Chapter 1

Reid pulled his rental car into a back alley and off to the side, shut down the engine, and grabbed his phone. It had been buzzing with messages for the last little bit, but the traffic had been intense, with some carnival going on. So he remained focused on driving and not hurting anybody. As he quickly flicked through the messages, he was surprised at how quickly things had evolved around him. Apparently Anders, who was part of Levi’s team, would help Reid on this one. He frowned at that. It was one thing to work for Terk, but he did remember Levi, assuming it was the same Levi.

He quickly texted Terk and asked. When Terk phoned him directly, his words were, “Yes, that’s Levi.”

“Fine. So this is one of his guys?”

“Yes, Anders has worked for Levi for quite a while. He was over in Europe anyway, which is what made him the ideal man right now. His family’s gone back alone, their holiday over, so he’ll give you a hand.”

“You think I need a hand?”

“Yes,” Terk confirmed, his tone terse. “I don’t know who else I’ve got to send to you right now, who else is close by,” Terk explained. “So we’ll give you some ground support this way.”

“Ground support—if it’s the kind I think of—is probably more valuable than anything Anders can do.”

“Granted, you transmitters need a good grounding partner to aid your gift, and Anders doesn’t have that skill. However, I wouldn’t count him out. Levi’s guys are experienced and have other skills, and they know what they’re doing. If nothing else, it’s always good to have somebody around to back you up.”

“I won’t argue with that,” Reid admitted, then groaned. “However, it’ll slow me down if I have to wait for him to reach me.”

“I highly suspect you won’t have to wait for long,” Terk stated, with a note of humor. “And, if you get out of your vehicle now, you’ll likely see him. So you are slowing yourself down.” With a chuckle, Terk ended the call.

Startled, Reid hopped out of his vehicle and turned to look. Indeed, a man strode toward him, coming up the alleyway. Reid studied the confident posture and the power that man emanated.

When the stranger came before Reid, barely a smile was given, but he gave him a nod. “Reid?”

“Yes. I gather you’re Anders.”

“I am. Let’s go. We’re out of time.”

Surprised at that, but agreeing nonetheless, Reid hopped back into the vehicle, started it, and asked, “Have you got a destination?”

“I figured we would start where they went missing, unless you have anything else in mind.” And though the question was innocent, Anders’s gaze was searching.

“No, I haven’t got any insights as to where she is—or they,” he corrected. “Yet I’m happy to have anybody else’s view on that.”

“I don’t have those kinds of insights,” Anders admitted, chewing on those just a little too long, “I just understand humanity and what makes it tick.”

“That’s more than most of us do,” Reid muttered.

At that, Anders cracked a smile. “Absolutely. According to Terk, you’re one of his.”

“I am, although I haven’t necessarily started working for him.”

“I don’t think anybody starts working for Terk,” Anders shared, with a smirk. “It seems you just get naturally drafted because of your abilities.”

“Yeah? What about those who don’t want to be drafted?” Reid asked, shooting Anders a glance, as he pulled back onto the main street.

“Then you don’t. Though I’ve yet to see anybody not join Terk’s team. Although it’s fairly new as a private firm, but, after the problems they had, I know they don’t take on just anybody.”

“None of us do,” Reid agreed. “I presume you mean the attack that they survived.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.” He nodded. “It’s one thing to be attacked. It’s another thing to barely survive an attempt at complete annihilation by your own government.”

“Yet we’ve all seen it.”

“Unfortunately, it happens a little too often,” Anders murmured.

“How long have you been with Levi?”

“A while.”

Short, succinct, and that was it. That was all Anders said. Reid cracked a smile. “So you’re here for the duration on this one?”

“I am.” Then he cracked a smile himself, glanced at Reid, and added, “Whether you want me here or not.”

Reid winced. “I’m really not used to working with anybody.”

“Get used to it, because Terk’s teams are pretty involved all over the world, one way or another, and these kind of joint team ops happen all the time, even if just two men.”

“Again we’re back to that part about if I so choose.”

“Yep, if you so choose,” Anders repeated, “but the growth and development of the abilities of everybody on Terk’s team—even those who didn’t have what they would’ve considered abilities prior to joining—has been pretty amazing.”

“Including you?” Reid asked.

