Manipulating Mikey (First Wave Book 8) (3 page)

He’d learned during the first few
weeks that these people had no honor or decency for their own. He could
understand if they thought he had an infection and were containing him until
they could figure it out, but the torture they’d put him through had been
unspeakable and unforgivable. So while they quizzed him, he studied them and
the questions they asked, gathering his own information so that he could
possibly escape.

Mikey had no idea where he’d go or
even where he was or if he’d get far, but the unknown was better than torture,
and he’d take death over it any day. It wasn’t like he had family—or even
friends—who would miss him.

The hours tied to the bed had given
him a lot of time to think, and he realized how different he’d always felt from
the other kids growing up. Mikey wondered how long ago he may have been
infected. He’d never had the normal childhood illnesses and never really been
sick. Until his first tour in Afghanistan, he’d never even broken a bone.

His adoptive parents had always
been thrilled with him and bragged that he was smarter and stronger than the
other kids. His mother called him gifted. Mikey preferred to call it like it
was—he was lonely, never really fitting in with anyone. It’s why he’d joined
the army to begin with. He wanted a place where he’d have something in common
with others.

“I know where we belong, and it’s
not here,”
the voice whispered in his mind.

Mikey was tempted to listen. He
wanted to believe it, but he knew better than to trust the voice in his head—or
anyone else for that matter. He’d already made that mistake, and he wouldn’t
make it again.

Instead, he studied each of the
people asking him questions, some so personal as to be humiliating, but he
gritted his teeth and answered them all. The whole time Mikey studied each
person and pretended not to listen to the strange voice in his head. But he
couldn’t deny the voice had some interesting things to say about the people
with the clipboards, things that might come in handy later.

Most of all he studied the
lieutenant colonel. Mikey knew that of everyone in this room, it was the
lieutenant colonel who was responsible for what had happened to him during his
captivity. Everyone else was under his orders and wouldn’t have done those
things to him without the lieutenant colonel ordering it.

It was the lieutenant colonel who
knew a lot more about what was going on than what he was saying. Mikey wanted a
half hour alone with the son of a bitch so he could get some answers, but he
held himself in check, learning what he could so that he could escape this
nightmare before they killed him.

Mikey had no doubts that he was a
dead man walking.

*****

Grai paced the conference room in
Dillon while they tried to finalize the plans to get Koda out of Fort Huachuca.
A loud whistle brought him out of his own thoughts, and he turned to face
everyone in the room.

“Grai, get your head in the game,
man. We got one shot at this,” David said, his eyes narrowing at Grai.

Grai turned cold, hard eyes to
David.

“I am more than ready. I will not
fail,” Grai assured David and the rest of the team.

“Grai—” David began, before he was
startled.

Traze slammed his palms down on the
table and stood to glare at David.

“He said he was fine! We’re wasting
time!” Traze roared as he leaned over the table at David.

David stood abruptly to his feet,
knocking his chair out from under him.

“Boy, let me tell you something . .
.” David began as Traze came around the table at him.

David turned to face the furious
man-child and grabbed him by the throat, lifting him inches off the ground
while the boy’s eyes blazed with fury.

David used his prime energy to
flood the boy with control and calming energy until he felt Traze go limp in
his hands. David set the boy on his feet, picked up his overturned chair, and
sat Traze in it before he glared up at Grai.

“He stays!”

Grai nodded his head and spoke to
David through the Shengari’.

“I will not lose him too. He will
be forced to stay,” Grai agreed.

David checked to make sure the boy
was OK before he turned back to Grai.

“I can handle cloaking only three
of us. You, me, and Koda. I won’t have the energy there that I had at Fiorn’s
Folly, so I will be limited in what I can do,” David said, making sure that
Grai understood what he was saying.

Grai nodded his head; he understood
the plan and what was at stake. He also knew it was the only way short of open
war with the US government to get his brother back.

“I know what the dangers are. I
will be fine,” Grai said in an attempt to alleviate some of David’s concern.

David didn’t believe him but nodded
his head anyway.

