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

“No, silly, although there is good
reason to be really cautious. This is a beautiful country with equally
wonderful people. Why don’t we look around?” she asked.

Mikey thought she’d lost her damn
mind.

“We’re in the middle of nowhere!
What’s there to see? The killer crocodiles? Killer spiders big enough to eat
birds? Killer snakes? Or wait, let’s go to the ocean and let the great white
sharks play ‘pick your half’ with my body. Yeah, no thanks. This place looks like
the kind of area where you hide the bodies,” Mikey said, letting go of her hand
and staying by the door, unwilling to go inside unless she went with him.

Lauren looked at him in amazement.

“You’ve been to war. You’ve been
tortured . . . and you’re afraid of the
creatures
here?” she asked
incredulously.

Mikey sputtered and crossed his
arms over his chest.

“It’s not that I’m afraid of the
creatures here!” he argued. “I just don’t like being in a place where nine out
of 10 creatures want to kill me!”

“Honey, millions of Australians
live here every day, and they thrive among the creatures here. I think it’s
safe for us to visit for a few hours,” Lauren said with a grin.

Mikey shook his head. No damn way.

“Those millions of Australians are
braver and tougher than I am then. I’m not staying in this place unless you get
me a flame thrower and multiple guns. Big guns,” he said, determined he wasn’t
budging.

Lauren grinned and pointed above
him.

“Isn’t that one of those big
spiders,” she asked as he spun around so fast he nearly fell.

Mikey caught himself before he fell
and stood staring at the doorway while he kept Lauren behind his back. He
didn’t see anything, but he did hear the snorting giggles behind him and turned
on his tormentor.

“Oh, you think that’s funny?” he
asked as he pulled her over his shoulder and headed back inside the building.

Jane looked a little flustered, but
turned to Mikey when she realized Lauren wasn’t in danger.

“Where to now?” she asked.

Mikey thought about it a moment and
grinned.

“Somewhere warm and tropical,
without all the deadly creatures, and where I can get a good beer,” he said.

“Oh please . . .” Lauren giggled
before Mikey went through the portal.

“Where are we?” he asked the
Tezarian manning the portal.

“Nassau.”

Mikey whooped and spun Lauren
around.

“Now this is more like it!” he said
as he carried Lauren out of the door and into the Caribbean sunshine.

*****

“Sir, we’ve got the signal again!”

Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Ballard
smiled broadly. Unless the kid was dead or they had searched his scrotum, he
knew that the signal would come online sooner or later.

“Where the hell is he?” he asked.

“Nassau,” came the surprised reply.

Marcus chuckled.

“Well, I hope he had a nice
vacation, but it’s time to come home now. Get the satellites on his location,
and get my choppers fired up,” he ordered as he strode from the room towards
the tarmac.

Brandon Thomas saw him walking
through with a grin on his face and walked into his path.

“Sir, I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying
attention,” Brandon apologized for almost walking into him.

Marcus looked at the guy for a
moment trying to remember where he’d seen him before.

“Are you part of the retrieval
teams?” Marcus asked.

“Yes, sir, I was the only survivor
at Plum Island,” Brandon admitted, hoping to find out why the man was in such a
hurry.

“Ahh, that’s where I know you. Get
your gear, boy; we’re getting ready to get our alien soldier boy back again,”
Marcus said with a grin before he continued to the tarmac.

“Fuck!” Brandon muttered as he ran
outside and behind the buildings where he could get some privacy.

He looked around to make sure no
one was around before he pulled a cellphone out of his sock and hit the speed
dial for the only number in the phone.

*****

Grai hit the portal at Base Beta
and immediately sent his senses out to find Mikey and Lauren. When he didn’t
feel either of their energies, he sent a call to Lauren through the Shengari’
and was surprised at her response.

“Damn it! What the hell was she
thinking!” he growled in anger. 

He was heading back to the portal
when his private line rang, and he pulled the phone from his pocket.

“What’s wrong?” he asked
immediately.

“Grai, we got a problem. Ballard
found the kid. He says he’s in Nassau, and we’re headed there now,” Brandon
said, not wasting any time.

“How did he find him?” Grai asked,
incredulous that the military had found the kid seconds before he knew where he
was.

“I don’t know, Grai, but if I were
you, I’d be looking for a tracking device or something. I gotta go. Get the kid
out of there,” Brandon said and hung up the phone.

He jogged back to the building and
ran inside to get his gear while Grai roared in rage as he hit the portal, calling
out a warning to Lauren as he activated his standby teams.

