Chapter 30
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“Morning,” she greeted everyone, walking over to the coffeemaker and pouring herself a cup. Seeing Celia, she took several steps toward her when suddenly every man in the room,… and the women, lifted their heads and looked at each other.
Cyan glanced around the room. “What’s wrong?”
No one spoke a word, but there was a hum, a buzz going on.
Cyan frowned. “Oh my God, it’s Steele, isn’t it?”
Celia turned and asked, “Can you sense him?”
Cyan closed her eyes and nodded. “Yes, I can.” Then she frowned and announced, “But he’s not alone.
” She spun to look at the alcove where she’d left Steele sleeping in the big easy chair in the corner.
He was gone. “He’s not there.” Her mind blanked as the lack of sleep and understanding confused her.
She pivoted to again look at the chair, as if she’d somehow missed seeing him the first time she’d looked.
“No, he’s not here,” Terk confirmed, staring at her. “The Beacon woke him up.”
She blinked and repeated, “ The Beacon woke him up ?” Nothing made sense.
Just then Terk’s phone rang. He checked Caller ID, put it on Speakerphone, and answered, “Jonas, what’s up?”
“We lost him,” Jonas snapped, his tone all hot and bothered. “I’m not sure what kind of early warning system he might’ve had, but he’s gone. And given that the warning may have come from you guys, there’s a greater chance that he’ll be heading your way.”
Cyan got up and headed to the front door, but Celia stopped her, asking, “Are you sure you want to leave?”
She turned and nodded. “I need to be with him. He’s out there with his enemy.”
“And the Beacon has moved Steele out there in order to keep the rest of us safe,” Celia added.
“But who is there to keep him safe?” And, with that, she walked right out the front door, looking for him.
Celia called out behind her, “We’re sending a team.”
Cyan lifted a hand in acknowledgment, even as she knew that the woods would be exactly the same as they had been before, only this time with a bit better visibility because she was in the normal reality, not the Beacon’s foggy reality she’d been in before.
She knew without a doubt that Steele was out there.
Did he know his friend was lying in wait? Had the Beacon shared those details, or did the Beacon only share whatever was necessary to get Steele out of the house?
Picking up the pace, Cyan raced down the huge front steps and through the gardens and across the meadow, heading to the treeline. Everything looked the same but brighter. She knew it felt stupid to say, but it seemed… happier. Lighter even, as if the same evilness was not here.
That was proof more than anything that she was still in Terk’s world, not the Beacon’s.
What she didn’t know was how to cross from this world to the world where she knew Steele would be.
The first gate from this side was ahead.
She raced through it and headed to the second and then stopped.
She had no idea if Steele had gone through the second gate. He could still be right here.
It was such an odd feeling to know that the Beacon was even now monitoring her movements.
Her thoughts then latched onto some changes on this side of the gate.
She hadn’t noted very much of her surroundings as they’d gone through earlier, just a lot of foliage and trees, with a leafy ground cover.
Yet this time it looked different. She glanced around and spoke in a low tone, “Are they in this reality or on the other side of the next gate?”
She reached out for the door and tried to open it, but nothing happened. It was locked. To her that meant the two men were in this space somewhere. She nodded and whispered, “That’s a good enough answer for me.”
Cautiously she slowly turned, studying the woods around her, looking for anything to indicate where Steele was—and whatever enemy was hunting him here.
And yet, damn it, she couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t see them. And that just made her even more leery. Where the hell could Steele be? Was she still in Terk’s reality, and that’s why she couldn’t see them here, in this first layer of the other world?
At the sound of something, she spun in that direction. What was that? Voices? She slipped through the woods until she came closer, close enough to hear and to recognize Steele’s voice.
“You could just leave, you know?” Steele said. “You don’t have to bring this fight to the conclusion that you seem to think you do.”
“I do now because you sicced MI6 on me.”
“I didn’t,” Steele corrected. “Yet you’ve been looking over your shoulder all this time, so you must have expected to get caught sometime, right? By the way, how did you find me?”
Brent snorted. “If you even have to ask that question, you really have no idea how this works.”
“And yet you still didn’t answer the question.”
She shifted enough so she could see Brent in person.
It was odd to find such an unassuming male, around five ten maybe, lean build, and brown straight hair cut short.