At that, Anders gave a shout of laughter. “No.” He shook his head. “I see black, and I see white, and there’s not a whole lot in between, particularly not the grays that Terk walks. I’ve known him for a very long time though, and I know he’s a straight shooter. If anybody else were to tell me that all this was possible, I would have called him a liar and then walked out of the room.”

“Yeah, I understand,” Reid stated, “and I’ve met guys like you before. Thankfully Terk appears to have a lot of influence all over the world.”

“Once you start dealing with him, it’s hard to forget—or to dismiss your brand of skills,” he admitted. “He’s also not a bullshitter, and that we can all respect. If he gets his information from sources that none of us really want to contemplate, well, that’s fine with me too. At least he uses the information to help others, and, in our case, he has saved several of our team members. He’s assisted us multiple times, so we don’t really argue what we cannot understand. Besides, his brother is a good man as well, and I would trust him to watch my back anytime.”

“I’ve never met Merk,” Reid admitted, “but apparently they’re quite close.”

“They are definitely close,” Anders agreed. “I’m not sure how you could help it when your brother can read your every thought.”

“They must have worked out a system where he doesn’t get to do that,” Reid suggested, “because, when you don’t want your thoughts read, and people do it anyway, it causes all kinds of hell.”

“Sure it does, but they seem to manage. And that’s where the agreement and the respect cooperate, where somebody gets to draw that line. However, Terk does cross it, when he has to.”

“And I will too,” Reid stated. “If I feel the need because I know there’s danger, I will too.” At that, Anders glared at him. Reid just shrugged. “We all must learn and grow. You signed on for the job, so, for me, that means you do as well.”

“Put all that aside and let’s go find the last spot where they were seen.” And, with that, he punched the address into the GPS, and they headed off.

*

Veni Baronov squintedand stared at the scene in front of her. Her brain tried to process the situation, trying to make sense of the craziness of all that had just gone wrong in her world. Part of her brain still fought the drugs, and another part tried to sort out what was happening.

Something told her not to move, no matter what. She froze her neck, holding it still, not moving in the slightest, yet she had no idea why. As she slowly engaged all her senses, she confirmed that she was in the back of a van, her hands tied, a gag in her mouth. Right beside her, directly in her field of vision, was her mother, her beautiful, talented mother. She was unconscious and bouncing back and forth, as they took hard corners.

Veni was jammed up against a solid surface, with a bag or something behind her, so she wasn’t feeling the effects of the vehicle’s erratic movements quite so severely. Yet watching her mother bounce around so freely was painful. She wanted to reach for her, but she also knew that was futile. Her instincts told her, Don’t move, don’t shift, don’t cry out, don’t do anything. She took a slow, deep breath, trying to calm the panic in her heart, as her brain filtered the memories back in, reminding her of what had happened.

Veni and her mother had been on their way to England, defecting back to their home country. Both women had been born there to a Russian father, which influenced their birth names and eventual travel plans back to Russia. Veni’s parents had split years ago, yet both her mom and dad still worked for the Russian government. Veni did too, after her college years—only to be more prisoner than employee. Veni wasn’t free to do any of the work she wanted to do. Her parents weren’t free to choose their projects either, but they seemed okay with that. Veni sighed. Everything required permission. Somewhere along the line someone had told the Russian government too much…

Maybe due to Veni’s own foolishness from years ago. She thought she’d wiped clean her entire history, but, when you’re young and stupid, you don’t think about whether your presence in a forum a decade ago would make such a ruckus. However, the opposite became true for Veni. The Russian government believed Veni was capable of doing things far more advanced than anything she was willing to let them know about. The fact that she hadn’t let them know of these things was all the more horrible—in the eyes of the Russians—and yielded more strikes against her.

Veni had truly hidden things from them, yet they made too much of her rusty and unwieldy skill. That discovery and Russia’s reaction to it had led to her mother’s decision. Both of them had made the decision together, so Veni couldn’t solely blame her mother for it. Veni had been just as desperate to get out of the country and to find a place where she could be safe. However, she wouldn’t leave without her mom, and her mother wouldn’t go it alone.

Especially not if that involved leaving Veni behind.

Her father, as she’d eventually come to realize, didn’t have their best interests at heart. That fact was difficult for her mother to accept, until she finally accepted that to stay was to forfeit any kind of a happy life for her daughter. That had been the impetus they needed to make the contacts and to start the painful and scary wait, while secret plans were set in motion.

