Blake, Abby - Soldier [Altered Destinies 5] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (11 page)

Caleb and Ethan approached from the guest area where everyone had been waiting in the garden for the bride to arrive. Hell, the last thing he needed was his bosses breathing down his neck. The woman he loved and the children he’d begun to think of as his own were gone, and he had no fucking idea why.

“Sit-rep,” Caleb said to Gabe.

“Jenna, Kara, and Hailey are missing.”

“Can you sense them?” Caleb asked Rick and Zane.

“No,” Rick replied angrily, confirming Zane’s worst fears. They’d only recently been able to truly sense the girls, so he’d hoped it was just his skill that was faulty, but if Rick couldn’t sense them either...

“Is it possible that she’s just overwhelmed?”

“No,” Zane denied angrily. “She loves us. She wouldn’t leave without a damn good reason.”

“Zane.” Jason’s quiet voice interrupted his tirade. “She is capable of manipulating people’s thoughts and emotions. It is possible that she set this up to get the girls back for the Professor?”

Zane had a great deal of respect for his future brother-in-law, but at this moment he could happily rip his head off. “No,” he ground out, anger pumping through him at the idea that Jenna could plot and plan and fool everyone for so long.

Rick stepped forward aggressively. “She’s in trouble. My daughters are in danger, and you are standing here wondering if Jenna planned this. Are you fucking crazy? They need our help, and you’re doing fuck all.” Zane turned to Rick, recognizing his own emotions in Rick’s violent words.

“Rick, we’ll go after them, but we need information,” Caleb said calmly. “We have no idea where they are or where they are headed, and we need to know who the enemy is here.”

“Jenna is not the fucking enemy. She’s my wife—even without the damn ceremony—she’s our wife. Rick and I are going after her with or without your help.” Zane turned away angrily. He heard the telepathic communication between Caleb and Ethan, but it was so fast and cryptic that he couldn’t interpret its meaning. From the corner of his eye, he saw Ethan nod and then turn to Rick and Zane.

“Let’s go save your family,” he said simply.

* * * *

Jenna woke with a blinding headache. Where the hell was she?

“Hello, Jenna. So nice to have you home.” She didn’t need to turn around to know who owned that voice. Dread skittered down her spine as she tried to clear the fog from her brain. Her girls? Where were the girls?

“They’re safe,” the Professor said smugly. “And if you’re a good mommy and follow orders, they’ll stay that way.” She shook her head in confusion. “Don’t test me, Jenna. You know what I’m capable of.”

She nodded her understanding even as she tried to sense her daughters’ whereabouts. “Don’t go wasting your time. I injected them with my
vitamin
formula as soon as they got here. No one can sense them now. Not even me.” She wanted to rip the arrogant smile right off the bastard’s face, but she reined in her temper. She had to stay calm if she wanted a chance to rescue her girls.

“Nothing to say? My, my, domestic bliss certainly took a shine off that wonderfully caustic personality of yours.”

“Where are they?” she asked calmly, still trying to sense them herself.

“Close. They can even see you.” He pointed to a surveillance camera over his left shoulder. “Wave to your girls, Mommy. Let them know you’re okay.” She tried to plaster a smile on her face, but it felt stiff and unconvincing. She knew she wouldn’t fool her girls at all, but she almost cried out loud as Hailey’s soft voice entered her head.

“We’re okay, Mommy. He said he’d kill you if we tried to leave.”

Careful to make sure her thoughts were shielded from the Professor, Jenna sent a telepathic reply to her clever young daughter at the same time that she spoke aloud to the Professor.

“Why am I here? Last time I saw you I left with three bullets in my back.”

“Hailey, you and Kara need to call for help. Zane and Rick will come for you. Don’t worry about me. Just get yourselves to safety.”

She heard Kara’s telepathic sob, but Hailey answered,
“I love you, Mommy. Rick and Zane will rescue you, too.”

“I know they will, honey. Stay together. Be safe.”

The Professor laughed at her “bullets in the back” comment, and too late, she realized that she may have confirmed the rumors about Jason’s healing ability. “You seem to have recovered remarkably well for someone so close to death. Must’ve left some ugly scars. They should serve to remind you what happens to lab rats who try to leave the maze.”

She nodded carefully, silently praying that he wouldn’t try to see the scars for himself. Thanks to Jason’s extraordinary gift, she had none. He’d even healed the ugly, ragged scar on her lower belly where the caesarean surgery had been done years earlier.

“Well, I’m sure you’re keen to get settled. You’re going to be here for a long time, Jenna, so you may as well get used to it. Remember, your behavior will affect your girls. They’re safe for the moment. Don’t give me a reason to change that and we’ll all get along just fine.”

He turned and left the room, the heavy metal door clanging closed with a sickening thud. It didn’t matter what happened to her. She had to make sure her daughters got to safety, and then she was shutting down the Professor and his facilities once and for all.

* * * *

Rick searched the house. There were no signs of a struggle, no sign of where they’d gone, and he was fast losing hope. If they didn’t know where they’d been taken, he had no way of rescuing them.