A normal face. Nothing stood out, which was to his advantage as it made it hard to remember him.
He had on jeans and a T-shirt. It could have been anybody off the street.
But his voice? It had an odd gravelly tone to it, as if he were a lifetime chain smoker and whiskey drinker.
She stepped forward and called out, “Hey, Brent .”
Both men turned to her, Steele with a look of consternation.
The other guy, one eyebrow raised, stared at her in confusion. “This is interesting,” he noted, with a grin. “I really wasn’t expecting somebody to come rescue you,” he quipped, with a laugh. He casually glanced back at Steele.
“She’s not here to rescue me,” he clarified, “but that’s okay. She’s here now.”
“Yeah, she is. Too bad for you,… and her.”
Brent gave her a lazy head-to-toe perusal in a way that made her skin crawl.
She asked, “Why? What are we doing? Having an all-out fight here?” she asked. “I don’t even understand why you’re here, but I do recognize your voice—or rather your laugh.”
Steele stiffened, then relaxed.
“You don’t know anything.” Brent narrowed his gaze at her. “Whatever you’re thinking is wrong.”
“I presume you’re Brent, the asshole who betrayed your friends and killed the entire team. I know that you’re a thief, somebody who likes to work with the worst of the worst in the world for money. Because everything in your world is all about the money.”
“Hardly everyone was taken out,” Brent snarled, “considering the one I should have taken out is standing in front of me right now. But not for much longer.”
She shrugged. “Okay. If you kill him, you’ll need to kill me too.”
Brent stared at her and laughed. “That’s a change.”
“Not really,” she replied. “You were planning on killing anybody whom you saw on this journey anyway. Even if it was just some poor sod at the gas station because you didn’t want anybody to remember you.”
The smile slid off his face, and he glared at her. “You don’t know that,” he snapped, his tone cold and hard.
“No, I don’t know that, only in the sense that you haven’t done it yet.” Her smile was equally cold, hard.
Careful , Steele murmured in her mind. He’s skilled and dangerous .
Understood. Cyan continued. “But it’s on your list. Mentally you’re already checking him off and figuring out who might have seen you at each of your stops. And then you’ll go back and take care of them.” She gave him a smirk. “This time you really don’t get that option.”
“Oh, right, because, of course, you’ll stop me?” he asked, a mocking look in her direction. “You really think I’ll just surrender? After everything I’ve done? I don’t think so.”
Make sure you don’t push him too far. The Beacon is tracking everything we do as well. I don’t know whether it’s programmed to step in and help or to knock us all out.
Cyan hadn’t considered that. And really didn’t want to.
A mechanical governor to stop the use of energy as a weapon had been on the table, as they really didn’t know the Beacon’s capabilities or directives.
But anything it did had to help them stop this asshole in front of her.
She told Steele as much. So we make sure that the Beacon sees Brent as a huge threat.
After all, we aren’t without skills either.
And together we’re stronger than apart, so Brent’s got a surprise coming if he tries to overwhelm you.
Cyan faced Brent. “I suspect you don’t give a shit about anything and haven’t for a very long time.
You think because you hooked into Steele’s system and blocked his emotions, his memories, even his will when it came to you, all that somehow makes you superior?
The only reason Steele allowed it on a subconscious level is because, in some way, he was still trying to hold on to his friend.
To keep the memory of the guy he remembered, not the asshole you currently are.
Steele didn’t want to accept the reality of what you became. ”
Brent laughed and shrugged. “You could be right there. More the fool, don’t you think?” The smile he gave her was menacing.
She nodded, not saying anything for a long moment, noting Brent was a predator to boot. “Yeah, that’s the problem with betrayal,” she replied. “It comes from places we least expect and hurts the most because of it.” She walked closer. “That doesn’t mean you get to keep hurting people.”
“Actually it does,” Brent countered. When she took another step closer, he held up his hand. “Not one more step. I don’t know who and what you are, but ain’t no way you’re coming any closer than you are right now.”
“Or what?” she asked in a lazy tone. “What will you do? I’m just standing here.”
“Yeah, you’re just standing there, but you’re way too confident for me to be comfortable. For all I know, you have some crazy weapon you think will take me out. However, if you have a gun, it sure as hell won’t do any good here.”
She studied him and asked, “Oh, wow, can you master that too?”