“Anytime big money’s involved, it makes us all suspicious,” he murmured.
“Yeah, that is very true.” His fingers were already redialing Tasha’s number. But, so far, no answer. He bolted to his feet. “I don’t like anything about this. I’ll run over to her place.”
“If she’s still there. Remember. The bosses knew that we had some abilities, but they didn’t really know all of what we did.”
“No, they knew exactly what we did. They just didn’t always understand the nuances of how we did it.”
“Okay, good enough,” Terk agreed. “I don’t have a problem with that definition. Use your connection with Tasha to bring her back.”
Damn it. How did he know? Terk was like that. He knew things—that no one should know. Damon pocketed his phone and shook his head at that. “I just want to make sure that I find her alive.”
Terk’s smile fell away. “Yeah, I hear you there.” Just then he got a text, and he frowned. “I need to handle this.”
As Damon went to walk out the door, he turned back to Terk. “Anything I need to know?”
“Not necessarily. My brother is about to call.”
“Ah, well, let me know, and don’t forget we could use the additional manpower.”
Terk eyed him knowingly and then slowly nodded. “It is what they do. So maybe. I’ll talk to my brother and see.”
“Remember. They’re already involved. She’s there.”
“You go look for Tasha. I’ll talk to my brother.”
With that, Damon exited. Outside, he hopped into a black truck—nondescript, beaten up, slightly dirty, with nothing to cause any attention. He drove out of the huge compound of warehouses and headed to the address he had on file for Tasha. He didn’t bother calling again. Besides, this would need to be personal.
It didn’t mean it was still the current address though, and that was a bit of a concern. They’d never gotten personal on the job, and he had deliberately kept it much less than personal. Mostly because of the heavy attraction. Personal relations on the job never worked out. However, they weren’t on the job anymore, and that was even more dangerous because whatever the hell had happened had affected their whole team.
Only two days ago this had all come down; Damon had barely even surfaced when he found out that Terk was alive, and so they immediately banded up to try to find the rest of their team. What they’d found had been horrific.
The phone call to Levi’s team, warning them about Celia’s arrival, had been heartbreaking when all of them had realized what was going on. And even that knowledge came from Terk’s psyche. And, of course, the text message saying that she was carrying something special had Terk sending out a probe and finding out the truth; she was carrying his child.
When he realized it was his own child, they had just sat here in stunned fury, realizing just how much somebody was playing games of life and death with the next generation. And one of the reasons why Terk’s team had been disbanded was all over the arguments inside the government of how dangerous the group was. It should have been an easy job to shut down their operation, but now it looked way too much like the government had plans to shut them all down in another way too.
Yet why Celia? Surely that didn’t play into the government’s shut-down orders?
Damon understood, he really did, because to anybody in black ops oversight, who knew what Terk’s team could and would do was terrifying. But, if they thought they would shut down and injure this entire team, like they had in an attempt to cover the behinds of some bureaucrats, they had another think coming. That would never be something this team agreed to.
Terk was the most powerful of them all, and yet, at the same time, he was also the most exposed because he had family. It was one thing to have a team like they did, but, with families to intimidate or to use as blackmail threats, it became a whole different ball game.
Especially now with this woman and Terk’s unborn child.
Damon had no family. He had been abandoned at birth and had no clue who anybody was. He was raised in foster homes until he was old enough to join the military, all the while realizing something very strange was going on, so he cultivated it. Only when Terk had showed up at his door about eight years ago and had suggested that Damon come to work for him did he realize anybody else like him was out there. Since then, the two of them had been like brothers.
That it was possible that not all of them would regain their senses or potentially even survive was just devastating. Every one of them had a different ability, and some that they shared. Most of them could see either a location or people somewhere else, could communicate from another location, often on the other side of the world. Some of them could do so much more. And the longer they worked together, the more their individual skills improved.
That was one thing Damon could do. As long as he had something from that person, just a picture even, he could connect to wherever they were, sometimes talk to them, although they weren’t necessarily amiable to psychic communication. Most of them thought he was speaking inside their head and thought they were going crazy. He’d learned a few tricks to help them believe, but it made his job that much more challenging. But, if he could get them to provide information to help a rescue go down, it was all worthwhile.
However, once the government found out more of what they could do, there had been a big push to annihilate the program. And maybe the team itself, in order to have their gifts no longer available to be exploited. And, of course, that was just the brass speaking.
Damon had always wondered whether his job would end in a good way or he would get out of this industry in a box. He finally figured out that it would be in a box, and whether he liked it or not didn’t really matter because, when you knew the stuff that he knew, nobody out there would let him live.
Particularly when it came to the government.
He had absolutely no doubt in his mind that his own government was behind the attack on them. But proving it and getting payback or at least stopping somebody else from trying a repeat attack was a whole different story. The biggest problem would be finding out how this was done. And how could he protect himself and his team from a future attack?
He had an ability to help others and had utilized it to rescue many people. To think that somebody out there could shut them down on an energy level and could put them in a coma at a whim was scary. Whoever was capable of doing this had to be stopped, and unfortunately, in this case, Damon could only see that those people would have to be permanently stopped. There couldn’t be any other way because that threat would always stay out there on the horizon, and there would be no peace for Terk’s team ever. Not exactly something Damon was willing to let happen.
And, on that note, he headed down the street in his nondescript black truck, punched in Tasha’s address to his GPS, and followed it to his destination. There he stopped and stared up at the high-end apartment building, with full security features.
“Why an apartment?” he murmured. Except, given the work she did, maybe it was for safety. And then again, given the work she did, maybe she’d become a pain to the dark side. Was she even here? Or had she run to the Caribbean? He might not have answers now, but he would sure as hell find out.
*
Tasha Millwork peered through the curtains, watching the road outside of her apartment building. She watched as Damon slipped from the truck, his gaze ever wary, as he casually walked down the block, crossed, and then slipped into the back entranceway of her building. She raced to the apartment door with an ear against it, then listened quietly as she mentally thought about him coming up the stairs and crossing the hallway. No doubt he was coming to her, but the question was, Why? She’d never had reason to distrust him; then she’d never had reason to distrust anything until two days ago.