Cravings (Fierce Hearts) (16 page)

“Hi, Happy,” she said. Happy truly was. He wriggled his plump body and wagged his tail enthusiastically as Kennedy rubbed behind his ears. “Such a good boy,” she cooed, glad for his friendly demeanor. Most animals detected the animal part of her, but she didn’t present a threat. They seemed to sense that she was safe. Asia could attest to that, too. Her mental telepathy with animals affirmed it. Lynxes hunt mainly small animals like rabbits. But were-lynxes in Casey’s colony didn’t hunt wildlife. Like the other cats in the colony, Kennedy ate food from the kitchen.

She pulled her cell from her pocket and checked for Asher’s location. He didn’t know she was tracking him. Watching his little blinking button on the screen strengthened her feeling of connection. He was downtown at the Golden Star Lounge. She could sit and stare at his blinking light or keep busy doing chores for Lara.

Staring at the blinking light was winning when Lara called out to her.

“Kennedy, can you help Holly with the phones? It’s getting busy out front.”

“Sure.” She shoved the phone back in her pocket and walked briskly to the reception area. Flashing a smile at Holly, Kennedy grabbed the next call. It was a customer checking if the prescription food for her dog had come in yet. She put the call on hold and walked to the storage room. Scanning the various bags of dog food, she stopped short when her cellphone vibrated.

“Yes? Are you all right?” She couldn’t breathe, waiting for Asher’s voice.

“Yes. I’m in.” His whispered voice came out tense. “I’m looking for a closet or some kind of walled space near the Golden Star Lounge’s greenhouse private dining area. Can you help me? I’m trying to be unobtrusive but so far I’ve not found any hiding place.”

“Sure. Give me a sec.” Kennedy went into the memory of the restaurants blueprints. In the privacy of the storage room, she flipped through images as easily as if they were physical pages in her hands. “Okay, with the latest renovations, the owner added a private bathroom to that dining area. It has doors directly to the room, but additional doors that open to a hallway.”

“Hold on.”

She could hear his breathing. Hear his subtle footsteps whispering across the floor. She counted to herself, one, two, three, four—

“Found it. Thanks, gorgeous.”

He was gone. She stared at the phone, mesmerized by his blinking light. He’d stopped moving, so she hoped that meant he’d found his hiding spot.

Trembling began quaking through her. At once relieved to hear him call her gorgeous—typical Asher teasing—yet afraid he wasn’t taking due caution, acting frivolous under gravely dangerous circumstance.

She trudged back to the phone in the reception area, apologizing for keeping the customer waiting and assuring her the food she needed was available. She returned the phone handset into the cradle and turned back down the hall to the staff restroom.

She leaned into the corner and crumpled inside. Asher stood so close to being sucked into the claws of the TNG demons. He might not survive. And it would be her doing.

She hesitated, stuck between the hope of a different life with choices and the camaraderie of the colony cats, and accepting that she belonged in the life she’d always known with the people who’d raised her.

Indecision filled her heart. She knew she wasn’t good for the colony or Asher. She knew she had to leave. She could do that for them, especially for Asher.

She had to go. She had to go now, before more harm came to the colony. She quickly dashed a note to Lara, folded it, slid it into an envelope, and left it on her desk. She grabbed Lara’s keys to her Subaru and slipped out the back door to the employee parking lot.

Images in her mind of Asher’s beautiful eyes and devil-may-care smile brought a deep sob from her throat. Her heart reached for him, but her mind shut it down.

She drove to her mother’s office, consciously allowing thoughts of him to slip down into the foggy place deep inside her where she wouldn’t think of him. The numbness that had kept her lifeless before flowed through her, slowly spreading to cover her completely. Like frost on a window blocking the view, it separated her from herself. It deadened her spontaneous urges to express herself and embrace a full life.

Kennedy pulled into a parking space and scanned the building. Her mother’s office was in there, a brief elevator ride away. She shielded her eyes and stared up at the windows on the fourth floor where her mother’s office was located. Her mother would be arriving soon. A lump in her throat made her swallow hard. Icy fingers of fear wrapped around her heart, and a silent scream sounded in her head.

