Night Whispers: ShadowLands, Book 1 (28 page)

He placed the photo back down on the table and made his way to the room Jules had disappeared into.

The door was halfway open, and he stepped inside.

He’d expected a woman, so the teenager in the bed surprised him. She was asleep, but her brow was furrowed, her head tossing as if in the grips of a bad nightmare.

Jules stood at her bedside, smoothing a hand over her hair. “This is Carrie. She’s a bit restless, it seems.”

The girl had a tall frame, but it barely made a dent in the large mattress. Her light brown hair was greasy, her face flushed, but she still looked like a slender sleeping beauty in the old-fashioned room.

James took the liberty of resting his palm on her forehead. Hot. “What happened to her?” he asked, his tone measured.

“I told you, it’s a long story.”

“And I told you, I have time.”

Their gazes met and held over the sick girl. Jules’s hair was a flyaway mess around her face, and lines of stress and sleeplessness decorated her face, but she looked utterly stunning to him.

“You can try to out-stubborn me, sweetheart, but I can assure you it would be a waste of energy,” James said mildly. He sat on the edge of the bed.

Her shoulders sagged, and she mirrored his pose, perching on the other side of the girl. “I don’t know where to start. It feels like it’s been eons since we’ve talked.”

“For me too. Why don’t you start by telling me who the hell that guy was?”

“Erik.”

“Wait. What? That’s Erik? Your Erik?” Whoa. She had really found the guy?

Jules made a face. “Kinda.”

“Oh.” How to break this to her? “You realize that your old friend is…different, right?”
And kind of a dick.

“That’s not…how he was when I knew him.” A rough exhale of air left her, and she raked her hands through her hair. “It’s so hard to explain.”

“Just give me your report, Guerrero.” Like any of a number of reports she’d given him in the past.

Unlike in the past, he could touch her now. He picked up her hand and thrilled when she allowed it.

“The morning I lost contact with you it was because I came across Carrie, here. She was an escapee from some bizarre experimental program, and they nabbed me pretty quickly too.”

James tightened his lips at this brisk, unemotional recital. He was sure there was more to the story she wasn’t telling him, to spare him the gory details. Had she been beaten? Cuffed?

The thought of her being mistreated was enough to make him crazed, and he wanted to interrupt. But more than he wanted to yell at her for marching into a dangerous situation without notifying him first, he wanted to hear this story.

“When I came to, I found myself in a room with Erik and Carrie. My collar was gone.”

“You said it was an experimental program? Like, some rogue techies?”

Carrie tossed her head and whimpered again. Jules freed her hand and reached for an energy gel pack on the end table.

He wished he’d thought to bring an IV. Sadly, he had no idea how to even rig one up.

Jules carefully squeezed the gel into the girl’s lax mouth a drop at a time. “More like rogue scientists. From what Erik says, I’d lay money that the folks at Cheyenne Mountain were involved. As far as I could tell, it seemed like a small part of a much larger project.”

“That’s…that’s insane.”

“Things happened to you guys at Raven, right? Things that changed who you were from when you went underground. I mean, maybe it’s a different group from the people you once knew. Or maybe it’s not them at all.”

A small comfort. “What, exactly, were they testing?”

“I’m not sure what their end goal was, but I think it had something to do with combining Shadows and humans.”

“You mean, combining and controlling the effect of the virus on humans?” Even as he said the words, the light bulb went off. “Erik’s silver hair and eyes…”

“Erik called himself their greatest accomplishment. The doctors weren’t happy about losing him, so I believe that he meant something to their project. His hair was as dark as mine once. And he’s stronger than what he was. Shadows aren’t super strong, but you know they’re pretty tough. And fast. Phew, he’s really fast.” She made a face. “He has to drink blood too. I guess it’s one of the trade-offs for the abilities he has.”

“Jesus. This is unheard of. I need to get this info back to Gabriel as soon as possible. Until we know more, we definitely can’t risk sending any men out to that mountain.” He looked up at Jules sharply. “Why Canada? Why didn’t you come to us?”
To me.

“It…seemed like the best thing to do. They could have been following us.”

He supposed it was possible that Jules had decided driving north was the best way to lose a tail. But she’d known he was following her too, and he couldn’t believe she’d decided to make it hard on him. Not when she’d gone through all that trouble to leave him the trail of paper. He wanted to pursue this, but there were other, more pertinent questions to be asked.

“Did you check for any kind of bugs on you?”

“Yeah. Well, Erik said he had something implanted in his hip, and so did Carrie. He suspected it was a bug of some kind and removed it after we drove around a little. I didn’t have one. I wasn’t even there for a full day, so I guess it makes sense that I didn’t get tagged.”

“He’s wearing some sort of collar…”

“I couldn’t find the key, and we had to jet. It’s not like mine. It’s an electroshock collar. He said they used it to control him and that they didn’t usually have trackers embedded in them.”

James had no vast experience with these devices, but he’d studied them and others when creating the Compound surveillance collars. He’d thought they were an inhumane way of controlling prisoners back in the day, and nothing had changed. A device in the wrong person’s hand could lead to a lot of pain. “As far as I know, those weren’t engineered with a GPS, but it wouldn’t be unheard of to modify something like that.” He might be able to do it in a few days. Kev would be able to hack one inside of an hour.

“Shit. I was banking that it was safe.”

Without a key, it would be next to impossible to get an electroshock off. They had been engineered to withstand a lot of tampering. “I can take a look at it,” he offered. “But I don’t have a frequency detector on me. We may have to assume he’s being tracked.” He hated being the cause of her anxiety.

“If they were keeping tabs on us, they would have found us by now.”

