Touched by Lightning (6 page)

Josephina—Joe, brought her other hand to her nose where a thin trail of blood seeped from one nostril. “Yeah, I’m okay,” she replied, although her eyes flashed with something dangerous before she lowered her gaze to look at her bloodied fingers. “I don’t think our friend here wants to get to know us.”

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Britton said in a soothing voice that seemed to strum a tender, achy spot in Gyda’s chest. He didn’t come closer, but his presence seemed to expand until she felt surrounded by his warmth. “We’re the good guys and we just want to help you.”

“She’d probably believe that better if you hadn’t introduced yourself by sticking your tongue down her throat.” Joe seemed to have recovered her wits as she calmly assessed Gyda with a wary eye. “I’m not going to try to peek into your brain again unless you give me permission.”

Yeah, Gyda wasn’t sure she believed that and worked to keep her mental shields up, imagining them as tough as Tungsten. Tora was scratching against the walls, trying to get out, wanting to handle the woman the old-fashioned way. She didn’t think Gyda was up to dealing with the situation, but she stood strong against the more bestial side of her psyche. She didn’t want to lose control, not here in front of them. Tora was the ace up her sleeve, the secret weapon she could use if they threatened to harm her.

“Just tell us who you are,” Britton said as though Joe hadn’t spoken. His voice was soft, silken…deceiving.

Gyda well remembered the men who’d crooned to her with soft-spoken words, gentle touches until she stupidly lowered her guard. Then they hurt her nearly as much as the master had. Her hands shook, the dim light in the warehouse flickering along her blades. She shook her head at them and took a shuffle step back. They were plotting something. They were nothing like Estelle who’d eyed her with compassion, who’d made the dark, dangerous emotions rumbling inside her disappear, gifting her with a few minutes of peace. She could
feel
them planning a move and readied her body to counter it.

But even as she prepared to defend herself, she felt another presence behind her. Her heart leapt into her throat and Tora burst through the wall separating their psyches to take over. Except her feral side was too late. She began to turn, to put her back to the corner to protect herself, but someone grabbed her from behind, massive arms made of metal snapping around her even as someone else forced their way through her mental shields.

No, he wasn’t tearing through the shields Gyda had learned to build with Sixteen’s help, he was going around them, drawing power from all of them, draining them. They weren’t nearly as strong as Sixteen’s shields and she could feel her protective side trying to take over, but he drew harder and Sixteen quieted. A Reaper. They were some of the most feared supes in the world because they took powers away from you, drawing them into themselves and leaving the “donor” as weak as a norm.

Tora fought with everything she had, but the power that lent her strength sapped everything from her. A wild glance took in the sight of two men behind her, the metal one and the other whose eyes flashed with shocked pain and then finally the bestial light she recognized as belonging to
her
. He was the Reaper, the one drawing their strength away, leaving them weak and helpless all over again. She darted another look at the handsome man, the one she’d found so fascinating and snarled at him. She’d make that bastard pay when she got out of this. She’d…

“That was the look of a woman who’s imagining your balls dangling from her rearview mirror,” Joe observed as she watched Brit leap forward to snatch the mystery woman out of Murphy’s arms. “Clay, go see Carrie right now. You look like you’re about to start howling at the fucking moon and the only one allowed to do that is Ozzy Osbourne.”

The Reaper, the team member whose job was to absorb all types of powers ranging from mental to physical from other supes, shook his head and blinked his eyes owlishly. “That’s…” He paused to lick his lips. “That’s some freaky shit.” His voice had dropped from its regular tenor to a deep baritone, the words growling out of him. “I feel like…I can leap tall buildings in a single bound or something.”

Joe snorted and gave the shorter man a gentle shove. “Go see Carrie so she can cleanse you.” She watched the Reaper walk away, his legs shaky like a sailor who’d just stepped off a roiling vessel. “Murphy, go with him. Make sure Carrie gets that power out of him. The last thing we need is someone else with a Dr. Hyde syndrome in this building.”

The big man’s gaze shifted to Brit, who’d lowered the girl to the ground, hovering over her like a protective guardian. Joe shook her head at the Beta T.U.’s leader. “Don’t worry about him, I have this covered.”

