Hide and Seek - Lara Adrian Page 0,11
all had a very unique, specialized skill. Including your brother.” His gaze bored deeper into her, searching for her reaction. “He never told you what he could do? He never confided in you about his ability?”
Lisa frowned, feeling her head shake in slow denial. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Kyle is a precognitive. He has ESP.” John said it with a perfectly straight face. He said it as if he hadn’t just told her the most ludicrous thing she’d ever heard in her life. “Your brother is one of the most powerful psychics I’ve ever known, Lisa.”
“Is that right?” She choked on a humorless laugh. “One of the most powerful, you say? And just how many other, less impressive psychics have you known?”
“More than a few. Most of them also worked covertly for Phoenix under codenames.”
He wasn’t laughing. Not even cracking a hint of a grin to clue her in that he was messing with her. Or that he was feeding her some epic line of bullshit just so she’d head back down the mountain and out of his life for good.
No. He was utterly, incredulously sober.
“Three years ago, Phoenix went dark. Someone murdered its founder and put the lives of all its agents in the line of fire, too. We had to scatter, go deep underground—those were our orders if anything were to happen to the program. I don’t know who betrayed us, and I don’t know who wants the rest of us dead, or why. Hell, it could’ve been someone from the inside for all I know. When Phoenix went down, we were instructed not to trust anyone, not even one another.”
Her mind was struggling to process all of the astonishing things she was hearing, although not enough that she missed the full breadth of John’s admission. “Are you telling me that you were a part of this program, Phoenix, too?”
“I was.”
“You’re telling me that Kyle is some kind of psychic covert agent—”
“A precognitive,” John calmly clarified. “The same as me.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You see the future.”
“More or less,” he said. “Precognitives get psychic glimpses of future events in their minds. Sometimes we see only pieces of those events, disconnected, erratic images. Sometimes the visions are intact and fully actionable.”
“Actionable, as in—”
“As in, there is considerable power in being aware of an event before it occurs. Through Phoenix, our government shared the gift of that power. They had the ability to prevent certain events from occurring, and the power to know ahead of time and decide whether to allow various events to happen anyway.”
She gaped at him, stunned. Confused. Scared as hell. And not a little pissed off, too. “If this is your idea of a joke—”
“It’s no joke, Lisa.”
She knew it wasn’t, and in light of that, she felt a bubble of hysteria crowding in on the rest of her churning emotions. “I have to try calling Kyle again. I need to try his number again and see if he’ll text me back or pick up this time.”
She pivoted, glancing around the open-concept room of the cabin, searching for her phone. She found it—or rather, what was left of it—on the far end of the kitchen counter. It had been taken apart, some of the circuitry smashed to bits.
“Your cell phone was a risk I couldn’t afford,” John stated in an even tone. “It was a risk to you and to Kyle, too, Lisa. If he believes he’s been compromised and is worried about your safety, he never should’ve chanced sending you that text. An assassin would need far less than that to trace him. Or they could use you to get to him instead.”
Assassins. Covert CIA programs. Her brother living a double life, hiding an extraordinary ability she’d known nothing about. An ability that now might get him killed.
And John Duarte, her unwilling escort into this hidden, terrifying world she never dreamed could exist.
It was too much suddenly.
She’d never thought of herself as a weak person, and God knew she wanted to be strong now, when she needed a clear head and a steel spine to deal with whatever her brother was mixed up in. But she couldn’t process anything more right now.
She leaned against the counter, numb from head to toe. Exhausted.
She didn’t realize John was touching her until she lifted her gaze and met his tender eyes. He stood before her, smoothing her damp hair off her forehead and cheeks where it drooped into her face.
“I know this