“Fine. The problem we’re going to
have is in the elevator systems. So you guys,” David said, pointing at Slate
and Risk. “have to make sure you’ve hacked into the systems and overrode the
weight sensors on it.”

David felt a little better about
the mission when Slate and Risk nodded their heads at him. He just hoped they’d
had enough time to run through all the information that his veteran friends had
sent to them regarding the facility. If they missed even one security measure,
they could be captured in moments.

David raised his hands to quiet the
room.

“Backup is to drop into the RV park
and my friends will take you where you need to be. Extraction of backup teams
will be at the RV park. Grai, Koda, and I will extract on the roof of the
intelligence center,” David said before looking at his watch. “We leave in two
hours!”

A strangely calm Traze, Grai, and
David remained in the room while the rest of the team filed out to prepare for
the mission.

David sat next to Traze before
looking up at a still pacing, Grai.

“Are you sure you can do this? One
wrong move . . .” David said, trying to make Grai understand the mission’s
danger.

Grai turned cold eyes to David.

“One wrong move, and we’re dead or
captured. I will not falter,” Grai said through gritted teeth as he clenched
his fists.

“The security protocols in this
place are as bad as Dugway or Area 51. We may need to handle things on the fly.
I need to know you’ll listen to me,” David almost pleaded with his friend.

David, like everyone else, was
concerned about Grai and Traze’s personality changes since Koda was taken.
Traze was no longer the loving man-child that David had mentored into a warrior
during the last few years. In his place was a cold and calculating killer who
grew stronger and more dangerous every day.

Grai was no better. The once
patient, approachable, and kind man exuded an air of danger and recklessness
that caused most of their people to give him a wide berth.

Grai turned to face David.

“Retina and fingerprint scanners.
The weight of each individual is checked on entry and monitored throughout the
building to ensure nothing is removed from the facility. Ten security personnel
are on duty in the lower levels at all times, 57 throughout the facility. We’ll
ghost inside, get Koda, then make it to the roof for extraction,” Grai repeated
their plan back to David.

David nodded his head.

He may know the plan verbatim, but
he doesn’t have a clue about what’s going on in there,
David
thought.

“Grai, you have to be ready for
what we’re going to see in there. I can’t have you go in there and lose it,”
David said, trying to get through the hardened wall Grai had built around himself.

Grai clenched his fists so tightly
a few knuckles popped from the strain before he tapped on his comm that was
lying on the table. Seconds later, an image was displayed on the wall behind
him that had David flinching and looking away.

It was the image his Dranovian
children took of one of Mikal’s people they had tried to rescue from a
government lab. Her chest was cracked open, her beating heart clearly visible,
but the worst was the awake and pleading eyes of the tortured female as she
reached a hand out to Chris.

Grai leaned over the table at
David, his cold dark eyes meeting David’s.

“This is what I’m expecting,” Grai
growled. “Because this is the worst. I’m telling you now, I don’t give a damn
if all we retrieve is this,” he said, gesturing to the image behind him. “But
we will retrieve him. He will suffer no more at their hands!”

David looked up at Grai, watching
his chest heave with barely restrained fury. He sighed heavily.

This is going to be a damn
nightmare. I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t kill everything on the base,
David
thought
.
He decided to try a different tactic.

“Grai, I think it would be better
if I just took Blade with me. Wait . . . hear me out,” David raised his hands
to stop Grai from interrupting him. “Listen, Blade can use his compulsion on
the guards instead of knocking them out!”

David stopped, seeing that he
wasn’t going to get through to Grai. The man was determined to go in and get
his brother. He couldn’t blame him. If that was his brother, he’d do the same
thing.

Grai shook his head, his eyes hard
and determined.

“I will get my brother back. I will
not ask another of my people to take this kind of risk! If I could do this
without you, I would!” Grai growled, wishing he didn’t have to put anyone else
in danger.