She could see the war in his eyes, but he didn’t gainsay her. The metal disappeared back into his skin as he turned and walked away, following Clay out of the motor pool. Joe made a mental note to make sure Beta T.U. got some downtime this week. She hadn’t wanted to call them in for something like this, but she’d needed discreet, powerful team members who wouldn’t balk when she wanted them to take down what most men would perceive as a weaker person.

Mr. Dimples trotted out of the shadows and the darkness clinging to her heart lightened a little. She frowned, not understanding how her wolfhound always managed to find her, or how he’d managed to make his way downstairs, but shrugged off the thought. Someone must have heard him howling on her floor and brought him down in the elevator. Not that it mattered. He was here and she was relieved to see him.

Kneeling, not caring the least bit about the grunge and dirt on the ground, she wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face against his silky shoulder. Peace and serenity filled her as it always did when her faithful wolfhound was at her side. He kept her level better than the Siphons who lived to keep her from going nuclear. She sighed deeply, earning a sympathetic groan from Mr. Dimples.

“Sometimes I think you’re the best human I’ve ever met,” she whispered to him before she released him and stood.

Being the Director of a multibillion-dollar nonprofit wasn’t for the faint of heart. Sometimes you had to be ruthless to get the results and answers you needed and Joe had done that tonight. She dusted off her suit with steady hands before she spun on the heel of her three-thousand-dollar Valentinos and faced Brit. She heaved another sigh, unhappy with the way things had turned out.

Brit had the girl cradled in his arms, his brown eyes nearly black with fury as he glared at Joe. His thoughts were a seething mass of retribution against Murphy and Clay, slightly less pain planned for Joe and lots of coddling for the woman he currently held. It was that last bit that made up for the other thoughts as far as Joe was concerned. Somehow this strange girl with her too-dark soul, split personality and titanium mental shields had touched the normally collected Siphon. She cocked her head to the side to study him, reading him loud and clear.

She shook her head. “That just isn’t possible, my friend, and I don’t think Murphy would appreciate you fixating on his ass so much,” she teased, hoping to see a little of his quirky humor. Of course it didn’t work because Brit had gone all white knight for this woman. Joe sighed yet again and shrugged. “I’m not sorry I didn’t tell you. She’s an empath and despite what you think, your mental shields aren’t as strong as they could be. She would’ve read you like a book and we would’ve never caught her.” The look he shot her should’ve set her hair on fire, but Joe had been the recipient of that exact same glare so many times, she was positive she was fireproof.

“You sicced a reaper on her,” Brit growled, just more evidence that the man was unfurling his chivalric flag. She supposed she was lucky he was a Siphon, which meant he could only take powers freely given to him, not a Reaper who could just take them. Otherwise he might have been tempted to use those powers on her.

That is just too cute.
Joe had never been the kind of woman men automatically wanted to protect. And she was fine with that. Really. But seeing someone she truly respected getting all macho over a woman he barely knew made her wish she were.

Mr. Dimples pressed against her hip, his warmth settling into her and taking away those jealous thoughts. She pressed her hand to the top of his head, thinking he really was the perfect man for her. He didn’t fight for the remote control, didn’t care that she towered over him, wasn’t intimidated by her abilities and he never ran away when she woke up in the morning with bed hair. What else could a woman ask for?

Her nerves settled, she could think clearly and concentrated on the pissed-off Siphon in front of her. “Brit, she’s killing people right under our noses. She’s an empath with some kind of multiple personality. She’s dangerous and even though the men she killed deserved it, we can’t have a vigilante supe running around. The last thing we need is for norms to believe we’re against the justice system.” He opened his mouth to refute her words, but she held up her hand and shook her head. “No. We need to find out what the fuck her malfunction is, get her some help and either get her trained to control herself, or decide if she’s too dangerous to let loose on society.”

And they both knew what that meant. A complete memory wipe of the Order of Themis and lock up in El Dorado, one of several maximum-security prisons suitable to house supes. Joe wasn’t sure this woman would be able to take that. There was something funky about the multiple-personality thing, almost as though the more animalistic side wasn’t something she’d been born with. If this chick was mentally ill, it’d been something she developed later, not necessarily something she’d had since birth, because that other personality felt more like a teenager.