Obviously whatever plans had been made were discovered and blocked. So here Veni was, once again a captive, and, based on the language spoken in the front of the vehicle, back in Russian hands. At that point, her mom moaned ever-so-softly. Veni’s hands were tied, so all she could do was send out good vibes, as much as her still-drugged brain would allow, hoping to somehow soothe her mom, praying her mother would be quiet, would stay calm, and wouldn’t give up just yet.

Veni wasn’t sure what the new plan would be going forward. She didn’t have one, if the truth be told, but she needed to find one and find one soon. Their kidnappers were driving them somewhere, but that journey could end at any moment. Veni needed an escape plan because the last thing she would do was go back under Russian rule. Not when they wanted her to do just that and only that.

Her mother moaned again.

Veni heard swearing from the front seat of the vehicle, with the driver proceeding at a fast pace down a highway. Veni could only hope their kidnappers didn’t hear her mother. In the recesses of Veni’s mind, she knew it would be bad if they did. She shifted ever-so-slightly, hoping to reach for her mother’s hand to comfort her, but Veni couldn’t quite make it.

When her mother moaned yet again, somebody in the front swore again, and Veni listened to the murmuring back and forth. Finally she made out something.

“I don’t give a crap how you do it. Shut her up.”

Veni winced at that because her mom would get the brunt of that order, but, if the men also knew Veni was awake, she would be targeted as well. She allowed herself to sink heavily back into a drugged state, to relax her facial muscles, knowing when one tried to appear to be asleep or unconscious, it didn’t always work. In her case, allowing the haze of the drugs to return, she could hope that it would.

She heard sounds, as somebody moved from the front seat into the back of the vehicle. Veni waited, her eyelids shut, until she heard a rustle nearby. Then taking a chance, she slitted her eyelids to see one of the men shoving a needle into her mother’s arm.

Veni’s heart sank, knowing that would keep her mother unconscious for hours, right at the very time when Veni might have been able to get them out of here, both alert and mobile—if only her mom had woken up early enough herself, without these guys knowing about it.

Just then the man called out to the driver, “What about the other one?”

“If she’s not awake, don’t give her more,” he cautioned.

“You sure about that?”

“We don’t want to give her more if she’s still unconscious. We could end up hurting her.” His tone had turned hard, as if annoyed at having to repeat the instructions.

“Yeah, well, if what they say she can do is accurate, I wouldn’t mind hurting her myself.”

“That’s not the point,” he replied. “Remember how the boss is pretty adamant that we get them back into the labs really quick, without hurting the bitches unnecessarily.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll leave her for now. She looks pretty out of it.”

“Good. Not that I trust her, particularly that one.”

“Maybe I should inject her anyway then.”

“No, just leave it. I don’t want to be the guy who has to tell the boss that we killed her.”

“Right, that wouldn’t be good for anybody, would it?” With a half laugh he already made his way back to the front of the van.

She sighed with relief that she wouldn’t get another shot, so maybe she could function enough to find a way out of this mess. Besides, if her brain was operating correctly, maybe she could send out telepathic messages.

“How come we’re not concerned about her contacting people with her mind, if that’s what she can do?”

“I don’t know, but they did something to her that’s supposed to stop it.”

“Really?” Surprise was evident in his tone. “Man, I never thought I would see the day where we could do things like that. Pretty awesome.”

“I don’t know about awesome,” his partner noted, “but she’s dangerous. It’s not natural to do something like that.”

While the men carried on with their trash talk, Veni froze, wondering just what the hell they had done to her to stop her abilities. Was it permanent, or was it just another nightmare testing scenario, something they were mulling over, trying it, seeing if it would work? Her vote was that such a thing would never work, but that’s because she didn’t want to believe they had any way to stop her abilities, especially her telepathic communications with other gifted persons in the world. As she lay here, she considered that their intercession might have worked, since all her efforts to reach out to those she knew just hit a wall, a blank wall.

She was afraid she knew what that meant.

She was way too tired to keep fighting the drugs, whatever she had been given was still running rampant in her system. As the driver turned hard at another corner, she shifted abruptly and hit her head with enough force that she slowly sank back into unconsciousness.