Awakened (15 page)

“Here ya go.” He handed Kevin the plates. “I’m going to take a piss. Be right back.”

He stepped outside, saw the missed calls from Barrett on his cell, and cursed. Not a surprise, living up here on the mountain, that he sometimes lost cell reception. He’d just never cared all that much before. Anyone on his team could reach him on the radio. He had to walk awhile before he picked up enough bars to call Barrett. He got her voice mail, closing his eyes at how damn good it felt to hear her voice, then left a terse message asking her to call him back.

After lunch, Nick fed the scraps to Aura when she woke up and came over.

Kevin looked out over the shadowed valley below. “Do you know why Murphy was after you?”

The more he’d thought about it, Nick wasn’t all that sure that he’d been the actual target, but he still didn’t want to explain Barrett. The fewer people who knew that she’d visited him here, the better.

“They have to have obtained a copy of The List. He was on it.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

Nick shrugged and crunched up the paper plates. “The turned vampires. Maybe they’ve organized. Would make sense. They put two and two together, come up with the fact that the FBI is now targeting their asses, and decided to stick together. Formulate a plan. Go on the offensive. Murphy wasn’t with anyone else?”

“Nope. Nothing like that. Aura woulda let me know. She only seemed to see the one fella.”

Nick’s spine prickled. He shifted position and saw that Aura had circled around behind him. Her rough coat felt like hay even after she’d been groomed.

“So what’s next for you?”

“Ranking on The List is based on level of expected mental and physical deterioration,” Nick said. “Murphy was number two and by far in the worst shape of any of the turneds I’ve seen so far. It’s been harder and harder finding the turneds that are farther down on The List. I’m betting that’s because they still have mental acuity. I’m waiting for intel on their whereabouts, though. Until that comes, I’m pretty much a free agent.” Except for what he was helping Barrett with, of course. Damn it, where the hell was she and why hadn’t she called him back?

“Okay. Guess Aura and I will head back over to the ridge,” Kev said.

“Who’s in charge at the kennels?”

“Local kid. Eighteen, thinking about enlisting, wants experience with military dogs. He doesn’t know anything about the vamp op.”

“Keep it that way. Anyone from the team still around down your way?”

“Nope.”

That would leave only him on top of the mountain. Whether to stay or go was his call, though. Nick knew that being alone made him an easy target. Kev had responsibilities of his own. The kennels and the breeding program were a top priority. Nick was basically a hired gun.

It was a good thing Barrett hadn’t fought him about getting her pretty butt back to D.C. She’d be safer there. He just wanted her to call and confirm it was true.

If she didn’t get back to him soon, Nick thought he might fly out later, stash the heli, and catch a plane from somewhere closer than New City. He wanted to check out where she lived and make sure her security setup was adequate. She hadn’t known what Murphy was and he hoped she never had to find out.

The FBI wasn’t going to tell her, that much was for certain. He hadn’t heard about Belladonna and she hadn’t heard about The List or the threat posed by some of the turneds. Nothing too suspicious in that. Teams operated independently on different missions all the time, and they often did so without knowledge that the other existed. However, one thing that kept bugging Nick was the fact that Barrett worked with turned vampires, yet no one had bothered to tell her that some turneds went bad and it couldn’t be guaranteed that her coworkers wouldn’t inevitably do the same. Was it just a matter of the FBI wanting to get as much out of those like Peter Lancaster as possible? Maybe, but Nick didn’t like the potential danger keeping such secrets posed to Barrett.

She was brave and she was tough and she was smart, but she was still a woman. His woman. He’d always thought of her like that. He wanted her safe.

Last year he’d let her walk away from him, secretly betraying her in order to keep her safe. Maybe with this second shot, he had to switch things up. Maybe instead of hiding anything further from her, he’d be brutally honest instead. Not just about his feelings for her, but about what he’d done in the past, and what could happen in the future if the turneds she worked with caught neuron-rage.

It would be a lot for her to take in and he had no doubt her first instinct would be to punch him in the nuts and tell him to go to hell.

Which meant he needed to think things through very carefully.

