Out of the Darkness Read online

  “No, the casino dudes did that. Big and Beefy and Tall and Mean.” He shrugged. “I use my talents in ways that the casinos don’t particularly like. They caught onto me, roughed me up, then Darkwell came in and took me away. They gave me LSD to see if it would expand my skills.” He shivered at the memory. “Waked me out big-time, but I don’t think it did anything for my ability.”

  “Waked you out?” Zoe asked.

  “Freaked. Wigged.” He nodded toward Lucas. “These guys broke in and rescued him, then they came back and got me.” He gave them an affectionate smile. “Crazy bastards.”

  Zoe, however, was still horrified at the part before that.

  Petra had traded one nervous habit for another, braiding her long hair, undoing it, then braiding it again. “I have extraordinary hearing. Now I’ve discovered I can also heal. When we went in to rescue Rand, things went bad. Lucas got shot. I had this overwhelming urge to touch his wound, and I healed him.” So much emotion crossed her face as she spoke. “But at a price.” She turned to the others. “Cheveyo warned me that I have to be careful about healing mortal wounds. It could destroy me psychically. And he also said that whoever I healed could lose their powers.”

  Lucas stiffened. “I don’t have powers?”

  Amy said, “You haven’t had that storm of images, but it’s only been, what, twelve hours since you were shot and revived.”

  Lucas asked, “Is this lack of power permanent?”

  Petra shook her head. “He didn’t say. I got sidetracked by his warning about healing people. I wished I’d had the presence of mind to ask him more. Before I knew it, he was gone.”

  Eric walked back out into the living area. “Yeah, we need to find out more about that guy. I don’t trust him.”

  “You don’t trust anyone.” Petra went into the kitchen.

  “I think he may be right,” Lucas said. “I’ve felt…different since Petra healed me. Lighter. As much as I hated it, I would hate not having it. Not being able to protect my people.” Lucas’s gaze went to Amy, and Zoe shivered at the intensity of love and fear she saw.

  Zoe met Eric’s eyes. Even in her platforms she was still a few inches shorter than he was. “And what do you do?”

  His mouth quirked. “I set people on fire.”

  “Okay, then.” A tingle of bizarreness at the situation flowed through her.

  Petra took out a piece of bread and slathered peanut butter on it. “His other less glamorous ability is to remote-view.”

  Zoe looked at Eric. “So you’re not the guy to piss off.”

  Petra’s laugh was more like a snort. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

  Rand came to his feet. “So, what’s crazy energy?”

  They’d shared with her; and hell, if anyone would understand, it would be these people. My people. Those words startled her. She’d never belonged to any group, really belonged. “Whenever I get emotional, things start to fly around. Glasses, books, pens. I’m also bad around small appliances. They sort of blow up.”

  Eric walked into the kitchen and poured another glass of milk. “Telekinesis.”

  This weird thing about her, and he had so casually tossed out a word to describe it. “What?”

  “The ability to move objects with your mind.”

  “Well, if I actually had control over it.” She looked at Rand, who was standing just a little too close. “Can you control that seeing ahead thing?”

  “Yeah, but it’s so natural, sometimes I don’t realize I’m doing it.” Their gazes locked for a moment. He cleared his throat and walked into the kitchen. From a more comfortable distance, he asked, “So you rode all the way here from Key West on the back of a motorcycle?”

  Without even thinking about it, Zoe rubbed her behind, which was still sore. “Yeah.”

  “Cool. What kind of ride?”

  She cocked her eyebrow at him. “I didn’t exactly notice.”

  Rand asked, “Want something to drink or eat?”

  She walked into the kitchen, too, and nodded toward the bottle of beer Rand pulled out. “One of those would be good.” Heck, she deserved it.

  Soon everyone stood around the kitchen, washed in yellowed, fluorescent light. Amy tossed some kind of chocolate balls up into the air and caught them in her mouth. Rand poured Zoe’s beer into a mug and handed it to her. When their fingers brushed, she felt a jolt. At the blink of his eyes, she guessed he had, too. Great, just what she needed.

