Strangers of the Night

She didn’t have much more time to think about it then because something in the way he shifted had brought her to the tipping point. They moved together, easily, steadily, and she came in a slow rush of rolling pleasure. He followed with a shudder and buried his face against the side of her neck.

When her phone rang, she was happy to shift out from underneath him so she could grab it. “Hey, girl.”

“I didn’t go home with that guy,” Leila’s drunken voice crackled through the phone, a bad connection. “I’m back at my place. You okay?”

“Yes, fine.” Persephone glanced at Kane, who’d sat up to look at her. She’d been holding on to her illusion as a matter of habit, a good one, but tightened it now to be sure he had not even a glimpse of her true self. Leila had disconnected.

“I have to go,” she said. “Sisters before misters, am I right?”

“Sure. No problem.” He yawned and fell back on the bed. “You need a cab or anything?”

“I’m good.” She paused as she gathered her clothes to look at him. “Thanks for tonight.”

He rolled onto his side to crack open an eye and grin at her. “You’re welcome.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to offer him her number, which of course would be ridiculously stupid, even if she did use the fake side line she kept for these very occasions. Instead, she dressed quickly and let herself out of the hotel room.

Chapter 9

Jed studied the wooden puzzle in front of him. It was more suitable for a five-year-old than a twenty-five-year-old, but since he’d been given puzzles identical to this one or nearly so since he had been five, he guessed they’d never seen any reason to change. A rectangular wooden base with different sized, shaped and colored holes, meant to hold the brightly colored matching pieces. Unlike a toddler puzzle, this one had more complicated shapes and smaller pieces. The goal: fit the pieces into the slots as fast as possible. He’d been using this same one for so long, the paint had worn down to bare wood in many places. It didn’t matter. At this point, the exercise was more of a self-soothing device than anything else.

He shook out the pieces, scattering them across the desk like jacks. He set the base upright and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. His hands went to the edges of the table, fingertips touching the worn wooden surface lightly. Through the pads of his fingertips, he could taste the harsh sting of the antibacterial cleanser they used in here every afternoon while he was in session with Dr. Ransom. It was a bad taste, yet somehow comforting. It had been the same for twenty years. Just like the puzzle. Like the lights set on timers to keep him on a regular day/night schedule that had nothing in common with the actual movement of the sun. Like everything else here, over time, the hospital had become...home.

Without opening his eyes, Jed began fitting the pieces into the slots. His fingers moved, stroking over the wooden desk, though now the harsh bite of the chemicals had been replaced by the smoother, older smell of colored paint. Blue star. Yellow circle. Red hexagon.

Faster.

Green cross. Black square. Purple triangle.

Faster.

The wooden pieces fit themselves into place with small, clattering thumps and thuds as they rolled across the desk.

When all the pieces had returned to the base, the vibration in the desk ceased and he opened his eyes. He put his fingertips on the edge of the table again and touched the puzzle with his gaze and nothing more. He’d done this forty-seven times already tonight, and would keep doing it until the lights went off when he was supposed to be sleeping—but of course he didn’t sleep. He hardly ever did, never more than an hour or two at a time, anyway.

He closed his eyes.

Faster.

Faster.

He could do this another three times, if he was quick, before it was time for Samantha to bring him his meds. He’d have to be finished before she got here. She had no idea what he was, what he could do. But out of all the people who’d worked here over the years, all the doctors, nurses and orderlies, all the guards, hundreds of people who’d taken care of him—Samantha was the only one who’d made it seem like it mattered. How she saw him. What she thought of him. She was the first person since he’d been sent here to make Jed care about anything.

A scant few seconds before he heard the click of the door lock, Jed had finished his last round of the puzzle and pushed it aside. He was already on his feet, standing behind the red line painted on the floor well away from the door. He smoothed his hair, suddenly self-conscious. He should have quit the puzzle sooner. Brushed his hair, his teeth. Changed his shirt, as if any of the four he owned were not identical.

“Hi, Jed.” Samantha’s grin urged his own. “How’s it going?”

