Grace tilted her head back to stare up at the structure in front of her. The green hues of the night vision display in the helmet revealed a bulbous shape seated atop tall metal scaffolding. It was a water tower, seventy or eighty feet high.
Turning, she surveyed the desert one more time. She hadn't seen any headlights for awhile, but that fact didn't make her feel any better. The commandos had night vision helmets identical to the one she wore now. If they had opted for stealth, then she might never see them coming.
She detoured around the water tower. The landmark appeared on David's map, which told her to head straight for the humpbacked butte in the distance. She wouldn't reach the butte, according to the map, but its silhouette would guide her in the right direction. Thank heavens for David's remote viewing, because without it she'd have no chance of finding the facility. A few days ago, she would've dismissed the very concept of extrasensory abilities as bunk. Her life had changed so radically in such a short time that she marveled at the fact she held onto her sanity. Of course, her life hadn't really changed. The amnesia had tricked her into believing she was a normal, boring girl.
Now she knew better.
The ground sloped upward at an ever-steepening angle. Her thighs ached as she mounted the rise, halting at the crest. Ahead of her, the ground sloped downward in a gentle grade. She stood on the rim of a bowl-shaped depression that, when viewed from the lower terrain surrounding it, looked like yet another flat expanse of desert. Only from this vantage point could she see what the depression contained. There, perhaps a quarter-mile away, sat a dark shape that she recognized as a low, sprawling complex of interconnected buildings.
The facility.
She stifled a triumphant cry. At last, she had reached her destination.
The night vision display flickered. The words "low battery" flashed on the screen.
Terrific. Well, at this point, she probably didn't need the high-tech guidance anyway. If she walked straight down the slope, and straight across the depression, she would run into the facility.
Switching off the night vision, she removed the helmet. With it tucked under her arm, she lifted her foot to step off the summit.
"Hold it right there."
Her heart thudded at the sound of the male voice issuing from behind her. She lowered her hand to her unzipped purse, slipping her fingers inside to grasp the gun.
Something hard and cold rammed into her back, right between her shoulder blades.
"Don't," the man said in a stern voice, "or I'll blow a hole straight through you."
She froze.
"That's right," he said. "Now raise your hands and turn around, slow and easy."
She complied.
A helmet covered the man's head and face. Nothing on his black outfit identified him or his employers. The man towered at least eight inches above her, his physique packed with enough muscles to give him a threatening aura even if he hadn't been pointing a weapon at her. In both hands he gripped a bulky gun with a huge clip that contained enough bullets to rip her into confetti.
He clicked a button on the two-way radio clipped to his jacket and said, "I got her."
A gruff voice came through the radio. "Hold her there. We're on our way."
The other commando hadn't asked where this guy was. They must have some kind of tracking system, like GPS, to keep tabs on each other in the field.
She glanced down at the helmet tucked under her arm. Did it contain some kind of tracking device that had led this commando to her? It might've taken them awhile to realize she had one of their helmets. Either way, it didn't really matter anymore. She was caught.
The commando jabbed his gun into her ribs, just below the sternum.
She winced and scuffled backward half a step. Her right heel tipped over the sharp crest of the hill. She teetered but held onto her balance.
The commando jabbed her in the ribs again, harder this time.
She grimaced, clenching her teeth.
"You better hold real still," the man said, "my trigger finger's starting to itch."
"Your boss wants me alive."
The man snorted. "Accidents happen."
Wonderful, she got caught by a maverick with an itch to shoot her. With his gun's muzzle embedded in her abdomen, there wasn't much she could do.
She had psychic abilities, for pete's sake. Those abilities could surely help right now, if only she could remember how to use them. Amnesia really sucked.
Wait a minute. She'd visited the facility in her dreams countless times, traveling there psychically to visit David. She'd used her powers to push David away. Those incidents told her that, somewhere deep inside, she still knew how to access those abilities. Her conscious mind blocked the memories and convinced her she was powerless.
David showed her the truth. He gave her the information she needed to regain what she had lost. It was up to her to make use of the information.
Now or never.
She kept her eyes open, but let her vision drift out of focus. With an effort, she relaxed every muscle and banished all thoughts from her mind. The whisper of the breeze, the rustling of the commando's uniform, even the beating of her own heart — it all faded into silence. The blurry world around her melted into blackness. She felt her consciousness rising, floating, pulled toward something she could feel but not see.
