Sammy’s boobs came through the door first.
It must have been almost ten minutes before the rest of her followed.
Maybe I was exaggerating that part a bit.
But they were damn nice.
Despite the fact that they’d left Baltimore extremely early, Sammy’s hair was straight and she had on just a hint of makeup. She wore a snug t-shirt and tan shorts that only went a few inches down her thighs.
I really, really hoped she’d done that for me.
Then I looked down at my bare, filthy chest and wanted to step in front of traffic.
Sammy stopped beside the door and gave me a small, sheepish smile.
Butterflies flitted in my stomach.
Manly, roided-up butterflies, mind you.
“Hi, Ash.” Sammy looked at my ridiculous outfit, or lack thereof. Her smile faltered a few millimeters. “You look… good.”
“Yeah?” I asked. “It’s Hugo Boss.”
Nami snorted. “What an ass.”
Sammy saw the Mount Everest of beer cans, and her smile fell a little more.
I wanted to give myself a swirly in a dirty toilet.
“I wasn’t expecting company,” I sputtered.
That woman had a power over me that went beyond just my insane attraction to her. We barely knew each other, but she exhibited a kindness to me and my fucked-up existence that no one else did.
She didn’t judge or pity me, but she genuinely seemed to want to help.
I supposed in a way, that she was like Drew.
Minus the baldness, penis, and other gross guy things.
Sammy turned her attention back to me. “How are you feeling?”
The question struck me as odd, but then I remembered how horrible I must have looked. “Fine.” I gestured to my chest. “Can’t you tell?”
“You avoided me in Baltimore and then you left without saying anything,” she said.
Sammy had tried to visit me in the hospital after our encounter with Murdock and Smith’s Merry Band of Assholes. The agents standing watch by my room wouldn’t let her in.
Then she’d tried to come by my apartment, and there was no chance in hell I was going to let her in there. In hindsight, I should have because that dump was a damn sight better than the hellhole I was living in now.
But that wasn’t the only reason I wouldn’t see her.
Bad things happened to people when I was around.
They got killed.
I’d spent a lot of alone time lately, and I’d concluded that everyone was better off with me far away. Not just Sammy either. Drew, Nami, and even the people who lived in my building were safer if I put some distance between us.
So, I did.
“You didn’t even say goodbye.”
Damn, she was laying it on thick.
“You never let me say thank you for saving my life.” Sammy took another step closer.
Then her nose wrinkled when she caught a whiff of me.
Fuck my life.
I opened my mouth to say something, but I couldn’t think of anything that didn’t make me seem like an even bigger idiot. What could be said to someone after they realized you smelled like fresh turds?
Turns out, nothing.
Drew’s cell phone rang.
Nami’s followed right behind it. She held it out in front of her face. “Private call? This is a brand-new number—no one even knows I have it yet.”
“Same here,” Drew said. “Don’t answer it. We need to talk Stinky into coming back with us before we do anything else.”
“Shut up.” In my annoyance and self-pity, I lowered my mental guard so I could hear what Sammy was thinking of me in that moment. Typically, I did my best not to listen into people’s thoughts. Everyone deserved his or her privacy. But I was being weak, just then.
And when I did, I felt something other than Sammy around us.
The thoughts of most of the agents outside were panicked and confused.
Three of the others had qualities that were both utterly foreign and strangely intimate.
I’d only encountered something similar once before—when I’d been close to Murdock. As I’d learned through a trial of fire and pain, when two telepaths get close to each other, their minds form a sort of mental bridge.
We could share thoughts and emotions in a frequency that no one else could hear.
It was an odd sensation that was hard to explain to someone who hadn’t ever felt it before, but it did have a kind of intimacy to it because of the closeness formed between us.
Not that I had wanted to make out with Murdock or anything.
What I felt from the agents had just a tinge of that. The bridge hadn’t formed. This was something different.
There were hints of something else working in their minds.
Something that shouldn’t have been there.
Rage and madness.
They were thinking, yes, but their thoughts seemed guided, as if they were following some kind of vague directive. And all they wanted to do was kill everyone around them.
