17. Raegan
Chapter seventeen
Raegan
“Kill him before I lose my patience with you, pet.”
“I-I can’t. Why are you asking me to do this?” I cry out. My hands are already shaking from the full day of training he’s put me through. I’m exhausted. I’m not sure how I’m still standing, but he dragged someone in while I was finishing my last exercise.
The guy is bound and gagged in a chair with a machine on wheels next to him and wires attached across his chest and extremities. We’re in the large gymnasium where I’ve spent the last month on my own with only Gordon’s company. We train from the moment my alarm goes off until he decides he’s satisfied for the day and leaves.
“You can, and you will,” Gordon responds flatly while noting something on his tablet.
“Who is he? Why do you want him dead?” I push further.
Gordon sighs and lowers his tablet. “He’s no one. A failed lab rat. But you can make his existence worthwhile. Show me how your gift works on people and then his life will have meant something.”
No one. The same words he’s been calling me.
Worthless.
“No.”
“No?”
“I won’t do it. I’m not killing anyone with my gift. Anything but that.”
“You killed Vera easily enough.”
“That wasn’t—”
Gordon cuts me off with the wave of his hand. “I don’t care what sob story you’ve sold yourself on. You killed your friend with your own hands and have no one to blame but yourself. Killing this stranger who means nothing to you is pale in comparison to the monster you pretend you’re not.”
My hands fist and shake. “I’m not a monster.”
He scowls and snatches a handful of my hair, yanking it back. “You are whatever the fuck I say you are, pet. Now, kill him, or I’ll kill one of your friends.”
Gordon jerks me back before releasing me. I stumble and catch myself, but he’s occupied poking a finger at his tablet repeatedly. He turns the screen toward me.
The boys’ room fills the screen. It’s angled from the top corner somewhere, so the entire room is in view. Only Jackson is in it, floating his origami animals around in different formations to practice with his gift.
“Kill the lab rat, or I’ll take this one out. He’s about as useful as a fan and hasn’t shown any progress in his training. All of your friends have been struggling with compliance, in fact. It’d be better for Gifted Enterprise to put them down before they age out. All except for the one who can mute gifts.” Gordon lifts a two-way radio to his lips. “Prepare to terminate subject 1-3-6-5 on my mark.”
A red dot appears on the side of Jack’s face.
“No!” I leap at Gordon, but fall through him when he activates his gift. I’ve tried attacking him before, but this is how it always ends. With his gift, he’s untouchable. And I can’t hurt him if I can’t touch him. “Please, wait.”
“Ready…” Gordon speaks into the radio again.
Jackson looks up. The red dot is now centered on his forehead, but that’s not what has Gordon and I stopping to stare. He’s looking directly at the camera, and what looks like the origin of the laser, and he smirks.
For the first time, Gordon looks surprised.
It brings a smile to my face, until Gordon sees that and his face darkens. His thumb compresses the radio button to talk, and I lunge for his arm.
“NO! I’ll do it! I’ll do it! Stop!”
He wrenches his arm away and pushes the button down again. “Hold for fifteen minutes. If you don’t hear from me by then, shoot him.” Gordon sets the tablet in the basket on the machine. “Do it. Now.”
I hurry over to the boy seated in the chair. His eyes are wide with fear as he tries to plead with me through the gag.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” I choke out and pull his gag down.
“He was going to kill me anyway. Please just…make it quick.”
I have no idea how to make it quick, but I hope he’s gone before he can feel my gift. “What’s your name?” I whisper as my hands encircle his arm.
“Caleb. Caleb Stone. ”
My eyes blur with tears at what I have to do next. I really will be a killer after this. And once it starts, will it stop?
But it sounds like Gordon’s already done with my boys. If this can keep them alive and safe until Aiden can get them free…
“You’re a monster.” Gordon’s voice echoes in my head.
Yes. I am.
I shove all of my gift through my hands and into Caleb. He screams the second my gift touches him, and his screaming continues even as I push harder and harder to finish it.