Grai’s biggest fear wasn’t that
Koda would be dead, it was getting another killed while doing what he should be
doing himself. It was why he personally led the teams that were taking out the
people who were targeting the aliens and hybrids that they’d learned of from
the fallen mercenaries at Fiorn’s Folly. The people who had taken his brother
and attacked his people in the forest. He clenched his fists as he recalled the
image of their helicopters firing on a heavily pregnant Jax as Sam tried to
shield her.

Grai turned hate filled eyes to
David. His gaze sent a shiver down David’s spine.

“These people have no honor, and I
will no longer hold back when dealing with them. But in this case, I will
follow your lead. Only because I do not want your death or capture on my
conscience. Make no mistake, David, if it comes to it, I will kill or destroy
anything that stands in the way of getting all of my people out of there
alive,” Grai promised before he walked out of the room.

David let out a heavy breath and
looked over at a still calm and dazed Traze. As much as David wanted to keep
him that way, he knew he couldn’t. With a wave of his hand, David released the
energy keeping Traze calm.

Traze jumped to his feet and
clenched his fists as he looked down at David, his rage rolling off of him in
violent waves.

“If you ever do that shit to me
again, we will have more than words. Do not test me,” Traze ground out between
clenched teeth before he stormed out of the room.

David put his head in his hands.

What the hell am I going to do when
this all comes to a breaking point?
David wondered.

Chapter
Three

Mikey paced the small room, making
sure to keep the bed between him and the door. Although everyone had treated
him a lot better than they had before, he knew they were still going to kill
him. He’d heard Lt. Colonel Ballard talking about it to one of the men with the
clipboards who’d quizzed him earlier.

His sharp gaze looked up at a
movement near the door, and he relaxed when he saw a male nurse walk by. Mikey
had been inspecting the room for any possible way out, but he’d found nothing.
There were three walls made of stainless steel; the other was a thick, clear
plastic that enabled him to look out into the hallway and see the nurse’s
station right outside his room.

Mikey had timed the guard patrols,
the doctor, and the nurse’s schedules. He knew that he would be left alone for
several hours before one of the nurses would come in and check him. He knew
that the nurse would bring in one armed guard that would stand in the open
doorway while they drew his blood and checked his vitals.

I just have to be fast enough to
get past the nurse and get to the guard before he can alert anyone
, he
thought with a shake of his head. He knew it was impossible, but he had no
choice but to try if he wanted to get out of here alive.

“If you bond with me, we will have
the strength and speed to accomplish that,”
the voice in Mikey’s head
said.

Mikey shook his head to try and
erase the voice. It was tempting. Too tempting to even consider. For Mikey it
wasn’t a fear of the strange voice but a fear of what he’d become if he
listened to it. If whatever had infected him was so dangerous that the
government would go to these extreme measures, then he wouldn’t trust it any
more than he trusted his government.

Mikey clenched his fists while he
continued to pace the small area.

I’m already faster and stronger
, he
thought.
I can probably do this without listening to the voice.

Mikey heard the laugh in his mind
before the voice spoke.

“No, you can’t. The other guards
would overtake you.”

He saw one of the guards that
patrolled this area pop into view and nod at the guard sitting with the male
nurse outside of his door. He knew the voice was right but refused to give up
hope that he would find a way out of there.

*****

Grai allowed the man’s body to
slide to the floor, and he nodded at David who motioned for him to grab his
belt. Grai did and felt a cool wave of energy flow through him as David used
his prime abilities to camouflage them the way he had at Fiorn’s Folly.

Grai stood to the side of David,
his hand had to remain connected to the ex-SEAL in order for the camouflage to
work. Neither man spoke as the elevator took them to the lowest level. They hit
bottom, and the door swished open, each man holding their breath until they
knew what they were facing.

With a quick nod to Grai, David
moved out of the elevator and led them along the right side of the wall and
down a hallway. They both knew from the stolen information they’d received that
they had another two hallways to navigate before they’d see any personnel.

Staying alert, the two men made
their way to the area where they assumed that Koda would be kept. It was known
as the Hallway to Hell. Students from the training center above were allowed to
go down and practice their torture techniques on whatever poor souls were
available.

