Make Mine a Marine (20 page)

BJ heard the insult, but didn't respond to it. She was too caught up in the turbulent plea for forgiveness etched on Brodie's grim features.

Rick walked right past them to the door, unimpeded. “I planned all this. You can attribute it to my brilliance, not hocus-pocus. My passport is in order. Let me know when to pack my bags, Beej.”

When he left, BJ had no clue. The shock finally eroded, and emotional self-preservation galvanized her. She put the distance of the room between them before facing Brodie. “Rick Chambers is behind this, not Damon. Just because you hate the man—”

“The man isn't human. He's a sorcerer. He's the same damn sorcerer who did this to me!” He took a step forward but halted when BJ threw up her hands and retreated. “I knew him the moment I saw his eyes. You never forget the eyes of a man who has no conscience, a man who kills for sport and uses people because it feeds a sick need for power and control.”

“You're crazy. I thought I was messed up, but you're crazy.”

His cheek throbbed with some emotion so powerful that it scared her. For the first time since she had grabbed his foot and looked up at his towering figure, he truly frightened her.

“I'm not crazy. I'm cursed. And the bastard who did this to me is using you to replace the daughter I killed.”

BJ circled toward the door, knowing it was a useless gesture to try and run from Brodie. But she seized upon the false security the outlet gave her.

“It doesn't make sense, Brodie. I might buy that you're eight hundred years old, but not Damon. If he is a sorcerer, he can't be the one you talk about. There's no logic to it.” She grasped at a slim thread of reasoning. “He would know that my death could free you of the curse. But if he's the one tapped into my brain, he wouldn't want me dead. I'm too valuable a tool. You just said he thought I was his daughter. It doesn't make sense.”

“He's insane, BJ. Logic doesn't apply here. He didn't count on me being hired to help you.”

BJ stared at Brodie. She just stared while she battled the emotions threatening to drive her mad. Bewildering hurt. Defensive anger. Impossible love. Betrayal.

But who had betrayed her? Brodie? Damon? Everyone?

A morbid calm washed over her. “If Damon really is a sorcerer, then you're the one using me.”

He jerked as if she had slapped him. “No.”

“Yes.”  BJ jammed her hands into the pockets of her shorts. Her emotions skittered in wild disarray, but her mind stayed lucidly sharp. “You're the one looking for vengeance. You're just like all the others who see me as an opportunity. You're using me to get to him.”

“I love you.”

She shook her head. “Damon raised me. I was a freak, a science experiment. He turned me into a human being. He accepted me for what I am. He's my family.”

“Emma and Jasmine are your family. They're the ones who truly care about you. Believe me, honey, he has been grooming you for this mental takeover from the moment he met you.”

“This is the little secret you wouldn't tell me, right? I finally figured you out, big guy.” Resolutely, she walked toward him, knowing her accusations hurt him as he had hurt her. “If Damon really is your enemy,” she taunted, “then why didn't you just get rid of him when you found out who he was? Don't you immortals chop off each other's heads and absorb the other one’s power?”

“He can only die by his own hand. Unless he's responsible for his own death, and I don’t he’s likely to commit suicide, he'll be seeking power and vengeance throughout eternity.”

BJ laughed. The crazy sound came out of her throat, but it didn't sound like her own voice. “You know, you had me believing you were immortal. I was even trying to figure out how I could release you, how I could make a sacrifice and save you. But I don't have to worry about that. You're insane. I finally fall in love with a man I think understands me and I find out he's insane.”

Brodie grabbed her, hauling her off the floor up against his chest, pinning her with hands that bit painfully into her arms. “Damn it, BJ, listen to me. I have never lied to you. I give you my word that what I'm saying is true.”

“Your word means nothing to me.” Now, she could see the monster others saw. The beautiful eyes were a lie. They weren't windows into a tortured man's soul. They were icy barriers that hid the truth. “Damon is no sorcerer. I'll prove you wrong. And then I want you out of my life.”

After a moment of pained disbelief, Brodie dropped her. She recovered her balance with as much dignity as she could muster and walked to the door.