All of this hit me in the blink of an eye. One second, I was trying my damnedest not to stare at Sammy’s chest, and the next, I was leaning against the kitchen counter, almost unconscious.
The madness, the absolute insanity, emanating from the minds of those agents threatened to unravel my own thoughts. It felt as if the fabric of my mind was being ripped apart when I tapped into their heads.
I put my mental shields up as fast as I could, but the blunt trauma of the connection had me reeling both physically and mentally.
Drew reached for me. “Ashley? What happened?”
Two gunshots echoed through the woods in front of the cabin.
“What in the blue hell?” Nami ran to the door and squinted into the early morning light.
Sammy spun around, looking out over the top of Nami’s head.
Even in my moment of pain and confusion, I couldn’t help but notice the striking dichotomy of a nearly six foot tall, blonde goddess and the impossibly small, black geek.
“Get away from the door,” I whispered. I shook my head like a dog, as if that could somehow force the maddening thoughts of the agents out of my mind. “Now!”
“What’s going on?” Drew asked me.
“Get them inside and close the door.” My legs regained some of their strength, and I managed to stand back up. “Something happened to some of the agents out there and—”
Another dozen gunshots rang out.
Someone screamed in agony.
Drew didn’t hesitate again. He jumped across the room, grabbed Sammy by the elbow, and pulled her out of the door. Their feet tangled, and they toppled into the mountain of beer cans.
The cabin filled with the din of crushing aluminum.
“What the fuck, man?” Nami asked. “You grab the woman with the big titties, but not me?”
Drew grunted as he tried to extricate himself from the remnants of my alcoholism, “I would have grabbed you too, but I tripped.”
“It’s because I’m black, isn’t it?”
Sammy climbed out of the cans first. I reached down and took her hand, helping to pull her away from them. “That was so gross.”
Stale, flat beer soaked through her shirt in a few small spots.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” I muttered. “I’m disgusting.”
“What’s happening out there?” Drew asked. “What are they shooting at? Is someone attacking them or us?”
I shook my head again. “I can’t tell. Some of the agents are going nuts, but I don’t understand why.”
“Can you hear what they’re thinking?”
“I tried, but it really kicked my ass.”
“That’s why you fell over?”
“Yeah. It’s like—” I fumbled for a description. “Their minds have been infected with something.”
A bullet zipped past my ear so close that I could hear it zing by. Drew and I had been in the shit more than once, so we both ducked down, instinct and past training kicking in. I had to pull Sammy down. Nami stepped to the side, hiding behind the door.
We hunched by the sink as another volley of bullets splintered the doorway and the outside of the cabin.
Drew skinned the pistol from the holster on his hip. “Can you at least tell where they are? Are they coming at us?”
I took a deep breath. “Let’s find out.”
My mental barriers retreated just enough for me to feel the presence of the agents outside, but not enough to hear the thoughts of those who were going nuts. It took an immense amount of concentration and energy.
It was a form of mental gymnastics I was only capable of early in the day, before fatigue took over.
At any given time, there were ten to fifteen agents outside of my cabin and untold amounts of drones and satellites snapping pictures overhead. They hid behind trees and sat in cars. Some waited at the end of the road, ensuring that no one came up to visit me with ill intent.
Now, I could only feel six out there.
The rest were already dead.
Four unaffected agents were hunkered down in the woods, struggling with confusion and panic. I focused on the mind of one of them, letting his thoughts fill my own.
Where is Mills? Is she down? Who is hitting us? I can’t—
His thought stream cut off like someone had thrown a switch. The pain of death wrapped itself around me before I could release his mind. A smothering, crushing agony caused my vision to blur.
Blood trickled from my nose.
I quickly shifted to the next agent.
Holy shit! He’s down! He’s fucking down!
The female agent, Mills, watched as one of her detail toppled over, the back of his head showering the forest floor behind him. She spun around, pistol raised, eyes scanning the tree line.
Twenty feet in front of her, partially hidden behind a fallen log, knelt yet another agent. She recognized him as a man named Patterson who had joined the detail three weeks earlier.
Mills raised her hand and waved him over.
He shot her in the chest instead.