When the elevator opened on the fourth floor, she entertained the possibility that her mother would be happy to see her. That thought strengthened her steps and got her through the door.

The receptionist looked up from the front desk area. “Kennedy. How nice to see you. Your mother isn’t in right now, but she’s on her way. Is she expecting you?”

• • •

His ear pressed against the interior wall of the connecting room, Asher heard the voices of TNG’s BOD discussing what they referred to as the Project Powering. A plan put in motion five years ago by nine people. This lunch was a celebration of the successful trials of a soon-to-be-implemented drug.

The laughter and dismissal of lives of were-cats and human beings alike gripped his stomach hard, sending bile up into his throat. The magnitude of the threat these power hungry and greedy people posed to the way of nature was nearly too large to comprehend. They had to be stopped. Now. Before they unleashed the drugs onto the were-cat community.

If only he could march into their meeting right now and stare them in their faces. Throw down the proverbial gauntlet and deflate their unbelievably depraved egos with exposure.

He put his hand on the doorknob. Their boasting and disregard came to his ears so clearly. His pulse raced, driving him to take action right now.

The room got quiet. He could hear his own pulse hammering in his ears. Tension tightened his body.

Then he heard a chair move on the floor. A voice spoke.

“Sadly, we have suffered losses along our way these past five years. We’ve lost our leader, William Carter, and are now only eight. As you know, the number nine was significant in our formation. Nine is the number in numerology of serving others for the better good. It denotes finality and a time to focus the wisdom, intellect, and powers to lead into fundamental transformation.”

Asher’s brain fired. Did these people really think they were doing good for the community?

“We’ve lost our leader, but what he envisioned is still alive and in process under the leadership of Kathryn. Under her leadership, we’ve already had real-time results in humans and were-cats. Soon we’ll bring to fruition Project Powering, and with it, wreak revenge on those who have harmed us and our family. We will reshape the city for our financial wealth and the betterment of society.”

Hearty clapping made Asher cringe. This stuff was truly crazy.

Then a voice spoke of Kennedy.

“She’s key to proceeding forward with the Project Powering,” the voice said. “Kathryn, you promised your methods were solid and that you would thwart her escape and expedite her return. What’s preventing you from bringing her back under control? There can be no further delay. In other words, Kathryn, send your people out to grab the bitch. No more strategic moves. Get it done.”

The voice pierced Asher’s soul. He’d never expected them to give up on retrieving what they considered as TNG property, but hearing the heartless discussion of a living and breathing Kennedy made him almost blind with rage. He suppressed a rumbling growl that demanded action.

“Daren, I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, but I don’t appreciate your tone.” Kennedy’s mother made no bones about smacking the senator down. “I know my subject, and she will return. And if she doesn’t, we won’t hesitate to grab her, as you say. Her fellow were-cats have been valiant, but they can’t stop us.”

“I’m giving a press conference this afternoon announcing my involvement in new medical procedures. Kennedy needs to take her place as spokesperson on that topic.” Daren’s voice slid up in pitch.

Footsteps from the dining room coming his way ended Asher’s spying session. He gently unlocked the door to the dining room and the door to the hallway and slid through into the hall. On the other side, he brought up his most casual, unobtrusive attitude and sauntered down the hall and out of the restaurant.

On the sidewalk, he picked up his pace. Thoughts of Kennedy and the danger surrounding her treadmilled inside his head. He had to get to her. He turned the corner into the alley and sprinted to his truck. He jumped behind the wheel and took a moment to call Kennedy. Just hearing her voice would relax the tension that knotted in his chest. It went to voicemail. He disconnected without leaving a message and quickly tapped through his contacts for Lara. As he brought it up, his phone rang. It was Lara.

“What’s up, Lara? I was just about to call you.”

“Asher, Kennedy’s not here. While I was in surgery she took my car keys and left.”

His brain froze. “She left? Where did she go?”

“I don’t know. She left me a note apologizing for taking my Subaru. That’s all she wrote.”

“I’ll check at my house. I already tried calling her, and she didn’t answer. Maybe she just needed some alone time. We haven’t given her any time to herself.”