BJ closed it behind her and nearly fainted as shock caught up with her. She could commit Brodie to an institution. She should probably commit herself.

She staggered down the hallway, bearing the weight of a pain that consumed her thoughts as completely as the mind control had. Brodie had to be wrong. He just had to be.

How could he claim to love her? How could he make her love him, and then tell her such outrageous lies? She should hate him for betraying her so, for attacking the stable foundation of her life. She should hate him with the same intensity with which she loved him. She had risked her trust. Shared her secrets. Given her heart and body to the strange giant with the distorted features and ravaged soul.

She should hate him. But she didn't. She couldn't.

She might be able to get Brodie Maxwell out of her life. But she could never get him out of her heart.

Chapter
Thirteen

BJ moved through the remainder of the afternoon in a haze of pain and confusion. Brodie hovered at a protective distance, close enough to keep an eye on her, but never close enough to touch. He limited their conversation to perfunctory statements regarding where he could find her next if he needed to step out of the room.

She had hurt him badly. She could tell by the invisible barrier he’d erected around himself. He stood cold and aloof, his eyes always watching, yet revealing nothing.

BJ felt small and insignificant, even at this distance, truly a powerless pawn in a madman's cruel game. But who exactly was the madman here? Her heart screamed at her to believe in Brodie, who had comforted her, rescued her, taught her to love. But logic would not allow it.

She wanted Rick Chambers to be the only choice, not just the obvious one. Brodie claimed Damon was responsible. But she refused to accept the idea that the man she loved like a father, the man who had nurtured her so she could get out of a laboratory and into the real world, could have used her to further his own interests for thirteen years.

BJ numbed herself to the pain and concentrated her energies on purging Rick's files from LadyTech's systems. Emma stopped in on her way to pick up her daughter at the sitter's. The strain between BJ and Brodie was painfully evident, judging by Emma's worried frown. When Emma broached the subject, BJ politely excused herself on the pretext of going to dinner.

Normally, BJ didn't avoid her friends. But now she was holding herself together with a tiny, fraying thread. Discussing Brodie or Damon would force her to feel again. And feeling seemed to get her into a lot of trouble. Feeling worked against her ability to see things clearly and to wisely choose where to put her trust.

BJ's reprieve from the pain was short-lived. She escaped Emma's questions only to run into Brodie, himself, in the break room, sipping a paper cup of steaming coffee. By this time of day, the brew from the break room usually resembled primordial goo. But Brodie drank it down, unmindful of how it must burn his tongue and eat away at his insides.

BJ's first impulse was to invite him to join her for dinner and a fresh cup of coffee. He didn't take care of himself properly because he didn't think it made any difference. That was wrong. BJ started to tell him so, but caught the words on the end of her tongue. It shouldn't matter how Brodie took care of himself, not to her, anyway.

“I've purged all of Rick's files,” she said instead, struggling against the urge to bolt from the room. She spoke to one of the scars showing above the neckline of his shirt, not feeling brave enough to look Brodie in the eye. “I want to check my home files, too. I'm going to grab a candy bar to keep Emma happy. You can meet me outside and drive me home.”

“Fine.” A single word. A simple agreement. Yet the rich, rumbling tone spoke volumes. He missed her already. They stood three feet apart, but the distance between them remained unbreachable. BJ lifted her gaze to his, in time to see the icy shutters close down over the turbulent pain that must be reflected in her own eyes.

She missed him, too, but she could conceive of no way to allow him back into her life.

“I'll meet you in the parking lot in five minutes,” she said. She turned from his responding nod, fished some change out of her pocket, and selected the first candy bar she saw out of the vending machine. Without looking back, she left.

She could be making a huge mistake, alienating Brodie like this. But she shared too much history with Damon, and only a few days with Brodie. Logic dictated that she trust the former, not the latter.