  She shifted her attention to someone—anyone else. “All right, so maybe I inherited this crazy energy from my dad—”

  “Oh, you did,” Amy said.

  Zoe’s chest tightened. “So why are these people after me? Why are they kidnapping us and trying to kill us if this program existed so long ago?”

  “I told Cyrus, who was like an uncle to me, about seeing glows. He was worried that if I had inherited my dad’s psychic ability, maybe I’d inherited the craziness, too. He mentioned it to Darkwell, who had apparently been really bummed that his pet project got tanked…never mind that people died.

  “Anyway, when he heard that I’d inherited Dad’s abilities, he started wondering if the offspring of the other subjects did, too. Extrasensory abilities do run in families, but what if we’d inherited the enhanced abilities? He saw the resurrection of his program.” Amy popped another chocolate into the air and caught it. “Darkwell assigned three CIA agents to track down the Offspring. Cyrus was reluctantly dragged back into the new program, called DARK MATTER, as one of those agents.”

  Zoe took a cold sip of beer and wiped the foam from her upper lip with the tip of her tongue. “What is the program about? What does he want to do?”

  “The thing is, what Darkwell’s trying to do isn’t all bad: he wants to use us, our abilities, to save hostages and find terrorists. But he’s going about it the wrong way.”

  “Well, yeah, kidnapping us, injecting us with stuff.” The memories of the men trying to kill Zoe were way too vivid.

  Eric grabbed Petra’s hands again to still her cracking. “They’re doing that to us because we’re the Rogues. We’re onto them, and we won’t join. We’re looking for other Offspring so we can find out what happened to our parents. They don’t want us to find the truth, so they’re trying to take us out.”

  “How can the government do such a thing?”

  “You’d be surprised what they’ve gotten away with,” Eric said. “But DARK MATTER isn’t officially CIA or government. Darkwell’s hidden it under legit programs.”

  “Cyrus helping me with finding out about my dad…that was a ruse?”

  Amy gave her a sympathetic nod. “Afraid so. Darkwell probably found out about your inquiries and had Cyrus approach you. What he was really doing was assessing your psychic skills.”

  “Then why did they try to kill me? Cyrus called to warn me, then this guy tried to kill me at my tattoo shop.”

  Amy said, “They probably wanted you dead because Cyrus called you. They figured he’d told you enough to make you a liability.” Her expression darkened. “They got Cyrus’s other Offspring for the same reason.”

  “Got…as in killed?”

  Amy nodded. “I tried to talk to him, and I guess he started looking into it. The next thing we knew, he’d killed himself. But I don’t think he committed suicide.”

  “Killed like they killed Cyrus? They did kill him, didn’t they?”

  Amy nodded, her face shadowing. “He and I were close. He was telling me everything and they…two agents took him out and tried to take me out, too.”

  Eric’s shoulders broadened a bit. “Until I intervened.”

  Amy narrowed her eyes at him. “Let’s not go there just yet.”

  Zoe leaned against the counter, the reality of all this, the days of fear and hours on a bike catching up to her. “I need to get this around my head. I mean, my head around this.”

  “Believe me, I know the feeling, but there’s something else,” Amy said in a gentle voice that told Zoe she wasn’t going
to like it. “They have recruited at least two Offspring, a man and a woman. We don’t know their names. He can find Petra; apparently he’s got a connection to her. And he can get into our heads.”

  Eric’s expression was grim. “Or at least mine.”

  Zoe slid down to the floor, clutching the sides of her head. After a moment she looked up and found them all watching her with varying degrees of empathy. “What do I do now?”

  Rand knelt beside her. “The way I see it, you’ve got two choices: you go back out there and get killed. Or you join us.”

  CHAPTER 7

  “I

  ’ll take her downstairs.” An hour later, Rand walked over to a bookcase and pushed it aside to reveal a hidden stairway. “Seeing as I just went through this a few hours ago.” Zoe stared at the small opening, a combination of wariness and disbelief on her face. The same expression, he’d noted, when she’d first seen his face. He didn’t blame her on either account. Course, he’d just jumped her…sheesh.

