Manipulating Mikey (First Wave Book 8) (7 page)

“What do you see?” Grai asked as he
stepped closer to the wall.

Blade grinned at Grai.

“The kid was right. Watch,” Blade
said as he turned back to the footage on the wall.

“Here!” Blade said as he pointed at
a small blur on the end of the footage.

“What is that?” David asked as he
also stepped closer to the wall.

They watched in rapt attention as
Cristali replayed the last 20 seconds of the footage as requested.

“It looks like a blur of light. Are
you sure that was the other part of the pod?” David asked.

Blade nodded his head and grinned.

“Yeah, the kid saw the damn thing
clear as day. It’s the only reason I would have ever noticed the blur in the
image; it’s where the other piece of the pod went in Mikey’s memory,” Blade
confirmed.

“Where the hell did it go?” Grai
whispered as he stared at the blur that was the rest of the pod he hoped
contained Koda.

“We’re calculating,” Cristali
muttered as her fingers flew across the command center. “There’s a 50-mile
stretch depending on if he hit anything that would slow the pod or change its
trajectory.”

Grai cursed loudly as he pounded
his fists on the table.

“Just give me a place to start!” he
growled.

Traze shook his head sadly.

“Grai, the start would be the area
still crawling with those military assholes,” he admitted, wishing the area was
clear by now.

“Then give me the back end; I’ll
work backwards!” Grai growled in irritation.

Cristali shook her head sadly.

“Grai, the possibilities are too
vast. The pod hitting one tree could have changed its path by tens of miles,
and there are millions of trees out there,” Cristali explained.

Grai ran a hand through his hair in
frustration.

“Can you study the forest before
and after and see if you can find any signs that may lead us to the path the
pod took?” he asked.

Cristali looked over at Traze,
knowing the odds were slim that they would see something from the limited view
they’d taken of the forest that night.

“I’ll look myself, Grai,” Traze
said, unwilling to tell his brother that it would probably be a dead end.

Everyone knew that if the remaining
piece of the pod was broken up by impacting the trees, the only thing that
would be found would be debris, and the heavy forest would most likely conceal
the pieces from view. Even Grai knew it.

“Where is Gibly?” Grai roared in
concern for the cat and rage at the situation.

“I have heard no word from my
leader,” Ranger said with a swish of his tail.

Grai had a thought and turned to
face the others.

“What about Mikey? Do you think the
kid might be able to see something we missed?” he asked, grasping for any hope.

Blade cocked his head to the side,
thinking about it.

“He did catch the secondary breakup
of the pod. We’ve been looking at this stuff for weeks and never noticed it. I
think it’s worth a try,” Blade agreed.

He’d been really impressed with
Mikey’s visual acuity. Normally when Blade rode a memory there were blurry,
sketchy details that depended on what or who the person seeing it was focused
on at the time of the memory. With Mikey, the memories had been incredibly
vivid and highly detailed as if he saw more than anyone else.

“Damn it! I sent him to Base Beta
with Lauren,” Grai said.

Blade grinned broadly.

“I’m sure we can get Lauren to have
him look at the footage. In fact, I’ll head there and talk to her about it,” he
said, thrilled that he’d be able to use this to get even with her for that hit
to his groin.

He had no doubt that Lauren
probably had other plans to entertain them while at beta, but he figured
shaking up those plans would be more than fair after the cheap shot she’d
taken.

Grai looked over at Traze and
Cristali.

“Get the footage to them,” he said
before he turned to Blade. “Make sure you impress on them how important it is
to do this.”

Blade nodded.

“Absolutely,” he said before he
headed out the door to the portal.

Grai turned back to Ranger.

“Are you sure there’s no way to
track Gibly?” he asked.

Ranger snorted and laughed.

“Gibly go tracking. We can’t track
a tracker. It’s the trackers job to do the tracking. And Gibly is the best,”
Ranger said, shooting down Grai’s idea of sending someone after Gibly.