Blade, David, and Traze met Grai in
the docking bay at Dillon and headed into the craft waiting for them.

“Go, go, go!” Grai called out as
soon as they were inside.

“How the hell did they find him?”
Traze asked as he strapped himself into his seat.

“Brandon thinks there’s a tracker
on him,” Grai growled, still pissed off that he hadn’t called Amun to look at
the kid when he found out Mikey was Lauren’s mate.

“Where the hell could it be that
Lauren didn’t find it?” Blade asked.

“When she scans you when you’re
injured, what place does she usually avoid unless she has to?” Grai asked.

Blade’s mouth made an “O” of
surprise.

“Damn, how does he not know
something is there?” he asked.

Grai shook his head.

“That’s a good question. One I will
have an answer for shortly,” Grai promised.

“Are you sure he’s not a spy?”
Traze asked.

Grai turned to Blade to answer that
question since he’d been in the kid’s head.

Blade shook his head.

“I didn’t detect anything that
would lead me to believe he was being evasive or deceptive. Why he doesn’t know
he’s got a tracker in his balls, I don’t know. Maybe he’s got big balls,” Blade
said with a shrug.

Grai shook his head as the teams in
the craft chuckled at Blade’s comment. He didn’t give a damn if the man had
balls of steel, Mikey was going to be fully searched this time. He reached out
through the Shengari’.

“Amun, I need you to meet me at
Base Beta. It appears the new hybrid, Mikey, may have a tracker implanted in a
delicate location, and it needs to be removed,” Grai explained.

“Isn’t Lauren there?” Amun asked,
curious why Grai was calling him.

Grai sighed heavily.

“The kid is Lauren’s mate, and she
apparently didn’t see the need to check the area when he first arrived and
missed it. I need a thorough search of the kid,” Grai said.

He heard Amun’s laughter in his
mind before the doctor pulled himself together.

“I’m heading to beta now and will
wait for them to get there,” Amun said.

Grai leaned his head back, trying
to control his frustration. It wouldn’t be so damn funny if they didn’t get to
Lauren and Mikey before the military did.

Chapter
Eight

Lauren and Mikey had barely made it
to the edge of the beach before she heard Grai in her mind and the warning that
the military was on the way. She pulled back on Mikey’s hand, stopping him from
pulling her any closer to the shore line.

“What?” he turned and asked with a
smile.

“The military put a tracker in you.
They’re on their way. We have to go back to beta; the energy there will prevent
them from picking up the signal, and we can remove it there,” Lauren said
sadly, hating to see the smile fade from his face.

Mikey shook his head in disbelief.
There was no way that she could know if anyone was coming, and he couldn’t help
but feel like he was being manipulated again. He crossed his hands over his
chest.

“Where is this tracker?” he
demanded, doubting one existed.

Lauren blushed deeply and looked
away.

“They think it might be in a
delicate place. One I didn’t check when you came in,” she said, refusing to
meet his gaze.

Mikey’s mind ran amok trying to
figure out where she meant before it finally dawned on him. He didn’t believe
it.

“No way! Oh come on! I would know
something like that!” he argued, completely unconvinced.

“You heal so fast . . . it could
have been done while you were knocked out or drugged . . .” Lauren said,
knowing she had to convince him quickly if they were to get out of there in
time.

Mikey thought about it for a moment
and shook his head.

“No way. I’m calling bullshit,” he
said, digging his feet deeper in the sand.

Lauren looked up at him, her face
flaming.

“Please, we don’t have much time.
Let’s go to the public restrooms, you can check it out for yourself. Please
Mikey,” Lauren begged, placing a gentle hand on his arm.

“Oh come on, Lauren, what the hell
is going on? Am I a prisoner of your people now? Did you go off script, and now
we have to go back so I can get back on track?” he asked, throwing his hands up
as he yelled.

Lauren looked around at the people
beginning to stare and took a step closer to him.

“Please keep your voice down. All
I’m asking is for a five second check in the bathroom, and if it’s all clear,
fine; if not, do you really want to be their guest again?” she asked, trying to
remain calm when her whole body was shaking with fear.

Unlike Grai’s people, Fiorn hadn’t
encouraged the hybrids at the folly to get basic survival training and battle
skills. If she remained with Mikey, she would be completely defenseless against
the military personnel and mercenaries she was sure were coming.