“Good idea.” Calm, almost-resigned empathy colored her voice. “I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”

Darting through traffic, his pulse chasing his fears, Asher reined in his boiling need to find Kennedy and make sure she was safe.

In his garage, he jumped out of the truck almost before it had completely stopped and raced to the door. It stood open. He took cautious steps inside. Unlike movie and television characters, he didn’t whip out a gun. He didn’t use guns. He relied on his keen senses and heightened agility and strength to protect himself. But that occasion rarely arrived. His daily practice of his self-defense skills was preparation for a possible need. Fighting off the recent attacks from TNG were his first at real application.

So he walked through his house, his senses on alert, prepared to face confrontations, all the while his heart lay at the bottom of his feet. Everywhere his things lay upturned, ripped apart, thrown to the floor.

He walked from room to room, a mixture of fear and anger churning in his belly. He sniffed for scents, carefully stepping through his home. He recognized the handlers’ scents, but there were more, unfamiliar scents that told him a team had broken into his house. Four other scents he easily identified as were-lynxes, but not any of them familiar.

He didn’t find anyone, so he didn’t need to use his defense skills. But his life had been intruded upon, and he felt torn wide open. Worst of all, Kennedy was not here.

Pacing, he called Lara. “She’s not here, Lara.” He blurted it out before she could say hello. “My house is in shambles, and Kennedy is not here. Neither is your Subaru.”

“We’ll all help her, Asher. We’ll find her. Maybe it’s simple, as you suggested. That she needed some time to herself, time to think and process all that has been coming up for her. I’ll report my stolen Subaru to the LPD. That might help us locate her, or at least a location where she left the vehicle.”

His head felt too heavy for his neck and shoulders. He drooped to the floor. “Lara, someone has torn apart my house. I don’t know why. Two of them were Kennedy’s former handlers. But four scents were of were-lynxes I didn’t recognize. Maybe they were looking for something, but I don’t know what. And she’s not here.”

“Asher, you’ve got to grab deep inside of you and soldier on, for Kennedy’s sake. I’ll call Casey and the others. We’ll meet at your house and figure this out.”

Kennedy’s head rested on her mother’s lap as she laid on the couch in her mother’s private office at Phoenix Biosciences.

“I told you, my daughter, you don’t belong in the outside world. You’re one of us.” She stroked Kennedy’s face and caressed her head, running her hand down her hair. “You belong here with me.”

Kennedy’s father walked into the room, eyeing Kennedy.

“She’s back, Jonathon. Just as I said she would be.”

Her mother’s voice sent chills up and down her body. The eerie sweetness wasn’t convincing. In fact, it dripped cynicism. It reminded her of a cat licking its lips after capturing a bird.

“Hello, Kennedy. You gave us all quite a scare, running off like that.”

Formal as usual, her father offered no measure of kindness. She could counter his message. She hadn’t run off; she’d been packed off and shipped to William Carter’s research project. A caged animal. Casey’s colony had intervened and rescued her from the project, most likely saving her life. She could say all of that and more.

But she kept quiet. She knew the consequences of asserting herself to these people, and that thought made her cringe inside.

When she’d first surrendered to her mother, her mother had slapped her. Her cheek still stung where her mother had hit her hard.
You ungrateful bitch!
She’d yelled, called her names, promised her severe consequences, and then it had stopped.

Her mother ordered Thing One and Thing Two to drive her to Phoenix Biosciences’s research facility. Now these bizarre moments with her mother filled her with trepidation. Her mother’s expression and behavior seared Kennedy, provoking images of a sacrificial lamb heading to the burning altar. Only she was the lamb.

Her father checked his watch. “Kathryn, are you aware of the time?”

More foreboding slithered up and down her spine. Kennedy didn’t know what she was getting into, but whatever it was, it was okay. As long as her sacrifice removed Asher and the rest of Casey’s colony from the crosshairs of The Nexus Group, it would be worth it.

“It’s time, daughter, for your procedure.” The excitement bubbling in her mother’s voice sent revulsion shuddering through Kennedy.

Her father took her hand and pulled her to her feet. Patrick and Gordon marched into the room. “Take her to the main surgical suite.”