David and Grai looked at one
another curiously when they saw that all of the rooms were empty. David
motioned forward and Grai nodded, each man looking around them warily as they
searched for Koda. They both stopped when they heard laughing coming from a
hallway up ahead.  

“The kid’s too stupid to realize
that it doesn’t matter how much he cooperates, they’re gonna kill him anyway.
If I was the idiot, I’d keep my mouth shut,” a guard said.

Grai narrowed his eyes. His brother
would die before he talked, so he knew they weren’t speaking of Koda. Before he
could think on it further, David waved his hand in front of his face to get his
attention.

“We’re coming up on people. Hold it
together,” David warned Grai through the Shengari’. At Grai’s sharp nod, David
moved them along the new hallway towards a nurse or doctor station.

David flashed two fingers towards
Grai, letting him know that there were two people up ahead. Grai nodded and
looked into the empty holding cells they were passing as they got closer to the
voices.

They now stood opposite the nurse’s
station where one male nurse and one guard were laughing and joking about the
future fate of an unnamed individual. Grai looked into the room they were
standing in front of and stared into the surprised face of a young man on the
other side of a bed.

Grai shook off the shiver of fear
he felt slip down his spine as he looked at the young man. He wasn’t more than
a kid; Grai guessed him to be in his early 20s. Grai scanned him quickly for
injuries, saw none, dismissed the kid, and turned to face the two at the
nurse’s station.

Mikey stared at the two men in
shock and a little fear. The cold, almost dead eyes of the dark haired man had
sent a shiver of fear down Mikey’s spine, and he tried to shrug off the
overwhelming need to speak to them. His voice wasn’t helping.

“Them! You need to speak to them! I
can help you! They can get us out of here!”

Mikey shrugged off the voice and
moved towards the clear acrylic glass to get a better look at the two
strangers. He watched in surprise as the man in front used hand signals to
indicate that they were going down the right hallway first.

He stood mere inches away from the
two men and wondered at why the guard and nurse hadn’t greeted them or
acknowledged them in any way. Mikey reached his hand to the clear plastic wall
and flinched as he stared into the hard eyes of the dark haired man. His irises
swirled like storm clouds.

He sucked in a sharp breath and
took a step back from the wall, pulling his hand away at the same time.

The strange man cocked his head to
the side and motioned to the man in front of him. Mikey stared at another pair
of strange eyes and he was stunned into silence as both men studied him
closely.

“They’re our people. They can get
us out of here,”
the voice whispered tantalizingly in his mind.

Mikey didn’t know why he did it,
but he stepped forward again and placed his hand back on the wall as he mouthed
the words, “Help me.”

Both strange men looked at one
another briefly before the dark haired man nodded his head at Mikey and held up
a hand indicating they would be back.

Mikey stared at the men as they
moved silently down the hallway and when he saw the nurse and guard staring at
him, he took his hand off the wall and leaned his back against it so they couldn’t
see him. There were so many questions running through his head he had no idea
what to think.

Why didn’t the guard or nurse
acknowledge the pair? Why were they sneaking down the hallway like that when
they were clearly visible in the empty hall? Like a lightbulb going off in his
mind, Mikey finally figured it out and he sucked in a sharp breath.

“Oh God,” he whispered as he turned
back around to try and see where the two men had gone.

Men? They were aliens!
He
thought, trying hard to comprehend what was going on.

What the hell should I do? Should I
alert the guard and nurse?
He wondered for a moment before the voice
whispered through his mind.

“They will get us out of here. Do
not endanger them. It is our only chance to escape,”
the voice said.

Escape,
Mikey
thought with a nod. That was what he wanted, and he didn’t give a damn who he
had to side with to get it. Voice or no voice, he knew deep down those two men
were his only chance out of there, and he paced near the door, hoping for
another chance to talk to them.

He watched the men come back into
the hallway, and the dark haired man held up two fingers before pointing down
the other hallway they were heading down. Mikey knew they were letting him know
they would be back in a few, after they checked the other hallway.