Mikey looked around at the staring
faces, and with a heavy sigh he pulled Lauren over to the public restrooms.
When he got to the door, he let go of her hand and went inside.

Lauren turned her back to the door
and was a little startled to see an elderly couple standing in front of her.

“I’m so sorry,” Lauren said as she
stepped aside so they could get to the bathrooms.

The couple laughed.

“No, dearie, we’re waiting to see
if he has something on his balls or not. I keep telling Herbert that he needs
to put paper on the seat in these foreign countries,” the elderly woman
whispered loudly to Lauren before stepping closer. “You never know what kind of
creatures can crawl in places you don’t want crawlies.”

Lauren stood with her mouth agape
as the elderly woman mock shivered along with her elderly husband. She was
still speechless when Mikey came out of the bathroom with a thunderous
expression.

“Guess we don’t need to ask if he’s
infected or not,” Herbert said as he cringed at the look on Mikey’s face.

Mikey took Lauren’s hand and began
pulling her back to where the portal was, trying his best to ignore the elderly
couple calling out their well wishes for his balls.

“What the hell did you tell them?”
he asked, his blush deepening as other people stared.

“Oh! I didn’t tell them anything!
You were the one yelling back there, and they heard you! Did you find it?”
Lauren asked, trying to keep her voice down.

“Yes . . . no. I don’t know! There
may be something there . . .” Mikey admitted.

“We need to hurry—” Lauren began to
say when she heard the helicopters in the near distance.

Mikey shielded his eyes from the
sun and scanned the sky for the incoming choppers.

“If they got here this quick, they
must have sent a team from Guantanamo. We need to run!” Mikey said, recognizing
the military choppers in the distance.

Lauren instinctively took the hand
that Mikey held out for her, and they both began to run through the streets
towards the small, colorful shack that contained the portal.

They were still at least a mile
from the portal when the first helicopter flew right over their heads. Mikey
grabbed Lauren and pressed her against the side of a building, his body
shielding hers from view.

“I want you to run to the portal
while I lead them away . . .” Mikey began before Lauren interrupted.

“No! Grai’s on the way! We stay
together,” Lauren protested.

Mikey sighed and ducked his head
against hers while another chopper flew above them. He counted to 20, and when
he didn’t hear another chopper, he grabbed Lauren’s hand and began running
through the streets again, keeping closer to the buildings in an effort to
remain hidden from above.

He heard the choppers again and
looked up as he rounded the next corner, barely pushing Lauren away as a
mercenary aimed a dart gun at him. He saw another mercenary round the corner
just as he felt a coolness suffuse his mind as a rush of adrenaline flooded his
body.

Mikey closed his eyes for second as
a sharp pain struck behind his eyes. When he opened them again and looked at
the mercenary they’d just ran into, he saw through his skin to a healed crack
in his jawbone, and his fist struck out before he realized what he was doing.
Mikey’s hit re-shattered the man’s jaw and knocked him out cold.

Mikey grabbed the mercenary’s gun
before he hit the ground and aimed at the healed break he could see in the
other mercenary’s upper thigh and left forearm, dropping him to the ground as
he clutched his leg in agony, his arm hanging broken at his side. Without
thought, Mikey reached behind him and waited for Lauren to place her hand in
his before he took off in the other direction, away from the mercenaries.

Mikey ran past the buildings,
seeing brief flashes of the people inside as he passed them, each person
represented in a myriad of colors. His cold, numb mind refused to question it,
and instead he embraced the new ability in order to get Lauren somewhere safe.

They were approaching a building up
ahead, and he could see through the flashes of light to the other side of it
where two mercenaries were surrounded by an aura of black. He reached the
building and held his finger to his lips at Lauren, ensuring her silence and
that she’d stay while he moved around to the back side of the building. He
quickly looked around the corner before taking aim at the backs of the two
mercenaries, dropping them both before he turned back around to get Lauren.

He stopped to look around the
buildings and could see by the flashes through the buildings that the
mercenaries were surrounding them.

“Lauren . . .” he began, hoping to
convince her to run without him.

“No! I’m staying. Grai will get
here,” she said, refusing to abandon him to the people who’d tortured him.

With a heavy sigh, he took off into
the woods behind the building, trying to continue heading in the direction of
the portal. He figured if nothing else and they came too close, he could force
Lauren to hide in the foliage.

They hadn’t gotten far when he saw
a flash in the sky, and he looked up to see one of the UFOs bearing down on
them. If he wasn’t so worried about Lauren, he’d have whooped with joy.

