Frozen Desires (Asylums for Magical Threats) (22 page)

Darius back on the phone.”

Her usual attitude returned. “Fine with me.”

There was some mumbling again before Darius said, “I think she likes you.”

“Yeah, whatever. Listen, if Jorge is telling the truth, then Richard Ekstrom is taking Cam to a marina in

Campeche. Can you reach out to our contacts there, and have them put together a retrieval kit? I want to

pick it up at the usual location in about three hours.”

“Sure. But do you really think you can take him on alone?”

“You know what I can do, Darius.”

While it wasn’t obvious, he and Darius had more in common than most people realized.

“Yeah, I know, but I wanted to check and make sure. Just because we’re on different missions doesn’t

mean I don’t consider us on the same team anymore.”

Marco had yearned for years for missions of his own, but he was starting to realize how much he’d

enjoyed working as part of a team. “Okay, I need to go. I’ll call you if I need you.”

“FYI, don’t call within the next few hours, because I won’t be able to pick up.”

He wondered what his friend was up to, but if Darius wasn’t telling him details, there was a reason.

Besides, he had more than enough to worry about. “Okay.” And he clicked off the phone.

Cam stood on a dock in front of a medium-sized boat and decided that yes, her day could get worse.

Richard pushed her toward the boat. “Get on.”

She crouched down and slowly slid onto the boat. She managed to get herself upright, but then the boat

rocked, and it took everything she had not to vomit the contents of her stomach. Hopefully, their stay on the boat would be brief, because without her seasickness bands, she was useless on the water.

No doubt, Richard had remembered that.

He jumped down beside her—which rocked the boat again—and he guided her toward the cabin.

They reached the door and he pushed her into a small, dark room. “I know how much you love the

water, so I’ve put a bucket on the floor for you. The window is big enough that you can empty it out when

needed, but small enough that you can’t escape. Since I need you alive, I’ll have some bottled water and

sports drinks brought down.”

Despite the queasiness in her stomach, Cam could be sarcastic like the best of them. “How nice of you.”

Richard shook his head. “Just don’t die on me, or I might have to hunt down your adopted sister. What

was her name again? Adella?”

“You couldn’t get to her if you tried, Richard.”

He shrugged. “Zalika and Jacek, then. I was just trying to spread the pain around a little.”

The boat pitched to one side, and she nearly lost the battle with her stomach. She wanted nothing more

than to curl into a ball on the bed and will her stomach into submission, but instead, she forced herself to stand up straight again. “As fun as all this threatening back and forth is, don’t you have other things to do? I know how you like to triple-check everything before making a move, and there’s not much time until

morning.”

“You may know a few things about me, Cam, but the same goes for me, but about you. Remember

that.” He turned and exited the door. One lock clicked, followed closely by another, and she collapsed onto the bed.

Now alone in the darkness, she took a few deep breaths to calm her stomach and look around the

mostly dark room. She tried to make out the vague shapes on the far side of the room, but they remained

nothing but shadows. Strange. Thanks to her latent abilities, she could usually see just as well in darkness as in daylight.

Then it hit her—maybe her latent abilities had been affected by whatever Richard had had inside that

syringe in his car. She decided to find out.

She tried to extend her claws, but nothing happened. Next, she picked up the blanket at the end of the

small bunk she sat on, and tried to rip off a piece, but no matter how hard she tugged, it stayed whole.

Fuck.
Her strength, her claws, and her keen vision were gone, no doubt because of whatever Richard had put into that needle back in the car.

Not only was she going to be seasick for who knew how long, but without her super-speed, strength,

and reflexes, Cam might be in more trouble than she’d counted on.

She started to wish that she hadn’t poisoned Marco.

She should’ve heeded his warnings about watching out for herself. Yet despite Marco’s lessons to

humble her, such as using his powers to restrain her on the jungle floor, she’d never really taken his

warning to heart. She was good, but she’d somehow forgotten that she wasn’t invincible.

When it came to operations like the ones she did for DEFEND, she should always have back up,

because Cam never knew when she’d end up on a boat, barely able to function. Or, against the odds,

someone found a way to suppress her latent abilities.

Working with others didn’t signify weakness, and it’d taken a powerful, yet easygoing young man to

finally drill that into her thick skull. If she got out of this alive, she was going to break down and thank him for that. The walls she constructed to keep others from getting close had finally succeeded a little too well, and she was now paying the price.

The boat rocked harder, and she grabbed the bucket. While waiting to see what Richard planned to do

with her, she would search her room and see what she could use as a weapon.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Marco looked through the binoculars he’d borrowed from Jorge and scanned the marina, looking for

the right boat. “You said it was the tenth one down?”

“Yes. Ekstrom called a mutual acquaintance of ours, and he was very clear about needing a boat.”

“I’m starting to think that you need new friends.” Marco found the tenth boat down, and saw that it was

completely dark. Of course, that didn’t mean anything. Ekstrom’s crew probably had orders to keep a low

profile.

He lowered the binoculars and unlocked his door. “I’m going to check it out.” But before he could open

it, Jorge put a hand on his arm. “Aislinn said she needed until morning to get my sister free, and I won’t let you endanger her life.”

Marco needed to wait until he knew Zalika and Jacek were safe anyway before he could try to outsmart

Ekstrom. Not that he trusted Jorge enough to tell him that.

He shook off Jorge’s hand. “I have no plans to endanger your sister. But I need to plant a tracking

device.”

“And how do you expect to do that? It’s not like we have scuba gear for you to sneak under the hull, or

some other type of sneaky spy trick.”

“Leave that to me.” Jorge remained skeptical. Marco added, “We’re in front of an ocean, and I’m an

elemental water first-born. You do the math.”

“I could say that we’re in front of a marina, and I can sail a boat, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to sail away to freedom.”

