Chapter 9
BRETT TWISTED HIS WRISTS, ignoring the dull pain in the lower left side of his abdomen, where the bullet had gone all the way through. From what he could tell when he looked at Hazel who was stretched out on the ground five feet from him, the bullet had missed her all together.
He cringed, remembering the sound of her head hitting a rock.
Her chest rose up and down rhythmically, so she was alive, but that didn’t mean she hadn't been mortally injured in the fall. Not to mention, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from landing on part of her body. Bile rose in his throat, when he noticed the duct tape around her pretty wrists.
He had no idea how long he’d been knocked out, but long enough to know things were about as bad as they could get.
Savanah sat next to her sister who was bound as well. The bullet she’d taken had hit her shoulder. But what concerned him more was the glassy, cloudy look she had in her eyes. She hadn’t responded to seeing her sister with anything other than a nod of her head and a touch of her hand on Hazel’s leg.
He looked around the immediate area. Two men, carrying assault weapons, stood at the base of the rock formation, and to the west of them, stood a Korean man. Brett recognized him as the father of the missing student… or should he say the missing North Korean operative.
Now dead.
“Look who’s awake,” the man said.
“Who are you?” Brett asked.
“The name is immaterial to you, but if you must know it’s Dae Hyun.” He moved closer, kneeling near the girls.
Savanah’s eyes narrowed and her body twitched, but she still appeared to be in some sort of trance, which he’d never seen before on any remote viewer, and he suspected it couldn’t be a good thing.
“Don’t you dare touch her,” Brett said behind clenched jaw when Hyun reached out, placing his hand over Hazel’s wrist.
“Relax. I’m checking on her."
“I don’t care. Get your fucking hands off her.” Brett worked his legs and hands, but there was no way he could break free from the duct tape. “I will kill you.”
Hyun laughed. “Good luck with that.” He rose and maneuvered himself so he stood over Brett, glowering down at him. “When I’m done with your crazy psychic over there, I’m going to kill you all.”
He concentrated his energy on Hazel and Savanah, while staring Hyun in the eye. “What are you using her for?”
Hyun sat on the edge of a rock and pulled out a pocket knife, snagged a stick, and started carving. “You really think I’m going to tell you that?”
“If you’re going to kill me anyway, then why not? At least I get to go out knowing why.”
Hyun smiled wide. “I know you have an ability similar to the sisters.”
“So?” Normally, in a situation like this, he’d lie. Enemies didn’t need to know what he was capable of. “What does that have to do with what you are doing with Savanah, and more importantly, what happened to her, because she doesn’t look good?"
“I was hoping you could tell me.” Hyun glanced up, his knife hovering over the stick. “She’s been like that since we got to the top of the mountain.”
Brett swallowed, his throat so dry it hurt. “What was she doing when she ended up in a trance?” He kept his voice low and calm, as if he were having an everyday conversation with a friend.
Not with a man he planned on causing bodily harm to.
“Doing that remote view thing for me. One second she was telling me what she saw, the next minute, she was like that.”
He’d heard of a couple of viewers who had their psyche snapped, leaving their mind in the psychic realm. It was rare, but it did happen. The cases he had read about, the subject’s body went limp, unable to move, because it was the mind that controlled the body.
Looking at Savanah he tried to channel her, only he had no idea how to do that. Each time his abilities had crossed with one of the sisters, they’d been the ones drawing him in, or Hazel had been the medium between the two.
Hazel’s chest still rose up and down in a rhythmic beat, but the fact that she was unconscious weighed heavy on his heart.
“Why travel all the way here for her to do a view?” Brett figured the more he knew, the more likely he’d be able to connect to one of the sisters. “Why the house on Lake George?”
“The house was owned by a traitor to the North Korean Government. Savanah found him and his house for us.”
Brett didn’t want to think about what might have happened to the operative right this second. “So, why this mountain top?”
Hyun went back to chiseling away at his stick.
“There is an American man here… a military man who is in charge of an operation in North Korea. I have successfully captured one of his teams, but they are feeding us a bunch of lies, so I want Savanah to locate him, get me the information I need, and then I’ll kill him.”
The team that had been captured had been a SEAL team. The only bases close by were Army, but that didn’t mean anything when it came to special forces. “I think I can help, but I need to be able to touch both sisters.”
“Yeah, right. Do I look like I just fell off the turnip truck?”
Brett held up his bound hands and nodded toward his feet. “It’s not like I’ll be able to do anything. I should be able to channel their powers and push myself into Savanah’s view, or wherever she is.” He wanted to laugh out loud at the absurdity of the words. They sounded hokey, even to him, and he’d experienced more in the last few days than in the few years that he’d been honing his own skills.
