“How can you be sure it’s yours?”
At that, Terk just looked at him.
“Ah, so you’ve already connected with the baby then?”
“Enough to know it’s my energy. It’s my connection, and I can see the child in my head.”
“And?”
“It’s a boy,” he noted. “There’s something different about it though, that I don’t quite get.”
“Huh. Well, when we come to something like this, how could you? I’m not sure that either of us or anybody else has had any experience connecting with unborn children. Have you ever even heard of such a thing?”
“No, and I wouldn’t have thought it possible, except that I’m living proof that it is,” he muttered quietly. “I just can’t believe I’m in this situation.”
“I know, and that’s why I’m wondering if it was deliberate.”
“Well, it’s definitely deliberate,” he confirmed, “but I hadn’t considered that I would be personally targeted in such a way.”
“No, of course not.” Hearing an odd sound, Damon got up and walked over to check on Tasha. When he realized the blanket had slipped off her shoulder, he quickly pulled it up and tucked it around her. Then he tiptoed back and away again.
“It’s still there, isn’t it?”
Damon looked at Terk in surprise. “What’s still there?”
But that flat stare wasn’t something Damon could ever really walk away from, so he shrugged and nodded. “Apparently. It damn near killed me when I saw the inside of her apartment and thought she might have died.”
“I still don’t like that the three of them were all targeted just because of their association to us.”
“I know,” he murmured. “And we have nobody to even take care of Wilson’s body.”
“No, but an anonymous tip was given to the police, so they should have taken care of that by now.”
“Yeah, we’ve used that trick a time or two, haven’t we?”
“We’ll have do it more than we would like in the future too,” Terk murmured. “We’ll need more support, or we’ll be in trouble.”
“What about your brother and Levi?”
“Well, they’re helping us right now, and, like I said, they’re on lockdown themselves over there. They are also trying to backtrack the two guys and Celia’s movements, which is just as important. Still no success in that area yet though.”
“Absolutely it is important,” he agreed. “All of it is important right now because, if we mess up on one front, they’ll come around and get us on another.”
“We’ve already seen that.” Terk shot him a hard glance. “They aren’t leaving any loose ends behind. Any screwups will have permanent consequences.”
Chapter 6
Tasha lay here quietly, hearing some of the conversation rolling over her head in bits and pieces, before she dropped off and woke up again to some of the conversation still continuing. The Celia secret blew away Tasha. It absolutely stunned her that somebody would go so far as to torture Terk by doing something like producing a child of his without his knowledge. How can anyone do this to another human being? To a pair of human beings? And yet, from some of the psychos whom she’d seen out in the world, it shouldn’t surprise her.
She had been part of an effort they had worked on to take down a large child pornography ring. Not exactly the type of stuff they were used to doing, but Terk had brought the case into the office, and they’d all been more than eager to help. And they had succeeded, rescuing some forty-seven children, the youngest of which was just a few months old. Even now Tasha got sick just thinking about it.
But the cases that needed trimming back were those dealing with assassinations of government figures and various world leaders around the globe. She had never been called to weigh in on those decisions; the admins just did the job given to them to do. And now that she was more intimately involved with the decision-making part of this team, it felt weird, though right in some ways, because it seemed like a natural progression—as long as she forgot entirely about the part in between, where she had been targeted, where Mera had been shot, and where Wilson had been terminated.
And she still hadn’t had a chance to even begin to grieve for Wilson. He was a quiet, intense young man, who had visions of a better world, visions that would no longer come to pass for him. It broke her heart to even think about him being cut down as a loose end to be trimmed, like excess fat.
As for Mera, Tasha understood not knowing whom to trust, not wanting to get involved. The fear driving through Mera was powerful and, in her case, was coupled with the pain and anxiety from being shot. But taking control of that fear and doing something positive with it was worth so much; otherwise you sat in that same victim state, expecting to be attacked. And one of those times when you turned around, you probably really would be.
Tasha hadn’t known it at the time, but her decision to work here, to actively do something to take charge against those who had attacked her, had proven to be very empowering.
She hesitated and then rolled her head to the guys. “Any food left?” She sat up slowly, as Damon walked over and stood there, staring down at her. “I’m fine, you know.” She gave him a wan smile.
“Good, glad to hear that, but you don’t look it.”
“I was just thinking about Mera and Wilson,” she explained sadly.
“And I get that, but the thing to be more concerned about now is ourselves.”
“I know. I know, but—” Then she stopped. “I guess there really are no buts.”
“We don’t have time for buts.”
“I get that. I just think it’s sad that Wilson was cut down with no sign of remorse. He seemed to be the first of the three of us, and somebody was just focused on shooting him and moving on to targets two and three.”
“What you need to remember is that, no matter what level these guys are on, they don’t care—not about us, not about anything except their end goal, whatever that may be.”
“What levels are you talking about?” she asked.
“Whether the big boss man at the top of the pyramid or one of the local hired guns on the bottom.”
“And what is that end goal anyway?” She had heard the guys discussing their theories, so this question was mostly rhetorical.
Slowly she stood, accepting his offer of help; then she brushed off her legs and shook them out, easing up the kinks from lying on the hard surface. She stretched, moving her arms and torso up and down and from side to side. “God, that won’t do me for very long,” she muttered, pointing to the pallet on the floor. “I know you guys have the training for this, but I don’t. I can sit in a chair for a whole lot longer than I can lie down on that type of mattress.”
“We should have beds by tomorrow night,” he murmured.
She rolled her eyes at that. “How will that be any improvement if we’re still in here?”
“Well, that’s not the plan. We’re looking for a safe home base.”
“Then we shouldn’t have set this up here.”