Rachel Caine - Two Weeks' Notice

Only after the two men were down and helpless did he nod to Liam, who relaxed and stepped back.

And then he finally looked at Bryn.

She didn’t remember him moving, but suddenly he was there, within touching distance, arms open for her, and McCallister was the only safe place she could imagine left in the world. The only solace.

But she flinched when he reached out. It was sheer gut reaction, utterly beyond her control; she saw the flicker of shock in his face, and then the understanding, which was worse. He didn’t try to embrace her.

Instead, he slowly, carefully put his hands on either side of her face. They felt sunshine-warm. So did his voice. “I’m sorry,” he said. It was little more than a whisper, and his eyes were fierce and desperate. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come for you myself. It was safer this way. We didn’t have the firepower to take that place, Bryn. The only thing we could do was trust that Mercer could pull this off. I hated leaving you there even an extra second, believe me.”

“I know,” she said, and wrapped one hand around his wrist. His pulse was tapping hard against her fingers. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay now.” She was lying—to him, to herself—but she couldn’t say anything else. Nothing else would help that anxious, tense look on his face. “Where’s Joe?”

“With his family. I wouldn’t ask him to leave them now, not after—”

“After Jeff went missing,” Bryn said, and felt a horrible surge of fear. “He’s all right, isn’t he? They let him go? He wasn’t hurt, was he?” That was the one rock to which she’d clung through all that horror with Jane—that at least she’d saved Jeff. If she hadn’t…if she hadn’t, the tide would rush her over the cliff.

“He’s fine. Scared as hell, like his mom. Kylie was going out of her mind, and Joe—” McCallister cut himself off, and shook his head. “I can’t let him put them at risk anymore. Or himself. Joe’s out of this—he has to be.”

“Yes,” she said. “I don’t want him hurt, either.” She took a deep breath and said, “I also don’t want you putting yourself at risk. Or Liam. This isn’t about you; it’s about me, and Annie. About the Revived. You’re just going to get hurt, Pat. These people…they’re not like Pharmadene, as bad as that was. They’re something else. Something far worse.”

“She’s right,” Mercer called from where he was on the floor. “You have no idea how much worse this really is. I’m nothing. Pharmadene is nothing. Widen your scope of disaster, McCallister.”

Patrick stepped away from Bryn and walked to Mercer. He put a booted foot on the man’s chest, and said, “What do you know?”

“More than you.” Mercer gave him a chilling smile. “If you want a clue , then I’ll give you one for free. The nursing home where they were holding your girl is just a start. Just a tiny little air bubble on the tip of the iceberg, if you will. But to give you an idea of scale, they’ve killed at least fifty people there. Old, sick people. Who misses them? Who cares, when they’ve got nobody left? It’s inevitable progress—they’re dying anyway. But they’re still useful for one thing.”

“Test subjects,” Bryn guessed.

“Oh no,” he said. “ Incubators. In a way, you really have to admire their ruthless efficiency, don’t you? And all I had to use were chimpanzees.”

Pat’s expression had gone just a little bit unhinged, and he pressed down hard with his heel, driving the breath out of Mercer’s chest with a pained gust. “Start making sense while you still can.”

Mercer made some wheezing attempts, and Pat finally eased up on the pressure to let him draw in a whooping gasp. “Can’t tell you here,” he said, and coughed. “No time. We need to get out of here and find a safe haven before her tracker starts sending a signal.” He read the frown on their faces, and shook his head. “Idiots. Of course they know about the trackers. They know about the nanites, and the frequencies they broadcast. And they’ll be listening .” He jerked his chin at Bryn. “You’ve got about two hours before that happens, at the most. It’ll start out as a weak, intermittent signal, so maybe three hours for them to get a firm lock. But she’s a beacon, and she’ll pull them straight at us.”

“Pat?” Bryn asked anxiously. “Is he right? Can they track me?”

“It’s possible,” he finally said. “And it’s possible this piece of shit is lying to make us go where he wants.”

“Listen, G.I. Jarhead, if you want to reacquaint yourself with the lovely Jane, just go ahead and—”

Patrick went utterly, completely still, and then he put his full weight on the boot on Mercer’s chest and barked, “What did you just say?”

“Pat! Pat, you’ll kill him!” Bryn blurted. From the sharp cry Mercer let out, a rib had already snapped. And Patrick clearly didn’t care. “Pat!”

Even Liam was looking alarmed and moving toward his boss with the clear intent of pulling him off—until Pat sent him a look that stopped him cold in his tracks. “Mercer,” Pat said. “I’m only going to say it one more time, and then I will stomp on your chest as many times as it takes to splinter your breastbone and get your complete fucking attention. What did you say? ”

“Jane,” Mercer wheezed. He’d gone gray with pain, and a good deal of actual fear. “They have Jane working for them. She’s one of them.”

Patrick took his foot off Mercer and took two long steps back, as if he didn’t trust himself not to follow through, regardless. There was something black and totally out of control inside him, something that shocked Bryn down to the core; she’d known he was capable of violence, but this was beyond all that.

This was feral.

“Pat?” she asked. He looked up at her, then down, as if he couldn’t hold her stare. “Pat, who’s Jane?”

“My wife,” he said. “Jane was my wife.”

My wife.

Jane.

My wife.

It kept running through Bryn’s head like white noise, and she just couldn’t comprehend it. He didn’t have a wife. He couldn’t have a wife, because he’d never, ever talked about it. And if he ever had married someone, it certainly, absolutely could not be Jane .

That was utterly impossible. He was a good man, a decent man, and Jane…Jane was everything foul in the world. A walking toxic spill.

“That’s not true,” Bryn said aloud. “Pat—that’s just not true .” She stared at him, but he’d veered away as if he didn’t dare come close to her now, either. He stalked toward the corner, boots scraping on the dusty concrete, fists clenched.

Lying on the ground, Mercer laughed, but it dissolved into painful coughing. He rolled on his side and spit up blood. “Ask him,” he said, and grinned with bloody teeth. “In case you think I’m making it up, her full name is Jane Desmond Franklin.”

“She’s dead,” Patrick flung back without turning.

“Well, I think we could all agree, there’s dead and then there’s really, sincerely dead . And Jane’s the former, not the latter. By the way, congratulations on your taste in women. You do run to type, my man. Bryn’s got that same crazy, strong energy, doesn’t she? Doesn’t give up. Just like…Jane. You know, before.”

Patrick turned and went for him, and if Liam hadn’t gotten in his way and deflected the rush, Bryn was utterly sure that Mercer would have been bleeding out his life on the concrete. She couldn’t move. She felt as if she’d been nailed in place, then frozen solid.