Amy Rench - Fallen Rogue

Damn. Damn. They really couldn’t afford any mistakes or faulty information. Maybe they’d just forgotten to color code it.

Ten forty-five. Harper still wasn’t back.

Rome clicked the lone folder to open it. Definitely not something he’d seen. It was one of the files from Jeff’s experiments that Bobby must have had time to go through. Bobby had inserted his own notes into the text. He scanned the words, though not as familiar with the tone as Harper would have been.

The more he read, the more he gathered he was reading an analysis of the men Jeff had injected with the replicated serum. The big question repeated throughout the data was why they had died from it. Rome shivered. That was the exact question he and Harper had tried not to face. But they sure the hell wanted to know the answer, too.

“Holy shit.” He rubbed his head in shock. “Bobby figured it out.” A smile broke across his face, chasing the chill away with vehemence.

Continuing to read Bobby’s notes on the serum Jeff had used for the subjects, Rome’s smile grew.

Harper’s brother had examined Jeff’s reports on the trials. Because the faction stole the infused plants, they had only derivatives of Bobby’s formula. “Offshoots,” Bobby called them. Rome remembered Harper saying that her brother was possessive to the point of paranoia when it came to his plant experiments. There was no way the faction would ever have gotten ahold of the true serum unless Bobby had let them, which the notes in the file showed he distinctly had not.

Bobby had examined the formula the faction used. Because that applied formula was from the dissected plants and not the authentic formula, the effects were diluted. Bobby included notes on his own experiments with his own plants that had obviously been conducted months before he’d discovered the faction.

The test plants that had been given the original formula had flourished. The plants that had been given a diluted serum had deteriorated and eventually died in less than a week. They did age, even though they were able to repair themselves throughout their lifetime. The only things that killed them was their natural life span or if they were intentionally uprooted. Those were the limitations. The natural order of things remained untouched.

The serum had to be administered to the seeds, and then the seeds had to be planted. And it would stay with them as long as they lived their healthy green lives. Or until someone cut them down. Like the faction was trying to do to Harper.

But Harper had the pure genuine serum inside of her. Not the offshoot.

Rome’s heart soared. Harper wasn’t going to die like the others.

He quickly reread the data to be sure he was interpreting it correctly. There was no mistake in Bobby’s findings. The formula that flowed through Harper was pure. And therefore, she’d survive its effects.

Hopping off the stool in an ecstatic frenzy, Rome dashed to the door of the cabin and ran outside, practically bursting to tell her the good-no, great-news.

But Harper wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

His buoyant mood began to deflate rapidly. Eleven seventeen. Well, she’d survive if he didn’t kill her first. Where the hell was she? They had to leave soon. Very soon.

Damn it all. She had a watch. A fancy Ironman watch she used when she swam. She knew they were supposed to leave at noon. Was he going to have to find her again like yesterday? They didn’t have time for that.

He let out a ragged sigh, watching his breath plume in the cool fall air. Excitement drained to anger as he stomped back inside to drag on his coat. Shoving his hands into the coat pockets, he trudged back outside, nearly growling with each harsh step.

And stopped still.

His fingers jammed against something cold and hard inside the left pocket. An eerie sensation shivered through his hand and settled uneasily in his gut.

Before pulling it out, he knew exactly what it was.

Harper’s first gold medal. The medal she’d said she treasured over all others. The medal they’d found at Bobby’s. The medal he’d returned to her.

And now she’d given it back to him.

Rome sank to his knees in the wet gravel, the grainy mist shrouding his slumped form.

Harper was gone.

Clutching the medal against his bowed forehead, he knew.

She’d gone to bring Jeff down herself. She thought she was going to die anyway. It was a sacrifice she wanted to make. He thought he’d convinced her that they could do this together. That whatever was between them could keep her safe and alive until they found an antidote. She didn’t need to surrender her life to take Jeff’s.

Yet she had already made up her mind. Last night, he thought they had solidified a promise to see it through together. As she lay in his arms in the late hours of darkness, she’d said a breathless good night. But what she’d really said was good-bye.

The gold medal was covered with dull scratches and beads of mist. It reminded him so much of Harper. At one time full of shine, now tarnished and changed forever. Yet like the gold, she still glowed under it all.

And like the cherished medal, she would endure. Even if she didn’t know it yet.

He had to stop her. Had to let her know she had a life worth fighting for. And a love worth giving a chance.

Shoving himself up, Rome raced into the cabin and got the things they had planned to take. Five minutes later, he was in the Bug speeding to stop her from making a horrible mistake.

He couldn’t blame Harper for doing what she thought she needed to do. But he was downright furious with her for thinking she could leave him behind so easily.

Damn it all. He just hoped he could get to the compound in time to let her know she was going to have a lifetime to make it up to him.

It took longer than she thought for the guards to notice her as she walked inside the walls. She was near the courtyard grass, almost to the walkways before they turned their heads in her direction. Idiots.

They stared for a few seconds, then snapped out of their surprised trance and marched toward her, pulling their weapons around. She maintained her leisurely pace, steeling her body for the fight of her life.

Harper stopped halfway down the wet cement walkway just as the two guards slid to a halt, mere feet away from her, the barrels of their rifles pointed directly at her chest.

“Hello, boys.” Her voiced dripped with a menace that coursed through her entire being, welcome and rousing.

She raised her right hand and called upon her psi power. The rush of ice through her blood was instantly replaced by a swell of heat. Then a surge of energy shot from her mind to her hand and toward the two men, the near-invisible force propelling them off their feet to land far on the other side of the courtyard grass.

Two other men materialized from the building on the left, charging toward her at full speed. She brought her left hand up and flared another wave of energy at them with the same satisfying result.

She reveled in the addictive energy that pumped through her body and mind, just waiting, thirsting to unleash it again. A rustling of motion from above drew her attention to the roof of the building on the right. Guards on the roof. The load cracks of their rifles sounded. So much for her theory of their keeping her alive.

Harper whipped around and brought up both hands, palms out, creating an ethereal shield, freezing the bullets in midair as they shot toward her.

She pushed another wave of energy against the barely perceptible buffer, sending the bullets back at the shooters high above. Short screams reached her ears as her targets were hit by their own ammunition.

A group of men poured out of the main building and lumbered toward her, their boots kicking up splashes with every step. They had no weapons, but that didn’t keep them from looking dangerous.