Amy Rench - Fallen Rogue

Motion flickered in her peripheral vision. She chanced a brief glance to her right and saw a solid line of men form on the roof of the building. Weapons all trained on her. A look to her left revealed the same thing. If she looked behind her, she knew she’d see them, as well. She was surrounded.

“My intention is not to create monsters,” Jeff said, his hard voice commanding her attention. “My intention is to create a superior soldier.”

Harper’s eyes narrowed. She knew this. Knew what he was trying to do and the lethal experiments he administered. Knew their horrific results. She would be one of the failed statistics.

“Ms. Kane, you could be the ultimate weapon.” Jeff’s intense eyes bore into hers as his voice sank into her mind, unbidden and unwelcome.

What on earth was he talking about? She didn’t want to be a weapon. She wanted to be herself. She wanted her brother back. Her life back.

“You have an extraordinary power that can be used for good,” he said, pressing on, moving another pace closer. “An invincible power. Think of all the injustices of the world. You could seek vengeance globally. Right all the wrongs.” Jeff was now just a mere body length away from her.

Uncertainty flooded Harper’s mind, bringing with it an unsettling rush of confusion. She had come here to right the wrong. To seek vengeance for the injustice. Precisely as he said.

“Just like your brother would have wanted.” Jeff’s words were quiet. But they thundered louder than a sonic boom.

Was he right? Harper searched deep inside herself, hoping to find the answer buried deep in her soul. Needing the answer.

Is that really what Bobby would have wanted?

No.

Bobby had given his life to stop this. To keep his precious formula secret. Whatever his reasons, her brother hadn’t wanted Jeff Donovan and his team to succeed.

That was enough for her.

Bobby had died to stop them. And she’d do no less to stop them, as well.

“No.” Harper’s voice was low and still. The quiet calm before the deadly storm. “That’s not what my brother wanted.”

She was going to kill them all. Starting with Jeff.

Chilling, bitter ice raced to her mind. Then in an instant, vibrant heat scorched her vision as she called upon all the hatred and resentment she felt for this man and what he’d done. Her body blazed unmercifully, her flesh barely able to contain the inferno that seared every fiber inside.

She grabbed his neck. Her grip a searing vise. Sizzling flames prickled in her muscles as her mind began to launch flares of energy through her arm, just waiting to unleash.

Through high-powered binoculars, Rome watched Harper face off against Jeff in the middle of the rainy courtyard. Damn it all. She was supposed to wait for him. Lowering the glasses, he slammed his fist into the moist soil, the mud sucking at his fingers. Damn it.

“That your girl?” someone to his right asked. “She’s quite a looker.”

Rome clenched his jaw and turned his head, narrowing his gaze at the trusted special forces operative to his right. Holding a similar pair of binoculars, he was watching the scene unfold, as well.

“She was supposed to wait,” Rome growled, shifting his attention back to Harper while he yanked his hand out of the muck with a muted glorp. The operative chuckled.

What the hell was Harper doing?

He, along with the planned reinforcements, had arrived precisely on time, only to find Harper not at their meeting point. He’d hoped to talk her out of her personal vendetta. But all they’d found were blaring cracks and heavy thuds that had drawn them to the sheltered hill above the courtyard, where they watched her use her powers to easily dispose of all comers. Rome’s team had been markedly shocked, but curious at the same time.

Upon meeting up with the trusted group at a more distant rendezvous point, Rome had explained the situation. But to see it in action…he knew that was a different story.

The special forces team had all been wholly impressed with the scientist’s noble creation and believed in the project and the universal environmental vision that accompanied it. They all wanted to be a part of assembling a worthy group to complete Bobby’s revolutionary work with plants.

It was exactly what Rome had wanted to hear. And he had thought Harper would be more than thrilled to hear the team’s intentions.

But now, the only thing Harper was doing was throwing her life away. Giving in to the hatred and revenge she so deeply believed she needed. Rome knew that she did need vengeance, but not this way. Not by becoming a cold-blooded killing machine.

Knowing the extraordinary kind of person Harper was, he couldn’t believe that her brother would’ve wanted that.

Add that to the fact that she thought she was going to die anyway, and she’d likely figured she had nothing to lose. But she was damn wrong. She had everything to lose.

He saw Harper move at lightning speed, roughly grabbing Jeff by the neck with one rigid hand. Rome twitched at her unreal strength.

Gunfire rang out, causing him to jerk again, but Harper merely raised her free hand to freeze the charging ammo in some type of near-invisible shield. Damn, she was getting good at controlling her powers. Too good.

Rome shook his head with a profound sadness. He thought he had convinced her to bring Jeff and his faction to justice. To make the bastards accountable for what they did, not just decide to kill them and be done with it, losing her precious humanity in the process.

He couldn’t stand by and watch her go down that dark and desolate path. It nearly tore him apart to see her shatter his belief in her. To take the easy road of a vigilante instead of the tough route of responsibility.

She’d chosen to break the rules and, for everyone’s sake, he couldn’t let that happen. The cost of her personal vengeance was too high a price to pay for the rest of the world.

He had to stop her somehow. If she killed Jeff, he knew he’d lose her forever. Maybe he had already.

No. Rome refused to believe that. And he refused to let that happen to her.

“I’m going in,” Rome told the operative next to him as he resolutely jumped up and raced down the slick hill, the rain stinging his face.

Through her fury, Harper heard the crack of gunfire. Raising her other hand, she freed up a small corner of her writhing mind and formed an energy field, blocking out everything except Jeff and her, essentially encasing the two of them in a bubble. The bullets pummeled but didn’t breach her psi-powered defense.

Harper was heady with spiking power. And she liked it. Craved it. Her body filled with sultry energy, consumed with the hate for this man and his monstrous actions.

All it would take was one small shift of her mind and that energy would surge from the hand wrapped tightly around his neck into his body, searing him from within. Less than an instant would pass before his death.

She was that strong.

Bobby had known her strength. He’d seen it when she decided to fight back from her swimming failure. That’s why he’d left the serum and the data for her. Because he knew she had the inner fortitude to see this through.

Even Rome had said the same thing. He, too, had faith in her inner strength.

Rome.

Harper blinked as recent memories flashed across her vision, merging with the energy that swirled in her head. She and Rome fighting side by side in the darkness. Perusing Bobby’s data together over sandwiches.

Falling in love.

The rigid hand around Jeff’s neck trembled. Rome had said he loved her. He had said her strength was genuine. That he trusted her as much as Bobby had, to do the right thing.

The right thing.

And what was that? She thought it was revenge. But Rome told her she was losing herself to that craving for vengeance. He demanded that she believe it.