. . . flickers from Dru’s mind danced through his own and he wanted to kill. So badly, it was a scream in his brain. He tightened his hand on his weapon, but the object of his wrath wasn’t here.
It had to wait, though. Had to, because he hadn’t been able to miss the urgency in Vaughnne’s voice.
“Where are you, Vaughnne?” he asked.
Two of them, Dru and her companion, gave him startled looks.
Nalini just checked her weapon.
Just start moving. I’ll get you here the best I can.
Not very reassuring, that. But it would have to work. They were now on borrowed time.
The red-haired son of a bitch studied him and Nalini before tugging off his pack. A few seconds later, night-vision goggles hit his chest. When he looked back at him, the guy just smiled. “Me and lights don’t always mesh well. I like to be prepared.”
“Imagine that,” Joss muttered as he put them on. Glaring at the other man, he asked, “You got a name?”
“Sure. Call me Tucker.”
Tucker. Asshole suited him better, Joss figured.
Somehow said asshole ended up in front. Twice, they had to stop and Joss felt that power rip through the night, those little pop, pop, pops . . . it seemed so innocuous, but it was like the force of a hurricane trapped inside one drop of rain.
Once, Tucker caught somebody—he moved so fast, Joss barely saw what he did as he jerked off one glove, then laid his hand on the guy’s throat. Light flashed between them—the light had glowed. Just . . . emanated from Tucker’s hand, flowed into the other man’s neck. A second later, Tucker let him go and the man crashed to the ground like a fallen tree.
Joss didn’t know if he was dead, but at the moment, he couldn’t even let himself worry about it.
More people. Too many, milling in the darkness, panicking, shouting for flashlights, screaming about phones. Too many. Joss used his gun to club one of them over the back of his head. Nalini, with her devious little smile, laid her hands on the two closest to her, and they slid to the floor with a smile. He turned to check on Dru as the agent pulled a couple of cable ties from her belt.
Dru was nowhere to be found.
Vaughnne?
He felt the whisper of her thoughts in his mind. Distracted. Flooded with tension.
He reached for Dru mentally. Came up smack against her shields, felt her rebuff. And was just fine with it, because she was okay. Somewhere in the dark maw of this squalid hellhole.
TWENTY-FOUR
SHE followed her gut.
There was a miasma of fear and horror, and that was the path she followed.
Twice, she had to duck inside a doorway as she heard people coming. When she was slipping out of the doorway a second time, she crashed into a hard male chest. Immediately, she panicked and went to head-butt him, only to have Tucker jerk his head back out of range at the very last second.
“Ease up, sugar,” he murmured, absently stroking a hand down her hair.
“Fuck me,” she said, her voice harsh. Edgy.
“Oh, will you? What do you say, when this is over?” he teased.
“Ha, ha.” As her heart continued to race, she let herself lean against him for a minute. Solid, sturdy, there. The one person she knew she could count on, thank God. Through the thin material of his T-shirt, she could feel the heat of him—the burning heat. “You’re bloody burning hot.”
He gave her a playful leer. “That’s what all the pretty girls say.”
“So damned insistent to get in here but you’ve got time to stand around flirting,” Joss said, his voice not much more than a snarl as he came around the corner.
“Piss off,” she said, turning to stare down the hall. Tucker laid his hand on her shoulder.
Joss went to say something and then he stopped, shook his head. “Five more ahead . . . they’re hurting. Somebody’s screaming.”
Dru looked at him. “I don’t hear screaming.”
“Aw, shit.”
* * *
HUDDLING up in the seat, Taige Morgan clamped her hands over her ears and whimpered as the scream echoed through her mind. Loud. Endless. No human could scream like this, not using their vocal chords, because at some point, they needed to breathe.
A hand curled over her shoulder, shaking her.
“Damn it, Taige, snap out of it,” Taylor shouted.
She groaned. Tried to push her shields up, but that scream just carried on. And on.