A Shadow's Embrace Read online

  “Thanks for the hard landing, fucker,” Dagan mumbled into a comm unit she hadn’t noticed before.

  Wincing, she stood on shaky legs and took a couple of deep breaths. Okay. That was one way to get out of the alley.

  He tugged on her arm and sprinted across the rooftop. She pulled until he halted. “Wait. Shouldn’t we provide cover for him until he gets up?”

  “He’s not coming with us. He’s drawing their fire so we can get your ass out of whatever mess you’ve fallen into. General Conver isn’t someone you take on alone.”

  The dismissive tone grated her patience. She wanted to pull the Ruger holstered on his side and teach him a thing or two about respect, but this wasn’t the time. The SEO wasn’t supposed to be in harm’s way.

  How had Conver figured out her location so quickly?

  Annoyance kept her silent and complacent to the grueling pace Dagan set as they vaulted from one rooftop to another in no clear direction. East, north, then east, then west, then northwest, south. She was getting dizzy, and each blind lunge from one safe perch to another sent her pulse racing to a faster tempo.

  By the time her leg muscles were limper than linguini, she paused and looked around. “We’re back to where we started?”

  “Conver’s minions rarely circle back. They’re too arrogant to think we’d remain in the target zone and engage a force as large as they are. It’s suicide.” He flicked a gaze over his shoulder in her general direction before assessing the perimeter.

  Her lungs burned; her thighs ached. Ragged breaths sawed in and out of her parched throat as she watched him calmly prowling around as though they hadn’t just vaulted like drunken reindeer across so many rooftops she'd lost count. Wiping sweat from her brow, she sighed her general contempt for his gorgeous, thick hair and its lack of disarray.

  He wasn’t even breaking a sweat yet.

  Okay. Dare and Rider had been right. She needed to spend more time on cardio. What had they been talking about before her body had short circuited? Oh, yeah. It was suicide to remain in Conver’s target zone.

  No joke. “Then why?”

  “Because every boat, airplane, bus, vehicle, horse cart, and bicycle is under scrutiny, and unless you can sprout wings and fly our asses out of here, we don’t have much of a choice. Now, are you going to behave and follow me, or are we going to stand around and wait for the helicopters to spot us?”

  In silent rebellion, she vaulted to the next rooftop. He cursed but followed. She landed with a grin and turned to face a nightmare. The rooftop’s high perimeter had hidden the crush of six ARES soldiers, weapons trained on her. Dagan thudded to a halt beside her.

  “Guess that plan of yours didn’t work too well,” she commented.

  He lunged for two of the soldiers and downed them quickly. Dagan roundhouse kicked another in the throat. Devyn took the cue and did the same, adding a kick to the nuts for one of the other men. Before she could handle the last man, gunfire erupted. She halted, swallowing her scream when Dagan shoved her to the ground and grunted as he fell.

  Crimson flowed between his splayed fingers. Son of a bitch. He’d taken the bullet for her.

  Shit.

  She nailed the last man in the nuts, snagged his weapon, and then placed a double tap to his forehead. Blood and brain matter exploded around her as she repeated the action until all six were out of commission. Apparently it was time to channel her inner heartless, killing bitch.

  Dagan winced when she helped him stand, his right hand spread across his stomach. Blood flowed from the gaping wound. This wasn’t good.

  She studied the situation, accessed the data stream she’d fed to Ace at SEO headquarters, and realized there was a narrow window of opportunity for them to get gone. Rex’s telekinetic blitz attack had sent most of the ARES assholes running for ground.

  “Can you help get yourself off this roof?” she asked.

  He tapped his ear comm twice. “Situation critical. Repeat, situation critical.”

  “No. Hell, no, it isn’t critical.” She half pulled, half dragged him to the edge of the roof. “Down. Now.”

  Their enhanced genetics made such falls possible. Landing hurt like a bitch, but it wouldn’t break anything if they were both conscious. She landed in a crouch and cursed when Dagan fell with a booming thud. Blood oozed from his gut.

  “Don’t think that was a good idea,” he groaned.