There were definitely three personalities in there, all fighting for dominance and all distinctly different in powers. There was the shy, feral girl with empathic abilities, the one they’d managed to capture who had weak mental shields. Then there was the coolly dangerous woman who had shields so strong they’d nearly knocked Joe into next week when she tried to break through them. And finally there was that bestial personality that was all raw strength and animal instincts. But covering all of them was some sort of barrier, like a static boundary keeping them from being fully read. It was the weirdest shit she’d ever seen.

Brit said nothing, although his jaw bunched as he swept past her with the woman in his arms. In doing so, the top of the woman’s head touched Joe’s arm, connecting them for one split second. But it was a second that seemed to last a lifetime because unable to help herself, Joe reached out to the woman’s unguarded mind. There was still a high wall of security around her, the mental shield weaker now and easily overcome. At first all she saw was the more recent thoughts the woman had of Joe, Brit, the Order of Themis. Then she slipped deeper and found herself in hell.

Sixteen’s stomach growled and the Beast wanted to rattle the bars of the cage, but she knew better than to let it out. The last time she’d tried to call attention to herself in the big house she was kept in, the master had beaten her within an inch of her life. Then he’d brought in one of his friends, a friend he’d allowed to use her even as he healed her body, only to have herself beaten again and healed and used again. She didn’t remember how long that time had lasted, only that she knew better than to try to get the other people in the house to help her.

Her keen ears picked up the familiar sound of Master’s firm tread on the hallway and she waited with a combination of fear, dread and anticipation. Her stomach growled again as though to comfort her for wanting to see him again. As much as she hated him, wished he would just die and leave her in peace, he was her only means of survival at the moment. Every muscle in her body seemed to tense the closer Master’s footsteps sounded. Her gaze was riveted on the fancy door handle. Her lungs seized when it turned and then he was in the room with her again as though he’d never left.

Except she couldn’t see the master’s face.

Sixteen blinked and frowned, concentrating harder on that strange blur of skin and pale hair, but couldn’t make his features form into the face she’d come to hate. It was as though something blocked her from identifying him. All she could see was the fine clothing, the big belt buckle emblazoned with a stylized W. And even as she stared at that piece of brass it came closer and closer until it was all she could see before her face.

“You look hungry, Sixteen,” Master said in a voice that came out distorted and warped. It wasn’t the way he usually sounded, almost as though he were disguising his voice or something. But then she quickly forgot about his voice, his face and everything else as his hands began to work at his belt buckle and then the fly of his pants. “Let’s see if I can find something to appease your appetite.”

Gyda sat up with a gasp, her mind scrambling for reality, for the here and now, not the past. She reached out for her box and promptly rapped her knuckles into a solid concrete wall. Puzzled, she rubbed her eyes to clear them. She couldn’t believe she’d slept so hard. Normally when she was in a hotel room, she woke up periodically because of the sounds in the rooms next to hers or just a bone-deep fear that she’d wake up back in that cage.

But this time when she pulled away her hands, she still couldn’t believe her eyes. She wasn’t in her hotel room. The small, concrete chamber wasn’t any better than the shithole room she’d taken during her stay in Kansas City, but she knew exactly what it was. A cell. A cage. Gyda sprang off the cot she’d been lying on and flew to the door with the small rectangle cut at eye-level. Peering out, she couldn’t tell a goddamn thing about where she was.

The walls started to close in on her, panic igniting like a nuclear bomb. She clutched the bars on the window of the solid door, pressing her face to them in a bid to get air in her lungs. Fresh air, not the air of the cell she was in. It didn’t taste any better than the oxygen in her cage, so she let go and plastered herself to the door, her frantic gaze skipping over everything in the room. Which wasn’t much at all. Bed. Toilet. Sink. That was it. But it was better than what she’d had when she was with the master. Still, civilized amenities or not, she had to get the fuck out of here.

Tora pulled and tugged at her consciousness, determined to take over and
claw
their way out of the cage. Gyda almost allowed her at it, but even as she thought it, her ears picked up the sound of footsteps headed her way over the frantic pounding of her heart. For a moment, she flashed back to one of the many nights of her captivity. Was it Master? Had he found her again and locked her in this cell until he could relocate a cage for her? Her palms grew damp and she scrambled for something, anything to calm the rising tide of terror.