Grai turned concerned eyes to the
cat.

“But what if something happened to
him? Would you know?” he asked, wondering if the loss would be felt among the
other cats like it was among the beast species.

Ranger stiffened and his fur poofed
out for a moment.

“We would know if he was hurt or
gone from this life,” Ranger said.

That wasn’t nearly enough to
satisfy Grai’s worry for the cat, and he went back to pacing the conference
room, deep in thought.

It took an hour for him to realize
that the room had cleared, and sitting in a chair at the command center was his
son, Chris.

“Son! When did you get here?” Grai
asked as he made quick strides and pulled Chris into a hug.

“I just got here a few minutes
ago,” Chris said as he hugged his dad tight.

“What are you doing here? Is
everyone all right? Angel? Dree?” Grai asked, worried someone else may be in
danger or hurt.

Chris shook his head.

“No, Dad, everyone is OK. It’s you
I’m a little worried about,” Chris admitted.

Grai’s brow furrowed as he tried to
think of why Chris would be concerned.

“Son, I’m fine. Everything is fine
here,” he said, not understanding what Chris meant.

“Dad,” Chris began, shaking his
head. “No, you’re not. When was the last time you saw Mom, Grace, and Tristan?”

Grai moved away from Chris and
ducked his head for a moment before becoming defiant.

“I may not be with them as much as
I would like, but what I’m doing is trying to protect them—and everyone else,”
Grai said.

Chris wasn’t giving up so easily.

“If you don’t start sharing some of
that responsibility again, you’re going to crash and burn. The last time that
happened . . .” Chris warned.

“That was low!” Grai growled as he
turned to his son in anger.

Chris stepped up to Grai
fearlessly.

“It’s dead on, and you know it!”
Chris growled back before he softened his tone and put a hand on his father’s
shoulder. “Dad, I love you more than anything around, and I didn’t leave a lair
of chattering women and a disappearing niece just for some peace. Although,
yeah, it’s serving a dual purpose.”

Grai couldn’t help but smile at his
son’s words. He knew from the calls, emails, and other messages from his sons
that Angel and Dree’s pregnancies and Mikal and Chance’s adopted daughter were
causing all sorts of havoc among the normally testosterone fueled group.

“Dad, if you don’t slow the burn,
you won’t put it out until it’s too late. Tristan needs you now more than ever
now that he’s beginning to learn his way in this realm. Grace . . . damn, Dad,
she needs to feel that massive amount of love you have for her while you’re
holding her. Not from miles away. And Tricia . . . she’s amazing for putting up
with you. Stop taking that for granted. Spread the worry and the work around—now
more than ever. The more you keep updated, the more eyes and ears,” Chris said,
trying to reason with his father.

Grai fell into a chair at the table
and put his elbows on the table, head in his hands.

“I can’t get that image of that
female from the lab out of my mind. I close my eyes, and I see her eyes
pleading with you . . . only when I see it, it’s Koda’s eyes and him pleading
with me. It could have been anyone. Traze, you, or one of your brothers. And I
failed. I can’t fail again,” Grai whispered hoarsely.

Chris sighed and sat beside him,
laying a hand on his back.

“Yeah, Dad, it could have been any
one of us. Every day it could be one of us. Or you. We all went into this
knowing that. Koda knew that too, and he doesn’t blame you. He never would.
He’d be pissed at you if he saw what you’ve been doing and how you’ve been
acting. You gotta stop,” Chris begged.

Grai rubbed a hand over his face
and sat back in the chair.

“If I don’t get anywhere before the
human holidays, I will spread the responsibilities more,” Grai agreed.

Chris shook his head, that wasn’t
good enough.

“No, Dad, it can’t wait until
Christmas. You got until Thanksgiving before I lead the charge to take it out
of your hands,” Chris said as he stood.

Grai was going to argue, but he
knew better, and it wasn’t the time for it. Instead, he stood and threw an arm
around Chris’s shoulder.