  No shit. At least he was ground level. She looked around, thankful when she realized where they were. This was doable. Searching his pockets, she grabbed his phone and punched in the emergency number for Indigo Order.

  Hopefully they hadn’t all gone to ground yet.

  “Yeah.”

  “Cadence, I’m coming in hot, one downed operative. We need Patch and his crew there. ETA ten minutes. I’m praying Dare and Rider are local.”

  “That’s a negative on the first, questionable on the latter. Dare’s following up with intel you got bagged and tagged in the bayou. Glad all these rumors are bullshit, Indy.”

  They persisted in using her street name because she’d somehow become a legend within the psychic underground. Resources were nearly impossible to come by for most of the level ones and twos cast out as children by ARES. Most starved, some managed to become part of the foster care system for a few years. Those who survived did so as a collective, a desperate collective that, until a couple of years ago, had had no viable voice or resource.

  The difference Devyn made on the street with her small organization made everything she’d endured worthwhile. Until now. She couldn’t let Dagan die. The SEO was the spine and brute force behind the liberation movement.

  “Contact them. Prep the down room.” Devyn ended the call and blitzed the electrical components so they couldn’t be tracked.

  Intel on the technopathic or tracking capabilities of Conver’s minions was spotty at best. Unfortunately, the bastard wasn’t stupid enough to keep a working database on his network labeled “my crew and their abilities.” Pocketing Dagan’s phone, she knelt beside him and considered her options.

  The man was ruggedly muscular, a brute force to be reckoned with when conscious, which he wasn’t at the moment. The dead weight of his two-bucks-and-change body would be a grueling haul to the nearest Indigo compound entrance. Not to mention obvious. A woman lugging a man twice her size around would set off every red flag around.

  Besides, if she walked down the street hauling two hundred plus pounds of sinewy male around she’d definitely draw the attention of the street kids. The last thing she needed was any of the crews getting in the middle of this shit with Conver.

  And they would get involved. They’d made it their personal mission to “always have Indy’s back.” The only way she’d gone unnoticed as long as she had was by using the surveillance cameras. Well, that and the fact those street kids weren’t stupid. The moment Conver showed his ugly mug they’d probably taking to the underground tunnels.

  But, just in case they hadn’t, she couldn’t take the risk of being on the street too long.

  That left one option. Time was of the essence. Sprinting from the alley they’d landed in, she scoped the area for a possible target. Yes. A sparkling black Escalade across the street. The pricey ride probably belonged to some dirt-bag drug pusher. Jacking it would teach the lowlife a lesson and get her gone. She sprinted to it, synched to the vehicle’s electrical systems, and popped the locks open. Modern technology made things so much simpler.

  She angled the vehicle into the narrow alley and then lugged Dagan into the backseat. She belted him in the best she could, given the circumstances. She situated herself into the driver’s seat and made her way onto the street.

  She ambled along at a leisurely pace that matched the drivers around her. Several clusters of Conver’s soldiers prowled alleyways she passed. When she neared the closest compound entrance, she cursed. Too many of them lurked nearby. She couldn’t take the risk.

  Time for Plan B.

  Fort
unately, the secondary entrance was more convenient to the down room they’d use to patch up Dagan. The entrance’s close proximity to her private quarters made her twitchy. Privacy was a commodity she treasured due to too many years of sharing a cot with someone, along with forty-nine other groupings in the cramped cell they called home.

  She glanced in the rearview mirror. Dagan could be an exception to that rule, however. She’d spent the past several months wondering what he was like—if he was as sexy as his voice. Now that the adrenaline of the chase had worn off, she was all too aware of how she’d viscerally reacted to him when he’d leaned in to possess her space.

  Her skin tingled when she remembered the heat of his mouth, the press of his massive body along her back. He was tall—at least six-three. She’d felt almost dainty in his embrace, which was downright unheard of since she was five-six.

  After doing a couple treks around the destination block, she backed the vehicle up to the entrance. Hopefully, Cadence would send muscle to help lug Dagan into the compound quickly.

