Flirting With Fate (22 page)

Tanner spun to face Josie, and Chrissie thought,
fuck!

“You’re on the pill, right?” Tanner asked.

Josie’s eyes widened. “I can’t take the pill. It
makes me fat,” she said. “But we used condoms. Didn’t—”

Tanner set his jaw. “Every time but one,” he said
in a low whisper.

“The beach…” she said.

Chrissie raised a brow and exchanged a glance with
Paige.

 “I should never have assumed,” Tanner said.

Darian rubbed the back of his neck. “If you hadn’t
messed up that time, you would have another time. You both have to be pregnant
at the same time, don’t you see?”

“See what?”

Darian took Josie’s hand and turned it to show the
S-shaped scar on the inside of her wrist. “Do you know what this is from?”

Josie shook her head. “I got it in an accident as
a child.”

Paige cocked her head, her brow furrowed. “Do you
remember, sweetie, or was that what you were told?”

Josie stared at the scar. “What is it then?”

“This is the mark of a Controller.”

“What, like Fernandez?”

“Fernandez’s power is nothing compared to this
guy. Once you’re marked, he can influence you to do things you wouldn’t have
done otherwise. He can’t physically make you do anything, but his power gives
him control to manipulate your emotions. He can give you dreams, fantasies.
Make you wish for things you wouldn’t have wanted otherwise. He controls you by
making you think you feel emotions: frustration, anger, lust.” He waited a
beat. “He can even make you believe you’re in love.”

Chrissie watched Tanner and Josie both turn pale.
Double
fuck!

“And if I had to guess, I’d say your twin,
wherever she is, has the same mark.”

“Who’s the Controller?” Josie asked, her face
hard. “Who is this ass who’s been fucking with me?”

Fernandez pulled a hand through his hair and shook
his head. “That’s a pretty badass power if it does indeed exist.”

Collin gave him a sardonic smile. “You SIA boys
think you know everything, but you’ve hardly skimmed the surface of what the
Ascendants can and will do.”

“Just because you were their poor little lab rat
doesn’t mean you know everything,” Fernandez said.

“Enough!” The booming command came from a new
voice.

Tanner straightened when he saw Lieutenant
Armstrong enter the room. “This is my library,” he said, “and I’ll not have the
petty bickering.”

Fernandez clenched his jaw but nodded. “If the
Keeper’s who goal is to manipulate free will, then explain why he wouldn’t just
steal the Controller’s power.”

“Because a master Controller can only manipulate
one or two people. Ever,” Collin said. “Once his mark is on them, he can’t use
it on someone else. The Keeper wants the power to manipulate everyone.”

“Who is he?” Josie repeated.

“We don’t know,” Darian said. “We’ve been looking,
but we don’t know. We need to know if you’re pregnant, and if you are, we need
to hide you.”

Josie shook her head. “If I am, it wouldn’t show
up on a pregnancy test yet.”

Collin nodded. “Can you look? Use your power?”

Josie closed her eyes. “I’ve seen myself having a
baby with Tanner for a while now. But I don’t know if that’s precognition or
planted vision. I have no idea what’s real anymore.”

Rider rolled his eyes. “I don’t mean to be an insensitive
ass here—”

“Sure you do,” Chrissie said.

“—but we’re in a time crunch. What do you see?”

Josie exhaled. She looked to Tanner, and he could
tell she was trying to figure out what she felt for him and what she’d been
made to feel. “I had a dream. I saw them taking my and Mallory’s blood,” she
said finally, pulling her eyes away from him. “I must be pregnant.”

Tanner stared at her, willing her to look at him
again, but she wouldn’t.

“What next?” Paige asked.

“Josie’s mother’s journal implies that the only
answer is the DNA conversion.”

“No,” Tanner said.

“Tanner,” Josie whispered, “we have to think about
more than ourselves!”

“It’s dangerous! And if you die...” He trailed
off. He couldn’t bring himself to speak of the child she might or might not
already be growing inside her.

