Hide and Seek - Lara Adrian Page 0,91
a mission.”
“They tried. But there are times in the life of a man when he has to make his own decisions. And making love to you wasn’t part of my mission.” He looked down at his feet. “But I understand if you don’t want to believe that. You don’t know me.”
Surprised by his quiet demeanor, she sighed. “No, I don’t know you. I don’t know what’s going on. You said you’d explain everything. So explain. What is this? Your talk about visions, is that all just a smokescreen?”
He lifted his head. “I wish. But it’s very real. For all of us. For all the Phoenix. It changed our lives. It connects us. But it also makes us a target.”
“I want to understand,” she said softly. “I need to understand.”
“I promised to tell you, so I will.” He took her hand and motioned to the sectional that filled half the room.
She followed him to it and sat down next to him.
“What I’m telling you, you can never tell anybody else. Anybody with knowledge about this is a threat to our enemies as well as to us.”
Michelle nodded quickly. “I wouldn’t know who to tell. I’m on my own.” And she certainly wouldn’t want to draw any attention to herself by telling fantastic stories. Who would believe her anyway?
“My special skill… I think of it as a genetic defect. To my knowledge nobody from my family has it. At least nobody ever told me about it. Not that I’m close to any of them these days. My parents are divorced, and I guess neither my father nor my mother wanted to be reminded of the mistake their marriage had been. I think they were both relieved when my visits became less frequent, and they were able to concentrate on their new families.”
“That’s a shame,” Michelle threw in.
Nick shrugged as if he didn’t care. “It is what it is. I already had a new family, one that understood me better. I was already with the CIA when Henry Sheppard recruited me. At first I thought it was for my IT abilities, which was the field I was in at Langley, but then I realized he knew that I had ESP. He’d already started a top secret program within the CIA, hiring others like me, training them. We were unique. But Sheppard understood us. He knew what it was like to be born with a special ability that you couldn’t switch off. That would sometimes haunt you.”
“The visions?”
“They would come out of the blue. Like a movie playing in front of your mental eye. So real that you thought it was happening right in front of you.” He met her gaze then. “I saw you. The day you took me back to your apartment.”
“You saw me?”
“You crossed the street without looking to the left. The taxi hit you. It flung you over its roof and tossed you on the asphalt behind it. You didn’t move.” He sought her eyes. “You didn’t make it, Michelle.”
Her breath caught in her throat, panic rising with it. “No!” She slapped her hand over her mouth.
Nick reached for her hands, pulled them into his lap, his thumbs stroking the back of them. “That’s why I ran to catch you before you could cross the street. That’s why I was there.”
“You saw me die?” Her voice was a whisper.
He released her hands and cupped her face. “I couldn’t let it happen. And when you invited me to your place to take care of my bruises, I knew I couldn’t leave without making love to you. I know I should have just thanked you for the icepack and left, but knowing what had nearly happened made it impossible for me to keep my cool. I needed to feel you.”
Tears stung in her eyes. “You really saved my life…” She sniffled. “But then why did you almost kill me tonight?”
He closed his eyes for a short moment. “I thought you’d been sent to kill me. Michelle, the Phoenix are hunted. Somebody killed our leader three years ago, and the rest of us have been on the run ever since. Somebody is after us and will kill us first chance he gets. Whoever it is wants to wipe us out. We’re a threat to him. And I think I know now why: he’s planning something big.”
“That premonition, the one with the inferno,” Michelle murmured.
“Yes. It’s an event in the future. And only the Phoenix know it’ll happen. If we can figure out what