I don’t stop until the screaming ends and the machine sounds on a single, low tone.
Gordon grabs my face and turns it up so he can inspect it. “For someone claiming not to be a monster, you sure took your time with that kill. Hands on the arm to start instead of somewhere vital too. Hmph.”
“Call them off.” My voice cracks, but I don’t care. All that matters is he tells whoever is on the other side of that radio not to shoot Jack.
He checks his watch. “This is cutting it close. I’m not entirely pleased with you, pet. I hate to be questioned. I hate to repeat myself.”
Panic builds in a paralyzing grip on my lungs as time ticks away and he makes no move to call off the hit.
“Consider this your last warning,” he continues, his voice cold and dark. The back of his hand caresses my cheek, and I flinch at the contact. “I can find better use for your mouth than talking back if it happens again.”
“Please,” I beg with my eyes downcast.
He scoffs, and finally , I hear the click of the radio. “Stand down.”
A tiny sob of relief bursts free involuntarily, and I drop my face against my hands to try to hide it.
Thank goodness. Jack…
The taste of smoke is thick on my tongue as I come to. My body coughs on instinct, trying to drive whatever smoke or gas it inhaled out of my lungs before my brain can come back online. Between the flavor in my mouth and the dark memory still clinging to my mind like thick cobwebs, my stomach turns and clenches in warning.
Please don’t throw up.
That is the worst feeling. And it puts me at a disadvantage while I try to figure out what predicament I’m in now.
The last I remember, I was at Joe’s house. Did he do this? I tried to take the right precautions, but that doesn’t always mean it’s enough. This entire hunt for Gifted Enterprise has been trial and error for me of what works and what gets me in trouble.
“We really should stop bumping into each other like this, beautiful.”
Kellan’s arms are crossed over his chest, his dark shirt tight and stretched over his chest as usual, while black markings scrawl up his neck and down his arms. He’s in jeans and boots, and his long brown hair is pushed behind one ear and comfortably reaching past his shoulders. His blue-green eyes check out the little dress I’m wearing.
It’s short, white, and covered in large sporadic blue flowers. The dress makes me think of innocence and sweet fun, which are words I haven’t been associated with in a long time.
I won’t admit that I’m embarrassed to have him catch me wearing something like this. I feel…pretty. And weak.
Not that his opinion on how I look matters. I should be focusing more on how I passed out next to the congressman and woke up to Kellan in a kitchen.
The sheer size and grandeur of the room screams money and matches what little I saw of Joe’s estate. Still there, then.
I attempt to lift my hands but face resistance. I finally take stock of myself. I’m zip-tied to a wooden chair.
“Why am I tied up?” I demand more heatedly than normal. I can’t promise I have my emotions completely under control, and seeing him doesn’t make dealing with them any easier. Gordon used all four guys against me in my year with him, and those memories are now fresh in my mind after that unplanned nap.
“How did you find out about this one?” Aiden asks, stepping forward out of the shadows of the room to reveal himself. He’s dressed in a black suit, jacket buttons undone and revealing a flash of a weapon on one side.
Rather than answer Aiden, I look around the kitchen for Joe.
“He’s incapacitated in another room.” Aiden walks closer again and stops in front of me with his arms folded. “Now, how did you discover he was a part of them?”
What is this? Are they interrogating me?
Well, I was found at Joe’s place in a dress. Sitting next to him on a sofa while he had his hand on me. And Aiden has claimed that he thinks I work for GE .
Fuck.
This does look bad.
I try for a loose shrug, as if that can make me seem less guilty of whatever ideas Aiden’s floating around about me. “I’m undercover looking for some information.”
Kellan scowls in the background, but Aiden talks back.
“Mm, right. Undercover. So, you didn’t just so happen to be at a known GE board member elect’s home, wearing that, and chatting like good pals when we showed up? Or did you somehow know we were planning to interrogate him and you’re here for his protection?”
“No! I’m here to snoop around. That’s it, I swear.”