“Good, good. You?” He always sounded such like an idiot when he spoke to her, but she never seemed to notice.

“Oh, I’m dandy.” She waited for the door to lock behind her before stepping toward him.

In the past eight years, Jed had never once moved over the red line before that solid click. In eight years, never given anyone reason to fear him. For a brief period of time when he was a teenager, they’d upped his meds to keep him from trying to escape, testing him over and over again to see if he could do with the door lock what he could do with the puzzle, but he’d always failed. It was the type of metal, they said amongst themselves. They had no idea that it wasn’t anything to do with that all, but the simple fact that Jed wanted them to stop drugging him.

Not so he could get out. That, he could’ve done at any time, despite the drugs and the special metal in the locks. His memories of what life had been before had never faded, even through the distortion of childhood. He never wanted to go back to the life he’d known before coming here. If that meant spending his life in this room, so be it. No, he’d simply hated the fuzzy way the meds made him feel. Slow and thick and stupid.

“Is it getting cold outside?” he asked her suddenly, regretting the stupid words the moment they flew out of his mouth.

Samantha frowned and gave him a sideways glance, then another at the corner of the ceiling where the hidden camera lurked. “You know I’m not allowed to talk about that, Jed.”

“Right, right. I know.” Did they really think he didn’t remember there was a world outside these walls? Sometimes, Jed thought, they must. He’d allowed them to think of him as simple for so long, he must’ve convinced them he was also stupid. “I just wondered.”

“Can you sit down, please?” She gestured, and when he had complied, as he always did, always, never disobedient, she made a show of pulling out her stethoscope but leaned over him as she placed the round part of it against his chest. “The leaves are changing. The air smells like snow.”

That whisper sent an electric jolt all through him. So did her touch on his wrist as she counted the too-many and too-fast beats of his heart. Samantha looked into his eyes, so close he could see the white specks surrounding the blackness of her pupil. She gave him a small, secret smile and waited a moment or so before she officially took his pulse. Giving him time to relax.

She knew him.

She’d never commented on the embarrassing way his body reacted to her standard routine. Not when she used gentle fingers to press his neck and throat to check his lymph nodes and his heartbeat again raced, and not when she had him lift his arms to his sides so she could pass her hands along his body and he shifted against the rise in his pants. She noticed it. She had to. There was no way to hide the heat of his skin. But she always managed to be standing at an angle to block it from the camera, and she always took her time to make it possible for him to calm down before she stepped back.

Today (it was really close to midnight, though they wanted him to think it was more like noon) she lingered with the exam. Stood a little closer than usual. She dropped her stylus, a soft-tipped rubber utensil that should not have been able to cause any harm, should he decide to take it from her and shove it into a vulnerable spot. It was a sensible precaution, though he wondered why nobody had ever seemed to consider the fact he’d need no weapon if he really wanted to hurt someone.

And they thought he was the stupid one.

She smelled so fresh, so clean, that all he could do was close his eyes and breathe her in. He wanted to cover himself in her scent, to wash away the stink of this room. Of all the years...

“Jed,” she said. Warning. “No touching.”

He hadn’t meant to. The gentle pressure of his fingers against the inside of her elbow had been involuntary. He didn’t move them away. Staring into her eyes, Jed let his fingers trace a small circle on her bare skin.

Her lips parted on a small sigh. She blinked rapidly. At the tiniest hint of her tongue pressed to her upper lip, another rush of electricity jolted through him. He was so hard now there’d be no way she could keep up the pretense of this exam long enough for him to hide it from whoever it was that got their jollies watching.

She should move away from, he thought a little incoherently. She had to know what was happening. He should stop touching her, but he couldn’t make himself. Another infinitesimal stroke of his fingertips on her skin had her eyes going wide. Dark.

Her smell changed from fresh air to something his brain told him was flowers, though it had been twenty years since he’d even seen a flower; the taste of her like golden honey, sweet syrup, flooded him through the continuing touch. Every muscle in him tensed, straining, though neither of them so much as moved more than the constant, steady motion of her hands as she made a show of checking his vitals.