Mikey knew they were looking for
something or someone, and he also knew that they were using some form of
camouflage that kept them from being seen by the guards and staff.

Just like the aircraft I saw in the
sky in the forest
, he thought.
Do they know they infected me? Is
that how they found me?
Mikey wondered, beginning to panic.

He closed his eyes for a moment,
trying to calm himself and the fear skittering through him. If he were honest
with himself, he’d admit he was a little excited to. If they were aliens and
had come for him, he had so many questions.

A slight tap on the plastic in
front of him made him jerk back a step when he saw two pairs of eyes staring at
him.

“They are trying to speak in your
mind. It is how they communicate. You have to let me allow it,”
the voice
whispered through his mind.

Mikey stared at the dark eyes as he
whispered “OK” in his mind.

Seconds later, he was flooded with
voices and questions, and he grabbed his head as he tried to stem the flow.
Then there was blissful silence before only one voice came through clearly.

“I’m Lt. David Jacobs, former Navy
SEAL. Who are you? Are you the only one here?”

Mikey looked at the man with silver
swirls in his blue eyes, somehow knowing that was who was speaking to him.

“I’m Mik . . .” he started to say
before the two men motioned him to silence.

It was then Mikey realized he’d
been speaking out loud, and he wondered if he was supposed to speak to them in
his mind as if he were talking to himself. Hoping that would work, he tried it.

“I’m PFC Mikey Davis. I was taken
from the national forest in Colorado and brought here. They think I’m infected
with an alien virus. They’ve been torturing me for information about them,” he
said.

His stomach flipped in excitement
and fear when he realized they understood him. Mikey looked between the two
men, positive that they were speaking to one another in their minds. He could
see that they were arguing with one another before the blond man turned back to
him.

“You’re sure that you are the only
one here? The only one taken from the forest?” David asked the frightened
soldier.

Mikey nodded his head.

“I’m it,” Mikey said and seeing the
disappointment in the man’s eyes he continued. “I’m not who you’re looking for,
but please don’t leave me here. They’re going to kill me.”

Mikey was unprepared for the
strong, deep voice that echoed through his mind.

“We will not leave you to them,”
Grai said with determination.

Mikey’s heart leapt with hope as
the two men continued a private conversation before the dark eyed man turned
back to him.

“You must speak only through your
mind, and when the door opens you have to hold onto my belt. The ghosting only
works when we’re connected. Do you understand?” Grai asked, hoping the young
hybrid did.

“Ghosting is what you call the way
you’re camouflaged?” Mikey asked, trying to make sure he knew what they meant.

Grai nodded his head at Mikey.

“Yes. When the door opens, rush to
grab onto me, and it’ll look like you just disappeared,” Grai explained as he
held up five fingers.

Mikey watched the strange man use
the five fingers on one hand to count down, and when the last finger fell, the
door popped open with a hiss and Mikey rushed outside grabbing the belt of the
waiting stranger.

Mikey watched in surprise as the
guard and the nurse rushed into the room. He would have stayed to watch if he
hadn’t been pulled forward by the man whose belt he was holding onto.

“We have to go now!” Grai said into
Mikey’s mind. At Mikey’s nod, they took off back the way they had come.

Mikey was full of questions and was
getting ready to ask when the deep voice echoed in his mind.

“Your questions can wait, we must
leave now,” Grai said.

“How did you know . . .” Mikey
started to ask out loud before he clamped a hand over his mouth.

He grimaced at the dark looks
thrown at him by the two strangers and looked behind them to make sure they
weren’t caught. He turned back around when he felt the tug on his hand and
mouthed “I’m sorry” to the two men.

I swear I’m going to keep my mouth
shut until we get the hell out of here,
Mikey thought to himself as they
entered an elevator.

He stole a glance at his two
companions and noted their alert and dark expressions. He’d seen that look many
times before. It was the look of a soldier on a dangerous mission whose entire
being was focused solely on completing and surviving the task.