Frustration ground him down, but a small, niggling sensation tickled the back of his brain. Almost immediately, he recognized it as Jenna when she first wakes from a heavy sleep. She had that lazy, confused feeling she usually had, but today it seemed darker, frightened.

“She’s been unconscious,” Rick told the others as relief wriggled through him. Jason’s comment about Jenna being able to manipulate him and Zane had planted the smallest, ugliest seed of doubt in his mind. Her being unconscious when she disappeared proved Jason’s theory wrong and made Rick feel guilty for ever entertaining even the smallest amount of uncertainty. She loved him and Zane. She would never hurt them that way.

He made telepathic contact with Zane, who was searching the garden for any signs of what happened.
“I feel her, too, but it feels strange, like she’s injured or drugged. She’s not answering me either. Damn, come on, princess. Wake up and tell us where you are.”

Rick kept trying to sense where Jenna was being held. He was concentrating so hard that the small voice of a child who’d never communicated telepathically with him before almost dropped him to his knees.

“Hailey,”
he sent telepathically, surprise and relief furring his voice.
“Hailey, do you know where you are?”

“Yes, but he has our mommy and said he would hurt her if we tried to leave.”

“Hailey, is Kara with you?”

“Yes, she doesn’t want Mommy to get hurt either, but Mommy said to call you and Zane ’cause you’ll come get us and then help Mommy.”

“That’s right, honey,”
Rick said as he ran an agitated hand through his messed up hair. He still wore the tuxedo he should’ve been married in by now.
“Hailey, tell me where you are and then stay close to Kara. We’re coming to get you.”

* * * *

It wasn’t every day that military helicopters landed in the park next to the setup for a garden wedding, but then Zane figured this wasn’t exactly a run-of-the-mill day. Caleb had called in a huge favor from one of his contacts, and within fifteen minutes two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters touched down on the lawn while two more hovered in the sky.

Rick and Zane climbed into the troop area to find seven heavily armored military personnel already onboard. “Turns out we’re not the only ones who want to shut down this particular terrorist,” Theresa yelled into his ear as she climbed onto the helicopter behind him. Zane was doing up the restraints just as Ethan hauled his massive frame onto the platform. He shook hands with one of the soldiers, checked Theresa’s restraint, and took his own seat.

The helicopter lifted into the air, and then they were traveling faster than Zane had realized one of these things could go.

“This is a military operation. Our job is to get Jenna, Hailey, and Kara to safety. Nothing more. The military will handle the rest,”
Theresa said telepathically.
“Understood?”

Rick and Zane both nodded agreement. They’d save their family first and then think about revenge. Zane just hoped they could rescue the girls and get to Jenna before the Professor did anything to her.

As the Black Hawk approached its destination, Zane kept trying to contact Jenna. He could feel her presence close by, but couldn’t pinpoint her location. And for some reason she still wasn’t answering his telepathic call.

Chapter Twelve

“Rick and Zane are here. They just landed in a big helicopter with lots of soldiers with them.”
Hailey’s excited telepathic words filled her head.
“Mommy, you need to move now. The Professor drugged you, so your telekinesis won’t work very well, but the room next to you is empty and unlocked. If you can get through the wall of your room, you can get out that way.”

Jenna’s mind filled with a million questions. How did her daughter know these things? Where was she getting her information?
“Mommy, go now!”
a frightened young voice ordered.

Uncertain how her daughter got her information but willing to trust her regardless, Jenna turned her telekinetic power against the wall. The panel wobbled slightly but didn’t budge. She was about to try kicking it out when she remembered the dainty, high-heeled sandals she was wearing. She glanced down at the lace and satin dress with its intricate beadwork and laughed quietly. For more than twenty years, she’d worn fatigues and army boots. It figured that the day she would truly need comfortable clothes and big boots would be the one day she went without them.

She concentrated harder, trying to focus all of her energy on this one task.

* * * *

Rick, Zane, Ethan, and Theresa worked their way through the facility, careful to stay out of the military’s way as all hell broke loose. The staccato sound of automatic weapons fire filled the air, yet Rick’s only thought was to get to his daughters and keep them safe.

“Wait, Rick,”
a small voice said in his head. “
There are three men with big guns on the other side of the door you’re about to open.”

Rick glanced at the others, realizing that they’d heard Hailey’s warning, too.

Ethan smiled confidently, nodded to Theresa, and stood back as she opened the door. Rick was ready to pull her back when the most amazing thing happened. Three armed men fired automatic weapons directly at her, but none hit. Every single bullet seemed to bounce off or be stopped by an invisible wall.

“Shields?” Zane asked incredulously. “You’ve got fucking shields?”

“Not exactly. I can push the air with my telekinesis, which creates friction that slows the bullets.” Theresa shrugged. “But I suppose the effect is the same.”

A small movement of her hand and all three men went flying through the air. They hit the back wall quite hard. Still shaking their heads, Zane and Rick moved forward to search the men and relieve them of all their weapons.

“We’re in here,” Kara’s excited voice called through the door off the left of the room.

“There aren’t any guards in here, but there are two more coming down the hallway behind you,”
Hailey sent telepathically.