Unforgettable (Talented Saga #6) (35 page)

Beneath my wildly warring emotions lay
a single truth: I didn’t entirely trust Kenly Baker. She might look
like a nervous kid at the moment, but would that suddenly change?
Would she abruptly morph back in to the bloodthirsty zombie from
the Hamilton? Did she have some sort of trigger? If so, could it be
remotely detonated?

The thought instantly made
ice form in my veins. Ernest. Ernest Tate’s brain had also been
rewired, only to a much greater extent than Kenly’s. And he had
that tattoo, the symbol from TOXIC’s research facility. What
did
that
mean?

Doesn’t matter right
now
, I chastised myself, fighting to
ignore the sudden flurry of endless questions.

Talia asked me to find Kenly. I
promised I would. That was the only thing I needed to worry
about—keeping my promise to Talia. No matter what, I would make
sure the girl made it to safety.

“
Come on, Kenly!” I
shouted, trying to convey a calmness in my voice while still being
heard over the roar around us. “Let’s get you out of
here!”

I beckoned her forward.

As if her feet were stuck to the
grass, she remained motionless.

Glancing over her shoulder, I caught
sight of the mayhem overtaking the lawn. If Kenly didn’t get her
ass in gear immediately, we’d both be dead. Miles and my hovercraft
were back in the air, raining fire on the Poachers. Our only chance
was to reach the transport hovers that were waiting on the other
side of the line of limos. I told Kenly as much, hoping that would
spark a reaction. Still, she just stared.

Trying a different tactic, I reminded
her that I wasn’t here alone.

“
Penny, Brand, and that
other guy are clearing a path for us through the fighting. We need
to go!”

Hopefully the names of her rescuers
would put the girl at ease, enough to come with me. If she didn’t
move on her own soon, I was going to force her. But that was a last
resort. Kenly’s brain had been manipulated enough already, she
didn’t need me to go messing with her head.

“
What about Talia?” Kenly
finally shouted back. “We have to go back for her. She’s with that
Angus guy and they are really outnumbered.”

“
Not anymore,” I said in my
most soothing voice. “She’s got plenty of backup. Our strike teams
are here, with more on the way. Talia asked me to make sure you get
to the hovers.” I turned to James, hoping he could see that
standing here like morons was idiotic. “You, too, man. Come on,
we’ve got to move!”

After several more seconds
of internal debate, Kenly
finally
nodded. Without waiting for additional
confirmation, I took off for the line of vehicles. Together, Kenly
and James ran to join me.

“
Talia says you can’t use
your Talents, is that true?” I asked as we sprinted towards
safety.

My heart went out to Kenly the instant
Talia relayed that particular message to everyone. Love her or hate
her, being stripped of power was the worst possible punishment a
Talent could endure. I knew this from personal experience. When he
wasn’t pumping me full of the Creation drug, Director McDonough
gave me a suppressant to make sure I couldn’t use mine. It was
agony, worse than losing a limb. My body had physically ached with
the intense pressure of keeping it all within me.

It was James who answered
me.

“
Yeah. They injected us
with a suppressant.”

Those bastards really were
cruel.

“
Here, take these,” I said,
slowing my stride just enough to hand James the assault rifle in my
hands.

From behind my back, I pulled a
handgun and gave it to Kenly. She looked startled, amazed even,
that I’d allow her to have a weapon. Truthfully, I’d surprised
myself with the impromptu offering, as well. But from peeking into
her mind, I was certain she wouldn’t shoot me. At least, not just
yet. She needed me to survive, to escape, and she knew
it.

“
Thanks, mate,” James said,
nodding in acknowledgement.

Grabbing two throwing knives from my
belt, I picked up the pace once more and prayed my charges could
keep up. Naturally, my prayers went unanswered. Kenly let out a
sudden scream from behind me. I turned just in time to see her
somersaulting across the lawn.

Seriously?
She was just as clumsy as Talia.

James was kneeling by her side, gently
probing the back of Kenly’s head for damage.

“
Is she okay?” I called,
anxiously surveying the area for incoming threats.

“
She’s alright!” James
yelled back.

“
Kenly, do you think you
can run for just a little bit longer?” I asked, already envisioning
having to carry her the rest of the way. Though she wasn’t a
miniature person like Talia, she was skinny, at least. I’d be able
to do it if necessary.

“
Yeah!” Kenly called. “I’ve
got this.”

“
Great.” One crisis
averted. “I’m thinking it’s probably best if we don’t go for the
hoverplane.”

The area surrounding the transport
hovers was rampant with the Poachers’ guards, keen to cut off our
exit. No way was I taking Kenly the Clumsy through
there.

“
All those guards are still
over with the vehicles,” I pointed out. “There’s absolutely no
reason for us to grapple with them.” A hundred yards ahead, I
spotted a lone UNITED helicopter. “Just head for that.”

Gesturing towards the craft with one
hand, I flipped my comm unit back on with the other. When it
crackled back to life, I radioed the pilot to warn him we were
headed his way and needed to beat a hasty retreat.

“
Affirmative,” came the
man’s one word reply.

“
Let’s go!” I called,
beseeching them to get moving.

James had Kenly back on her feet, and
they began running again when I did. We were close enough to feel
the wind from the choppers’ blades when Kenly suddenly stopped
again. I swore and doubled back. Talia owed me big time for
this.

“
Kenly, what’s wrong?”
James asked her, yelling to be heard about the smack of the
propellers.

Studying Kenly to identify the
problem, I realized that her gaze wasn’t on me, James, or our
rescue vehicle. Turning back to the madness behind us, I followed
Kenly’s line of sight. A small girl, the tiny one from my vision,
was tearing across the lawn like an itty-bitty missile with limbs.
Her gun was raised and pointed directly at James. I started towards
him, intending to push him out of harm’s way. But Kenly was closer.
She stepped between James and the bullet. In that instant my
respect for her increased ten-fold.