“All right.” Hyun waved to the guards and shouted something in Korean. One of them came over and yanked on his arm so hard he thought his shoulder would rip from its socket. Not to mention, it reminded him of the gaping hole in the side of his gut.
Brett stumbled, unable to move his feet. The guard didn’t do much in the way of balancing Brett before pushing him down to the ground. He grunted, feeling the tear in his side. Pushing the pain from his mind, he rested his bound hands over Hazel’s leg, making sure his fingers touched Savanah’s hand.
A dull ache in the back of his head pounded. He grimaced as a sharp stabbing sensation rippled from one temple to the other. A vortex of spinning color filled his mind. Inside the vortex, he saw the four sisters, calling to him.
What the fuck?
For a moment, he thought maybe someone had slipped something into his coffee the other day at the coffee shop and he’d been on one long, fucked up trip ever since.
He allowed his mind to ease toward the vortex, feeling the intense pull, much like a tornado, only this sucked you in, never spitting you out. Hazel stepped forward, reaching her hand out and he tried to grab it, but her body was more like a hologram than a reality.
He was in her head.
Or in her dream, which could be a vision.
He looked around for clues as to where the sisters were, only they multiplied, so now there were two sets.
That couldn’t be good.
A mirage of trees in a park came to view. One set of sisters sat at a table, with him in the background, talking with another man, who he couldn’t quite make out, but who looked familiar. The other set of sisters sat in the same park, only Hazel had disappeared and he was nowhere to be found and the other man, stood alone, off in the distance.
Brett was damn happy he didn’t have pregnant abilities and really hoped he wouldn’t be invited into Hazel’s head often. How she lived with that shit he had no idea. He put his hands on his hips and turned in a circle, looking for the opening. There had to be a tunnel and he would find it.
The sound of rapid gun fire stole his attention and he tried to pull from the dream, but Hazel wouldn’t let him go. He looked up, to see his tunnel. Inside the tunnel, sparks flew from what he knew to be assault weapons.
He raced through the path, which seemed to go on forever until he found himself standing in the middle of a US Army Reserve, about five klicks from a small cabin. Gunfire echoed in the distance.
Scanning the area, he noticed a man in a Navy Officer’s uniform… the man he’d seen in the visions, in the park… standing by the front of the cabin, looking out over the horizon, STATphone in his hand.
Brett moved closer so he could hear.
“What do you mean gone?” the man asked, his voice inflection deep and filled with anger. He shook his head as he turned and stomped off into the cabin.
Brett followed him inside. He blinked his eyes as he stared at a state of the art command center, with multiple radar screens manned by a female Navy Officer. A male officer controlled a set of computer screens while a young man, more like a boy, wearing army fatigues, managed the coms unit.
“Fuck,” the man with the STATphone muttered as he fell back in a chair behind a desk, slamming the STATphone on the top.
Brett inched closer, squinting his eyes to read the name plate: Capt. Chad Pendleton.
“Just fucking wonderful. My team is missing again all because of some whack job who believes in psychic bullshit. Oh, don’t look at me like that, Dalton.” Chad tossed a wad of paper across the room.
“I’m a psychic,” the young boy in army fatigues said in a shaky voice. “I take offense.”
“Right. Because you can read my mind. So, smart ass, what the fuck am I thinking right now?"
“That this is the worst assignment and that you shouldn’t have hit on the Admiral’s daughter.”
Chad opened his mouth, then snapped it shut.
The kid looked as if he pulled back a smile.
“Not like everyone here doesn’t know this gig is my punishment,” Chad said with disdain. “Find the team and get the coordinates to the rescue team.”
Brett focused in on his current location, so once he managed to ditch Hyun and his goons, they could make the trek back to this spot.
Thankfully, before he’d been ambushed by Hyun, he’d been able to send a text to Rick Latrobe back at the Phoenix Agency. All Brett could hope for was that Rick had sent in reinforcements.
A feeling of skin gliding across his finger sent a warm shiver down his spine.
Hazel.
He glanced around the small cabin and noticed a pocket knife on the Captain’s desk. If he could get the gadget in the palm of his hand…
Standing over the desk, he focused all his energy on his hand, trying to feel the flesh and blood. He reached out to touch the desk. Nothing.
Fuck.
Last time he’d pulled an object from a remote view it had taken him twenty minutes.
