Tempting the Fire (36 page)

“I don’t need sleep. Or food. I just need to make sure my sister is all right.”

The doctor nodded. “Of course, I understand. But for safety reasons, you cannot wait in the hallway.”

Logan stood, because arguing was useless. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”

He began to walk down the hall toward the door, well aware he was being 205

followed by an agent, sort of like having a bodyguard in reverse. It made sense that he wouldn’t be allowed to roam this compound unattended, especially since he was sure Sela had filled ACRO in on the secret of his bioware.

Sela, the first person he’d told his secrets to. Which had been the stupidest thing he could’ve done; should’ve known that trusting her was wrong.

God, his instincts were fucked. He blamed the bioware. And Sela’s training.

And this entire ACRO world.

When he’d taken her in the bathroom, he was actually thinking about a future together with her. About beaches and long walks and normal things that couples do.

But you’re not normal. That always seemed to come back and slam him between the eyes as a harsh and stunning reminder. When he’d been normal, he’d taken it all for granted. Thought he’d had all the time in the world for family, for children … for everything.

Now he knew life was too damned short and nothing would ever be the way he’d thought it would. But he’d had enough of this pity party; there was still a lot more to be done to dig GWC out of this mess. With ACRO’s help, of course.

The thought made his fists tighten.

As he walked outside, he tried hard to keep it together. It would do no good to put on a show of temper here, if Stryker’s powers were any indication of what kind of men—and women—worked here.

“You’re right. You’re strong, Logan, but we don’t let our agents, or our guests, use their powers against one another.” A tall, brown-haired man, wearing the familiar black BDUs, fell into step with him.

Great, a fucking swami mind reader.

“I don’t need to read your mind to know what you’re thinking.” The man stopped and so did Logan. “I’m Devlin O’Malley. I’m in charge of ACRO.”

Logan stuck out his hand. Dev shook it with the firm, easy grip of someone completely in command, of himself and his team.

“Yes. Let’s keep walking, okay?” Dev didn’t bother to wait for Logan to agree before he was moving at a fast clip along the winding paths, nodding at the men and women he passed.

Logan kept up the pace next to him and for about five minutes, neither of them spoke. Finally, they came to a well-kept building.

“If we’re to talk about Itor, I’d rather do it here in my office. It’s protected,” Dev explained, holding a door open for him.

“Protected?” Logan repeated as he entered a plush lobby.

“You don’t have a mind-shield yet. Itor can read you—break into your mind and grab information.” Dev led him past a desk and into a large office. “This building has recently had extra shields put in place.”

“So they know I’m here.”

Dev closed the door and remained standing. “They knew that the second they saw Stryker. What concerns me is that you might be thinking things Itor can 206

use—against you and against us.”

“Great. I want to take Itor down. Which means I need to get out of here and make a plan. I’m happy to let your organization in on—”

Dev shook his head. “It’s not that easy. Itor can’t be stopped in one fell swoop. At least not yet,” Devlin muttered, ran his hands through his hair and stared at Logan. “You, your father, your sister—none of you will be safe at GWC

now.”

“So I’m supposed to close my company?” Logan demanded.

“I didn’t say you have to close it. But you’ll have to run it in a far more protected environment than where it is now.”

“What, here?” Logan heard the sarcasm in his own voice. “Yeah, sure, we’ll become an ACRO-run company. So I can supply you and your agents with weapons. And how the hell do I know you don’t have the same evil intent that Itor does?”

“Because I’m telling you. We rescued you, didn’t we? And we haven’t done anything but keep you safe.” Devlin’s voice grew hard. “Itor will never stop looking for you. Now that they know what you’re made of, what Chance is—”

“Can you cure him?” Logan interrupted.

“There’s a small possibility. Very small.”

“I want him at GWC—we can probably help him, the way they helped me,”

Logan insisted.

“If you go back, it’s without Chance. He’s too … vulnerable for us to let him fall into the wrong hands.”

“Yeah, he was in great fucking hands with your Seducer agent,” Logan said roughly. “Just like me.”

In one swift move that spoke of military training, Devlin had him pinned against the wall, a knife across his throat.