Luck must have been on our
side, because the bullet never came. The girl was out of
ammunition. I nearly laughed with relief.
At last, something was going our way.

I reached for Kenly, planning to drag
her the short distance to the chopper. Naturally, instead of
running from the rabid-looking threat, she rushed forward to meet
the girl head-on.

Watching a girl fight is never as
awesome as it sounds in theory.

Although, watching Talia exchange
blows was a sight to behold. She made it look like art, an
intricately choreographed dance that was captivating for her
audience.

Kenly and her opponent were not nearly
so graceful. There was a lot of hair-pulling and poorly timed
punches. For several moments, I just gaped at the absurd spectacle
in front of me. I was impressed by Kenly’s ability to hold her own,
she’d obviously learned something from Talia. Still, the fight was
dirty and ugly.

Since time was of the essence, I
started towards the duo to break them apart. James was right there
beside me. Unfortunately, we’d both been stunned immobile for too
long. The tiny poacher produced a dagger, seemingly out of her ass,
and plunged it into Kenly’s calf without hesitation. Kenly
howled.

This was getting out of hand. Enough
was enough.

“
Kenly, duck!” I shouted,
my own knife ready to find a home in the poacher’s
throat.

That was when I saw Talia standing on
the immense lawn, fifty yards away. Her tranq gun was already
raised, finger on the trigger. She fired. The dart landed dead
center in the poacher’s forehead. Damn, my girlfriend had great
aim. Or exceptional luck. Probably the latter. For all the time she
spent at the firing range, Talia only hit the broadside of a barn
every two out of ten rounds.

James held Kenly in his arms, blood
streaming from her leg, and was carrying her like a child to our
getaway chopper. He had the both of them on the helicopter in no
time. I met Talia’s gaze and she nodded for me to go with them. I
hesitated, desperately wanting her to come with us. Though
exhaustion hung around her like a cloud, the fierce determination
in her eyes told me not to argue. Sending her a burst of love and
strength, I nodded and jumped through the open doors. An instant
later, we were airborne.

I sagged onto the bench-style seat as
the helicopter rose higher and higher. Across from me, James had
Kenly’s head cradled in his lap. She writhed and moaned in
pain.

James looked up at me.

“
Do you have something to
give her? For the pain?”

Even if I carried painkillers around
in my pocket—which I definitely did not—they would take too long to
kick in. Kenly needed that dagger out of her leg. There was no
telling what, if anything, the blade had been laced with. And I
wasn’t going to wait around to find out. With the way she was
simultaneously shivering and sweating, I wasn’t sure we could put
it off until we reached Walburton Manor. I sighed deeply, and then
went over to kneel beside them.

“
Look at me, Kenly,” I
ordered.

Her head snapped in my direction, her
gaze unfocused.

“
What are you doing, mate?”
James asked uneasily.

Kenly started giggling. Great, she was
going into shock.

“
Just helping her relax,” I
told James, my focus never leaving Kenly.

I’d seen Talia do this a number of
time. I myself had only ever done it once, for Talia. Then, I’d
absorbed her pain, breathed it into my body to numb hers. I did the
same for Kenly, sending her a heavy dose of manipulation to ease
her into unconsciousness. That way, once she was out, there
wouldn’t be any pain to siphon.

Interestingly, Kenly’s mind was
exceedingly active, which made it extremely hard to put her under.
Seriously, millions of thought bubbles burst one after another,
giving me way too much insight into the inner workings of a teenage
girl’s brain. At one point, I got the truly disturbing impression
of James’s soft lips on mine. That was when I upped the
manipulation, not overly concerned with the overload of power
frying her brain any longer. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure there was a
Talent alive with enough power to fry a brain like
Kenly’s.

“
How does she function with
so much nonsense constantly running through her head?” I grumbled
the rhetorical question.

To Kenly, I sent,
“Turn off the inner monologue and go to
sleep
.”

Mercifully, she obeyed.

“
Whoa,” I groaned, sitting
back on my heels. “Her brain is broken or something. That shit is
not normal.”

“
What did you do to her?”
James asked, his tone a mix of anger and suspicion.

“
Nothing, I just
manipulated her,” I said.

“
That’s not right, mate.
That can really mess up her mind, you know. Turn it to complete
rubbish.”

“
I know,” I agreed.
“Luckily, it didn’t. And now I can get that dagger out and patch
her up without her feeling all of that pain.”

“
There’s a med kit under
the seat!” the pilot called helpfully.

“
Now he tells me,” I
mumbled.

From there, I made quick work of
removing the dagger and bandaging Kenly’s leg. As I worked, I
reached out to Talia, checking to see if her mind was open. It was.
To my immense relief, she was already on a hoverplane headed for
Walburton Manor. Even though I wanted to, I didn’t try to talk to
her. She was deep in thought, a small part of her worried about
facing Victoria. But there was something else even more troublesome
bothering her.

It just isn’t
possible,
kept floating through her mind.
I had no clue what she was thinking about. After using so much
energy to knock out Kenly, delving deeper into Talia’s head would
be too wearing. We both needed to have a modicum of energy left for
the angry barrage we’d undoubtedly face the moment we got back to
the safe house. I’d see Talia soon, I’d just ask her about it
then.

As we were began our descent to
Walburton Manor, my communicator buzzed. Again.

Dreading what I’d see, I
glanced at the screen, unsure whether I wanted the message to be
from my new lurker or Victoria. After I read the text, anonymous
messages from bat-shit-crazy stalkers would’ve been preferable to
the irate councilwoman. Because Victoria was beyond pissed.
Off-her-rocker, foaming-at-the-mouth, head-ready-to-explode,
pissed
.