Body Thief (33 page)
Authors: C.J. Barry
Frankly, a warm bed and a hot man were the only things she wanted to do right now.
Harding was asleep next to his wife when his cell phone rang. He fumbled in the dark for the phone on the nightstand and got up to take the call in another room.
His wife groaned and rolled over as he padded out of the bedroom and down the hallway to his home office. He answered the call as he shut the door.
“This better be good, Braxton,” he growled and dropped into his chair.
“Good? No, I wouldn’t call it good. Your little geek is a pain in my ass.”
Braxton sounded all fired up for a change. That meant something was seriously wrong. “What happened?”
“I planted a fake attack in our files, figuring they’d bite, which they did. We had them holed up in a manufacturing facility in Queens, when that son of a bitchin’ geek set off all alarms and called the cops. You didn’t tell me these people had brains. If I’d known, I would have planned better.”
Harding closed his eyes. “Did you leave a trail to us?”
“No, didn’t even get in the goddamned front door,” Braxton said.
That was something, Harding admitted. He’d underestimated Mercer, and now he was paying for that. Obviously, he would need to get rid of him before the plan could move forward. Parker had yet to show up, so he’d need to use the next best thing.
“Forget the attacks for now. I want every available man on them. Find them, and kill them.”
“With pleasure,” Braxton said and hung up.
“Are you sure this is where the GPS tracked our guys to?” Cam asked as she surveyed the Hudson River on the way back to the underground. “Because unless they can swim, they’re in trouble.”
Griffin pointed his phone toward the river. “GPS marks all three of them fifty yards that way.”
She followed his line of sight to the other bank of the river, far more than fifty yards away. Then she noticed a long, low trash barge weighted down with twenty feet of garbage being towed by a small tugboat.
“Oh crap,” she said, feeling ill. She used her Shifter vision to try to find them, but they’d been buried. No one would ever find them.
Griffin had pocketed the GPS and was frowning at the barge. “They never even made it home. Someone sprung them from the local authorities and dumped them.”
She couldn’t believe it. “They murdered their own people. Why?”
“So they wouldn’t talk,” he replied, sounding bitter.
“Someone is going to a lot of trouble to cover their tracks,” she noted.
Griffin nodded. “Sure looks that way.”
“What now?” Cam asked.
“We talk to the Shifters,” he said and turned toward his car.
Cam walked alongside him. “And the fun just keeps on coming.”
He smiled a little. “You’re a gambler. You should love this.”
“Normally, when I gamble, no one is trying to kill me,” she pointed out.
“You don’t seem to have any trouble with that,” he said, rounding his car. “Where’d you learn to fight?”
She couldn’t remember ever
not
fighting for her life. On the last planet, in the ship on the way here, here.
not
fighting for her life. On the last planet, in the ship on the way here, here.
“My brother taught me,” she told him. “Said I needed to protect myself.”
Griffin watched her over the roof of the car. “He was right.”
She looked back at him and realized how good it felt to be with him, work with him, sleep with him. So who was going to protect her from the man she was in lust with?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
E
verything started out fine. The sun was shining high in the sky, and a warm wind swept over his naked body. Sand stretched as far as Griffin could see, ending at mountains far in the distance. Above him, the sky was bluer than blue, uncluttered by even a single cloud. There was no sound except the wind shaking the shrubs that clung stubbornly to the shifting sand.
verything started out fine. The sun was shining high in the sky, and a warm wind swept over his naked body. Sand stretched as far as Griffin could see, ending at mountains far in the distance. Above him, the sky was bluer than blue, uncluttered by even a single cloud. There was no sound except the wind shaking the shrubs that clung stubbornly to the shifting sand.
That was the thing about sand; it was always moving. Changing. Reinventing itself.
The desert appeared just like it had when he was a kid, except now he was a man and the great expanses seemed less daunting. He’d gotten lost in the desert once when he was eight years old, and Sani had found him. He still didn’t understand how Sani knew where to look.
These things I know
echoed in his mind. Whenever Sani didn’t want to explain something, that’s what he would say.
echoed in his mind. Whenever Sani didn’t want to explain something, that’s what he would say.
Griffin felt the warmth and love flow over him. His grandfather was a great man, a man of integrity above all else. He’d never disgrace himself or the family name by doing something selfish like Griffin had.
Love and warmth were quickly replaced by regret and shame. He’d left the family and his home to seek adventure and riches in the city. Wanted to leave this antiquated, impoverished world behind him. Prove wrong everyone who thought he’d never amount to much. He’d done just that too, building a life with all the luxuries and things that other people had. Success by any standards.