Pulse. Temperature. One-handed, not moving so he could keep his fingertips on the inside of her elbow, Samantha kept up a running commentary on what she was doing—for the benefit of the observing camera, maybe. Or for him. For herself, Jed thought irrationally as the steady drone of her voice cracked and dipped for a second before she recovered.

He had never kissed a woman. Never made love. They’d started giving him porn when he hit adolescence—an outlet, they thought, so any pent-up desires could be dissolved. Preventing him from what, from violence? From yearning? It had worked, to a point, he thought now, but you couldn’t replace human touch with paper pages or digital images. You couldn’t replace making love to a woman with your own hand.

He wanted to kiss Samantha. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to make her shiver and shake, not the way the women in those movies did, but from deep inside her core. For real. He wanted to hear her say his name while her body tightened around him...

Samantha put her hand over his, her eyes closing. Her body tensed. She shook, but so briefly there could be no way anyone but Jed would notice. A small moan slipped out of her, covered up so fast by a cough as she turned her head that again, nobody but he could’ve possibly heard it.

“You have to stop.” Her lips moved, in silence he understood, anyway.

Ashamed, he let her go. Samantha took a step back, almost stumbling before she caught herself. Her eyes opened. Gaze focused. A flush had spread up her throat to paint her cheeks. With her back still to the camera, shielding him, she pulled the small cup of meds from her uniform pocket and made a show of dispensing them.

“Take your vitamins,” Samantha said.

They weren’t vitamins, but at least they weren’t hallucinogens or sedatives. He swallowed them with the bottled water she gave him from the small fridge next to the desk. By the time he had, he’d also managed to will his erection back down.

“Careful, you’ve spilled,” she said calmly without looking away from his eyes, not so much as a glance at the small wet patch on the front of his pants.

Still watching out for him, he thought. Doing what she could. His balls ached, but he didn’t dare even to shift in the chair.

They shared a look, lingering as long as they dared. At least he imagined they did, but when she cut her gaze from his, Jed had to admit that perhaps all of this was in his head. Surely Samantha didn’t have any romantic feelings for him. How could she? He shouldn’t mistake kindness and a sense of duty for anything like affection. In fact, he should be ashamed of using his talent to inflict his lust on her.

“Do you need anything?” she asked him.

He needed lots of things, none of which she could give him. “No, thanks. Is it almost time for my session with Dr. Ransom?”

“Yes. I...think so.” Again, her cheeks colored as she checked her watch. “Wow, yes it is. I lost track of time.”

“The exam took longer today,” Jed said, watching her.

Again, Samantha snagged his gaze with hers and didn’t look away. She smiled. “Yes. A little longer.”

Behind her, the green light over the door clicked to red. She didn’t turn to look at it, but noticed him staring. She straightened, tucking the empty tin back into her pocket and patting it. She smoothed the fine tendrils of pale hair that had fallen over her forehead and cheeks. She cleared her throat and took another step back.

“Everything’s fine, though,” she said.

Jed smiled without much humor. “Isn’t it always?”

“No,” Samantha said even as her mouth formed the word yes, adding, “Don’t forget to buzz if you need me.”

I need you. I always need you. His answer, unspoken, could not possibly have reached her. His talents didn’t extend to projecting thoughts.

Still, she nodded as though she’d heard him, but that was his own foolishness. His own desire. Without another word exchanged, Samantha left the room and the door locked behind her, and Jed forced himself to get out of the chair so nobody would think something was wrong.

Chapter 10

Leaving her shift in the light of day meant Samantha would be going home to blackout shades and a white-noise machine—but there’d be no easy sleep for her this morning. Not after that interminable five minutes in Jed’s room. Not with the memory of his touch lingering.

A cold shower didn’t help. She tried it, of course, running the water as frigid as she could stand it until her teeth chattered and her nipples peaked to near-painful tightness—but getting out, drying off, every stroke of the towel’s soft fabric against her had Samantha’s nerves tingling. Now she lay naked in her bed, the covers tossed off to expose her to the chilly autumn air, her window open to let in the breeze, because after a night’s work in Wyrmwood she couldn’t bear to be closed in, not even inside her own apartment.

