Chapter 2

Veni woke with a hell of a headache, noting she was still in the back of the van. Maybe the same van, maybe a different one? She had no way to know. It was difficult to get her brain to function properly; everything was glazed, as if coming from a long distance away. Her eyesight wasn’t even working the way she would have liked. Instantly she was terrified that something was seriously wrong, but seriously and wrong were not the same thing when it came to this kind of nightmare. Obviously something was very wrong. The problem at hand was to figure out who did what to her and how the hell it all came to be.

She already knew part of it, and the most important thing was figuring out what she would do about it. That was still a question. She sent out yet another message to anybody close enough to hear, and, once again, it bounced back. Her kidnappers had already mentioned using some technology to keep her from successfully sending messages. That was when they didn’t even know what she could do, so it worried her gravely that they had somehow managed to find a way to stop her.

What could she expect when they figured out more of what she could do?

Just then the side door of the van opened, startling her, and she turned to her mother, only to find herself all alone in the van. Her opportunity to escape free and clear had come and gone, before she’d even recognized it.

“Look at that. There you are and wide awake too,” said the grinning man, missing a front tooth. “Welcome back to Russia.”

Her heart sank at that, and she screamed mentally. Please, no, please don’t let it be true. Not back to the same place I fought so hard to get out of.

Then, as if he had heard her, he changed his wording slightly. “Not quite yet but we’ll be there soon.”

As she stared at him mutely, he continued to smile. “You should never have tried to run. Now you’ll pay the price.”

“Right, as if I wasn’t paying the price already,” she muttered, but the gag made her words a garbled mess. It didn’t matter at all, as her guard didn’t care what she said.

When he pulled her to her feet, her knees buckled instantly.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Fools. I guess they didn’t let you exercise your legs at all, did they?” he asked, with a sigh. “It’ll take you a few days to get over this. They never think about their prisoners.”

She didn’t think anybody ever thought about their prisoners, and those two hadn’t been interested in anything but getting the job done. All they’d been concerned about was getting back, before they got into trouble for having lost them to begin with. And just now, if she’d been a bit more alert, she could have made a run for it. Yet not without her mom. Still, judging from the weakness of her legs, not to mention her mind, Veni could only do so much right now. Therefore, it seemed as if she couldn’t do very much of anything under these circumstances. That damn wall was closing all around her, and the realization brought hot tears to her eyes. She struggled to shake them off, hating that she still ended up teary-eyed in the midst of trauma.

But her guard seemed to take no notice of her emotional state, only her physical reaction. “That’s just the drugs.”

Such a comfortable rumble filled his tone that those words almost seemed rote for him, as if he did this on a regular basis—reassuring his prisoners, so they wouldn’t be even more terrified than they already were. Russia had a bad name for many things, but something you could always do was buy anything you wanted,… if you had enough money. Such deals were always done through the gangs and secret organizations, but nobody cared, just as long as each party to the transaction kept quiet and didn’t make a big scene. Of course most people involved in this particular cash market didn’t want to reveal anything because, whatever they were doing, they were doing for profit, and apparently a lot of profit could be had.

Not that she knew anything about that until now, and she couldn’t waste any time trying to figure it out either. She must remain focused on trying to save her own sorry skin and that of her mother. Veni certainly hadn’t expected her own father to turn them in. If he had turned them in. That was her instinctive answer to how they ended up in this situation, but she didn’t really know.

But she would find out, at all costs. She had promised herself that, no matter what happened, somehow she would discover whoever had turned them in. The thought that this attempt had gone so seriously wrong was heartbreaking because there shouldn’t have been an opportunity for anybody to betray them. Their escape should have been locked up tight, as she’d expected it to be. Simple, clean-cut, a precise surgical attack. So what had happened? And how would she and her mother ever get out this?

If these guys had their way, she would never get out of the prison they would put her in. Forever, that was her sentence, and she knew it. The Russian government couldn’t afford not to jail her in effect, particularly if they had determined that she had any special skills that she could lend to their organizations. Whether she did or not wasn’t something she was prepared to discuss. Not to these guys. That conversation would not be happening anytime soon. Or ever.