“How about we go home and see if
Tricia has dinner ready? You can visit with the kids, and we can have a drink
later,” Grai offered.

Chris sighed dramatically.

“You have no idea how peaceful that
sounds,” he said.

Grai chuckled and squeezed his
shoulder in sympathy.

“The hormones have hit Angel and
Dree, huh?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

Chris ran a hand down his face and
make a strangling sound.

“Oh God . . . it’s hell. They cry
like they’ve busted a pipe inside. Or they’re clinging, demanding, irritating,
or generally bitchy. And food! Dad, they’re eating so much I worry for their
health! And my fingers when they’ve spotted me eating something they want!” he
complained.

Grai laughed heartily at Chris’s
over dramatization of Angel and Dree. He’d heard similar tales from his other
sons as well, all begging to be allowed to help further with the search for
Koda. Of course, it was under the guise of getting away from the pregnant
females for a while. He’d not risk his children doing his job.

Chapter
Seven

Mikey stood at the window and
stared at the flashes of light periodically coming through the aurora
australis. He and Lauren had gone into adjourning bedrooms to sleep hours
before, but he still couldn’t seem to stop his mind from thinking about
everything he’d seen and learned about Base Beta.

The place was mind boggling. The
last few weeks were nothing short of a true mind fuck. He had begun to wonder
if he wasn’t schizophrenic and having hallucinations. If it hadn’t been for
running into walls and other people while staring at everything around him,
he’d be convinced there was something wrong with his head. 

It was all real, though, and he was
having a hard time trying to figure it out. He’d seen the relics in the
repository and knew why the aliens were protecting the items from the humans.
Mikey shook his head.

Now I’m thinking of them as humans.
A month ago I was a human
, he thought.
Or thought I was
.

Now, he was beginning to realize
just how different he was. The longer he was with these people in this strange
place, the more he could feel the energy throbbing through him. The irony was,
the more he felt the energy, the stronger the voice grew in his head, and the
more he noticed the changes in himself.

Mikey clenched his fists and could
hear the fabric stretching to accommodate his larger muscles as his biceps
flexed. Since they’d arrived at what Lauren called Base Beta, any clothes he’d
gotten had grown uncomfortably tight around his thighs, chest, and biceps in
just a day’s time.

It wasn’t the physical changes that
were concerning him though, it was the mental and visual ones that made him
worry if something was wrong.

After the incident with the
disappearing man named Indrid, Mikey had begun seeing more than just the
flashes of light in the colors of the sky. Mikey’d seen a terrible, misshapen
face in one particular flash that had gotten unusually close to the ground. It
was repelled from hitting the ground by a bluish dome shaped shield of sorts
that seemed to activate only when certain flashes of light came through the
aurora.

If it was only the strange lights, faces
in the lights, and the shield, he may have overlooked it. But he’d begun to see
. . .

Ghosts. It’s the only thing they
could be,
he thought as he looked at the empty street below and saw the
same spirit staring up at him.

The woman had been there when he’d
first come out onto the balcony. At first, he’d thought that she was real.

Until a large hare ran right
through her feet.

It’d shaken him so badly he’d
retreated from the balcony into his room. Now he stood behind the glass and had
a staring contest with the ghostly female below his window.

Surely if there were ghosts roaming
this place, someone else would have noticed them by now,
he
thought, wondering for the tenth time if he was hallucinating.

Only one damn way to find out.

Looking down at the female one more
time, he turned from the window and quietly left his room. He slipped down the
stairway and stood at the bottom, his hand paused on the door handle. Shaking
his head to clear the paranoid thoughts running through it, he pulled the door
open and walked through it before he could change his mind.

He walked down the pathway that led
to the side where his balcony was and stopped short as he turned the corner.
This time, instead of staring up at him, she was turned towards him as if she
had expected him to come down.