Nick turned to Kev. “Think you could get some of those guys who helped you back for a day or two?”

“Probably,” Kevin said. “Why? You going someplace?”

“Yeah. Do I have to tell you where?”

“No.” His partner eyed him warily. “But I’m heading out, too, if no one’ll come. I don’t particularly feel like being alone up on the ridge with just Aura and the other dogs.”

Nick gave a curt nod. “Then take them with you.”

“I intend to.”

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

Barrett listened to Nick’s message on her smartphone
.

It was good to hear his voice. Good to know he was safe. And even as she prepared to call him back, her screen lit up and Nick’s number appeared.

“Hey,” she said, trying to sound businesslike. “What’s up?”

“Are you going to be happy to see me? Because I’m sure as hell not waiting any longer to see you.”

Barrett’s eyes widened. “Are you in D.C.?”

“Around the corner.”

“You could have given me a little warning.”

His deep voice was teasing. “Consider yourself warned.”

She wasn’t going to bother to ask him how he’d gotten her address, either. “How have you been? Any more trouble?”

Silence.

“Nick?”

He seemed to be weighing his next words. “You could say that,” he said.

A chill settled over her.

“I’ll explain when I see you, Barrett.”

“Okay. I’m in 14-B.”

“I know,” he said with a smile in his voice, and she wondered if there’d ever been a time in the past year that he hadn’t known where she was. Maybe it hadn’t really been over even when she was alone and missing him. Nice thought. Even if it was probably hogwash.

She went to the door, then walked away from it. Pacing and thinking. Counting the minutes until he got there.

One knock. Barrett was in her bedroom, smoothing the comforter. She didn’t want him to see the tangled sheets and get any ideas about how she’d slept—badly.

She finished and went back to open the door. Nick filled the doorway.

There was that grin. Higher on one side than the other. A flash of a dimple to set it off. He seemed really happy to see her. But there was a folder and a laptop under one arm and a tote bag with more papers and some books under the other. He was here on business.

“Hi, Barrett.” His dark eyes gleamed as he took her in. She wore ordinary jeans and a loose, unstylish top. But he looked at her like she was coming down a beauty pageant runway.

Her skin responded with a faint blush. What the hell. She hadn’t bothered with the powdered kind.

“Hello, Nick.”

Her gaze flicked downward. His brawny chest was encased in a dark T-shirt, an item of clothing that he’d always worn, even during his soldier days. He had on old jeans with frayed knees and scuffed work boots. So he hadn’t dressed up for her, either. Keeping it real.

She’d seen him in everything from a full-dress army uniform to buck naked. What he was wearing now was probably her favorite. Purely Nick, being himself.

“Come on in,” Barrett said. “Would you like anything?”

“I’ll take a soda if you have one.”

“Be right back.”

She could feel his gaze on her behind as she walked away from him into the kitchen. The loose top didn’t make any difference. She could be wearing a swirling black chador that covered every inch of her body and he’d still check her out. Front and back. He never had been able to decide which was the best view.

Barrett returned with two ginger ales on ice. Nick was examining the papers on the table.

“What’s all this?”

“Stuff from Malcolm Prescott’s car. I swiped it and I’m still sorting it out. Grunt work, but you never know. So why are you here, what’s in the folder and the bag, and does it have anything to do with the trouble you said you had encountered and were going to tell me about?”

“Two reasons, lots of stuff, and yes, in a way.”

“Let’s start from the top. You’re here for two reasons. And what are they?”

“To fill you in and get filled in, of course.”

“And?”

“And this …”

Striding up to her, he wrapped his hand around her neck and pulled her in for a kiss.

Barrett didn’t fight him. He was too quick for that. Her body arched against his, not because she willed it, but because she’d been expertly positioned by him. Nick knew exactly how to get her off balance and keep her that way. In another few seconds, his hand slid over her thigh and lifted her leg, bending it to get her even closer. His lips smiled against hers before he really kissed her, claiming her mouth with deep thrusts of his tongue, then pulling back to nip at the sensitive cord of her neck. Barrett closed her eyes and tipped her head back, enjoying his sensual play, just rough enough to let her know who was boss.