No, it wasn’t possible. The last faces she remembered seeing were Britton and the Director of the O.T., Josephina. They
were
the Order of Themis. They couldn’t go around handing girls over to sick bastards for shits and giggles. Someone would’ve stopped them before now. Right? She’d always been in awe of the O.T., always looked to them as heroes for weak supes like herself. Until the day she ended up with Master and stayed with him for so long.

They don’t take girls no one wants, remember? You were expendable, an orphan your own fucking mom didn’t want. Why should anyone care about you and what happens to you? If they had, they would’ve found you earlier.

The voice held the faint hopelessness of Sixteen.
Holy shit, I’m freaking out.
Gyda wrapped her arms around herself, her heart threatening to jump right out of her chest and her skin crawling with memories of how easily the master had broken her down, how easily she’d fallen prey to him and the stupid, blind hope she’d clung to that someone, anyone, would save her.

Glancing around the cell, she could tell there was nothing for her to use to calm her shit. A quick pat at her body told her they’d taken all her blades. Then she glanced at the cot. It’d squeaked when she climbed out of it. She ran to the piece-of-shit bed and fell to her knees next to it, yanking away the mattress with a desperation born of a major panic attack. As she’d suspected, metal wire made up the supports of the cot. She almost wept when she saw the sharp barbs on the ends, but the ever-encroaching footsteps wouldn’t let her break down now. She had to be level when they got here. When the master got here and started his sick games again. She had to be able to deal with it and kill the fucker. There was no way in hell she’d ever let him take her back to that place again.

Without giving it further thought, she aimed her forearm at the sharp barbs of wire holding the springs in place. Pain blossomed and blood flowed, releasing some of the panic threatening to tear her apart. Another slash and she could think a little better, although the pleasure of the pain called out to her to do it again and again and again until she was lost to it. Only knowing the master would like nothing better than to see her as a bloodied, pathetic mess kept her from giving in.

Well, that and the zap of electricity that made the room glow blue seconds before she was blown away from the cot’s frame. Everything seemed to slow down as she went airborne. Gyda swore she could see every porous inch of the concrete walls, the slight cracks in the ceiling and the faces of the people crowding the doorway. She didn’t recognize any of them, hadn’t even felt them approach. If she would’ve had time to feel disappointed, she would have, which made no sense. She didn’t want that liar Britton to come anywhere near her. Not after he betrayed her. But what had she expected? And now as a result of his lying, she was going to go through a lot of pain. It was there in the grim countenances of the people staring at her. They weren’t going to be gentle with her, not that anyone ever had been.

Time seemed to speed up as Gyda became resigned to her fate. Tora wanted to break free of the chains that held her down, but her Beast was strangely sluggish. Probably from the attack of the night before. Whatever the reason, her feral personality was of no help now. And neither was the smart-ass Sixteen. Her other selves were strangely silent, leaving her to fight on her own. Again.

She braced herself to hit the concrete wall opposite of the cot, but made contact with something hard, yet not nearly as unforgiving. Heat and electricity branded her back, clearing her mind quicker than the sharp wire had, but bringing with it a different kind of sweet pain. Ozone and musk filled her nose, a masculine scent that caused butterflies to flutter in her stomach. It also brought that unwelcome warmth between her legs. Without turning her head, Gyda knew she was held by Britton, the man who’d promised he wouldn’t hurt her and then let her be taken unawares.

Fury exploded in a way she’d never experienced for herself. Tora was the angry one, the part of her personality that gave in to her instincts and wants regardless of the repercussions. But Tora wasn’t the one Britton had kissed. And Sixteen wasn’t the one who’d stupidly let her guard down because a man talked to her with a soft voice and melting eyes. That had been Gyda and the result had been pain, waking up in another cage and a return of memories she’d long thought buried. So similar to what had happened to her all those years ago. But this time she wasn’t some kid who’d make it easy for someone to turn her into a victim. This time she was a full-grown woman who had the blood of her tormenters on her hands.

Britton would learn not to promise things he couldn’t deliver on.

Back away from her.