Sucking in a deep breath, he stared at his hand, picturing the blood pulsing through his veins. The space around his hand turned into a grainy fuzz as he reached for the knife. In the background, he could hear the voices of the men in the room, but he tuned them out, focusing only on his hand and the knife.
His hand trembled as he curled his fingers around the knife, feeling the cold metal burn his skin. There was always a price one paid for messing with the psychic realm. Lucky for him, he had a relatively high tolerance to pain.
“What the fuck?” Chad said, pushing his chair back, his eyes shifted from the desk to Brett.
The idea that a non-psychic and a non-believer could see him was not only crazy, it should be impossible.
But there he stood, knowing that Chad stared him in the eye.
A familiar pull tugged at his conscious as he looked at Chad. Perhaps they had served together? Crossed paths in a bar after a grueling mission or training session? That would explain why he felt like he suddenly knew this man more intimately than he should.
Brett clenched the knife, his stomach swirling like the water in a flushing toilet. His tunnel appeared at the front door.
How convenient.
He took off running, hoping he didn’t drop the object on re-entry. In the distance, he heard Chad mutter a few more curses.
Bile hit the back of his throat the second his mind snapped into his body. He swallowed the small amount of vomit, not wanting his captors to know how much the view affected him, in case they knew more about his kind of skills than they let on.
“So, did you get a location?” Hyun asked, still sitting on the rock, carving out a sharp weapon.
Brett fingered the knife, still securely in his hand. He could play this a few ways, but he’d yet decided on which way to go. Much would depend on how Hyun and his men reacted.
“It’s a remote area, so I don’t have the exact coordinates.” That was mostly a true statement. “But I can find it.”
Hyun laughed. “Tell me the coordinates you have.” He tossed out a few instructions in Korean. One of the guards jogged off down the side of the mountain, while the other one pointed a gun at Hazel’s head.
Brett sucked in a breath. “I’m not telling you anything while you’ve got a gun to my girlfriend’s head.”
Savanah’s left eye cleared to a beautiful almond color and she arched a brow. Then just as quickly, her eye clouded over.
He thought being a remote viewer had been fucking weird at first, but this entire sister invasion was so crazy that he wouldn’t even try to dissect it or figure it out because that would probably put him in a straight-jacket.
So, Savanah was well aware of her soundings. He could only hope Hazel was, too.
Hyun waved his hand and the guard relaxed his stance, holding the gun across his chest.
Of course, Hyun was going to kill them anyway.
Brett worked the knife as best he could against the tape around his wrists. If he asked to be unbound to check on Hazel, Hyun would find his knife. If he demanded to lead the way to Chad and his team, they’d find the knife.
He needed a diversion.
A big one.
Hazel moaned, rolling her head to the side, her eyelids fluttering, showing the whites of her eyes. In the distance, he heard the whirring of a helicopter’s blades. There was more than one Army Reserve Base in the area, not to mention private and commercial choppers that could be flying overhead.
“That’s our ride,” Hyun said as he rose. “You are going to tell me what I want to know.”
“I’m no fool.” Brett felt the tape loosen.
“Neither am I, which is why you and the sisters are coming with me. Once you show me where my little friend is, I’ll think about letting you live. If you fuck with me and take me on a wild goose chase, I’ll kill the girls, slowly, forcing you to watch and hear their screams as I—”
“I get the picture.” Brett didn’t need the details and no way would he allow anything to happen to either sister.
The helicopter appeared in the sky with a roar as it touched down at the top of the mountain. The guard took a knife to the tape around Brett’s ankles, then heaved him to his feet.
“Hazel needs medical attention,” Brett said, knowing that statement would fall on deaf ears. He studied her for a long moment, still wiggling the knife. If he could disarm the guard with the gun, he might be able to fend off Hyun and his makeshift arrow. But he had no idea how many men Hyun had in the woods or on the chopper.
The sound of boot-clad feet echoed off the rocks from above. Brett glanced over his shoulder to see four men clamoring down the rocky mountain side, assault rifles in hand.
Well, fuck.
Brett would have to figure out another way… the sound of a magazine engaging with a rifle stole his attention.
Crack!
One of the men smacked the guard with the butt of his weapon while the other two men rushed Hyun.
“What the fuck?” Hyun questioned, pulling a small hand gun from behind his back, only to have one of the new men kick it from his hand.
Brett recognized one of the men as a fellow Phoenix employee. He worked his hands free, and then raced to Hazel’s side, who was being helped to a sitting position by her sister, who now sported clear eyes.
“Hazel?” he questioned, kneeling by her side. He took her hands in his and she gave him a weak smile.