“Bioware or not, I’ll cut you from stem to stern if you talk about my agents like that,” Dev told him through gritted teeth. “We respect the agents—and their jobs—here. Not all the work is pretty or fun or easy. What Sela and Marlena took on for the safety and security of the world—for the safety and security of you and your firm—you should be thanking your lucky stars they’re as trained and skilled as they are.”

Logan didn’t struggle. In fact, he felt like a total fucking ass for … well, acting like one to Sela.

“It happens.” Dev released him. “We’ve all got our pride, want to do the protecting. No one likes to be deceived, even if it’s for our own good.”

Logan didn’t respond to that, stuffed his hands into the pockets of his camo pants and said instead, “I’m going to need to call GWC—the scientists, they have to send me injections.”

“They can send us the formulation—we’ll re-create it here.”

“Fair enough.”

“You’ll need to submit to an examination as well. It’s SOP whenever we 207

bring new people with special abilities into the compound.”

There was no leeway in Devlin’s words. “I’d like to go to Sela first, if that’s permitted.”

“You hurt her, half the agents here will want to kill you.”

“What about the other half?”

“Take want out of the sentence and you’ll have your answer.”

***

BY THE TIME THE PLANE LANDED, ANNIKA WAS READY TO

SLEEP for a month. She’d never been so tired in her entire life. Creed had been waiting on the tarmac—being held back by Ender, because it was pretty clear Creed wanted a piece of Gabe, but the moment she’d stepped onto solid ground, he’d kissed her, swept her into the Jeep and sped straight to medical, even though she tried to explain that her head was fine.

“You’re not fine,” he growled, as he carried—yes, carried—her through the infirmary halls. She didn’t have the strength or will to fight him, though she did grouse a little. “It’s just a bump on the head, Creed.”

“It’s more than that, and you know it,” he said, and for a split second, she wondered if he knew she was pregnant. “I heard what happened to Akbar.”

She clung to him, relieved, because the last thing she wanted to do right now was fight with Creed about a kid. She’d been able to forget their problems for a couple of days, what with her concentration being on not getting killed, but now their issues were all flooding back, and she wasn’t ready to talk.

Not that talking about Akbar was any better.

“It was awful.” She shuddered as a nurse whisked them into a prepared room. So many ACRO agents had died over the years, and she’d witnessed much of it. But after a brief moment of grief, she wrote off their deaths as a risk they all took. But Akbar … God. She didn’t know why losing him made her want to cry, whether it was the horrific way in which it had happened, or whether it was her stupid hormones.

Or maybe it was just the fact that she was a very different person than she’d been before she committed to Creed. He’d awakened a lot of things in her, and unfortunately, some of what he’d awakened were sappy emotions she’d buried long ago.

Creed set her on a bed, and immediately, medical staff swarmed. She swatted at them, not in the mood to be poked and prodded by dozens of people.

“Get away from me!”

“Annika,” Creed said gently, with a squeeze of her hand, “let them check you out.”

“Fine,” she grumbled, “but I only want Dr. Davies.” Hopefully, since Davies was new, Creed didn’t know that she was a gynecologist. Annika planned to tell Creed she was pregnant, but only after the doctor confirmed that everything 208

was okay.

Davies ordered Creed out, and he kissed Annika on the forehead before he left. “I’ll be right outside the door. When I come back in, I want to know everything that happened in the jungle.” His palm gently cupped her cheek. “God, Annika, I was so scared. Don’t ever do that again.”

“I promise I will never again get knocked unconscious and flown to the Amazon, where my plane gets shot down and I have to bail at four hundred feet before taking out a camp full of Itor agents and chupacabras,” she said solemnly, and he just shook his head and left.

Dr. Davies made Annika change into a hospital johnny, and then she performed a brief general exam before concentrating on the cut on Annika’s head.

“What happened here?” she asked as she cleaned the wound.

Annika looked down at her lap. “My ability failed.” It was so humiliating.

She’d now lost pretty much everything. Her job, control over her emotions, the ability that had been a part of her since birth. She’d rather lose an arm.

“It’s possible that it’ll return as soon as you are no longer pregnant. But I’ll be honest with you, the likelihood of it returning as strong, or at all, decreases with every passing day.”