Everybody always wanted something from her, and it was enough to break her heart. All she really wanted was to get back to England and to find a way to make herself a life again. A normal life, with people who knew who she was, what she was. A life where she felt at home, instead of being persecuted, kidnapped, and imprisoned for someone’s little pet projects, where they got to test her like a lab rat.

At the moment though, it looked as though her one chance at freedom had been a bust.

*

Reid parked outsidethe commercial building, and he and Anders walked up to the front door.

“I’ve got a question for you,” Anders began, as they studied their surroundings, both men vigilant and on edge.

“Yeah, what is it?”

“If she’s got these abilities, how come she’s not sending you any,… I don’t know, signals, signs, or whatever? Normally Terk can pick up on somebody like this.”

Reid looked over at him and nodded. “Normally, yes, that’s true. Which means that, if Terk can’t, we have to assume the worst.”

At that, Anders’ eyebrows shot up. “She’s dead?”

“I would think that we would know that big of a detail already, but it’s possible. I was thinking more along the lines that maybe she’s unconscious or heavily drugged, which is about the only way for them to still or to hinder her subconscious mind. If they have another method, that’s bad news for her and for us as well.”

“Meaning, if something like that could be used against her, chances are it could also be used against you, Terk, and, well, the whole team.”

“Exactly. They’ve already come up against a couple people doing their darndest to stop them from doing what we do,” Reid noted.

Anders nodded at that. “I didn’t hear the full story, but I heard enough.”

“And enough is all we ever really need to understand the kind of hell that our enemies are trying to rain down on us,” he muttered.

Anders smiled and said, “But we’re on this.”

“We are on it, but the very question you asked me is the one I’ve been trying to answer myself. What would it take for her to not contact us? And honestly I don’t like my options. The answer most likely suggests that she’s incapable of it, and, therefore, she’s either heavily drugged or,… or maybe so badly injured that she can’t get past the pain and the hurt in order to contact us.”

“Is it possible to get past that kind of pain?”

He gave him a small smile and a curt nod. “Yes, but it’s not easy.”

With that, they rang the bell and waited, not expecting anybody to be here. It would be better if nobody answered, so they could go in and have a look around.

As he studied the building, Anders asked, “What’s the deal with this place anyway?”

Reid pulled out his phone and looked at the information he’d been given by Terk. “An old warehouse. They’re still trying to track down ownership. Veni was seen being escorted outside over there.” He turned and pointed at the building across the road. “According to the info we were sent, she was led here.”

“And her mother?”

“And her mother. They were both walked across the road here and into this building.”

“So it’s likely they used it as a holding spot.”

“That’s what it seems to be to me,” Reid muttered.

“Yet that is an interesting location. I presume Terk or the Levi-Ice duo are doing some sort of rundown on it?”

“Absolutely they are,” Reid confirmed, “but, so far, outside of the fact that this warehouse has been vacant for the last three years, nobody knows who may have discovered its lack of tenants and put it to use for themselves. Yet you and I both know it doesn’t take much to make that kind of connection. It’s easily done. Once a place is empty for any length of time, squatters of whatever sort take it over, then all bets are off. Lots of people could be using this space for their own. As long as they keep that information close, nobody cares. Once they start causing trouble and bring it to somebody’s attention, then things go awry. These empty buildings are used all over the world, and that is just a fact. It doesn’t make me feel any better, though.”

Anders nodded. “It would be nice if we could find some connection to it, though,” he muttered. “If there is one, we can trust Ice, Levi, and the team to find it,” Anders stated. “This right here is definitely their kind of thing.”

“You mean, your kind of thing?” Reid asked, eyeing Anders curiously.

“Yeah, absolutely,” he murmured, then looked around. “I’m not sure whether you’re with me or not, but I’ll take a walk inside.” And, with that, he picked the lock quickly and stepped in, with a look at Reid behind him.

Since that was exactly what Reid had planned on doing, he followed Anders. Inside, they closed the door and surveyed the space. He wasn’t sure what Anders was looking for, but Reid was looking for energy signatures. As he opened up his vision to see just what had been going on in here, he was immediately slammed by way more energy than he could process. With a hard groan, he slammed shut his senses and sucked in his breath, trying to calm himself down from the onslaught.