A point of light shimmered. Then another. And another.
She surfaced into a field of cool white stars. Hovering. Weightless. Free.
David. He called to her. Not in voice or thought, but in spirit.
Though she wanted to go to him, wanted it so badly her soul ached from the need, she couldn't give in to it. For the moment, other matters needed her attention more urgently.
Turning away from his call, she sank downward out of the field of stars, back into the real world.
Floating above the desert, she gazed down at her own body and the commando standing in front of her. She must do something. Anything.
She focused her mind, gathering energy from … somewhere.
The gun flew out of the commando's hands. It sailed through the air, hitting the ground thirty feet away.
The commando shouted. He floundered backward, as if he'd been kicked in the chest.
She'd intended to fling him backward with as much force as she'd used to discard the gun. Her control was faltering. She felt it. Doubts niggled at her, barely noticeable at first, but growing louder and sharper as panic iced through her.
The commando tripped. He flopped onto his butt, dazed.
Grace slammed back into her body with a force that rocked her off balance. She teetered backward. Her right foot slipped off the precipice. Though the drop wasn't steep, she lost her footing and tumbled to the ground. The momentum sent her rolling down the slope sideways.
Automatic gunfire chattered overhead.
She rolled down, down, down. Vegetation scraped at her. Rocks bruised her flesh. Nothing slowed her descent until the ground leveled out and she lost momentum. Hitting the ground face first, she came to a halt sprawled on her belly.
Everything hurt. Her head felt like someone was sitting on it. She flailed her hands to push the weight away from her head, but found nothing there. Searing pain erupted behind her eyes. The flavor of dirt and blood tainted her mouth. She pushed up onto hands and knees. Nothing seemed broken. Opening her eyes, she ran her hands over her body in search of wounds. Nothing serious. Scrapes and cuts and sore spots that would mature into bruises. A cut near her mouth accounted for the tang of blood on her tongue.
Sitting back on her heels, she swept her gaze up the hillside.
The commando stood silhouetted against the night sky.
She didn't move. Maybe he couldn't see her. Yeah right. He had night vision, and she had crappy psychic abilities that only half worked and left her drained and saddled with a burgeoning migraine.
At least she had made it to the crossroads, on purpose this time. And she'd used her telekinesis with moderate effectiveness. Not bad for her first conscious attempt.
The commando leaped off the crest of the hill. She lost sight of him on the shadowed slope.
Crap.
Scrambling to her feet, she took off in the direction of the facility.
The door clicked shut. David opened his eyes to find the room empty, though he'd already known it would be. He both heard and sensed the departure of the tech, a nervous young woman sent by Tesler, who was probably busy plotting the horrors he would inflict on Grace once they captured her.
The young tech's mind was shockingly pliable. No wonder they hired her. She would accept any story, comply with any orders, simply to avoid confrontation. Maybe she'd been abused as a child. Maybe she lacked character. The reason made no difference. She'd helped Tesler conflict untold pain and torment on their test subjects. In spite of her crimes, however, David felt a twinge of guilt over influencing her mind so that she believed he was still in a drug-induced coma. He hated manipulating people.
When Grace had told him how desperation had forced her to trick a man into selling her a car for twenty dollars, he'd understood her anguish over what she'd done. He felt the same guilt every time he was forced to bend a pliant mind to his will. He should've told her that. Instead, he told her the one thing he should not have said — at least not yet.
He'd told her he loved her.
It had been a mistake. He meant it, but she wasn't ready to hear it. Confused by her amnesia, frightened by the current situation, she'd shut down at the very mention of a certain four-letter word. He couldn't take it back now. He wouldn't take it back.
Pushing back the sheets, he sat up and swung his legs off the bed. He didn't need to get dressed, because even in a coma he still wore his jeans, T-shirt, and socks. Tesler and his lackeys didn't care about their subjects' comfort. David bent down to pluck his sneakers from the floor, where they'd been tucked under the bedside table. He shoved the sneakers on his feet, tying the laces as fast as his fingers would move.
Grace was coming.