Except those things were empty. He’d proven nothing except that he didn’t know where he belonged. He had paid for that mistake when all those things he’d worked so hard for were taken away, including his very identity. Worse than all that though was the damage he’d done to his reputation and, therefore, the reputation of his family. Now he was branded a traitor to his own country, wanted by XCEL. How was he ever going to fix that?
A movement caught his eye—a sidewinder snake slithered across the windswept mounds thirty feet away. He marveled at the way it traveled, gracefully using groves in the sand to venture sideways. Now there was determination.
He was considering that when a shadow suddenly fell over him, followed by feathers and claws. The Eagle landed on the snake and ripped it with its teeth and claws until it stopped moving. The shock of life and death before his eyes stunned him for a moment.
He felt the injustice of it all. “Why?” he asked the Eagle.
Her blue eyes shone iridescent, piercing the endless sand. Her shadow grew around her, humanlike and black, blocking out the mountains.
In an eerie, detached voice, she said, “I have to survive.”
Griffin gasped as he awoke with a sudden jerk. Cool hotel air filled his lungs, and he realized it was only a dream. Or perhaps not. It felt so real. Had it been a vision? That didn’t make him feel better. Damn, he didn’t want to be like Sani. Visions sucked.
“Are you okay?”
Cam’s soft voice soothed his nerves and pushed the sadness and guilt of the vision to the back of his mind. He reached for her and pulled her to his chest. “Bad dream.”
“Mmm. I have those too.”
He’d never thought about Shifters having dreams. “Do you have good ones too?”
“Yes. Sometimes, I dream about the past.”
Griffin kissed her temple. “I thought those were nightmares.”
She nestled against him. “My people’s past. Back in the beginning, before I was born.”
Griffin pulled back to look at her. Her eyes were closed, her expression relaxed. “How is that possible?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I never told anyone about them.”
He felt a rush of wonder. She’d told
him
. “What was it like?”
him
. “What was it like?”
She smiled, her eyes staying closed as if she didn’t want to lose the moment. “We lived on a world much like this one, but it was only us. Water, sky, land, weather. But different. Everything was fluid and changing. We adapted, learning to change with our environment and climate. We’d have ceremonies for the seasons and for the harvest. Our moons told us what time it was—when to hunt, when to plant. Villages connected to each other in a matrix of paths and waterways. Technology was there, but we didn’t use it for every day. Every day was meant to be enjoyed. It was beautiful.”
Griffin watched her speak, fascinated by the details she knew and the world her people had come from. “What happened?”
Her voice faltered. “A massive meteor hit one of our moons. It caused a chain reaction of destruction. Some of us were rescued by neighboring planets, some escaped using our own technology. Most stayed and died.”
Griffin had known they were refugees, but he’d never known how they became refugees. No one cared to find out. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ll be the only one left who knows the stories when my father dies,” she murmured.
He felt the stab of guilt and decided he couldn’t live with it anymore. He had to tell her. “XCEL never searched for your brother. I didn’t tell them.”
“I know.”
Griffin frowned and lifted her chin with his finger. Cam opened her eyes then, and his heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t supposed to do that. “How?”
“I heard you talking to Ernest,” she said.
Damn, he forgot about her super hearing. “I didn’t know it was about your father, I swear.”
She answered with a sad smile. “You didn’t want to know.”
It was true. He didn’t ask, didn’t check. Just like he didn’t ask about her past. He wanted to tell her he was sorry, but his heart was in his throat. She was still here. She hadn’t run or tried to leave. He sensed the fatal acceptance in her and hated it.
Then she leaned in and kissed him, and he forgot about his heart.
Aristotle climbed the ladders through the maze of tunnels that had become his home. His old legs ached, and his breathing was labored. He reached the top of the ladder, and Red helped him step up to the next level. Aristotle leaned on the boy while he caught his breath.
The young man frowned. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea that you expose yourself like this. We don’t know for certain that they’re on our side.”
Aristotle started moving toward the next ladder with Red’s assistance. “They are.”
They stopped in front of the next ladder, and Aristotle eyed it with dread. Maybe it was a bad idea. Maybe he was a fool, but he had to talk to them face-to-face. It was the only right thing to do. A true leader led.
You can do this,
Aristotle told himself as he peered up the twenty-foot ladder. “What time is it?”
Aristotle told himself as he peered up the twenty-foot ladder. “What time is it?”
“Seven thirty-five,” Red replied. “You want me to carry you? I can, you know.”
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