I would have told you. About Justin. But you never asked.”
He looked up at her, and it was clear he accepted that. “Okay. But there’s more to this story, am I right? What happened tonight? You get home—”
“It’s not home,” she interrupted. “It’s just some shitty apartment.”
“The point is,” he said, “that you get there, the boy-toy’s gone and … what?”
“I went to a bar,” Mac told him. “And I must’ve been sending out a signal. You know, the whole enhanced-charisma thing I do, to make guys think I’m really hot …? I must’ve been adjusting and sending out pheromones—my powers just kind of on autopilot—probably because I was bummed about Justin. At least that’s what I thought at first. But then … It’s entirely possible that the guy I picked up was doing some adjusting of his own.”
“Oh, no.” Elliot focused on the wrong part of what she’d told him. “The guy you picked up?” he repeated with dismay.
“Listen to what I’m telling you,” Mac said, leaning across the table. “This guy that I met in that bar …? I don’t think I’ve
ever
met anyone as attractive. Not ever. There
had
to be powers—charismatic powers—involved.”
As Mac watched, Elliot took a moment to do the math, but he finally realized what she’d just told him. “You hooked up tonight with another Greater-Than?”
“I think so,” she said. “I mean, he’s not yet. A Greater-Than. He’s had no training, but … I swear I didn’t find out until
after
, that … Well, he told me that he’s a Potential. He enters the program tomorrow.”
Elliot’s mouth dropped open. “Here at OI?”
“Yep.”
“Oh, shit,” he said.
Mac nodded, and to her horror, her eyes actually filled with tears—which was stupid. Her eyes had been bone dry when she’d told Elliot about Justin. She quickly forced the excess moisture away before Elliot could see. “When I found out, I told him I couldn’t see him again.”
“Who is he? Did you get his name?” Elliot asked.
Mac just looked at him, letting her disgust show on her face.
“Well, it sounded to me like it was rebound sex, and I don’t know how you do these things,” he said. “I mean, if you were sending out your super-hot vibe, and he was, too … That could’ve gotten pretty intense, pretty quickly. For all I know, your foot got healed in the men’s room of the bar.”
“Wow, thanks,” she said.
“Look me in the eye, and tell me you’ve
never
had sex in the men’s room in a bar,” Elliot countered.
“I haven’t,” she said.
“Okay then, ladies’ room,” he said. “Or unisex bathroom—you
know
what I mean. Hello. I was young and foolish once, too.”
“Said the ancient man—who’s what, two years older than me?—who hasn’t gotten laid in three years.”
“Touché.”
“For the record,” Mac said, “the accelerated healing of my foot started while we were sitting at the bar. He touched me and … It was crazy, El. And I thought, okay, Justin’s gone, so why not experiment? But then when we were outside, I kissed him, and after that? I could run.”
“Are you kidding?” Elliot said. “With
that
injury …?”
“When we actually had sex,” she reported, “there was some kind of electrical power surge—I think he must’ve done that, too. You know, unconsciously. But after, all the circuit breakers needed to be reset. Plus I’m pretty sure every lightbulb in the apartment building was blown. Later, I lit a candle and … At first I thought it was just a shitty candle, but I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m pretty sure he did that, too—you know, caused the wax to burn extra fast.”
“So you think
he
somehow healed your foot. This mysterious Potential that you’ve yet to name.”
Mac laughed her despair as she nodded. “I know that I have to tell you who he is,” she said. “He’s a former Navy SEAL. He’s really suited to the program—except for the celibacy bullshit. We’ll get some serious resistance there.”
Elliot laughed at that. “But, staying on topic—healing
other
people is something we’ve never seen before,” he reminded her. “I’m still not convinced that that wasn’t all you. You
did
start this by saying that even before tonight you’d made note of a correlation between sex and healing.” He took a sip of his coffee. “You ever try, um.” He cleared his throat. “Healing yourself?”
Mac sighed. “Yes,” she said. “And no, it doesn’t work when I’m alone. God, the tests you’re going to run to prove this theory are going to be
really
awkward, aren’t they?”
“What if all these years,” Elliot asked, “Bach’s been wrong? What if sex enhances one’s ability to integrate, instead of hampering it? That’s something he’s going to want to know.”
Mac wasn’t entirely sure about that. She finished the rest of her wine in one large swallow. “His name’s Shane Laughlin.”
Elliot nodded. “I know. I had him at
Navy SEAL
. FYI, on paper, he’s nothing all that special. A Seventeen. So okay, he’s maybe a
little
bit special, but still. He’s nearly thirty years old. It’s not like he’s thirteen and his powers are still developing. And it’s also not like he’s coming in at thirty-percent integrated, the way you did.”
“Test him,” Mac told her friend. “Pull him out of the group and put him through the paces.”
“I will,” Elliot said. “And you can help.”
“No.” She stood up. “I’m going to take a few days off.” She didn’t want to see this guy in the hallway, or even in the lab. Although, if Shane was as powerful as she thought, he was going to be there when she got back. God, that was going to suck.
But Elliot was shaking his head. “Crap, you don’t know, do you? You didn’t hear, of course you didn’t, you weren’t back until …”
“Hear what?” Mac asked.
“Nika Taylor got grabbed.”
“The thirteen-year-old?” Mac said. About two minutes before she got the call to help out with jokering Nathan Hempford, she’d gotten an e-mail from Bach about the girl. He wanted Mac with him when he went out to recruit her.
Elliot nodded.