Marco slid out of the car and squatted down so that his head wouldn’t show. “Your pessimistic attitude

explains a lot, but I have experience with this, so let me handle it. I know what I’m doing.”

He didn’t wait for Jorge’s snarky reply, but shut the door as quietly as he could and inched to the rear of the car.

Planting a tracking device wasn’t his main aim. Rather, he wanted to let Camilla know that she wasn’t

alone, and that he was going to help her if she needed it.

Ekstrom had left about thirty minutes ago to run a few last minute errands. Jorge knew the guard on

duty, and after a quick call and some blackmailing, the guard had agreed to not investigate any noises

coming from the water for thirty minutes. Marco wasn’t about to let the man see his face, but he had other ways of contacting Cam without boarding the boat.

Using the shadows to his advantage, he made his way to the marina. Confident the coast was clear, he

walked to the water’s edge and dove into the sea.

The ocean was chilly, but the night air was warm. Having grown up near the Colombian coast, Marco

had no trouble making his way to the first boat on the same dock as his target. He stopped and listened for noises while he checked for any signs of life before moving to the next boat. He continued stopping behind each one until he reached the tenth boat, which was the one that should have Cam on board.

He took out the small waterproofed tracking chip he’d picked up from his contact on his the way to

Campeche, and affixed it to the underside of the window. No sooner was the chip in place than the window

opened, and someone tossed something into the water; the smell told him it was vomit.

He was about to move his position when he heard, “Fucking hell.”

He froze—that was Cam’s voice.

The window stayed opened, but Marco waited to see if she was alone. But apart from the sounds of dry

heaving, he heard nothing. He’d been careful to make sure no one on deck was facing this side of the boat

before swimming up. He was tempted to talk to her, but considering Jorge had negotiated with blackmail,

he wasn’t going to risk it.

Instead, he created an ice flower on the windowsill—the same carnation as he’d made back in the park

—and waited for Cam to return to the window. Except with each minute that ticked by, Marco knew he was

putting himself in greater danger of discovery.

Hoping that he was right about her being alone, he sent a stream of water into the room, and then back

out to land into the ocean. A few seconds later, he saw her fingers tracing the petals of his flower. Knowing she’d seen his message, he melted the flower and started swimming back to shore.

After nearly six hours of driving through the mountain roads of Sichuan province in mainland China,

Gio nearly bolted out of the car when their driver finally stopped in front of the AMT research facility

entrance.

He might finally find some answers here.

He’d managed to sleep on the plane ride to Chengdu—the nearest airport to this place—but as he

glanced at Dr. William Evans, he reckoned that the researcher hadn’t slept in days. If he didn’t do

something about that soon, Evans wouldn’t be able to help him in the future.

The driver unlocked the doors and he motioned for Evans to exit the car. The pair of them headed

toward the heavily guarded entrance, where a man stepped forward and gave a slight bow of his head in

greeting. “Welcome, Mr. Sinclair. My name is Liang, and I manage this facility.” He motioned toward the

door. “Come, I’ll show you to your rooms.”

Gio nodded and followed. Liang was middle-aged, and shorter than even Dr. Chan back in Hong Kong.

While his outward demeanor was calm, Gio wasn’t about to dismiss the man—his father probably had

Liang watching him. He needed to be careful about what he said or did. He didn’t want to be reassigned

before he found out the truth.

He still had no idea what he’d do if he found out they were mistreating the
Feiru
children he suspected they kept here, especially if Gio discovered that his father already knew about it. James Sinclair’s support and influence were powerful things, and it wouldn’t be easy to work around them.

Don’t think about that yet.
There was still a chance that his father was ignorant of the pediatrics facilities, where they hid all of the children born inside the AMT compounds. Many of the children were the results of experiments conducted clinically with the first-borns, but Gio had a feeling at least some of the children were the result of rape.

He still believed in the good intentions of the AMT—to keep first-borns from harming themselves or

others—but somewhere along the line, corruption had taken hold.

He didn’t think dismantling the AMT system was the answer, but there had to be a better way of doing

things. He hoped he could come up with an alternative solution while he was here.

As they walked down the long steel corridor, there were no outward signs of this being anything other

than a research facility. If he wanted to find out information, he needed to start asking questions. “Is this the empty wing I was told about back in Hong Kong?”

Liang nodded. “When there used to be activity here, visiting researchers and inspectors had needed a

place to stay. I’ve assigned you to the biggest spare rooms. Since any employee that stays full-time at this facility stays in one of the other wings, you’ll have this section to yourself.”

If the rumors were true, he doubted that any inspectors had ever come to this place. But he kept his

mouth shut.

As they continued to walk down the long hallway, Gio noticed the numbers above the doors. Unlike the

AMT compound he’d seen back in Scotland, the numbers here weren’t sequential, and jumped around in

no discernible pattern. He knew Liang wouldn’t tell him the meaning of the numbers, but he could aim for

more general questions. “When was the last time you used this wing?”

Liang glanced at him. “A few years ago, at least. The number of mentally disabled first-borns holds

steady, and the other potential inmates—first-borns with mutated abilities—have been pretty much nonexistent for the last few decades. But if what I’ve heard about the emergence of strange abilities is true, then I look forward to filling this wing again.”

There was an undertone of glee to Liang’s words, and Gio started to get a bad feeling about the research

facility manager. Could he enjoy mistreating the prisoners here? He added that to his ever-growing list of questions.

Liang turned a corner and stopped in front of an unmarked door. He slid the access card through the

slot on the side, a light blinked green, and the door opened. “As requested, this is a shared room. Your two other associates will be in the room directly across the hall. Someone will come along after you’ve had a

chance to rest, and bring you to my office. We can discuss the details of your proposed project then.”