“We’ll hide her,” Darian said. “If we hide her
until the pregnancy comes to term or we can find the Keeper—”

Collin pulled a hand down his face. “Don’t you
understand? That’s why Rider and I didn’t tell anyone. You put Josie into
hiding for the rest of her life, and the Keeper will only try again with
another set. You’d be postponing the inevitable. We need him to reveal himself
so we can find a way to take him down.”

“You’re real quick to offer up my friends as
bait,” Chrissie said. “Sadly, it’s one of your more charming qualities.”

“So, what are our choices?” Paige asked. “DNA
conversion or putting her into hiding and leaving this for our children to deal
with? How would they even know where to look?”

Lieutenant Armstrong put up a hand and spoke for the
first time since he came in the room. “We’ll come up with something else,” he
said. “The SIA will hide Josie until we find another way.”

The silver-haired doctor studied Tara and offered
her the vial of blood again.

She reached for it, then gagged and had to draw
back to cover her mouth.

“Do you want to help or not?” he asked.

She locked eyes with the wide-eyed Josie
look-alike in the corner. Now she understood why Josie and Greyly had called
her Mallory. Tara didn’t understand who the girl was but she kept mumbling
something in French that Tara thought might mean, “My dad was right.”

She was in no shape to do this, which was why Dr.
Martin had found Tara. “You’re sure he won’t know?”

“He doesn’t have the luxury of time and he’s
getting cocky,” Dr. Martin assured her.

“Okay,” Tara said, taking the vial of blood from
his hand and swallowing it in one long gulp. She blinked as her power blossomed
in a pleasure-filled surge. Disgusting, yet awesome. Interesting.

“You have the extra supply?” he asked.

She nodded and patted her hip.

“Good. Now, go!”

Josie rode shotgun as Lieutenant Armstrong drove
her away from her friends.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asked.

She exhaled heavily. “As okay as can be expected.”

Which wasn’t okay at all. As she’d hugged her
friends goodbye, Paige had squeezed extra tight and Josie had taken the hint
and opened herself to the vision.

Paige kneeled in front of a grave. She read the
name Josie Bovard on the headstone and tears seeped out of the corners of her
eyes. “I’ve never done anything like this before, Josie, but you said the
visions you get of our future are not fate but visions of the path we’re
traveling down at that time. So I planned with all my might to tell you this
here and now in the hopes that you might see it.

“The only way we can stop this is to kill the
Keeper. Since he’s immortal, you’re probably wondering how to do that. You kill
him by taking his power. His power is what keeps him immortal. You have to
drain his blood fast enough that his body won’t be able to reproduce it quickly
enough to heal him. If he’s gone, the threat’s gone.

“I didn’t want to tell you this in front of so
many, so I hope you see this message before it’s too late. And I hope you’re
able to save yourself if you need to.”

Josie glanced at the lieutenant and swallowed. She
sure had to hand it to Paige, it had been a creative way to get Josie the
message.

Unfortunately, the only way it could have worked is
if the choice Josie was making by going with the lieutenant would somehow lead
to her death. Otherwise, there would be no gravestone for her to see.

Tanner sunk into Josie’s couch and put his head in
his hands. How could he have just let her go like that? He’d hated his other
options—he hadn’t
had
other options—but he letting her leave his
protection didn’t sit right with him.

A pounding at the door made him sit up.

Tanner answered it to find the officer from the
hospital, looking out of breath and worse for wear. “Can I help you?”

“Do you know anything about Specials?” he asked,
saying the word as if it were foreign.

Tanner straightened. “You’ll have to explain what
you mean.”

Tara took a deep breath and tried to channel
someone who was a much better actress than she. She glanced down to check
herself first. To every last detail, she had shifted into Mallory Aston. Dr.
Martin had made sure of it.

“We all make mistakes when we’re young and
foolish,” he said. “I’m asking you to help remedy mine.”

“Why do you care now?”

His grin was sheepish. “I have a teenage grandson
who’s not a Special.” He shook his head. “Genetically, of course, I of all
people knew this could happen, but it wasn’t until it did that I realized how
wrong I was when I helped the Keeper twenty-seven years ago.”

When the hippie-looking lady in long skirts came
into view, just as Martin had promised she would, Tara lunged at her. “Where is
he? Where is my father? Your note said you have him!” This, her script.