“Help is almost here,” he whispered
as he continued to pull her through the tropical undergrowth.

Moments later, there was a burst of
warm wind above them, and he was standing inside the craft still holding
Lauren’s hand. He looked around in surprise at the heavily armed men and women
in the ship before he was distracted by a pair of stormy, dark eyes.

“Sit down and buckle the hell up!”
Grai ordered; he was in no mood to play nice with either of them.

Lauren sat in the first seat she
could find and pulled Mikey into the seat next to her. When he looked at her
curiously, she shook her head quickly and kept her head down, hoping to convey
to him that it was a good time to just be quiet for a while.

Mikey had other plans.

“Would someone like to tell me why
the hell I can see through people’s skin? Or through buildings? What the hell
happened to me?” he asked loudly, throwing his hands up in the air as he
trembled slightly. He wasn’t coming down from his adrenaline rush; he was
crashing and burning.

His admission got Grai’s attention
very quickly.

“You can see through objects?” he
asked, surprised at the news and knowing it was important.

Mikey looked at him like he must be
deaf.

“And skin! I saw where they had
healed bones! Through their skin! Through it! And I moved so fast and
automatically . . . like my body knew what it had to do before it hit my mind,”
Mikey said, his body trembling in shock and more than a little fear—of himself.

The cabin of the craft erupted in
quiet laughter at Mikey’s outburst; even Grai smiled—none of which did anything
to help Mikey’s fracturing mind.

“What? What the hell is so funny?
What’s happening to me?” Mikey shouted.

Lauren stood, becoming concerned
that Mikey may be in shock.

“Mikey, it’s OK. It’s normal . . .”
she began before Mikey turned on her.

The first thing she noticed was
that the small hazel dot in the upper part of his eyes was no longer a dot, but
a large swirl that traveled around the dark band around the blue in his eyes.
He wasn’t fully bonded yet, but was in that dangerous in-between stage and
obviously still fighting the bond.

“Normal? You think being tracked
and hunted by my own people like a fucking wild animal is normal? Seeing
through someone’s skin to defects in their bones is normal?” Mikey turned to
the others. “What the fuck is wrong with all of you that you think that is
normal?”

“Dude, you need to chill,” Simya
said, “We’ve all freaked out over the beast taking over during battle.”

“Yeah, be glad he was looking out
for you and your mate,” another added.

Grai saw the shocked look on
Mikey’s face and knew the guy was getting ready to freak out.

“Lauren, you may want to grab a
relaxer,” he advised.

Lauren blushed a deep red as Mikey
swung his gaze to her, his look of betrayal slamming into her heart like a hammer.
She was going to explain the mate thing to him once they got to know one
another—after he learned to trust her. Obviously that had backfired on her.

“Mates? Like in your history? And
you didn’t think I needed to know that?” Mikey roared at her, his fists
clenching in anger and embarrassment from the multiple hits to his pride.

Not only did he find out that he’d
really had no part in saving them—it was all the creature in his head—he also
had to find out in front of a cabin full of hybrids and aliens that the woman
he’d just begun to trust hadn’t bothered to tell him that they were mates. He’d
been rejected before, most men had, but never quite so publicly.

“Mikey . . . I wanted to wait until
. . .” Lauren whispered.

“Until what? Until you were sure you
didn’t have a better option? Or until you could kill me off? Is that why you
didn’t remove the tracker? Why you took me through the portal?” he asked,
wondering if anything between them had been real.

“What? Never!” Lauren retorted,
looking at him in horror for even thinking such a thing.

Mikey stood over Lauren, his face
flaming with hurt and anger when a guy around his age spun him around. He stood
eye to eye with a pair of dark eyes that swirled with fury.

“Look, asshole, you got it all
wrong. Now stop being a prick and chill the hell out. If you have no damn idea
what your beast is and does, don’t blame it on her; that’s your own damn fault.
Ignorance serves no one but the puppet masters, so you only have yourself to
blame if someone else is pulling your strings,” Traze growled, itching to plant
his fist in Mikey’s face.

Mikey stared at the guy for a
moment before his words finally sunk in. He was getting ready to apologize to
Lauren when chaos erupted around them. The craft was rocked by an explosion,
and he was thrown across the interior, hitting the wall while the guy he’d been
talking to caught himself on the straps hanging from the roof and swung with
the next impact.

“Report!” Grai roared as he
unstrapped himself and made his way to the front of the craft.