Brit wasn’t sure if the words were spoken out loud or in his mind, but he recognized the voice as belonging to the big empath who’d joined them for this trip to the cells beneath The Office. He’d met Leo several times over the years he’d served as Joe’s Siphon. The empath was part of the Second Sector Alpha Tactical Unit along with his Void wife, but in all the time they’d worked together, Brit had never heard the same level of warning in the man’s voice as he heard now. It was a direct order to retreat.

Unfortunately he couldn’t follow it. Not with Gyda cushioned against him. Seeing her sawing at her arms with the sharp spokes of the cot’s wire springs left him with the urge to protect, to battle the demons riding her shoulder even as his own reared their heads.

His mind flashed to a long-ago afternoon. Bloodied floors and sheets, pale body with great gaping slashes on the wrists. Dwayne barely conscious when Brit got there, the knowledge that he couldn’t save his friend eating at him, and watching his friend take his last breath even as the sirens wailed in the distance. Too late. He’d been too late to save the man who’d been like a brother to him, his O.T. signup buddy. They’d roomed together, went through training together and Brit had failed him, failed to see the demons tormenting Dwayne.

To see this woman dealing with the same monsters roused his protective instincts to an all-time high. The fury with which she’d sawed at her skin with that dull spring made his heart tighten as though a fist was clenched around it. Especially since he knew she had every right to her anger. The information he and Joe had uncovered about her after getting her prints had led them down a very rocky road of pain and suffering and hopelessness. Joe had picked up something from Gyda, something that had caused his boss’ skin to blanch and her eyes to dilate with horror. Seeing that only made the urge to hold Gyda close and provide a buffer between her and the rest of the world stronger than ever.

But Leo seemed to think differently, because the empath moved up and touched his shoulder. “You need to let her go before she hurts—”

Gyda suddenly exploded in a fury of moves that showed she’d learned how to fight dirty. Unfortunately for Brit, he was the recipient of her skill and it hurt like a motherfucker. In very short order, she set about attacking his solar plexus, instep, nose and groin like a pro, leaving him hunched over, hoping he’d be able to have children one day. But damn, even
thinking
about making kids left him gagging. He didn’t know where Gyda went or what she did after she laid into him and at this moment, he didn’t give a shit.

Slowly though, the sick pain in his balls eased and he was able to lift his head to survey the damage. Leo had Gyda held tight in his arms, his sharp gaze drilling holes into hers. They seemed frozen together while everyone around them groaned and tried to get to their feet again. It mollified Brit only a little to see three of the other trainers in pain after wrangling with her, but any satisfaction fell by the wayside when he saw the way Leo and Gyda stood, oblivious to the rest of the world.

He straightened, ignoring the lingering pain in his groin and took a step forward to separate them. It didn’t do him any good to see them so engrossed with each other. Logically he knew Leo would never step out on his wife, especially not in front of a room of witnesses he worked with, but logic had nothing to do with the primal surge rushing through Brit’s veins. His power recharged, coming back stronger than ever and he put his hands out with the intention of tearing them apart while leaving Leo with some nasty burns.

Except something happened between them, something that had Gyda’s eyes closing and her body going limp as the fight went out of her. Startled and a little scared at her sudden collapse, Brit jumped forward to catch her, but Leo already had his girl in his arms and was carrying her out of the room.

“I’m bringing her to Estelle and Joe,” Leo said as he stalked down the hall with ease as though he weren’t carrying another person. “She’s going to need them to get through the questioning.”

Brit’s hands curled into fists, but he didn’t say a word, all his focus on the fragile features of the woman curled in Leo’s arms. The shit he’d read, the reports Leo and Estelle had written about the fateful night they rescued her, the psychiatrist’s reports, the doctors’ reports, all of it pointed to a woman who’d walked through the fires of hell. While he would’ve been pissed at any other woman for going for his family jewels, with Gyda, there was no anger. Only sorrow that she’d had to live through that. And they didn’t even know all of what happened. As much as the empaths and healers and doctors had worked to get Gyda to open up to them, she’d refused.

“What just happened?” Murphy asked from beside Brit, throwing a squinty-eyed glance at Leo’s back. “Much as the girl freaks me out with that whole silence shit, she’s just scared. Did he fuck with her mind? Cause I ain’t gonna lie; I don’t like all that woo-woo shit those empaths do.”