  “My room is down there?”

  Amy shrugged. “Sorry, the three rooms on this level are already taken. There are four more downstairs.”

  “It’s only a little claustrophobic.” Rand was amused at her reluctance. “I’ll keep you company.” Now even more reluctance colored her face, and he was less amused. “I only look like a monster. And I promise I won’t jump you again.”

  Judging by the continued trepidation showing in her expression, none of that seemed to console her. She was a looker, but not in any traditional sense. Which appealed to him even more, oddly enough. Her creamy complexion was covered in makeup as much as his face was covered in bruises. He bet she looked prettier without it. She had a tall, lean build and long legs that he imagined wrapped around his hips at the very second that she looked at him, and said, “It’s not you I’m worried about.”

  Well, that was a dash to a guy’s ego. Then again, he shouldn’t be imagining anything. Now was not the time to get involved with anyone. Forget the way she’d run the tip of her tongue across her upper lip to erase her foam moustache.

  “I’d take off those shoes before you go down the stairs. Might be a bit dicey.”

  She leaned against the wall and stripped off her thick-heeled shoes, wrapping her finger around the straps.

  “Get some sleep,” Petra said. “We can talk in the morning. I want to hear more about Cheveyo.” She cleared her throat. “Out of curiosity.”

  Zoe stepped into the stairwell. “Like I’ll get any sleep.”

  Rand followed her, noting the slender line of her back, a small but shapely behind. He admired the fact that she’d escaped an assassin twice. They’d all listened intently when she’d told them about her two encounters.

  “The two rooms on the right are stuffed with supplies,” he said, as they walked through a large room that mirrored the space above, only this one had a smaller kitchen and a gym set up in one-half of the living area. “My room’s here.” He pointed to the first door on the left and pushed open the door in the middle. “We’ll share this bathroom; there are doors from our rooms, too.” He walked to the third door and opened it. “This is your room.”

  She stepped inside and checked it out. She looked tired and disappointed and a little scared. The last tugged at him, pulling him inside the room, too, when he ought to have been saying good night.

  “I’m sure you can get Petra to decorate it for you,” he said. “She’s the one who painted the walls upstairs and picked the paintings.”

  She grimaced.

  “Okay, maybe not.”

  She climbed across the bed like a cat, so tired she could hardly move. He saw an intriguing tattoo across her lower back. When he leaned forward to see it better, she dropped onto the bed and twisted around to face him. Their gazes met, and his heart stopped for a second. What the hell was that about?

  She wrapped her arms around herself as though she were cold. “This all seems so unreal. You just came here, too? Just learned all this?”

  He sat on the edge of the bed. “Yeah. The five of us”—he gestured upstairs—“spent some time together when we were real young, but I haven’t seen them since. I rep them big-time.”

  “Rep them?”

  “Respect them. They saved my ass. I wasn’t making it out of that asylum alive. We barely got out of there. I’ll tell you the whole story sometime. Eric’s a bit waked out, not sure what to make of him. Lucas is a cool cat. His loyalty rocks. When I asked him why he risked his skin to get me out of that place, he said, “You’re one of us.’ Being part of a group, that’s…well, it’s not me. But loyalty is something I can understand.”

  “Not being part of a group, well, you sort of get that way when you’re a freak.”

  Her wounded soul tugged even harder on him. She wore her freak identity like a shield to keep others out. He noticed another tattoo around her ankle, a ring of flowers and dragonflies, and a smaller ring of flowers around her wedding finger. “Makes life simpler, too.”

  “Oh, sorry to interrupt,” a female voice said by the door. Petra looked as though she’d come upon them in an embrace. “Zoe, did you need something to sleep in? I’ve got a nightshirt and pajamas.” She held up one in each hand.

  “That’s okay, thanks. I just sleep in my panties.”

  Great. Just what he wanted to know. He gave both women a wave and headed to his room. He stretched out on his bed, listening to the water running in the bathroom and imagining Zoe washing off all that makeup, combing her hair, doing all those things women did when they got ready for bed.

