The Protected

ELEVEN

MORNING brought better news.

Marginally.

Alex’s fever was down.

And when Vaughnne came out of the bathroom, the small hotel room was empty.

That was the marginal part of the better news.

Sighing, she gathered up her stuff. Fortunately, she’d been smart enough to pack everything before she disappeared into the bathroom. She was going to have to learn how to go without little things like toilet breaks if he tried this again.

On her way out of the hotel, she paused in the little alcove where the vending machines waited.

Reaching up on top of the ice maker, she pulled off the distributor cap.

She’d asked the doctor to hide it the night before. Good thing she was prepared.

She came out into the parking lot just in time to see Gus slip behind the wheel of a small, pale gold sedan that had seen better days. It wasn’t theirs. He caught sight of her and slammed his head back against the seat. She pointed a finger at the tires, gunman style, and cocked her thumb.

He got the point without her saying a word.

He climbed back out, and a second later, a tired, wan-looking Alex did the same. As she crossed the distance between them, she asked, “Did you even bother to take the medicine Dr. Grady left for him?”

“Yes.” He inclined his head. “I can make him take a pill as easily as you could. Easier, as he is my child.”

“Your nephew, you mean?” She displayed the distributor cap in her palm. “You’ll get farther with this.”

He went to grab it.

She jerked it out of his reach. “You can have it when I’m behind the steering wheel, and the kid is in the backseat.”

“He’s my responsibility,” Gus said, forcing the words out through clenched teeth.

“I get that. And I’m trying to help you.” Shaking her head, she gestured around her and then looked at the boy. “You’ve got a kid there that’s going to just get more out of control. He’s going to hurt himself, or somebody—”

“He’s not a danger!”

Vaughnne arched her brows. “Tell that to the migraine he sucker-punched me with. Or the nosebleed he walloped me with. And he wasn’t even trying to hurt me. What happens when he gets frustrated with some kid who picks on him and he really hurts him?”

“He wouldn’t,” Gus said.

“You don’t know that. Not for sure.” She saw the doubt in his eyes, hated herself for playing on it. But he had to realize the danger he was messing with. “Or what about when he gets mad at you and just loses control? He’s a kid, Gus, and you don’t know how to train a psychically gifted child. How are you going to keep everybody safe from him if he is getting stronger? Keep him away from anybody and everybody for the rest of his life?”

“If that is how to keep him safe, then yes.”

“And if there’s a better option?”

“There isn’t one!” He closed the distance between them and fisted his hand in her shirt, jerking her up onto her toes, hauling her up until they were nose to nose. “Don’t you get it, you stupid little fool? There is no option. He is hunted by men who would kill anything and anybody just to be able to use him.”

She curled a hand over his wrist. “Then you find people who know how to fight back. And you have to do it soon . . . he’s going to get stronger and he needs to learn control before that happens. Before he hurts people who’ve done nothing wrong. You want him to live with that?”

“He . . .” Gus clenched his jaw and looked away. “Why are you so certain he’s going to get stronger?”

“Puberty.” Vaughnne shrugged and gave him a wry smile. “It usually manifests then, but for those who already show a gift? It just amps it up and he’s hitting puberty, hard, I’d say. He’s going to have to start shaving soon, I bet. He’s already got that long, skinny look of a kid who can’t eat enough to keep up with the growth spurts. If he’s not hitting it now, it’s going to be soon.”

He stared at her, his eyes dark, menacing. “You’re certain of this.”

“There’s no guarantee, but roughly ninety-five percent of those who are already showing the ability before puberty? Yeah. It jumps up. And it gets harder to control then, too. The theory is that the hormonal swings and shifts that come with puberty play into it.” She sighed and shook her head. “Trust me, Gus . . . he needs help and he needs it from somebody who has been there. He’s not the only one of his kind. There are others, and they’d be willing to die to protect a child.” She reached up and touched his cheek. “You asked why I did the FBI . . . this is why. Because this way, I can help. I know what it’s like to lose somebody. I won’t let them take him away from you.”

“How can I trust you?” he demanded, his voice raspy and raw. Almost broken. “I don’t know you. How can I trust you with that boy? You don’t know what he’s gone through.”

“No. I don’t. But I can tell you what I went through—”

Her skin prickled. Everything inside her went cold, then hot. It wasn’t anything she attributed to her abilities. This was just instinct. Jones liked to say that psychic skill ranged from everything just above a hyperaware set of instincts to those abilities like his agents possessed.

This? Just instinct. And her instincts were screaming.

Something bad . . .

That thought crawled through her brain as she took a step back. “Get him to the car,” she said quietly. “Now.”

And she pulled the weapon from the holster at her back.

“What?”

As he spoke, Alex stumbled over to them. Eyes wide and black. Full of terror. “Tío . . .”

“Shhh, m’hijo,” he said, cupping a hand over the back of the boy’s neck.

“The car, Gus,” Vaughnne said, keeping the gun low, out of view along her thigh unless somebody was looking.

They’d be looking, though—

Absently, she was aware that Gus was hustling the boy to the car. She swore and looked down at the distributor cap she still carried. “Shit,” she muttered. “Gus!”

Turning, she hurled it at him. She didn’t wait to see if he caught it before she went back to looking around.

The black SUV came pulling around the corner a few blocks down. Even with all the other cars on the road, her gaze was drawn to it and she felt like a moth pinned to a board, trapped, helpless, and certain they were staring right at her.

That was the fear inside her talking.

Her brain kicked in as the SUV moved into the center lane. Turning aside, she started to move like she was heading over to one of the cars, keeping the vehicle in her line of sight even as the ice in her gut spread.