“You want to explain that?” Anders asked at his side.

“If you don’t ask too many questions, yeah,” he conceded, with a wry sigh. “I opened my energy to see what signatures, energy signatures, I would find in this place. Unfortunately this place has been heavily used, and it’s full of energy, so I was caught off guard by the sheer amount and power of it. All of which means it’ll be much harder for me to find out who was here and the purpose for this building.” At the look Anders gave in response, Reid’s lips twitched. “Right, woo-woo stuff,” Reid confirmed, then snickered. “I guess that’s something you guys aren’t… terribly comfortable with.”

“I’m pretty comfortable with what I can see and hear and touch,” Anders declared, “but beyond that? Well, you’re asking a lot from somebody who doesn’t deal in woo-woo.”

“Hey, you’re the one who asked,” Reid noted.

At that, Anders just nodded and didn’t say anything.

As they quickly searched the building, Reid stepped back a little bit and announced, “I’ll try again.”

Anders nodded and waited.

This time, Reid opened up his senses a little bit at a time, which gave him the ability to filter in some energy at a slower rate than others, until he could open his gaze fully and then stare around the room. “A good twenty to thirty energies, well, twenty, twenty-five maybe, are here,” he clarified. “That means they have used this space on a regular basis.”

“Huh.”

“But it’s not coming across as fresh energy.”

“Okay, but this place,… it was a working business at one time, so that would make sense.”

Reid had to give Anders kudos because he didn’t ask questions or argue. He just accepted the information as presented. Reid could really appreciate working with somebody who trusted his partner at that level. Not that trust was really involved at this point, but, hey, Reid wasn’t being slammed with derision, and he would take that any day. “But,” Reid added, turning toward the opposite wall, his breath catching in the back of his throat, “Veni was here.”

“Where?” Anders asked, all business.

Reid pointed to the corner, walking closer. “She was here. She entered via the front door and was parked in this corner.”

“This is pretty public,” Anders pointed out, turning to look around. “Very public, as in she was kept in plain sight. That doesn’t make much sense.”

“Kept in plain sight, quite possibly drugged or injured at this point,” Reid shared. “There is violence in the air, but I’m not really getting a measure on how it was meted out.” Anders once again shot him an odd look, but Reid ignored it. “I am getting a lot of confusion, as if Veni doesn’t know what’s going on or why. Then there’s fear, but it’s not prevalent.”

“Why wouldn’t it be though?” Anders asked curiously. “You would think she would be terrified.”

“Probably mostly because she was part of the plan to get out and knew what was happening. She just doesn’t know who did the job and what became of it.”

“Do you think this was part of the plan? To take her here?”

Reid frowned. “I don’t think the plan was to take her specifically here. I think this was a holding area because whatever snatch-and-grab the kidnappers did was successful, and this was a way to work out the second part of their plan. Just…” His phone buzzed at that point. He looked down to see a message from Terk. “Shit.” He turned to Anders. “The two Russian escorts she had were just found.”

“As in?” Anders asked.

“Their bodies were recovered, floating in a small river.”

Anders muttered, “Of course. That means they were taken out and dumped. Which means that the Russians are really serious about keeping these women.”

“Very serious at this point, I would say,” Reid stated, refusing to let his mind go in the obvious direction.

“Still,” Anders went on, “it’s also possible the women now have new kidnappers, and the players have changed. We assumed the Russian government had gone after them, but we don’t know if that’s changed.”

Reid groaned. “The only good thing about this is knowing that both women are valuable to the Russians, as in seriously valuable. So chances are good they will want them alive.”

Anders nodded in agreement. “If these two women can do anything along the lines of what you and Terk can do, that makes perfect sense. I’ve never quite understood how Terk stayed safe all these years.”

“Part of it was the fact that our government kept their skill sets a big secret, keeping what they could do on the down low. They didn’t want anybody knowing about Terk and what he could do either. Now that Terk and his team are free and clear, they still basically work for governments, a few different ones now,” Reid explained. “So I don’t think anybody is ready to brace them again, especially not if they know the story of how Terk and his team survived that awful attack.”