Closer now, he could see that she
had pretty light green eyes and light brown hair. She hadn’t moved from where
she stood under his balcony, and Mikey wondered if she was trapped in that
spot. Like a recording or something. At least he thought that’s what it might
be, until she spoke.

“I wondered if you would come
down,” she said, her voice clear and strong.

Mikey’s feet took him half the
distance to the girl before he stopped again.

“What are you?” he whispered.

Her soft, tinkling laughter sent
shivers down his spine, and he had to fight the desire to run.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to
frighten you. I won’t hurt you. I can’t . . . I don’t think,” she said, her
brows drawn together in thought. “Even if I could, I wouldn’t though,” she
rushed to assure him.

Mikey took a few steps closer as he
completely drove out the voice in his head.

“Who are you?” he asked, taking
another step closer to the apparition.

The girl sighed heavily and smiled.

“I’m Emily, but that doesn’t matter
and isn’t why I’m here. I need help,” she said.

Mikey stepped close enough to reach
his hand out and wave it through her body. His hand felt frozen when it had
passed through her form, and he jerked back as he stared at her.

“That’s really rude and
uncomfortable. Please don’t do that again,” Emily said as she shivered from the
contact.

“You’re a ghost,” Mikey whispered
as he stared at her.

Emily shook her head emphatically.

“No. I’m not. I’m as alive as you
are. This is,” she said gesturing to her body. “just my mind or something. I’ve
come here since I was a child when I need help. Sometimes the angel sees me and
he helps me. That’s why I’m here now. I need help really bad this time.”

Mikey just stared, trying to
understand what she was saying.

“You’re not a ghost? You’re alive?
Where?” he asked.

“I live in the United States.
Aren’t you an angel? Shouldn’t you know that?” she countered.

Mikey shook his head, trying to
make sense of what was going on.

“No. I’m not an angel. I don’t know
any angels. Who are the angels you usually talk to?” he asked, wondering if he
could help her find who she was looking for.

He was assuming that the angels she
thought she was seeing were the hybrids. If that was the case, he could
probably find one of them to help her.

“Do you know Indrid?” she asked,
unable to keep the hope from her voice.

Mikey nodded; he knew that name.

“Mikey, who are you talking to?”

Mikey jerked his head up and saw
Lauren leaning over the balcony.

He looked at Emily, then back up at
Lauren. He knew that she should be able to see the girl standing right in front
of him.

“She can’t see me,” Emily said,
looking up at Lauren.

“Why?” Mikey asked.

Emily shrugged her shoulders and
looked back at Mikey.

“I don’t know. Only the angel can
see me like this. And you. I need . . .” she began before she looked behind her
shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, somehow
knowing that something wasn’t right.

Emily turned back to him, her face
paler than it was before.

“I need to go! If you see Indrid,
tell him I need him!” Emily said before she disappeared without even a wisp
remaining where she’d stood moments earlier.

Mikey walked around the area,
trying to feel a cold spot or anything to note that she may still be there, but
he found nothing.

“Mikey? Are you OK?”

Mikey swung around to see Lauren
approaching him slowly. He turned back around where Emily had stood and shook
his head to clear it of her before turning back to face Lauren.

“Yeah, yeah . . . I’m good. Just ah
. . . a little wired with all the information and stuff. It’s all a little
overwhelming,” he said, forcing himself not to turn back around to see if Emily
had come back.

Lauren sighed in relief before
looking at him quizzically.

“Who were you talking to? I heard
you clearly,” Lauren said.

Mikey forced a laugh.

“I was talking to myself to be
honest,” he said as he gestured to the ancient city around them. “It’s all . .
. a little hard to process. I was kind of wondering what was next, ya know.
Like what’s the next shoe to drop?”

Mikey tried to ease his guilt about
not telling her about Emily by admitting other truths that he hoped would
satisfy her curiosity and concern. He knew it worked when he saw her eyes
soften before she walked over to him and gently squeezed his hand.