Logic and brainpower had made pretty lonely companions for BJ throughout her life. Emma and Jas opened her to the possibilities of true friendship. Brodie had opened her to the possibilities of love. But the curse of genius still ruled her life. Her innate abilities had been the one constant that endured from the time of Jake's death to the present. Her IQ remained her best reliable hope for the future. It was too hard for her to take that leap of faith and trust her heart instead of her head.

Forcing her mind back to the business at hand kept the indecision at bay. She'd check her system at home for signs of tampering, and then, as her last task, she'd go over to Damon's and tell him the truth about Rick.

As BJ mentally ticked off the list of things she needed to do, another thought came to mind. She had cleaned up LadyTech's main network, but Rick could easily have rigged an independent system with more illegal transmissions of her programs. BJ would have to deactivate those as well, and the most likely place for Rick to set up such a system was in his private office.

Changing directions, she went back down the hallway to the junior executive wing and knocked on Rick's door. No one answered, so she quietly opened the door and stepped inside.

Rick's ultramodern glass and chrome office would be spotless, with every piece of furniture arranged just so. She didn't turn on the overhead light. Instead, she crossed to the desk, and flipped the switch on the lamp there.

Light flooded the room. BJ jumped back with a gasp, covering her fluttering heart with her hand. She wasn't alone. “Damn it, Rick, you scared the hell out of me. Why didn't you answer when I knocked? Do I have to call security to get you out of--?”

BJ's question faded into silence. She could tell from Rick's stark, staring eyes that he hadn't heard her knock.

She circled the desk and slowly, reluctantly, touched two fingers to the base of his neck. She shivered at the sensation of cool, damp clay, and hugged herself tightly. Not since saying good-bye to her father had she touched a dead man. From the open gape of his mouth to the horrific look in his eyes, Rick looked as though he had died right in the middle of a scream, that fear, itself, had killed him.

She saw that Rick's computer was on. No scrolling data, no words, no program. Just a single picture on the monitor. She stared at the screen with the same intensity that Rick must have just before he died.

The cursor blinked in the bottom left corner, at the lower tip of a lightning bolt encircled by a silver band.

Bile burned in BJ's throat as she backed away. One thought crowded her mind. She wanted Brodie. Despite all that had happened, her first instinct was to turn to him for safety.

She backed to the door, putting the desk between her and Rick's body when she heard the door click shut behind her. Tough, sinewy arms closed around her before she could turn, and a leather-gloved hand clamped over her mouth, muffling her scream.

She twisted and tried to bite her way to freedom, recognizing familiar scents of hair tonic and cologne. The arms jerked her off her feet, tightening like a vise and strangling the breath in her chest.

Smooth, cool lips teased the back of her ear. “Bridget. It's nothing.”

BJ screamed against the leather, turning dizzy from her effort. Or maybe the stealth of shadows creeping in made her light-headed. Tears stung her eyes. She squeezed them shut and hot waterfalls spilled over and ran down her cheeks.

The darkness rushed in, crowding out coherent thought. Where was Brodie? What had she done? What terrible mistake had she made?

Her muscles turned to gelatin while her mind struggled to break free.

“Come with me quietly. No one knows I'm here. Drive me to the lab. I can help you forget all this. I can bring you peace again. Trust me.”

No! I trust Brodie!

Help her forget… BJ's head lolled to one side, too groggy to support. She wanted to forget. Wait. She had to remember. Rick, dead. Brodie, right. Damon… responsible.

Damon.

She fought her way back toward consciousness.

“Bridget. It's nothing.”

Blackness consumed her and she knew no more.

Brodie's internal radar alerted him even before the passage of time made him wary. BJ was gone. Damon had her.

He slammed through the offices upstairs, searching for her, knowing where she was, but hoping…

At the end of the hall he found Rick Chambers's body. Out of a sense of duty, he checked for a pulse, confirming what he already knew. There were no marks on the man, no sign of a struggle. Just fear. A terror so intense, it killed a man—from the inside out.

He remembered the peasants who had died beside him in Damon's dungeon. Terror had killed them. Damon planted the thought, twisted his ring, and the men died.