Stretching, letting her naked skin shift on the sheets, she tried not to touch herself but gave up after a few minutes of halfhearted resistance. She’d been on fire since giving Jed his exam—the same one she gave him every shift. A quick check of his temperature, his pulse, his glands, the clarity of his eyes and little more than that. It was required, but useless, since the likelihood of anything being wrong with him that nobody hadn’t already noticed was so slim.

It was not the first time she’d murmured to him about the world outside, completely in defiance of the rules. Nor the first time she’d lingered over the exam, if only because of the way he’d pushed himself into her touch the way a cat would, purring, butting at her hand for the barest scrap of affection. Nobody touched him unless they were examining him. She knew that much, not from anything she’d ever been told as a staff member, but from the reports she’d studied, provided by Vadim and the vast reference and research sources of the Crew.

Nobody touched Jed to comfort him, not since childhood. Certainly never to arouse him, though she’d noticed about six months into her stint there that he’d begun reacting to her in that way. She’d never made a fuss about it, at first because she didn’t want to risk them pulling her off duty taking care of him, for fear there was any kind of connection between them. Later, to keep him from being embarrassed. Now, she noticed but never acknowledged it because she couldn’t admit to anyone, not even herself, how knowing that the simplest touch of her against him got him hard. How he looked at her, hungrier for that ten minutes they shared than he ever was for the trays of bland food they brought him.

Tonight was the first time, though, she’d ever had a similar reaction.

Her hand slid between her legs to cup herself. Fingers slipping inside. She was still slick. Her clit, still sensitive enough that the slight flick of it from her thumb forced a sigh out of her.

He’d almost made her come while barely touching her.

With a low groan of frustration, she stopped. This was no good. She didn’t want to admit that she thought of Jed in that way. Jed, the man she was supposed to protect. Not lust after.

Still, the job with Wyrmwood had made it impossible for her to have much of a social life, which left nothing but the touch of her own hand. It had been about a week since the last time she’d pleasured herself, and she was surprised she’d made it this long without taking the time to get herself off. No wonder he’d been able to bring her so close, Samantha thought with a sigh as she rubbed her clit in a slow, steady circle. She was definitely in need of an orgasm.

The scent of lavender. It teased and tickled her nostrils. Memory, she was sure, but caught up in the eroticism of her own touch, she didn’t think much about it beyond that. She let the smells wash over her, urging her toward release.

Sometimes she used toys, but tonight the touch of only her fingers was getting her there. That and the memory of standing next to Jed, her fingertips on his wrist and feeling the suddenly swift throb of his heartbeat. His erection, conspicuously thick in his scrubs. The small wet spot of his precome that had stained it...all that from doing nothing but sitting near her. The thought of it was intoxicating and had her slipping over the edge into a hard, brief orgasm that left her breathless and sated...for now.

She gave herself a few minutes to luxuriate in the afterglow, which was nowhere near as nice as it would’ve been if she had been with someone else, but it would have to do. She’d already filed her daily report for the Crew, but now she rolled out of bed and slung on a silk kimono to sit at her desk and flip open her laptop. She typed in the web address of the secure reporting site and scrolled back through all the information she had on Wyrmwood. On Jed. Her notes were complete and thorough and said very little because there wasn’t very much to say. She went in. She did her job. She came home. She waited for word on when it was time to get him out of there.

And sometimes, she thought with a small pang of guilt, she made herself come when thinking about him.

She wasn’t surprised when her computer rang. Surely they monitored when she logged in, and what she looked at. “Vadim.”

He smiled at her from the small video chat window on her screen. “Samantha. What’s going on?”

She did not want to tell her boss about the sexual encounter today. It was an embarrassing lack of self-control on her part. It might get her pulled from the assignment, and there were so many reasons she didn’t want that to happen—some she’d own up to and some she would not.