  Sleeping in her panties.

  Probably lacy panties.

  Probably lacy thong panties.

  She-it. He rolled over to face away from the bathroom. It was just his body complaining about the lack of female companionship lately. His lifestyle didn’t lend itself to a long-term relationship or being around quality women. Women in casinos didn’t tempt him; most were married and looking to score in more ways than one. Others wanted to hook up with the guy who was making money.

  Women who just wanted sex didn’t appeal; most were skanky. Women who wanted relationships were out, too. If he didn’t object in principle to paying for a date, he could see the appeal of hiring an escort.

  What he needed was a visit to Fiona, the rich divorcée in Atlantic City who distrusted most men but liked him because he didn’t give a damn about her money. It was empty sex but pleasurable.

  That’s all it was, the horny gremlin at work. So why did the memory of Zoe’s scared face bother him more than the sight of her delicious body?

  Zoe woke in a daze. No windows. A strange room. She pulled herself out of bed and oriented her mind. She was in—what had Petra called it? Oh, right, the tomb. Because people were trying to kill her for no good reason.

  The room was sparsely furnished, just a bed, nightstand, and dresser. Gray carpet and gray walls. She stumbled to the bathroom door and opened it. The sight of a naked male body woke her as no intravenous espresso shot ever could have. Water dotted Rand’s broad shoulders and dripped down the indent of his spine and over a tight, sweet derriere. Because he was drying his hair with the towel, he hadn’t heard her open the door.

  A hand towel went flying off the shelf, causing him to turn around to look at her, then behind him to where the towel landed on the floor. The familiar horror at losing control of her crazy energy filled her. The worst part, the absolutely terrible part? She couldn’t stop staring! His arms were extended above his head, bulging his biceps. Fine blond hair dusted the ridges of his stomach. His thatch of hair was dark blond, and a glimpse of what stood at half-mast was more than she’d seen on the few men she’d seen naked and fully erect.

  He hadn’t moved since her entrance, but he finally said, “This wasn’t quite what I had in mind when I said we were sharing a bathroom, but hey, it’s fine with me. Clothes are overrated anyway.”

  His words, along with his knowing grin, finally snapped her to attention. She slapped her hand over her
eyes and closed the door, murmuring, “Sorry,” followed by a groan of embarrassment. Which was when she realized that she was also naked but for her black lace panties.

  From the other side of the door, he asked, “Was the towel flying your crazy energy?”

  So he’d noticed. “No.”

  “Interesting,” he said.

  “It’s not interesting.”

  She dropped onto the bed and buried her face in the blanket. She couldn’t, however, bury her body’s reaction to the sight of a gorgeous naked man. Come on, Zoe, this is nuts. You just met him, and you’ve got a lot more things to think about than that.

  He knocked on the door. “All yours.”

  With another groan, she wrapped the sheet around her and opened the door. He was in the opening to his bedroom, a devilish grin on his face and a towel wrapped around his waist. Her pulse jumped, and she yanked his door shut and locked it.

  He chuckled. “Hey, doll, at least we got that ‘seeing each other naked thing’ out of the way.”

  Doll. The word tickled through her. She found a pile of washcloths beneath the sink. “Are you teasing me or trying to make me feel better?”

  “Maybe a little of both.”

  She liked the sound of his voice, sexy and fun, filled with a smile she knew was teasing even though she couldn’t see him.

  She stacked the washcloths on one side of the cabinet and washed her face. How long was she going to be here, hiding from these awful people? She needed her stuff: clothing, toiletries, and hair gel. She used the men’s deodorant that was on the counter, then lined that up with the soap pump. She picked up the towel she’d sent flying. One toothbrush sat in a holder, and she was about to ask where he’d gotten it when he called out, “In the back of the cabinet.”

  “How did you know—you jumped ten seconds ahead?”

  “Yep.”

  She brushed her hair and frowned at the softness the curls gave her face. Curls hadn’t adorned her head since she was twelve, when she chopped them all off in a fit of ire. She got dressed, made her bed, and returned to the bathroom to brush her teeth when a thought hit her.