—can’t breathe. Can’t—
I released her mind and squeezed my eyes shut, fighting against a wave of nausea that washed over me. Being in someone’s head as they were dying really kicked the shit out of you. Sometimes, the line between them and me could get blurry.
And I’d just gone through that experience twice inside of ten seconds.
“They’re killing each other.” I pressed my index fingers against my temples. “There are only four of them left, and two are—”
Another pulse of pain-ridden emotion hit me.
I hadn’t been prepared to fight off this kind of mental onslaught.
“Two more down,” I whispered.
More blood ran from my nose. I wiped at it absentmindedly.
Sammy moaned when she saw the crimson streak on the back of my hand.
Drew slid next to the door again, glancing out. “Two left then, right? And they aren’t on our side?”
I nodded and straightened my back. My senses slowly returned. “They’re fifty yards out and moving along either side of the driveway. Everyone behind the cabin is down.” I focused on walling my mind off again. “You have another piece?”
Drew gestured at Nami. “Where’s your gun?”
“In the car.”
“It does us a lot of good in there.”
“I’m a computer nerd, not a goddamn gunslinger.” Nami stood on the opposite side of the door, glaring up at Drew. “And I assumed we would be safe since we’re surrounded by more federal agents than the president.”
I slid up beside Drew and hunkered down. “Guess I should make a play for the car then. Is it unlocked?”
The standard-issue, black SUV they’d driven in was parked ten yards away, facing the front of the cabin. I could make it there in two or three seconds, but the gap I had to cross would leave me exposed.
“Yeah.” Drew set his jaw and looked down at me. “Are we really going to shoot a couple of federal agents?”
“If you could see into their heads, you wouldn’t be asking me that. They’re minds have been scrambled like a couple of eggs.”
“Damn it.”
“Yeah.” I struggled with the same thing as Drew. We were about to put down a few good people because someone, or something, had screwed with their minds. These weren’t killers or psychopaths.
At least, they hadn’t been two minutes before.
I caught sight of one jogging through the trees beside the driveway. He was a big bastard with a neck that was almost as thick as one of my legs. The dude must have slept inside a squat rack.
“Ten o’clock,” I said. “Big boy behind the pine.”
“Got him.” Drew raised his pistol. “Ready?”
“Not really.”
Drew popped off two shots as I burst through the open door and raced for the front of the SUV.
The agents on either side of the driveway returned fire.
Dust puffed up by my right foot.
I hunched down and slammed into the grill of the SUV, my shoulder bending part of the chrome inward. The throb that ran into my neck and down my arm barely registered as I moved to the left side of the vehicle and peered around.
A bullet popped the tire right in front of me.
Drew fired again before ducking back inside.
Wood splintered around the doorway.
Nami shouted something unintelligible that I had no doubt was a string of profanity that would make a sailor blush.
I chanced another look around the side and spotted Agent Goliath moving through the trees. He wasn’t coming straight at us anymore, but moving toward the side of the cabin.
Bastard was trying to flank us.
“Drew! Nine o’clock!” I wanted to let my mental guard down to see where the other agent was, but I feared the repercussions of feeling one of their infected minds again. If I got all woozy again, they might come right up beside me and splatter my pretty little brains all over the place.
I happened to like my brains where they were.
Another gunshot rang out from inside the cabin, but I couldn’t see Drew anywhere.
The big agent running through the woods staggered sideways. He fell against a tree, his thick chest heaving. A white shirt, just visible through the open front of his black jacket, had a red splotch at his stomach.
He saw me watching him and raised his gun with one hand, aiming at me.
Then another shot came from the cabin, and a second impact put the big man down. The crack of the gun echoed through the silent forest around us.
I moved around to the passenger side of the SUV, staying low, and yanked the front door open. As I slid inside, the driver’s window shattered, glass hitting me in the face.
My eyes barely closed in time as sharp edges stabbed at my cheeks and eyelids. I ducked down in time to see two holes punch through the door.
Even though I was out of sight, the other agent seemed intent to fill the vehicle with lead until one of her rounds found its mark.
Cursing, I crawled back out of the vehicle and fell to the driveway. There hadn’t been any time to look for Nami’s gun.