The SUV had already passed her by. Yeah, that’s right. Keep driving—

They hadn’t noticed her. As long as she didn’t draw physical attention to herself, she was fine. The main problem was hiding from any of the psychic bloodhounds, and she knew how to hide what she was, unlike the boy.

But Alex . . .

Shit.

Tires squealed on the pavement and she moved to the side. Gus stopped and she went to open the door. It was locked. You son of a bitch, she thought. Don’t even—

A second later, it unlocked and she jerked it open. “Drive,” she said. “Preferably without squealing the tires again or anything else that will call attention to you. Unless they’ve got a damn good bloodhound, they aren’t going to realize right away that he is in this car. They’ll just know he’s close. If we get some distance between us and them before they lock on him, we stand a better chance.”

“Bloodhound,” Gus muttered. “You keep saying that.”

“Somebody who can track. People. Psychics. Anything.” She shot a look back at the kid. “Anybody they get a lock on, that is. If they had somebody go through your house, then they’ve got all sorts of shit they can use to track him with, even if he wasn’t casting out signals like crazy.”

“Would you shut up?” Gus snarled.

She looked back at him, but not before she saw the boy flinch. “What do you want me to do? Pretend he isn’t dangerous, the state he is in?”

“So help me God, you’ll be silent or—”

She ignored him and looked back at Alex. Focusing on the chaos that was his mind, she spoke directly inside his head. You’re sick, you’re scared, and this isn’t a good time to do this . . . but if you want to be safe . . . or safer, you need to let me help you learn how to shield better.

She saw his reaction in the way he flinched, the way his mouth dropped open.

Then, to her utter disgust, he asked, “Shield? What does that mean?”

She dropped her head against the seat.

The boy had absolutely no clue, she realized.

None at all.

GUS followed the directions Vaughnne gave him for one reason.

He’d just figured out how very little he understood his nephew’s ability.

Bloodhound . . . ¿qué carajo? What did that even mean?

Vaughnne had explained in short, terse terms, but just how somebody could track . . .

“Shit.”

He glanced over at Vaughnne and then up ahead at the cars slowed down around them.

“Get off the highway,” she said. “Now.”

He shot her a dark look. “Thanks, but I’d already figured that much out.”

Unfortunately, several hundred other cars seemed to have the same idea. Moving to the exit ramp wasn’t the easiest process in the world and he was about ready to bite something by the time he hit the red light a half mile later. “Where now?” he asked, forcing his voice into a flat, level tone.

“Whichever way seems to have cars moving the easiest,” she said. “The biggest thing is to keep moving, and stay moving . . . away from the city.”

That was all she said before she looked back at Alex. “You have to try again.”

Gus shot her a narrow look and then checked the mirror, cutting over into the left lane in front of an eighteen-wheeler the second the light turned green. He maneuvered through the traffic, keeping an eye out for cops and watching Vaughnne.

Something about her changed when she was doing that . . . talk . . . thing.

He’d done some reading up on psychic abilities and he thought it was called telepathy. And when she was doing it, although her features didn’t change, there was just . . . something. A slight shift in her eyes. The way she held herself. He couldn’t quite describe it, and if he hadn’t spent many, many years doing nothing but studying people . . . studying women, he likely wouldn’t have noticed it.

But then again, with Vaughnne, maybe he would have.

She couldn’t seem to breathe without him noticing.

Right now, she was using that ability to talk to Alex.

And he didn’t like it.

As they came to another stoplight, he made a decision. Pulling into the parking lot of a crowded McDonald’s, he nosed the car into a parking spot. He hadn’t even gotten the car into park before she was glaring at him. “We need to keep moving,” she said.

“Leave him alone.”

“Do you want those people finding him?”

“We’re thirty miles from where we were,” he pointed out. They couldn’t track somebody from that far. It wasn’t like they were sharks in the water. These were just people. The SUV hadn’t shown up once, and if they were being followed, he would know. That much, at least, he would know.

“It doesn’t matter. We could be on the other side of the globe, and if he can’t shut it down, I know people who could track him. He needs to shut it down . . . now.” She turned her head away from him and focused on Alex, the boy huddling in the backseat. “Again, Alex.”

Alex groaned and Gus shifted his attention to the rearview mirror, watching as the boy closed his eyes. “It’s hard, Vaughnne.” Little lines of pain bracketed out from his eyes, and as Gus stared at him, he clamped his mouth so tightly shut, his lips went bloodless.

“Enough, Vaughnne,” Gus said quietly.

She ignored him.

This . . .

He blew out a careful, controlled breath. He hadn’t wanted it to come to this, but apparently, they didn’t have much choice.

SHE caught the danger just a second too late.

Just a fraction of a heartbeat sooner and she would have been able to move. But she’d been concentrating on Alex, trying to guide him through the shielding process without being able to see inside his head—she was so woefully inadequate for this—

By the time she saw Gus moving, he had her pinned against the door. And she couldn’t even strike out—fast, she thought. He was too fast. Her head was spinning with how fast he moved and she jerked up a leg to get between them. And that was another mistake. She felt the sharp sting penetrate her leg, and then the burn as he injected her with something.

“Damn it—”

That was what she tried to say.

Her tongue was too thick.

Help—

Help. She needed help. A face formed in her mind. Tucker—

Even as she screamed for him, she was distantly aware of Gus easing her around in the seat. “I’ll leave the windows down,” he said, leaning in to murmur against her ear. “You’ll sleep for thirty minutes, no more. The keys are in your pocket.”

The words barely made sense. The darkness came on harder, faster.

“You . . .” She licked her lips. That sense of dread kicked up and ran down her spine. Adrenaline chased back the fog a little. “They’ll find the boy,” she whispered. “You stupid jackass. You . . . just fucked yourself . . .”

“No. I’ll keep him safe. It’s my job.”