With the same compassion that had allied him with those peasants, Damon closed Rick's eyes. He might hate the man for his part in hurting BJ, but no one, not a misguided peasant who threatened murder nor a greedy technician who stole BJ's ideas, deserved to die so horribly. So helplessly.

No one deserved a sorcerer's vengeance.

Brodie felt for his dagger at the back of his belt. He didn't know what he could do to fight the black magic, but there had to be a way. One way or another he'd free BJ. One way or another.

When he climbed into his Explorer and drove toward the Morrisey Institute, he knew it was the beginning of the final, most important battle of his immortal life.

“You killed Rick.”

BJ's voice filled with accusation. It was the only mode of attack open to her. Damon had muttered something and flashed his ring, binding her to the chair as securely as a set of ropes and handcuffs.

Yet for some reason, he had freed her mind of the shadows. He wanted her to hear this. He wanted her to know how utterly under his spell she had been—and how helpless she would be to escape from his control again.

When Damon laughed, she heard a hollow, ancient sound she had never noticed before. The evil in it chilled her to the bone.

Brodie had been right. Damon was insane. The rules of logic she had clung to so desperately wouldn't help her. So while Damon talked, she listened with half an ear. She pretended rapt attention while she turned her brain to more abstract thought. She sized up each piece of equipment in the lab, the empty cubicles, the power grid, the death chambers.

And she watched Damon. She watched his curious movements as he worked on a computer. She watched the eerie fire that gleamed in his black eyes.

“Chambers served his purpose. But he got greedy. Careless. He thought he could learn from a master. He was a fool, an easy, gullible fool. I needed someone to give me access to you without arousing your partners' suspicions. He tried taking things into his own hands. I knew Brodie Maxwell wasn't a threat, but Chambers got scared. He thought he could persuade you to kill him. Imagine, trying to murder an immortal.” He clicked his tongue and looked at BJ with the once familiar, indulgent smile that now looked condescending and controlling. “He betrayed me.”

Damon walked around the console to where BJ sat. With gentle, creepy, fatherlike fingers, he caressed her cheek. BJ steeled herself and tried not to flinch. She didn't want to inflame the unnatural light in his eyes. But when he touched her again, she jerked her head to the side.

He grabbed her chin and forced it upward, twisting her neck at a sharp angle. “
You
betrayed me.”

He released her with the same violence with which he had gripped her, then returned to the console and began typing again. BJ worked her jaw back and forth, wishing she could use her hands to massage away the cramp in her neck.

This was not her Damon. This was Brodie's sorcerer. BJ tried to formulate some plan of escape. But what did she know about magic? How could she pit her skills against Damon's? She had no other option than to try.

She clenched her throat muscles to keep the quavering fear out of her voice. “How did I betray you?”

Damon looked at her. “You left me.”

He straightened and threw his hands out to either side, indicating the vast complex surrounding them. “I gave you everything.” His hands dropped to his sides. “And you left me.”

“I wanted to start my own company. I never abandoned you. I always thought of you as the father I had lost.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Jas and Emma provided me with the opportunity to grow up and branch out on my own.”

“No. No. No!” He shook his index finger at her as if she were a confused child. “I gave you every opportunity you needed.”

He pulled the chair from behind the console and dragged it over so he could sit right in front of BJ, facing her, his knees touching hers. BJ's leg wouldn't respond to her desire to break the contact.

“You were nothing when I discovered you.” She tried to look meek, nonthreatening. But she didn't allow herself to look away. “You were floundering in a graduate program, confined by the strictures of academia. I saw the potential in you. I gave you an outlet for your creativity. I set you free.”

“I'll always be grateful for what you did for me.”

“You have an odd way of showing your gratitude.”

A protesting bite worked its way into her voice. “I never left
you
. I left my job at the Institute. I still—”

He cut off the rest of her words with a wave of his hand. BJ tried to speak, but she could only make a gurgling sound in her throat.

“Combining my power to control minds with your power to design and manipulate artificial intelligence made us an unbeatable pair. With you to channel my power, I could influence companies, countries, maybe the entire planet.”