There were only two parts of a car that did an adequate job of shielding you from bullets—the engine block and the tire rims.
I moved to the front of the vehicle again and hid behind the wheel.
“Need a little help here!”
The agent’s mind pulsed from fifty feet away, moving closer. She’d be on top of me in a few seconds.
I looked to the door of the cabin again, but didn’t see anyone there. Where the hell was Drew? I tried to remember how many shots he’d fired, wondering if maybe he was hiding while he fished a new mag out of his pocket. Normally, I would have used my ability to find out, but the agent coming toward me had a little something extra going on in her head that I didn’t want any part of.
A pistol barked from inside the cabin again.
No one was visible in the door still.
The ting of bullets punching through the body of the vehicle made me wince. I could hear each impact getting closer, methodically working their way toward the front.
Was I one hundred percent certain that the engine and rim would protect me?
At that moment, I had my doubts.
So, I went with plan B. “Don’t shoot me!”
The female agent answered by putting another two rounds in the opposite side of the vehicle.
“Please don’t shoot me?” I grabbed a handful of earth and pebbles from the driveway.
If she got close enough, I’d throw them in her eyes like a dirty fighter.
Rocks versus bullets.
My odds kept getting worse.
Drew finally appeared in the door and took aim.
Popped off two shots.
And then lowered his gun. He turned his head and shouted over his shoulder. “Stay here.”
“Did you decide to take a coffee break before helping me out?” I peered over the hood and saw the female shooter down a dozen yards away.
She wasn’t moving.
“There was another agent coming up behind the cabin that you failed to tell me about.” Drew scanned the trees with his eyes.
“Damn,” I muttered. “Must be getting rusty.”
“That’s what happens when you sit in this shit hole and get hammered every day.” Drew’s arms eased down as he approached me. “Are you sure that was all of them?”
I stood up and braced myself against the car. My mind opened up, becoming a sieve to everyone around me. Thoughts that were not mine poured in like a boat taking on water.
Panic came from Sammy.
Focus from Drew.
Hilarity from Nami.
No one else was around us.
The woods were clear, all the agents guarding me dead.
Nami thought, Why do I keep getting involved with these motherfuckers?
“Because you think I’m sexy,” I yelled toward the cabin.
“Suck a dick,” she shouted back.
I let go of the SUV, reasserted my defenses, and turned to Drew. “Something is seriously FUBAR here.”
“What was your first clue?” He holstered his pistol. “They might have been plants by Smith. We’ve been struggling to deal with the traitors he has peppered through the system. They—”
“They weren’t,” I interrupted. “Whatever was happening to them came on suddenly. I’ve been listening to these people’s thoughts for weeks. They weren’t working with anyone but our government.”
Drew’s frown deepened. “So what are we dealing with here? Another telepath? Is Murdock 2.0 running around out here?”
“Can’t be. The Bridge didn’t form between us. I’d know right away if another telepath was around.”
Nami poked her head through the door and looked around. “Am I going to get shot if I walk out of this dump? I can’t take the smell in here anymore.”
“It’s clear.” Drew fished his cell from his pocket. “We need to get a team up here and see what—” His words died in his throat as he stared down at the screen. “Damn.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “No service.”
“Right.”
“That can’t be a coincidence.”
“No way.”
Sammy came out of the cabin and walked over to us. She kneaded her hands together in front of her stomach. “Why does this happen every time I’m around you guys?”
I knew she didn’t say it to make me feel guilty, but that was the exact effect it had. There was a reason I’d skipped town without saying goodbye to anyone.
Drew ignored her. “We need to search the pockets of the agents and see if one of them has a phone with a different carrier.”
“Don’t bother,” I said. “Arthur’s Creek only has one cell tower.”
“Shit.”
“That about sums it up.” I nodded in the direction of the road at the end of the long driveway. “The police station, if you can even call it that, is a mile or two down the road. They should have a landline. We can call in the cavalry from there.”
Sammy’s face scrunched as she looked at the dead body of the female agent. “Don’t they have radios on them?”
Drew shook his head. “Yeah, but their range is extremely limited.”
“Let’s save the chitchat for the road.” Nami reached up and opened the front passenger door. “Fuck this place.”