Seduced by the Storm (30 page)

SENSING
THAT Wyatt needed time, Faith left him, but she didn’t like it. Mainly because
she didn’t want to think about the revelations that had come out of the session
with him—the things he’d remembered were only a small part of what he’d
revealed.

The
larger part, the part that left her stunned, was his unintentional revelation.

He
trusted her.

He
might not have admitted it to himself, but on some level he trusted her. He’d
opened himself up and shared his past, had even trusted her inside his head,
inside his memory center—where, if she’d decided to make it so, she could have
scrambled him up so badly he wouldn’t remember his own name.

The
level of confidence he must have felt rocked her, hard—left her on shaky
ground, when she was used to walking with confidence in any situation.

He’d
realized too late where his openness had left him, and she had no doubt that he
was regretting sharing so much with her. He’d be rebuilding his shattered
defenses even now, and she had to decide whether she should let him do it, or
if she should interrupt and strengthen the bond that had started to form
between them.

A
wise agent would choose the latter; fostering trust would be to her advantage,
mission-wise. But on a personal level, it could be disastrous. She was already
dangerously close to falling for him, and it wouldn’t take much to push her
over the edge.

Cursing
silently, she wiped thoughts of Wyatt from her mind, needing to clear it,
needing to gain some perspective. Out of habit, she wandered around the big
mansion, mapping out the exits, the phones, the locked rooms, the locations of
cameras.

She
ran into ML, almost literally, in the kitchen. He was staring into the
refrigerator, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, a cigar hanging from his
lips.

"Heya,
Faith," he said, without looking at her. "Want a beer?"

"Thank
you, no. I’ll take a Coke if you have one, though."

He
tossed a can of cola at her, closed the fridge door and leaned back against it,
arms crossed over his chest, legs crossed at the ankles. "You got
everything you need for the night?"

"I’m
very comfortable. Thank you."

He
watched her as he took a drag of his cigar and then blew out the smoke.
"What about Wyatt?"

"I’m
sure he’s quite fine."

"He’s
a good friend. A good man." The warning in his voice was only slightly
more subtle than the blatant subtext in his words.
Don’t hurt my buddy or
you’ll have me to deal with.

"Yes,
he is," she said, turning to leave. "Thank you for the drink."

"He
saved my life once," ML said quietly, and she halted, as he no doubt guessed
she would. "It was a stupid thing. I met with the wrong people on the
wrong yacht. Didn’t know ACRO had it under surveillance. Didn’t know it was a
target for pirates. Shit went down faster than a summer storm. Suddenly Wyatt
was there with a couple of badass special-ability dudes and Wyatt was dragging
me out of the ocean, bullets flying and the water around us burning from the
lit fuel. If he’d been smart, he’d have saved his ass and let me drown. But no,
he took a bullet and still fished my nearly dead ass out of the water. Got in
trouble for it later. Boss said he took an unnecessary risk."

Like
he’d done on the platform when he’d rescued the diver. Ultimately, the choice
had led to the confrontation with Sean that landed him in the torture chamber.
No, Wyatt was not a man to let an innocent person die if he could help it—nor
was he someone who would let another get away with murder.

The
incident with his father hadn’t made sense when he’d remembered it, and the
more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that something wasn’t
right. The Wyatt who had saved ML and the diver at great personal risk would
not have run away from a man who had committed murder in front of his very
eyes.

"Why
are you telling me this, ML?"

"I
think you know."

ML
owed Wyatt his life, and ML was willing to return the favor at any cost. Again
with the don’t-mess-with-my-buddy message. ML was a good friend.

"I’m
sure he appreciates your loyalty. Good night, ML."

She
hurried back to her room, anxious to test her theory. Wyatt was still lying on
the bed, arm over his eyes.

"Go
away, Faith."

"That
command works as well to keep me out of a room as locks work against you."
She sank down beside him on the bed, set the drink on the nightstand.
"Thirsty? I brought a cola."

He
brought his arm down to his side and stared at her. "What do you
want?"

"I
want to probe your memories again. I think there’s something you’re
missing."

A
harsh bark of laughter shook his body. "I ran like a fucking chicken from
the murders of my brother and mom. What I’m missing is my balls."

"Stubborn
git." She probed his aura with her power, slipped easily through the
damaged barrier. He stiffened the moment she entered his brain.

"Knock
it off," he growled, but she did no such thing. She pierced his
hippocampus, triggered some pathways to fire.

"Go
back to the scene, Wyatt. Go back to when your dad told you he’d killed your
mum."

He
cursed at her, but closed his eyes. Beneath his closed lids, his eyes moved, as
though he was seeing it all like a movie. "The son of a bitch just
laughed. He’d gotten away with killing her." He frowned. "He
said…shit. He said I was an accident that shouldn’t have happened. That the
only son who had been worth anything was the one who died when I was born.
Tim."

"What
did you do?"

His
hands formed fists at his sides. "I was pissed." He swallowed, opened
his mouth as though surprised. "Shit started flying around. My dad grabbed
a pistol from his desk and—oh,
fuck.
"

"What
is it, Wyatt?"

His
eyes shot open and he sat up so fast, she nearly fell off the bed. "He
started choking. God, he turned blue. Eyes bugged out of his head. He was
clawing his throat and I just stood there, watching. He collapsed. I think…I
thought he was dead. That’s when I left." He scrubbed a hand over his
face. "I didn’t remember any of that. God, did I do that to him?"

She
saw the regret, confusion and pain in his eyes. She closed her hand over his.
He jumped, as if the contact startled him. "It’s okay."