He must help her. He must find her. Despite receiving a gift of energy from Grace, he didn't have enough of a reserve leftover to reach her psychically. Not directly. Not in a way she would understand. If she remembered how this all worked, he might attempt to guide her obliquely. In her current state, she simply wouldn't get it.
Sean would. If it took his last ounce of energy, he must contact Sean and enlist the boy's help. Sean wasn't as drained as David. He ought to have enough energy to help Grace.
Sliding off the bed, David straightened and walked to the door. The knob felt cool when he laid his hand on it.
One chance. That might be all he had. All they had. Whatever happened, he and Grace would see this through together.
Twisting the knob, he eased the door open and stepped out into the corridor.
Running, running, running. She didn't look back. Focused on the terrain ahead of her, discerning faint outlines as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she pumped her legs as fast as possible. Looking back would distract her, and she might trip. If the commando was closing in on her, she couldn't do much about it anyway. Shooting him in the dark, while running full speed, would be a waste of a bullet. Stopping to take aim and fire gave him a chance to catch up, and she still might miss the target. She was no sniper.
It was too dark. The commando blended into the night.
Ahead of her, the squat silhouette of the facility enlarged as she drew closer and closer. She saw no lights to give her a clue where there might be an entrance. A wild guess was her only option.
David had said Sean would help her. Neither of them had shown up yet.
What if they couldn't? What if, at this very moment, both David and Sean languished in a drug-induced slumber?
No. She felt David. The sensation made no sense, and it left her feeling a bit uneasy, but she knew that the slight pull she felt was him. Alive. Aware. Somewhere close by.
Not close enough.
Running, running, toward the facility. Her head throbbed. The ambient light seemed too bright, and the glow from the crescent moon rising directly in front of her struck her eyes like invisible needles. Though the cold wind generated by her motion felt good, her muscles screamed for a break that she couldn't give them. Not yet.
The building loomed nearer, larger, blocking out more and more of the sky. The moon vanished behind the hulking structure.
The darkness grew deeper. She wanted to draw on her powers, to see what her eyes couldn't. If she did that, her migraine might get exponentially worse. She could not risk it.
The crack of a gunshot echoed behind her. Too close.
Dirt erupted to her left. Way too close.
Twenty feet from the building, she realized there were no doors in front of her. She skidded to a stop, whipping her head left and right, searching for a door-shaped outline in the gloom.
Behind her, footfalls slapped on earth.
She spun around, the gun in her hand.
A shape darted toward her from less than fifty feet away.
She aimed for the humanoid blob and shouted, "Freeze or I'll shoot!"
The shadow hesitated, then straightened into a man-size outline. Thirty feet away. Maybe less. Dammit. Judging distances was next to impossible out here, with shadows swarming everywhere.
The commando sniggered. "I got mine sighted on you too, sweetheart."
He meant his gun, she realized. The big one filled with enough bullets to take out a herd of elephants.
Could she hit him with her first shot? Since she'd only fired on a human being once before, when she thought she killed the drug dealer, her confidence was a something less than inspiring.
So was her confidence that this creep wouldn't kill her for the thrill of it.
Accidents happen, he'd said before. And David told her the facility hired dangerous ex-cons as security guards.
"Drop the gun," he ordered. "Or I'll make sure you can't run away again."
"No."
"I said drop the gun."
"And I said no."
She could practically feel his disbelieving stare. It probably resembled the look David gave her every time she refused to do what he wanted, except without the underlying fondness. Men expected her to obey their orders, and she was sick and tired of it. Besides, without Sean or David to help her, she had no clue how to get inside the facility. The commando was her way in.
He wanted to kill her, if he could get away with it by framing it as an accident. Maybe she should put the gun down, so he couldn't claim he shot her in self-defense. If she dropped the gun, he could still shoot her and claim self-defense, by planting the gun in her lifeless hand. It seemed to her that keeping a loaded weapon trained on the commando gave her the best chance of survival.
"I've shot one man tonight," she said. "Do you really think I'll feel bad about shooting you?"
The commando made a dismissive sound. "You screwed that up, sweetheart. The loser was wearing a Kevlar vest under his shirt. Now if you'd shot him in the head … " He shrugged. "You don't have the killer instinct, honey."
She wanted to shoot him just for calling her sweetheart and honey.