“I’m okay,” she said in low voice.
He tilted her chin to the side so he could get a better look at the back of her head. A bump the size of a golf ball had formed. “You were unconscious for a long time.”
“Not as long as you think.” She winced when he ran his hand over the wound. “I came to when you decided to remote view.”
He narrowed his stare. “Why didn’t you let me know?”
“I had a vision that the people from Phoenix would show up, but when they did in my premonition, I looked as if I was out cold, so I thought if I wanted that vision to be accurate, I better stay unconscious.”
He had to admit that was smart thinking, but it still pissed him off that she didn’t clue him in. Sitting down next to her, he looked deep into her eyes. Neither pupil was dilated, so that was good news. “When did you have this premonition?”
“I believe when I was unconscious, or about to be. It happened as intense pain in the back of my head rattled my teeth.” She scrunched her face as she rubbed the back of her neck.
The medic knelt in front of them, dropping a medical kit to the ground. “The area is secure. Let me dress those wounds and then we can get you in the chopper and go home.”
“We need to go to the Army Reserve. They have a team there working on finding a missing SEAL team.” Brett glanced toward Hyun. “We need to interrogate him.”
“All right.” The medic shouted out a few orders to his men. “First things first.” He opened his kit, pulling out some gauze.
“Tend to her before me,” Brett said, pointing to Savanah, who held her arm to her chest.
The man nodded.
“Awe, aren’t you the gentleman,” Savanah said with a smile. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“Finally?” Brett pulled Hazel into his arms, resting her back against his chest, taking an ice pack and placing it gently over the large lump.
Hazel groaned.
He kissed her temple, wishing he could take away any physical pain she had, ignoring the stupid ass grin plastered on Savanah’s face.
“Hazel has told me so much about you and by the looks of things, you started up right where you left—”
“Shut up,” Hazel said.
Savanah laughed. “I’m glad you two found each other again.”
“Sister, you need to be grateful we found you.” Hazel rested her head against his shoulder, the ice pack between them.
Brett blinked. His heart racing at the idea that he’d actually found his Little Miss First at all. He’d thought she’d be a mystery to him forever, a concept that had always saddened him. But now that he held her in his arms, and knew her name, he didn’t think he ever wanted to let her go.
However, for the time being, he needed to focus on the mission special operatives.
“Found me? I’ve been guiding you this entire time,” Savanah said.
“How is that? And why is that?” Brett interjected. “And why did your eyes go all cloudy and shit?”
“The cloudy eyes are a new thing. I noticed it when I was looking into the review mirror when my spirit met yours in the space between. It seems to happen when you’re in my view, or I’m in two places at once.”
“You can view two places?”
She shook her head. “I can control how my body and mind come back together.”
“Interesting. You’ll have to tell me about that, but now I want to hear about what these assholes wanted with you.”
“Kae Gyeon’s family abducted me to use my gift to help find and destroy a Navy SEAL team, along with finding a couple of other people in the states whom they believed had betrayed them,” Savanah said. “I’ve been trying to protect the SEAL team and pull you two closer to me, which I had hoped would allow Brett to see the team.”
“How did you know I was with Hazel?”
“I did a remote view, trying to figure out how I’d be able to get a message to my sisters and then weird shit started to happen in the psychic realm.”
“Weird isn’t a strong enough word to describe what’s been happening with that,” Brett muttered. “But I think we need to use the weirdness to find the missing men.”
Brett stood, helping Hazel to her feet.
“Sir, please let me take a look at your wound,” the medic who’d been working on Savanah said.
“Do it in the chopper.” Brett scooped Hazel up in his arms.
“Put me down,” she snapped.
“No.” He tried to hold back a groan as he shifted her knees so they hung over his arm, without causing too much damage to the hole in his side.
“I’m perfectly capable of walking.”
“And I’m perfectly capable of carrying you to the chopper, so enjoy the ride.” He carefully maneuvered up the rock bed toward the path.
“Your boyfriend is a Neanderthal,” Savanah said.
He laughed. “Only one of those things is true.”
“Yeah, the Neanderthal part,” both sisters said in unison.
He paused and glanced at Hazel. “If I put you down, will the other part become true?”
“You’re pathetic.” Hazel smiled, nodding.
“All right, but my arm is going to be on your waist and yours will be over my shoulder and I’m going to help you no matter what.”
“I can live with that.”
“Good, because my side is killing me.”
“Wonderful,” Savanah said, patting his shoulder as she breezed by, her bad arm in a makeshift sling. “The collective order is going to be led by a Neanderthal and a baby.”