“True, but some egomaniac out there would like to test you guys, I’m sure. So you always wonder if it won’t happen someday.”

“Yep,” Reid murmured. “I feel as if Terk’s team has discussed that, and everybody is prepared to do what they need to do. Yet they want a chance to live a normal life, whatever that’s worth or even means.”

“Does it have a meaning when it comes to you guys?” Anders asked, with a sigh. “It seems as if Terk’s always been chasing shadows, and now he’s got people who are important to him, people he cares about—a family, a wife. I guess I’m surprised that he’s still doing what he’s doing.”

“He’s always had people who are important to him. His team was his first family, from what I hear. He takes pretty good care of his team and always has. I think you’ll find that he’s doing what he’s doing to keep everyone alive. Terk isn’t the only one with a wife now. A good share of the team is partnered up, one way or another, and I don’t even know how many babies are on the way. Terk does what he does to ensure they’re on top of their game, so that he can keep them in all good shape, plus keep them strong and active in the industry. That way he knows what’s going on—instead of being blindsided, the way they were the last time. Staying isolated doesn’t end well.”

“That makes more sense.” Anders nodded. “If you think about it, you have to keep your enemies close.”

“As the saying goes, keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Reid clarified. “In this case, I highly suspect that a trusted friend in Veni’s world betrayed them in the end, and that will be hard for her to handle too.”

“It has to be,” Anders agreed. “Betrayal is always hard, but, when it comes from inside your closest circle, it’s the worst, and unfortunately it happens way too often.”

With one final check they walked out of the building, searching their surroundings. Reid sent a text message to Terk, asking if they checked all the street cams in the area around the building.

Terk phoned him. “Did you find anything inside?”

“Not really, except energy confirmation that Veni was here. She was kept in the corner, where everybody coming and going could see her.”

“Either as a prize or to keep her under control?”

“Probably both. There was… pain and some degree of fear in her energy. I’m not thinking that she’s seriously hurt, but I don’t have any proof of that. She was definitely drugged though. She was walking through a cloud while she was here.”

“All of that makes sense,” Terk noted a bit too harshly. “I’m not sure where to send you next.”

“I’ll take a walk around the exterior of the building and see if I can find her energy again, just in case we’ve missed something,” Reid shared, disconnecting from Terk and passing the information to Anders. “I want to check out the perimeter of the building.”

“I’m coming too.”

Reid nodded. “Probably best if we stay together anyway.”

“Any particular reason?” Anders asked.

He gave him a crooked smile. “Yeah, because the Russians have a tendency to shoot first and to ask questions later,” he explained, “and it would be nice if I had somebody to back me up.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Anders said cheerfully. “Can’t say I particularly want to get shot on this job, so I’ll do my best to avoid it too. Yet it is that kind of a job.”

“Apparently. And the fact that they kidnapped and drugged a twenty-six-year-old woman and her mother is despicable.”

“Yeah, and what I really don’t understand is who would have done it and why. I mean, it seems the Russians had her first, but there may have been an interruption or a handoff, right? We definitely need a full history.”

Reid asked, “Don’t you already have it? It should have been in your inbox already.”

“Sure, I read it on the way over,” Anders confirmed, “but it was incomplete, and I have questions. Like, what is your relationship with her? What are her abilities, and how is it that somebody could make use of them against her will? I need anything that you’ve got to share.”

“Sure, just ask me. I met her during college, parted ways, but kept in touch here and there. Then I lost track of her months ago. Her mother can be used as the perfect leverage to get Veni to do pretty much anything. She’s a transmitter, a very strong one. Plus she’s pretty good at determining whether someone is lying or telling the truth,” he added, with a wry smile. “She can basically just look at you, register the energy, and say, Yeah, bullshit.”

At that, Anders stared at him, eyebrows raised. “I can see where that would be very helpful for several types of businesses.” He considered that for a moment. “Yeah, I suppose any government would really like to have that in their arsenal, wouldn’t they?”

“Absolutely. Though in her case, she has a fairly no-bullshit style about her and calls out people when they’re lying. I also know that she can sometimes send out messages, which adds to her value. She’s a transmitter but not a confident receiver, so, as long as she’s sending messages, we may get a location on her. Yet she won’t call out to Terk and ask for help because she can’t receive messages on her own.”