The commando's radio crackled and a masculine voice shouted through the little speaker. "Battaglia, what's your status? There's no sign of the girl out here."
So the Neanderthal had a name after all.
She caught a flash of movement as Battaglia reached up to press a button on his radio. In a tone sharpened by arrogance and tinged with cruel amusement, Battaglia said, "I got a sign of the girl right here in front of me."
"You've got her?" the other voice asked.
"Affirmative."
"Take her inside. We'll meet you there." Static crackled. "And you'd better not lose her this time, Battaglia."
"She's going nowhere, sir."
The Neanderthal made a sweeping gesture with his left hand. "Let's go, sweetie."
"You first," she said.
"No." He shifted his right hand, giving her a glimpse of his weapon's outline. "You first, or I blast a hole in your shoulder. It won't kill you, but it will make you a lot more cooperative."
Well, she wanted inside the facility. He was giving her what she wanted.
So why did she have a cold lump in her stomach?
Turning to her right, she trudged along the wall of the building. Battaglia followed her, she knew, though she didn't glanced back to make sure. His footfalls clomped slightly out of sync with hers. The building seemed interminable, cloaked in darkness, without any windows or doors. After a few minutes that felt like hours, Battaglia ordered her to stop. A rectangular depression in the wall suggested a doorway.
Crossing in front of her, Battaglia found a keypad next to the doorway and punched in the code. A mechanism chunked. He reached for what she assumed was a door knob, twisted it, and thrust the door inward.
Muted yellow light poured out of the opening. It stung her eyes like the midday sun.
Squinting, she saw Battaglia remove his helmet. The light cast a flattering glow on his features, lending his skin a golden hue that complemented his dark brown hair. He had a thin mustache that softened the angular planes of his face, but his squinty eyes and heavy brow hinted at the caveman within. He smirked, like the Neanderthal she knew he was.
"Ladies first," he said, gesturing with his gun for her to enter the building. His other hand he slipped into his pocket.
Now that he'd opened the door for her, she didn't really need him anymore.
As if he'd read her mind, he lunged at her. Instead of grabbing for her gun, he threw his arms around her in a bear hug, crushing her to his chest. The gun was still in her hand, smashed between their bodies. She struggled, but his muscle-bound body contained her like a cage. She couldn't shake free of him, she couldn't move her arms, and she couldn't get leverage with her legs.
Trapped.
No. She had one chance.
Battaglia clenched her tighter. She couldn't catch her breath. Wriggling her fingers, she hooked one around the trigger of her gun.
"Time to say good night," he murmured.
At the corner of her eye, she saw his left hand slide up her shoulder, raising a syringe to her neck.
She pulled the trigger.
Battaglia jerked.
At first she wasn't sure which one of them she'd hit. Then Battaglia stumbled backward, releasing his hold on her. The gun tumbled from his grasp. She still held her gun. A quick glance at her own body revealed no blood or anything else to indicate a wound.
Battaglia just stood there, his body shaking, his face red.
She'd expected him to look pale and weak. Instead, he looked thoroughly enraged. "You shot my foot, you — "
Grace fired at the keypad beside the door. As the shot exploded, the keypad shattered into bits.
Battaglia roared.
She swiped his gun from the ground and bolted through the doorway. Spinning around, she slammed the door shut. The lock chunked. She didn't wait to find out if Battaglia could force the door open manually. Clutching both guns, she ran.
The corridor dead-ended at another. The new corridor went only left, so she skidded around the corner and took off in that direction. The new corridor intersected with another, giving her three options — left, right, or straight ahead. She chose straight ahead. Where she was going, she didn't know. On and on she ran, deeper and deeper into the facility, past dozens of doors. She didn't try to open any of them, because she knew what she needed did not wait inside any of those rooms. Instinct drove her onward, without reason but not without purpose.
To find him. That was her purpose. To track down JT, aka Jackson Tennant, and repay him for everything he'd done to her and her family — after she got the truth out of him.
David had asked her what she intended to do once she got inside the facility. At the time, she couldn't answer him. Finally, she knew what must be done. What she must do. Which villain she must confront. The destination was clear, if not the path. Something inside her knew where to go. She trusted that instinct.
She careened around a corner.
And smacked face first into another human being.