"Okay?"
he echoed incredulously. "
Okay?
How the hell could I have done
that?"

"I
don’t know, but if you did, that would explain your memory loss. Another power
manifesting like that…wow. It could have been traumatic." And Christ, if
he was biokinetic in addition to his already extraordinarily powerful
telekinesis…"Wyatt? I’m going to probe your cerebrum and neocortex. Those
are your psychic centers. I want to take a look at what’s in there."

His
gaze caught hers, and for a moment she thought he’d refuse. A heartbeat later,
he gave her a slow nod.

She
dove in, easily located his telekinesis. That part of the brain was like a
topographical map, something she could visualize in her mind. Scientists had
determined that humans used about ten percent of their brains, but psychics
easily used twenty, and very powerful psychics used upward of thirty. Wyatt’s
telekinetic center spread like a field through his brain, taking up well more
than thirty percent of his brain matter.

Amazing.
She probed nearby, seeking the pocket most likely to house the sexual part of
his gift—a minor power like that should be connected to a parent power—but
strangely, she couldn’t find it. Expanding her search, she shuffled through
cells and nerve clusters, traveled along neural pathways…and discovered a
bundle of energy that might be the area responsible for sexual output. At first
it appeared to be its own little island in the middle of untapped brain matter,
but on closer inspection, she discovered a string of cells connected to an area
she couldn’t access. A large portion of his brain had been partitioned off by
an invisible shield her power could only bump up against.

Closing
her eyes, she concentrated, let her power feel for cracks. The energy signature
surrounding the shield felt familiar, vibrated at a frequency identical to
hers. Her pulse picked up. Wyatt was definitely biokinetic, and the area of his
power was huge. God, if he were to access that section, his overall psychic
potential could be almost limitless.

She
pushed against the wall surrounding the power. Harder. Harder…and Wyatt cried
out, clutched his head. Immediately she retreated.

"Are
you all right?" She peeled one hand away from his scalp. "I’m so
sorry. Wyatt?"

"Yeah,"
he rasped. "What did you find?"

Relief
made her sag a little. "Everything is so scattered in there—it’s amazing
that you can control your powers at all." She cleared her throat and
spilled the rest. "But no doubt about it; you’re definitely
biokinetic."

WYATT
LET OUT a long, slow breath as his mind attempted to process the avalanche of
intel Faith had unearthed. His first instinct was to question it or deny it,
but hell, he’d seen the truth in his memories. Everything she said made so much
sense, and still, the relief he felt at finally knowing what happened on the
rig the night Mason died was short-lived.

"I
could’ve killed him, Faith. I could’ve killed my father. And even though I
didn’t have a relationship with him—shit, that means I lost control."

"Wyatt,
it wouldn’t have been your fault. You didn’t know what you were doing or what
you were capable of."

"I
still ran, Faith."

"Your
father would’ve put you away for trying to kill him—on some level, you knew
that. It was self-preservation, not cowardice."

"It
proved everything my father said about me was right—the reason he put me in the
mental hospital was because he said I couldn’t control myself."
Frustrated, he tugged his hands through his hair.

"Remember
when you were younger—it was probably difficult for you to control the
telekinesis, but you learned. You can learn to control this."

"Give
it to me straight, Faith, how much learning are we talking about?"

She
sighed, a soft sound of sympathy. Her hand wound through his and the tilt in
his brain immediately righted itself. He had a feeling that until he learned to
combine his powers, that familiar, scattered sensation would remain.

"There’s
a pretty big learning curve," she said. "Your gifts are all strong
and you’ve been denying the biokinesis for so long that they naturally fight
against one another rather than integrate. It’s going to take practice and
patience."

"Until
then, I’m a loose canon. Just like always."

"You
have control, Wyatt, plenty of control. If anything, until you learn to work
the power, the person you stand to hurt most is yourself."

Yeah,
he got that. "Is the sex thing tied to it?"

"Yes.
Explains a lot, actually. Such as why I remembered having sex with you. My own
biokinesis must have acted as a shield."

"Why
wouldn’t I have known about the biokinesis earlier? As a kid?"

"I
think you suppressed it. And now you’ve got this wall around it.
Subconsciously, you’ve probably been building barrier after barrier to keep it
hidden. I have a feeling the telekinesis and the sex thing was all you could
deal with, so your mind filed away the biokinesis. Did you always have control
over the telekinesis?"

"For
the most part I did, except when I was younger and my temper got the best of
me. Or when I was hurt. I’m lucky I was a pretty easygoing kid. I just tried to
hide the telekinesis. Shit, it was bad enough hiding that one power. If my
parents had known about this one?" He shook his head.

"
This
one
is what got Liberty shipped off to the mental facility."

He
finally took the can of cola and popped the top, and hated the way his hand
shook a little. "How did your parents explain it to you?"

She
shrugged, but he knew it was not a casual subject for her at all. "They
tried to pretend everything was normal—told me that Liberty was sick, in a
regular hospital, with doctors who would make her better. I was too young to
know any better, but when my powers started up three years later, something
told me to keep it to myself. I found out the truth after my parents were
killed and I ended up in the hospital where Liberty had been sent."

The
sound of the ocean came in on a breeze through her open patio door as he downed
the rest of the soda. He needed to get back on firm ground, back in mission
mode. There was nothing he could do now about the integration of his powers—he’d
just have to ride it out, the way he’d been doing for years, until the
completion of this mission.

And
he owed Faith. Damn, he owed her so much. She’d given him back a part of
himself he thought he’d never recover. He didn’t have to fear his memories
anymore.