looked up into his familiar eyes, his hair tumbling into them. “I gotcha, girl,” he drawled, smiling a little.
Breathe, gotta breathe.
Seconds later, they were on the ground and Tucker was next to her. As they tore off into the night, they were too aware of those who were pursuing them.
“They’re coming after us,” she said grimly. “They’ll be on the road the second we are.”
“No.” Tucker’s voice was tight, controlled.
Shooting him a look, she saw the strained look on his face. “Not just yet, they won’t.” He pointed to the roadside and they slowed just before they would have slammed into the car. “I can hold them for a few.”
The look on his face was one of strain unlike anything she could ever recall seeing. “Tucker?”
He just shook his head. “Get in. We have to go,” he said thinly. “The farther we are when I lose the hold, the better.”
Well, then.
She’d known he had a knack for odd things . . . a strong knack, but that strong?
* * *
THE mantra of careful, careful had given way to breathe, breathe.
Gripping the steering wheel, Joss shot Nalini a dark look. “What in the fuck did you do to me?”
“Nothing much, big boy. Just kept your head intact a little while longer,” she said, eyeing the gate ahead of them.
She’d slid into the backseat. By all looks and appearances, she was lying there, bound. Of course, one look at her eyes and one would know she wasn’t helpless. “This isn’t going to work if you can’t look a little more scared,” he snapped. “Vaughnne managed a better job than you are.”
She smiled at him. “Vaughnne can’t do what I do. You just open the back for them.”
He swore.
This was going to go bad.
Very bad.
“I haven’t even called in to let them know I’m bringing you.” Frustration rumbled through him.
And still that faint whisper. Getting louder now. Familiar even. A woman’s voice. He knew her . . . who the hell was she?
There. It’s there. It was so close . . . all this time . . .
What was she talking about?
“Don’t worry. They won’t care once you open that door. If they don’t touch me, you pull me out and make them,” Nalini said.
“Touch you . . .”
Pieces fell into place.
That odd calm that had washed over him.
With a composure he didn’t feel, he said, “You control people, don’t you? They have to touch you, but when they do, you can control them.”
“Yes.”
In the rearview mirror, he met her gaze.
“That’s not all, is it?”
She shrugged. “I do it through impressions . . . I leave an impression, and I take some of the bad shit away. I don’t take memories, but I can haze things up for a while. When you push, anything I do goes away.” With a sigh, she said, “You were hurtling two hundred miles per hour down the wrong road, with the wrong thoughts. And you still had too much chaff in your head from the mind-fuck Taylor did on you. We had to fix it.”
“We didn’t do anything. That’s not much better than mind-rape.” He stared at the road. If he looked at her again, he just might pull the car over and do something he’d regret.
“I know.”
As he slowed to a stop just outside the gate, Nalini said softly, “There wasn’t much choice. You were disintegrating and you know it. You’re thinking better now. Keep it that way . . . and start looking deeper, you brainless moron.”
Looking deeper . . .
He curled his lip at her, but there was no time to ask what she was talking about.
There were two men striding toward them.
And they didn’t look happy.
TWENTY-THREE
WELL, they’d needed a distraction of sorts, Dru thought.
The appearance of the maroon SUV counted.
As the men opened the gate to admit the SUV, both Dru and Tucker heard the raised voices. “How steady are you now?” she asked quietly, studying the gates.
The whole bleeding fence was wired. They had to figure a way around that.
“Steady enough,” he said, and his voice was easier now, that slow, lazy drawl more like what she was used to. “I’m good. Granted, I’ll crash and burn when this is done, but I’m good.”
“Can you hold the gate?”
He shot her a look. “Hold it?” Red brows ratcheted up as he studied her face. “Why, so we can just walk in . . . yeah, that will go over well.”
“No. If you hold it so they can’t shut it . . . distraction.”