Tears welled in Annika’s eyes, and she kept her gaze in her lap. This pregnancy was costing her so much, and very likely, she could lose Creed too.

He’d said he didn’t want a kid with her. Didn’t want to risk it.

And Annika … she’d screw that kid up in so many ways. She didn’t know how to play or nurture—she’d killed her goldfish.

The doctor smoothed a bandage on Annika’s head. “Feet in stirrups. I want to do a pelvic exam—just a precaution. Have you decided what you want to do?”

Gut twisting, Annika put her feet in the metal cups at the end of the bed.

“As in, do I want to have this baby or not?”

“Yes. If you want to terminate, it has to be done soon.”

Oh, God. Annika hadn’t even gotten that far in her thoughts about the pregnancy. Though it made sense that Davies would ask—Annika had been furious and distraught at learning she was pregnant and might lose her powers …

which she had.

Annika stared up at the ceiling while Davies put her fingers in places only Creed had been, and when she was done, she snapped off her gloves and took Annika’s hand.

“It’s a simple procedure. TAG medical staff recently shared their method of psychic purging, which rids an agent of all foreign bodies. You’ll spend about sixty seconds with Dr. Graves, and your period will start right away. It’s very quick and easy.”

Easy. Should it be easy? Something inside her screamed at what the doctor was saying. Which was weird, because she’d always been ruthless, heartless, cold.

Bad shit happened in the world, and that was that. No use in whining about it or letting it get to you.

209

But somehow this was different.

Hormones. Had to be hormones. Because normally Annika’s heart was a frozen stone that had thawed just enough to let in Creed and Dev. Could she let in a baby too? Could she live without her powers? After all, the lack of her electrical ability was what had landed her here. How could she be effective as an ACRO

agent without it? Sure, her combat skills couldn’t be topped, but when you were going up against people with superpowers, fighting skills sometimes didn’t amount to jack shit. She’d never go on a mission again. She’d be putting herself and others at risk.

But then, having special powers didn’t make you invincible either. They hadn’t saved Akbar. A sob built in her throat at how he’d given his life for her. In an instant, he was gone. Just like any of them could be. Even Creed.

The thought of Creed being killed struck her like a punch to the gut. She couldn’t lose him, but she also couldn’t lose any part of him, including the life he’d planted in her belly.

“No,” she rasped. “I can’t do it.” She couldn’t even think about doing it.

Dr. Davies smiled kindly. “We’ll make sure you and your baby get the best of care.”

What was she getting herself and some poor kid into? Tears streamed down her face as the door opened and the doctor let herself out. Creed, followed by Dev, entered, both rushing to her like she was bleeding instead of crying.

“What is it?” Creed grabbed one hand, and Dev took the other.

“I’m just tired.” She sniffed, and Dev handed her a tissue. “It’s been a long couple of days.”

“What happened, Annika?” Dev asked, and she knew he was talking about the fiasco that had gotten her on the plane in the first place.

“Gabe was being an idiot. He was hiding in the cargo section. I guess he figured he was ready for a mission.”

Dev’s brown eyes turned muddy with anger, and his voice went very, very flat and cold. “And?”

“And I tried to stop him. We got into a scuffle, and I hit my head and was knocked out.”

Creed made a low, dangerous sound that would have had her shivering with appreciation in any other circumstance. He was such an easygoing guy that he rarely got worked up, but when he did, it was something to behold. “I’m going to kill him, Devlin.”

“No,” Dev snapped. “You won’t. Because I am.”

Annika rubbed her temples. “He didn’t mean to hurt me. It was an accident

—”

“It was an accident that happened because he was being impulsive and irresponsible,” Dev said. “Because of him, you ended up in a situation you shouldn’t have been in.”

“True.” She sighed. “But don’t be too hard on him. He probably feels guilty 210

about Akbar, and what he saw … Dev, he’s been punished. Besides, he stopped me from doing something really stupid that could have gotten me badly hurt.”

God, she was going soft.

Dev cursed. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll think about it.”

“And I want that bitch who murdered Akbar,” she said softly. “I want to spend days making her fry.” And if her powers never returned … well, in lieu of Chutes and Ladders, her CIA parents had taught her all kinds of Fun with Car Batteries.