His eyes harden. “And how did you plan to do that with a house full of his staff around?”
My mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water. I didn’t plan for so many people being here, sure, but if I had just gotten to that desk when he wasn’t in the room… “Pee break. It’s a big place and easy to get lost in. Besides, I saw some papers on the desk in the room we were in. That would have been easy enough to look at if he left the room.”
“Pee break?” Aiden scoffs. “It looked more like you were preparing to fuck him for the information when we showed up.”
I freeze.
They saw…
Kellan slams his fist back into the kitchen cabinet behind him, breaking the door and letting it crash to the counter and floor. “You know he coerces young women to fuck him? He uses them like his own personal whore at his beck and call, and then throws what’s left to the curb after he’s done with them.”
I knew. Not the details or everything, but I’d figured with the rotation of interns and how he’d started his spiel on me.
“He finds the troubled girls. The ones who have trauma in their past or seem broken in some way. That’s how he gets in their heads. How he controls them. He manipulates them into being his play things.” Kellan keeps going, getting angrier by the second, but it’s Aiden I’m more concerned with.
His eyes narrow on me when my body stiffens.
How did the congressman know? No, he couldn’t have. I showed up at that party and he happened to meet me because I was with a friend of his. So, he couldn’t have known about my past. About what happened on that island.
Then I remember the words that reminded me so much of things Gordon used to say. His hand on my face. My thigh. The nausea at his touch. At feeling like I wasn’t in control.
Like the other times.
“Kellan.” Aiden tries to cut him off with a slashing look.
Kellan pauses and must see something on my face, because his twists with rage. “Did he touch you?!” He storms over to me, and I try to shift back, but the chair and bindings keep my hands from going anywhere.
“Stop!” I take a deep breath. I’m here. I’m…as whole as I’ve been in a while. Gordon is dead. And if this guy is part of GE, then I’ll rid the world of him too somehow .
I’m able to take another calming breath at that reminder. I’m fine. “No, he didn’t. Just…I don’t need to hear any more of it.”
I’m not going to admit what that man had done. It’s my business, not theirs.
Aiden sighs. “All right, cut her loose and get her far enough away from here that she won’t come back.”
There’s a second of relief that he might believe me for once, and then that drops like a rock. “Wait, what?”
Kellan takes a knife from the block on the kitchen island and moves around me to slice away at the zip ties.
“We came here for the congressman and to get information from him, not you,” Aiden reasons matter-of-factly.
“Let me stay to hear what you get out of him too. Otherwise, my whole plan was just wasted.” I rub my wrists once they’re free and stand. “You’ve got masks or something, right?”
Aiden’s chocolate eyes sweep over my dress, making me self-conscious over it again in less than ten minutes. “He’ll be blindfolded, but he knows your voice. And I know you won’t be able to stop yourself from saying anything. Whether it would be to rat us out or ask him a question, I can’t take that risk.”
“I won’t.”
He strides over to me so quickly that I back up until I hit a wall. “You were always good at finding and pushing my buttons, Raegan. You knew how to get under my skin and around my orders just enough without actually crossing the line. What makes you think I can trust you won’t do that again now?”
His breath is hot in the air between us as he stirs up old memories. I remember his kiss, and what I’d done to earn that kiss by doing something without his permission.
The intense need to feel that way again, to feel something other than the crap that’s been filling my head today, rises up in my chest. I trail my fingers down his silk tie. It’s smooth and cool beneath my fingertips. Like luxury embodied in a simple accessory. And here he is, wearing it to interrogate and possibly torture a man.
It shouldn’t be as sexy as it is.
He snatches my wrist and presses me against the wall until I finally bring my eyes to his. “What game do you think you’re playing? You’re not sticking around until I know you’re taking orders from me and not them. I’m done playing nice.” His tone is low to keep this between us, but it only makes it come out like a dark promise that makes my toes curl.
His breath fans across my face, and my body becomes acutely aware of his close proximity. He’s practically panting with the need to control me. To put me in my place.