“What the hell was Bach waiting for?” Mac exploded. “God,
some
one’s got to protect these girls!”
“Hey, turns out she was taken before we even knew about her,” Elliot said. “The abduction happened this afternoon, but we didn’t know she existed until this evening. We can only do what we can do.”
“Well, whatever we’re doing,” Mac said, heading for the door, “we need to start doing it freaking better!” She spun back to tell Elliot, “You know what those assholes are doing to this girl?
Right
now?”
“I do know,” he said quietly. “Mac, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“Where’s Bach?” she asked.
“He’s with Nika’s older sister,” Elliot said. “Trying to get her acclimated.”
“Tell him I’m going out,” Mac said. “I’m going to troll for dealers. I’ll find someone who’s seen this girl—someone who knows where she’s being held. And then I’m going to go in, and I’m going to bring her home.”
Because if this job was going to rule her life the way that it did, to the point of her having to discard promising new lovers in the street? She was going to make it goddamn worth it.
“Mac, wait!” Elliot hurried after her, but she didn’t slow her pace until he said, “I just got a text message from Analysis. They found what they’re pretty sure are the satellite images of Nika’s abduction. You’re gonna want to see that before you go anywhere.”
“These images may be disturbing,” Bach told Anna as they took the elevator up to the floor of Old Main that was devoted to OI’s Analysis department. “There’s no need for you to see them.”
“Yes, there is,” she said. “What if you’re wrong about this Organization? What if whoever took Nika is someone I recognize? And even if it’s not, I want to know exactly what happened to her, so I can help her deal with it after we get her back.”
Unlike Joseph Bach, she wouldn’t be able to read Nika’s mind.
“Fair enough,” he said evenly. “But if it’s too much for you—”
“I’m pretty sure that I’m going to have nightmares,” Anna told him, as the elevator dinged, and the doors opened, “regardless of what I see.”
He led the way out and Anna found herself in an ornate, old-fashioned elevator lobby area with a corridor at one end. This part of the beautiful old building had clearly been restored to its original splendor, with gleaming wood paneling that was rich and dark, and shining marble floors.
The elevator doors were brass, and the second one opened with another mellifluous ding as Anna followed Bach past it.
“Hey.” Elliot emerged, and he was with a diminutive woman dressed in olive drab cargo pants, clunky boots, and a black leather jacket. Her dirty-blond hair was cut extremely short and her face was a little too cute to be called beautiful. Yet there was something
oddly, strikingly compelling about her, and had Anna been pressed to deliver a one-word description of the woman, that word would have been
gorgeous
. “We got the message about the SAT images. Have you seen them?”
“No,” Bach said, “we just got the call, too.” He looked at the petite woman. “You okay?”
“I’m great, Maestro,” she said. “You?”
“I’ve had better nights,” Bach told her, and for an instant, she seemed to be genuinely surprised at his candor. She covered it quickly, though, as Bach gestured to Anna. “This is Nika’s sister. Anna Taylor, Dr. Michelle Mackenzie. Mac’s one of my Fifties.”
Dr. Mackenzie held out her hand, and Anna shook it—the Fifty may have been small, but her grip was strong.
“We’re going to find your sister,” Mac promised, and Anna turned to find Bach watching as the elevator dinged again.
“Hopefully the satellite images will give us some help,” he said as the first elevator door opened again, and a ridiculously good-looking man stepped out.
The man stopped short when he saw them standing there, but then he took a deep breath and forced a smile as he came toward them. “I guess we all got the same message,” he said in a rich baritone voice that was as beautiful as he was.
He was as large as Mac was petite. He was taller than Elliot even, and he towered over Dr. Bach—who managed to look no less royal and still completely in charge. Probably in part because the double-XL greeted Bach with a nod and a very respectful, “Sir.” He then turned to Anna. “Ms. Taylor.”
“This is Dr. Stephen Diaz,” Bach told Anna. “My other Fifty.”
Anna reached out her hand to greet him, when Elliot suddenly stepped forward.
“Be careful—”
the doctor said, but then cut himself off as she clasped Diaz’s hand.
“I’m sure there’ll be something in the images that’ll point us toward Nika’s abductors,” Diaz said, exuding rock-solid confidence as he gazed down at Anna. His eyes were a beautiful shade of green that seemed even lighter in contrast to his dark complexion.
“I hope so,” she answered him, glancing over at Elliot
questioningly—be careful of what?—but the fair-haired doctor just forced a smile and shook his head.
“Let’s do this,” Mac said.
“You ready?” Bach asked Anna, who nodded. “We’ve got a room set up to view the images. We’re in study three,” he told his teammates as he led the way.
“I haven’t read the reports yet,” Mac said to Bach. “What time, exactly, did the girl go missing?”
As Bach filled her in on the details of Nika’s disappearance, Elliot spoke quietly to Diaz. “I saw your med scan,” he said. “Thanks for making sure that I was cc’d on that.”
“Oh,” Diaz said. “Yeah. No problem, Doctor.”
“You seem … Fine.”
“Yeah,” Diaz said again. He cleared his throat. “It was a rough night though.”
“One that’s not over yet,” Elliot pointed out. “It’s barely three
A.M.
—or should I say oh-three-hundred.”
Diaz laughed a little. “Three
A.M.
is fine, and … Believe me, I’m well aware that we’ve still got hours to go before dawn. Excuse me, Dr. Z. I want to, um, make sure we have enough chairs in the room.” He picked up his pace, pulling ahead of them all.