For the next few minutes, anyway.

He wasn’t always this dominant. Which made her wonder what else was on his mind at the moment. For Nick, sex or the prelude to it had always been easier than talking about what was going on with him. His lips reached her ear, murmuring a few interesting suggestions not suitable for the workplace, and then he got back to kissing her. Even harder.

“Whoa,” she said, pulling back. She touched her fingers to her swollen lips, loving the way his darkened eyes followed her movements. “What was that for?”

“That was me being damn grateful you’re okay. And celebrating the fact that I am, as well.”

“So what’s spooked you? Does it have to do with a certain something that tried to strangle me to death a few days ago?”

“Yeah, it does,” Nick said. “And it has to do with some of the stuff I brought along. And stuff I need to tell you. Despite the fact I’m not supposed to. Despite the fact you obviously don’t have the security clearance to hear it. But you need to know.”

So he told Barrett how he’d been hired by the FBI to eliminate vampires. How those vampires were former U.S. soldiers, soldiers who’d voluntarily been turned in the Turning Program but for unknown reasons had started to show signs of neuron-rage and physical deterioration. How those symptoms had progressed until the turneds had become violent. Unpredictable. Dangerous.

And how he was afraid the turneds Barrett worked with might eventually suffer from the same condition.

She was sitting there stunned, not knowing how to respond, when he said, “And that’s not all, Barrett.”

“Oh, God,” she whispered. “What else is there?”

“You know me. You know I wouldn’t take this kind of job unless there was a damn good reason. You know I wouldn’t just believe what the FBI was telling me.”

“You did your own recon,” she said flatly. “Online?”

“I accessed whatever I could. Enlisted friends to do the same. I didn’t get much. But I got enough to know that vampires might just be the beginning.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Nick turned and grabbed the bag. He pulled out reams of paper. “This is research I stashed in various places. Places the Bureau wouldn’t think to look. Read the highlighted words.” Barrett did and with each word her eyes widened in disbelief. The documents referred to paranormal creatures, vampires just being one kind of them. Rumors. Reports. Speculation. An occasional reported sighting. Her hand shaking so much the paper rattled, she weaved toward a chair and sat down hard. “Are you saying—You think there are other creatures out there? Others, like the vampires, that are born to another species. Not human?”

“If vampires exist, why not more? I haven’t seen anything myself. Haven’t been able to find proof.”

“So why are you telling me this?”

“I’m telling you this because we have no idea what we’re dealing with. Even when it comes to vampires. Born vampires, Rogue vampires, turned vampires, turned vampires that are okay, turned vampires that are violent and shouldn’t be able to think too logically but still manage to leave me a piece of flesh where I live without leaving any other signs he was there …”

Barrett’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know what to do with this information. You’re telling me our world, the world that has already gotten strange enough, might be even stranger. That everything we’ve believed is a lie. That everything we’ve fought for, all the good we’ve tried to do, could have been for nothing.”

She heard the hysteria coming into her voice and obviously so did Nick. He took her arms and shook her. “That was always true, Barrett.”

“So what now?”

“Now we deal. We bury the information we don’t know what to do with or can’t do anything about and we work with the information we can do something with. We help who we can.”

“My friends …” she whispered, thinking about Ty and Peter. And, God, Ana. The woman who’d just found love after years and years of suffering. Would she and Ty be torn apart by insanity and physical disintegration? It wasn’t fair.

“No, Barrett. Don’t think about them. Not yet.”

She shook her head. “Then who do I think of? Just who do you think we can help right now?”

“Jane.”

The single word was like a slap to the face. Her mind had been reeling, but as she stared at Nick and saw the resolution and an odd excitement on his face, her spiraling panic lowered several notches.

“Jane,” she repeated.

“Yes, Jane.”

“You’ve found her?”

He shook his head. “No. But I’ve found something. I’ve got a lead, and that’s something we didn’t have before, right?”

She nodded and tried to swallow her disappointment. “Tell me.”