  Even though foot traffic was minimal in this area, Devyn could hear the whirl of helicopters overhead as Conver’s crew executed a relentless search of the area. Once she’d gotten medical help for Dagan, she’d make sure Rex was secure.

  Then, hopefully, she could turn over the intel she’d acquired and figure out what the hell she’d hacked into on the ARES databases. She was a dead woman walking until she figured a way out of the FUBAR situation. Thanks to today’s clusterfuck, she couldn’t rely on SEO assistance.

  She’d gotten one of their operatives shot. From what she’d heard on the street, Kaeden, their leader, was a hothead on good days and downright lethal most of the time. That was why Devyn had provided intel covertly in the past, opting to use a computerized voice over a secured network. The protocol had become second nature for her, one no one in her crew knew about.

  Past intel she’d stumbled across hadn’t been about ARES. Local drug dealers, dirty politicians—anything that helped clean the streets her kids were on—had been her focal point initially. Then she’d delved into the seedy underbelly that was General Conver’s systems last week.

  Even though the drive to the Indigo Order’s headquarters took only a few minutes, Devyn couldn’t suppress the angst surging within her, the guilt. He’d taken a bullet for her because she’d been too slow in reacting. Dare and Rider would kick her ass for being stupid enough to take on three armed targets. They’d do it in a heartbeat, but they were elite operatives like Dagan.

  The classification was reserved for the most rigorously trained of Conver’s super soldiers. Only level five and sixes on the Psychic Phenomena Scale were recruited. Participation wasn’t an option. Rebels were harshly punished, which was probably why most of them had fled his tyrannical reign. Some escapees who hadn’t joined Kaeden formed militant splinter groups of their own—operating in the gray areas that made their unique skillsets critical.

  Most of the human populace ignored the existence of the psychically enhanced. Few in the press covered the congressional trials investigating the mistreatment of the freed psychics. Devyn hadn’t been surprised. The powers running ARES were formidable.

  “Indy, word on the street ain’t good.” Patch rocketed toward her.

  The short, wiry, pimply-faced teen had been on the streets a couple years. His entire family had been killed during the uprising of Compound B. Devyn wished she could do more for the thirteen-year-old, but he was fiercely independent and pissed at the world. It had taken her a year to learn his street name.

  Patch. She’d yet to figure out his scale grade, but she suspected he was at least a level five, which made Devyn wonder how he’d gone unnoticed. His parents must have been lower levels, and the good doctor had assumed he was as well. Second and third generation psychics were often discarded like unwanted rubbish.

  “I need your juice, buddy.” Devyn checked Dagan for a pulse before stepping aside. “Bullet to the gut.”

  “Is that who I think it is? Chica, this ain’t good. I don’t mess with Shadows. I fly under the radar. They get wind of me I’ll be holed up in some piece-of-shit cell eating moldy bread. I ain’t down with that.” He shook his head and pocketed his hands as he looked down at the ground. “I got your back, Indy, but this ain’t happening.”

  And that was precisely why she’d covertly provided intel to the SEO. Street talk had them one level beneath ARES on the bad-dude scale. They operated in the gray ninety percent of the times—enforcing their own moral code. It was a slippery slope that left most street psychics jittery.

  “He’s out cold, Patch. I swear he’ll never know.” She crossed her arms and stared Patch down. “My word, he won’t know.”

  Patch’s gaze widened. Yeah, she never offered her word. Too many variables made the lives they led too volatile for promises.

  He looked around for a moment and kicked at the ground. “Fine. But no one hears about this shit, Indy. No one. Cadence erases the tapes, and y’all don’t say shit to nobody—not even Dare or Rider. And especially Mia. I don’t want no Elites chasing my ass when their shit goes sideways and they need my help. That cool?”

  “Yeah, that’s cool. Thanks, buddy.” Devyn tugged on Dagan’s long legs until he was half out of the vehicle. “Get the door, and I’ll get him.”

  She hoped it wasn’t too late.