“How is that even possible? I mean, that’s like giving somebody a car but not giving them the ability to drive. I mean, you need both halves of a talent like that, correct?”

“It certainly would help, yes,” Reid muttered. “However, nobody really cares about why we have our abilities. It is what it is, and, while we all know our gifts can evolve, that is not the topic of this discussion.”

“Do you mean they can really change over time?”

“They can. They can grow, and they can certainly be developed. Lately Terk has seen them change at a much faster rate. Certainly in Terk’s case, as each team member came back after being injured, they had all grown at a pretty crazy rate,” Reid shared. “And part of me is kind of jealous. Yet I really don’t want to go through what they went through in order to get there.”

At that, Anders burst out laughing, as they walked around to the back of the building. “No, I don’t imagine you do,” he noted, “but, if it gave Terk a lot more abilities, and it’ll help keep him safe, I’m all for it.”

“Oh, it will definitely do more to keep him safe. He can also talk to more people. His ability to empower others is also huge,” Reid added, “which is one of the reasons why I would consider moving over there. I’ve been footloose and fancy-free, but then you start to wonder if there isn’t more for you, if there isn’t more you could be doing. And those guys over at Terk’s team are doing it, so a part of me would very much like to check that out.”

“Let’s get this job done first,” Anders noted, “and then you can go play house in that crazy castle full of all those children they’ve got coming along.”

“I know, right?” Reid laughed. “Can’t say I would mind being around kids either. A lot of joy in that.”

“What about kids who have the same abilities?” Anders asked, staring at him. “No way Terk’s kids won’t be gifted. I understand Terk’s wife has energy skills too.”

“It can happen, and that’ll be one of those things they’ll have to look at—making sure the kids are welcome and valued, regardless of whatever abilities they have. However, I don’t think that will be a problem with Terk. He would probably say they were lucky to be born into a gifted family because they wouldn’t be tormented by the nightmares and voices in his head at all hours the way Terk had gone through all by himself. And yet Merk, his brother, doesn’t have any of those woo-woo skills, which I always found strange.”

“Yep, and Merk is one of my best friends,” Anders shared. “I understand his frustration sometimes too. I know that his brother was tormented constantly, so Merk didn’t really want anything to do with it.”

“The psychic opportunity is probably still there for Merk, if he ever wanted to open that door,” Reid suggested.

“I think Terk may have mentioned that a time or two, and Merk’s always just shot him down. I don’t think that door is one he ever wants to open.”

“It’s not for everyone,” Reid agreed, looking over at Anders. “Just knowing something is about to go down is one thing, but then to find out you can’t do anything to change such an outcome is pretty devastating. That’s something we deal with constantly.”

“Yet Veni doesn’t deal with that, does she?”

“Nope. For her, it was more of a party game, at least until whatever happened to her, that thereafter set her on this path.”

“I wonder what that was.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t had any personal contact with her in a couple years. Yet I’ve always searched online for her at times to see what she’s been up to,” he admitted. “I knew that her family was living in Russia, and I had always hoped that she was trying to get out. Yet I didn’t realize that things were desperate enough that something like this was in the cards. For her to have participated in an escape attempt like this, instead of just trying to sneak out, means that it was serious, and sneaking away wasn’t an option.

“So that says to me, if she couldn’t just sneak out, someone was controlling her life, and she must have been terrified of them. And that is something I’ll have a hard time forgiving myself for not seeing the signs. Veni comes from the heart. She’s a good person. If she can help you, she will, and, if she can’t, she’s a no-bullshit type person. So she won’t, and she’ll tell you why.

“Yet to think of somebody hurting her, simply because she can tell whether somebody tells the truth or lies, that’s a little hard to handle. However, I also know how governments feel about things like that. So, if she has those gifts and potentially more, she’s an asset they can’t afford to let anybody else have, even if they don’t want it for themselves.”

At that, Anders looked at Reid and nodded. “It could be just as simple as that. The Russians are scared that what she might do is more than what she’s let them know about. So essentially they’re afraid of whatever she can do, and they might be afraid that the West could utilize them against Russia.”