He recognized her words for the plea for reassurance that they were. That was why, despite the newfound urgency screaming at him to bundle her up and take her to a safe place, preferably far away from the collared hybrid, he agreed. “Probably. We’ll be cautious, of course, but you have a good point.” He looked down at the feverish teen. “Will she be like Erik? A hybrid?”

“I don’t know. She was bitten when I tried to rescue her. Erik guessed that it somehow accelerated whatever she’d been shot up with, sped up the effects of the Illness. The poor kid’s been in a coma almost since we broke out and escaped. As of right now, she’s human, but…” Jules shrugged, getting up to place the empty gel packet on the end table.

God, they’d walked all that way, from the broken-down van, with a comatose adolescent? That was more than amazing. “How is she holding up now?”

“Same. I suppose she could still turn or die. Until she recovers, we won’t really know what has happened to her. We’re lucky to have found this shelter. All the moving about couldn’t have been good for her.” Her lower lip trembled for a brief moment, but she steadied it. Jules pulled out her penknife and painstakingly crushed two pills into a cup before filling it with water from a pitcher. She sat down again, her gaze on Carrie, and began the process of getting the liquid into the teen’s mouth.

Some liquid dribbled out of the girl’s open lips, but most of it appeared to go down her throat.

Please don’t die.
He hadn’t met the girl, but he hated to think of how much pain Jules would be in to lose another person she’d fought so hard for. There was nothing Jules hated more than being late.

James was no doctor, but he was fairly certain trekking through a wasteland was not the best treatment for the Illness. In fact, the girl’s sickness would make it difficult to head out of here immediately, as he’d initially planned. He and Jules could switch off driving so they didn’t need to stop, but as Jules had already so aptly demonstrated, it was quite possible for a car to fail.

She’d given him the bare bones of the story, but his job had been and was all about processing what people said—and what they didn’t say as well. He leaned in closer and picked up the girl’s arm to give himself something to do. Her pulse was weak, but at least it was there. “Okay. Now I want you to go back through this story and tell me what you’re leaving out.”

Jules pulled back, physically and emotionally. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re not telling me something.”

“I’ve told you everything that happened.”

There. There was a tiny waver in her voice. “The facts, sure. But you’re hiding something…” He narrowed his eyes. “Tell me.”

She moved to get up from the bed, but he reached out, quick as a snake, and grabbed hold of her arm. “You
will
tell me, Jules.”

Surprise was transparent in her widened eyes as she studied his hand on her. He knew he wasn’t hurting her, but he made sure his grip was strong enough that she wouldn’t be able to run away. He wasn’t about to go chasing her again.

“I thought you were such a nice guy.”

Was nice a euphemism for a weakling? After everything he’d been bleating to her without being aware of it during his ride out, he wouldn’t be surprised if she thought that. “I am a nice guy. That doesn’t make me a pushover.”

“It would make things easier if you were,” she muttered.

“Easier, but not enjoyable for either of us.” James stroked his thumb over the soft skin of her arm. “Tell me, and maybe I won’t give you a very loud lecture on all the reasons you should have contacted me before you chased a girl, got kidnapped and thrown in a cage.” His jaw clenched as he thought about the huge danger she had put herself in. “Even though I want to yell at you.”

“I know.”

“It’s really hard for me to not yell at you.” His voice went hoarse.
There’s a sick girl in here. You can’t yell.

“I appreciate your restraint. I do.” She patted his arm.

He realized his grip had gotten tighter, and he released it immediately, drawing his hand back. Lines of tension had appeared around her mouth.

“Jules? You okay?”

She shook her head. Folded her arms over her chest, closing herself off. “No, I don’t think I am.”

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Still haven’t filled him in, Jules? My, my. So much for all your faith.”

The hybrid’s voice came from behind him, and James stood up from the bed slowly, his fingers itching to draw his weapon.

He didn’t, but he kept his hand on the butt of his gun as he faced the door to the bedroom. “We weren’t introduced,” James said. “I’m James.”

The other man grunted. “I know who you are.”

“And I know who you are.”

They eyed each other.

In the periphery of his vision, he could see Jules coming around the bed. Another woman might have been wringing her hands. Jules looked pissed. “Don’t you dare fight again. Not in here. I won’t have you disturbing Carrie.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Erik said. “I have no problems with your lover boy, if he has no problems with me.”

James had lots of problems with the other man, but he couldn’t even begin to articulate them. His automatic dislike was unusual for him. Generally, James liked most people unless they proved him wrong. Clearly, he was still jealous of Erik Jafari. Or rather, still jealous of any residual emotion Jules seemed to feel for her old friend.

James wondered if acknowledging his feelings might make them easier to bear.

No.

The tension mounted as they stared at each other. Jules broke it with a sharp clap of her hands. “Did you find any game?”

Erik darted a glance at her. “Yes. A rabbit.”

“Excellent. Carrie could use some broth, and I’m starving.”

“I have not skinned it. It’s on the back porch.”

Like a small child, James fervently wished he could show up this bastard in the skinning department. But the suburb he’d grown up in hadn’t been teeming with wild game. He’d read a couple of books about camping, and that was the closest he’d ever gotten to living off the land. Still, he would volunteer.
If you can remove a car from a mud puddle with a couple of tree branches, you can skin an animal. Probably.
“I could do it.”

“You can skin game?” Jules asked. Her skepticism stung his pride, fair that it was.

“I’ve never done it before, but I’m a fast learner.”

She gave a small smile. “I’ve got this one.” Jules looked between them. “You can come outside with me, though.”

Since his urge was to get away from the hybrid, he did the exact opposite.
Aversion therapy.