  Chapter Two

  Devyn was precariously close to burning out. Excess psychic power usage was a dangerous situation she typically avoided, but she recognized the symptoms. Exhaustion throbbed along her temples. A couple hours sleep would work wonders to ease the tension migraine pricking her eyes. Despite the nausea and weariness plaguing her, they couldn’t remain in the underground compound for long. This place was too critical to Indigo Order operations to be compromised.

  Conver had gone above and beyond. The net of roadblocks and door-to-door searches encompassed five miles. She’d have to move them soon—they probably had half an hour tops. Her cell hummed with message after message as the street psychics she’d helped caught wind of her on the run. Each blip tracked locations as doors across West Englewood got kicked in.

  She wanted to keep herself plugged into the nearest cameras, add a few minutes warning to the time she’d have to haul Dagan to the commandeered vehicle and hightail it to a new location.

  Wherever the hell that would be.

  She was in over her head. At least she could rest easy knowing that if shit went south the organization would be safe. Dare, Risk, Mia, Cadence, and the others would keep things going.

  She was expendable.

  The intel she’d stumbled across wasn’t, though. Grainy surveillance footage and decades of old files didn’t come across as critical security data to her, but somehow it had made Conver rabid. The Shadow operatives knew the general better than anyone. Surely they could figure out what it was she’d discovered.

  Hopefully, they’d all made it out of the trap she’d been in. The fact they’d put their asses on the line for a complete stranger made her admire them even more. She and the others of Indigo Order would have never made it out of that miserable research facility if it hadn’t been for them. Even though General Conver never visited Doctor Lang’s low-level psychic institute, he kept a tight leash on its prisoners with stringent regulations.

  Comply or die.

  The rule was simple. Guilt consumed Devyn most nights, when the silent darkness blanketed their newfound freedom and left her alone with the bitter reality she couldn’t escape. She could've gotten herself and the others out long before the Shadow operatives found them.

  She was a technopath. She could’ve hacked into the computerized security system and taken over. They would’ve walked out.

  No. They would’ve died, killed like animals because, as far as Dr. Lang and General Conver were concerned, they were. Regret was a bitchy companion in the ensuing silence as Devyn stared at the unconscious man who’d taken a bullet for her.

  The cell she
’d dug from his pocket and silenced over an hour ago vibrated, dancing its way precariously to the end of the makeshift nightstand. She leaned over and grabbed it before she could question the impulse. “Yeah?”

  “I’ve been looking forward to chatting with you for a long time, Indigo, but I’ve gotta say, this isn’t how I wanted it to go down.”

  Kaeden. The fearless leader of the Shadow Elite Operatives. “Your man’s doing good. I got him the best help the street had to offer. He’s still out.”

  “I know. I’m more worried about how you’re holding up.”

  “Ah, I forgot. The infamous Kaeden sees many things.”

  The man chuckled. “Well, all I’m seeing are the readings coming from Dagan’s watch interface. I appreciate you not blowing out the sensors when you fried the GPS. I’ve gotta say you have my man Ace salivating over here. He’s never met a technopath before, and his not-so-inner geek is getting off on the fact you’ve been interacting with us for as long as you have. You’re practically one of us.”

  “Flattery gets you nothing. I’m far from a Shadow operative. It’s why I trust the SEO with the problems over my head.”

  “Yeah, we’ve been taking out your trash for so long some of my men think they’re on your payroll—Dagan being the first on the list. Word hit our comms that Conver was after a female Indigo operative, and I couldn’t keep them out of this shit, whatever it is. Care to read me in?”

  “Soon as there’s time. With Conver sniffing around, I have to keep communications minimal. They’re tracking us somehow, probably a technopath or tracer of some sort. Until I figure out how, communication isn’t safe.” She looked over at the man sprawled on the twin mattress. Her pulse raced slightly when his gaze captured hers. She hadn’t realized he was awake. “I’ll have him call you, arrange a pick up. I appreciate the help.”

  “Whatever this is, Indy, it’s over your head. We’ve always admired your tenacity, but most of all your ability to accept the things you couldn’t handle. You’ve trusted us with some intense shit over the past couple of years. You can trust us with this, whatever it is. You’re on Conver’s radar now. You aren’t getting off easily.”