The woman pulled back and Tara held her breath.
Dr. Martin had promised the blood would enhance her power enough that not even
an expert Shifter would be the wiser. This blood, he’d promised (and Tara
hadn’t even wanted to know what was in it), would even protect her power from
Blockers.

When the woman’s lips formed into a smile, Tara
released her breath. “If you want to see him, you have to come with me.” The
woman held out her hand.

Tara took it and suddenly they were floating
through the air so fast everything around her blurred. They didn’t stop until
they were inside a grand hallway with marble floors and ornate chandeliers
hanging overhead.

“Where are we?” she asked.

The woman chuckled. “Somewhere very special.”

“My father’s here?” she asked, because that was
what Mallory would want to know.

“Follow me,” the woman said, striding in front of
her.

Tara followed her into a library of sorts where
one young man sat in the corner and several other older men gathered around
papers at a conference table.

“Alyson!” the young man said, his lips curving
into a smile. “What have you brought me?”

“It’s the Aston girl, Your Majesty.”

He nodded approvingly, and Tara was sure this was
the Keeper. Dr. Martin said the man took many forms but was very young in his
true form.

“Very well done.” He lifted a hand and snapped his
fingers. When a man dressed in black appeared beside him, the Keeper whispered
something to him and he nodded.

“You’re here for your father, I presume?” the
Keeper said.

“I’d like to see him now.”

He clasped his hands together. “I’ll take you
myself.”

She followed him out of the room, but as she
exited, she saw the guards take Alyson’s arms.

“Let go of me!” Alyson screamed, but Tara was in
the hallway now and couldn’t see. Thudding sounds of punches, then bodies being
thrown, echoed into the hallway.

The Keeper winced playfully beside Tara. “She
might be the most fun they’ve had all year. She’s quite strong and fast.”

“What’s happening to her?”

“I didn’t need her anymore,” he said with a shrug.

At the end of the hall, they turned down a smaller
wing, and he opened a door to a sitting room. “Wait in here and I’ll get your
father.”

She nodded and stepped inside, but when he closed
the door behind her, her stomach lurched at the sound of the lock engaging.

Tanner had a sick feeling he couldn’t shake. He’d
talked to Greyly and found out Mallory had disappeared, but what good would
Mallory do the Keeper without Josie? In the meantime, Paige had called, frantic
because Collin told her Tara was missing, and Tanner couldn’t get his mind past
the moment he’d put Josie in the car with Armstrong.

His gut twisted again. He didn’t like this at all,
and he was headed back into the SIA headquarters to see if he could get a hold
of the lieutenant.

He was on his way to his car when Josie’s Healer
friend appeared in a flash before him. When she stopped, she swayed on her feet
and clutched her stomach. Her face was battered, but her jaw was set, her eyes
intense.

“Your girlfriend is here,” she said, pressing a
piece of paper into his hand. “It’s highly guarded. I killed...maybe a third of
the guards getting out?”

“Impressive,” Tanner muttered.

“You’ll need to be very careful, but if you don’t
go soon, it will be too late.” She closed her eyes and lowered her chin to her
chest.

“You’re one of them,” Tanner whispered.

“The heartless fuck tried to have me killed.”
Tears slipped out of her eyes and over her swollen cheeks. “I did everything
for him for twenty-seven years, and he treated me like so much garbage.”

Tanner wasn’t sure what to say. “How do I know
this isn’t a trap?”

She shook her head slowly. “I don’t have time to
argue with you. But listen—” She put her hand on his cheek and looked in his
eyes “I made her feel things. I made her feel what she needed to feel to get to
where we are now.”

“You’re the Controller?”

Her lip twitched in an attempt at a smile. “I’m a
woman of many talents.” The smile faded as quickly as it came. “I’m dying. And
when I do, her mark will fade. When they’re gone, she won’t love you anymore. She
won’t want you anymore.” She pressed her hand against his chest. “Love’s a
fickle bitch.”

Josie’s dream had come to life. On the long car
ride, she’d fallen asleep—or had she been drugged?—and now she was strapped to
a table in a large, sterile-looking room, a big metal machine at her head.