“I can’t imagine how hard this must
be for you,” Lauren said. “I wish there was a way to make it easier for you,
but I don’t know of it.”

Mikey believed her. Not because he
wanted so much to trust her, but because he could feel the truth radiating from
her through her touch, and somehow he knew that the energy was the best lie
detector there was.

“It’s OK, I know there’s nothing
you can do. I have to try and figure it out in my head and make it make sense,”
he said, thinking of Emily.

How the hell am I supposed to make
sense of that
, he wondered as he looked around for her one more
time.

“Are you hungry? I’m starving,”
Lauren said, tugging on his hand.

Mikey grinned and let her pull him
towards the kitchen door.

“I’m always hungry,” Mikey said,
turning to look for Emily one more time before they turned the corner.

Mikey tried to shake off the
feeling that he should have said something to Lauren about the girl, but the
sane part of him refused to willingly tell her he was crazy and talking to
ghosts who said they weren’t ghosts and wanted to talk to angels.

They were silent as they entered
the kitchen, and Lauren handed him a plate before taking one for herself. Mikey
filled his plate with the fresh fruits, cheeses, nuts, and baked goods that
were perpetually laid out in the kitchen. With his plate full— even though he
wasn’t really hungry—he sat at the table and waited for Lauren to join him.

Lauren looked at Mikey through her
lashes as she toyed with random food items. He had lied to her. Maybe not in
the strictest sense of the term, but he was keeping something from her. She
could feel it. Unsure how to approach it, she decided to let it go for the
moment to see if he would tell her who he was speaking to earlier.

“How long are you expected to keep
me here?” Mikey suddenly asked.

He had no idea where that question
came from—although it was a valid one—and he wanted an answer.

Lauren sighed heavily, hoping he
wasn’t becoming combative again. If Blade put another worm in Mikey’s head, she
was going to do much more than kick him in groin this time.

“Why do you think there’s a
timeframe to keep you here?” she countered.

Mikey shrugged and played with the
food on his plate before he looked up at her.

“This is about as far away from
civilization as I can get, right?” he said, gesturing around him.

“Yeah,” Lauren agreed. “I guess it
is. That really wasn’t my intention though. Would you prefer to go to another
location?”

Mikey thought about it for a moment
and shook his head. He had no idea why, but he wanted to know if Emily would
come back again. Or Indrid.

“No, I was just curious if there
was a reason for keeping me this far in the middle of nowhere,” he said with a
small smile. 

“When you want to leave, we’ll
leave,” Lauren assured him as she reached across the table and gently squeezed
his hand.

Mikey returned the squeeze and
chuckled.

“And what lockdown facility is next
on the list to shuffle me off to?” he asked, only a little peeved that was most
likely the plan.

Lauren absently rolled a grape
around on her plate as she watched his expressions as he spoke.

“I don’t think there is a place on
the list that’s next. Here, come with me,” Lauren said as she stood and held
out her hand to him.

Mikey didn’t hesitate to take her
hand, and he followed her out of the door and back outside. Several minutes
later, Lauren pulled him through the portal, and they were greeted by a woman
who stumbled to her feet.

“Lauren? I wasn’t told there was to
be a port . . .”

“It’s OK, Jane. We’re just here for
a quick visit so I can show Mikey how the portals work,” Lauren reassured her
before she pulled Mikey outside.

“Where the hell are we?” Mikey
asked as he looked around.

Lauren grinned at the startled look
on his face.

“This is Australia,” she answered.

Mikey stepped forward a few feet
and looked around the area while the heat and humidity hit him like a brick.
The too tight shirt was starting to stick to him, and the terrain looked like
they were dropped in the middle of the outback. He wasn’t real impressed.

“Isn’t this place like the seventh
level of hell? Isn’t just about everything here out to kill you?” he asked as
he began to herd her back to the door to the building they just came from.

Lauren laughed and pulled back on
him, trying to avoid the door.