And I get a thrill out of acting out again to see what he’ll do. Just how far will he take his threats? I’m curious of what he’s offering—I mean, threatening—me with if I do what I want anyway to snoop around this place while they’re busy with Joe.
It’s a nice distraction from everything else today, and I’m here for it.
“Playing nice? When have you ever played nice with me? When you lied to everyone about me getting off the island after hitting me over the head?”
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Kellan remarks beyond Aiden, “but we have an interrogation to finish before everyone wakes up.”
Aiden and I hold each other’s stares for another few seconds, just breathing in the thick air between us, before he releases my wrist and pushes off the wall. He adjusts the cuffs on his sleeves and walks away.
I close my eyes and inhale shakily. I forgot how dangerous it is to get so close to any of them. Once I’m sure that I have my shit together, I open them to find Kellan watching me with an odd look on his face.
“What?”
“Time to get you somewhere far from here.”
“Kell, wait. Let me stay to do some more digging. I can’t leave here empty-handed.”
He shakes his head. “Sorry, beautiful. I’d love to trust you, but this isn’t the time to test that.” He swoops forward and grabs me before I can bolt, scooping me in his arms and holding me tightly against him. Even my attempted wiggles to escape are no match for his strength.
Kellan runs me out of the door in the kitchen, going a direction I don’t recognize and through some woods I didn’t even know was in the area. The side of my face is pressed against his chest, so I’m breathing mostly him while we’re moving. All I can breathe, hear, and smell is Kellan.
I keep trying to push, shove, or wriggle against him to find a weak spot in his hold, but we just keep getting further and further from the congressman’s home. “Kell!” I scream to get his attention, muffled as it may be .
He keeps going like he has some destination in mind, and then finally slows when we are deep in the woods. Kellan releases me back to my feet and thankfully catches my wrist before I fall on my ass.
He pulls me in and pushes his finger beneath my chin. It’s apparently become nighttime while I was unconscious, so his eyes are dark as he studies me with more serious intensity than I’m used to.
“Are you sure he didn’t do anything to you?”
I jerk my chin away and step back in an instant before he can read whatever reaction my body might give him. “I told you. I’m fine. You should be more worried with how pissed I am that you guys ruined my plans to get information on him. Are you at least going to share what you find out with me?”
Kellan runs his fingers through his hair. My eyes get caught on the muscle in his arm as it flexes in that movement. “You know we can’t do that. You still need to prove to us that we can trust you.” He catches me looking and smirks when I hurriedly pretend I wasn’t just drooling over his body. “I wish it was as simple as us just working together again, beautiful. Really. But you have some answers to give us still.”
Right.
I scuff my foot against the ground and, when I feel the grass and dirt underfoot, I realize one of my heels is missing. “Shit! Really? And you dropped my shoe?”
He raises one brow at me. “You some kind of fancy girl now?”
“No, you prick. I’m supposed to return them and this dress to get my money back. I only have—” I bite my tongue and look away.
Kell cocks his head and responds with a low rumble of his own. “ Only have what? Are you running out of funds, beautiful?”
“You know what? It’s none of your business. Where did you take me anyway? How do you know I won’t just walk back to the estate and still ruin your plans to make it fair?”
He frowns at my refusal, but thankfully lets it go. Then it twists into a grin. “Your sense of direction is still terrible, so I made sure we’re far enough away that I’m not worried. You’re more likely to wander to other neighborhoods than find your way back.” He points to the left. “There’s a bus stop about a mile that way and it’s your closest chance of getting out of these woods. Here.” He pulls out the knife he’d stolen from the kitchen and cuts an arrow pointing up into the bark. It’s not a great job, and the knife is fucked, but I guess I can see it.
I’m not sure why I would need it though, unless it’s too late for buses. “Kell, what time is it?” I ask slowly as realization starts sinking in on what might happen.
“It’s late for this neighborhood.” Kellan stalks around me.
Shit.
“Wait—”
“Sweet dreams, beautiful.”
Knocked out again.