“Nothing,” she said after a second’s hesitation. “Can’t sleep. Just trying to refresh myself on the case, I guess.”

“There’s nothing new in there. If there were, I’d have alerted you.” Vadim tilted his head to study her. “You haven’t heard anything from the hospital, have you?”

“Of course not. Like they’d tell me anything.” She snorted soft laughter and shook her head.

Vadim was no longer smiling. “It’s going to be soon. Our source says the paperwork’s been filed for his transfer.”

The transfer from Wyrmwood to an unknown location. They didn’t need to know where they were taking him to understand that he’d be killed wherever he ended up. “Why do they bother, Vadim? Why not just overdose him at the hospital? It’s not like anyone would know.”

The words were truth but tasted bitter, making her sneer.

Vadim shrugged. “Who knows, other than even their most vetted employees could end up with too much information, and they don’t want to risk it? Better to ‘transfer’ the ones they’re no longer interested in using to someplace else and simply dispose of them along the way.”

Samantha shuddered at the thought of it, of Jed being put into a white van. A gun to his head, maybe, or a simple injection. His body put into an unmarked grave. Vadim gave her a curious look, even as she quickly smoothed her expression.

“You’ll be ready?” he asked. “The only time you’ll be able to extricate him is in that small window between him leaving Wyrmwood and before he arrives at where it is they plan to take him.”

She’d known that when she took the assignment. Breaking him out of the hospital was an impossibility, no matter her level of skill or how much the Crew could help with computer hacking or other measures to get past security. She’d always known she would have to wait until they were transferring him and move at that time. So why, then, did she feel so suddenly desperate not to wait any longer?

“It’s been years.” She leaned closer to the computer, staring into the camera. “Is it possible they’re simply going to leave him alone? There are plenty of residents at Wyrmwood living out their lives without interference.”

“Not a single one of the children captured from Collins Creek have been left to live without interference,” Vadim said. “The ones that showed no abilities were, of course, put into the foster care system. The others have either been kept, as Jed’s been kept, or exterminated.”

“There are some others,” Samantha said quietly. “The ones who got out.”

She’d read about them in the files. A few obscure references, no more than that, these special children almost as much of a myth as Bigfoot. Sometimes spotted in the wild, but never captured, their existence never proven.

“You know as well as I do that nobody’s ever been able to connect anyone out there with Collins Creek. It was swept, the residents removed and most of them died during the raid.” Vadim paused. “Certainly we’ve had many cases of men and women with extraordinary psychic talents, but none of them have been connected with the farm or the cult. And even if they were, does it matter? Your assignment is to protect this one man.”

“Of course.” She nodded, pulling the robe closer around her throat from the sudden chill sweeping over her.

“Samantha, you should know I have no doubts about your ability to handle this assignment. You’re very, very good at what you do.” Vadim did smile again, though the effect of it was probably less reassuring than he meant it to be.

Samantha saw no point in false modesty. She’d spent her childhood being trained to survive any situation, including the impossible, like an alien invasion or the rise of the undead. She’d joined the Crew after several stints in government organizations so secret even she wasn’t sure who ran them—only that the training she’d had as a kid had been nothing compared to what she’d learned there. Those skills and credentials had been what got her approved to work at Wyrmwood. “Yes. It’s not that I’m worried about it... I’ll be ready. But...”

“Yes?”

Samantha shook her head, knowing she had to own up to it. “It’s the subject. He seems to have formed an...attachment.”

“Ah. Can you use it?”

Startled, she recoiled with a grimace. “What? No! Why would I?”

“If it was necessary to gain his cooperation, I would expect you to, especially if it was to help protect him.” Vadim shrugged, eyeing her.

“I fail to see how encouraging him to have a crush on me could help protect him.” The words came out too sharply. She sounded guilty.

Vadim gave her a narrow-eyed look. “The subject has been kept in near isolation since childhood. Before that, he’d been raised in horrific social conditions. Understandably, he could be expected to form an emotional or sexual attachment to an attractive caregiver. The records show you are likely not even the first...”