Chapter 9

Molly ran straight in to say good morning to Katelyn the moment Kathy opened the door.

“So how’d everything go last night after I left?” Kathy asked Alina. “Judging by how tired you look, I’m guessing it went very well. Tell me everything, and don’t even try to spare me the details. I’m a big girl. I can handle it.”

Alina was tempted to make something up so Kathy wouldn’t be disappointed, but she didn’t. Not only did she hate lying to her friend, but she was simply too tired to come up with anything.

“If you want to know how the night went, that’s easy. It sucked.”

Kathy looked surprised for a moment, then hustled her into her apartment and closed the door. Alina had been there enough times to know what the place looked like by heart. The layout was the same as her apartment, with most of the furniture nearly identical too. The only major difference was the pile of small cardboard boxes stacked up against the living room wall. Most likely socks waiting to be sent out in this morning’s deliveries.

“What happened?” Kathy asked.

Alina was in the middle of giving her friend the synopsized version of last night’s events when her cell phone rang. She dug it out of her pocket. It was probably Trevor telling her he wasn’t coming to pick her up and that she needed to take a cab down to Quantico.

It wasn’t Trevor. It was Dick, no doubt wanting to know why the hell she hadn’t returned any of his calls. In addition to calling her several times the previous night, he’d already called twice this morning.

She sighed and let this call go to voice mail, too, then shoved her phone back in her pocket.

Kathy must have seen the look of displeasure on Alina’s face, because she led her over to the couch and plunked her down, then sat beside her.

“What’s wrong? You haven’t had this new job long enough to be hating the thought of going to work in the morning already.”

“It’s not that,” Alina said.

Picking up last night’s story where she’d left off, Alina explained about Seth Larson and how she’d told her boss about the meeting.

Kathy frowned. “I don’t see the problem here. Dick is your boss, right? Why wouldn’t you tell him about it?”

Alina sighed. “This is going to sound crazy, but I’m getting the feeling my boss isn’t exactly one of the good guys. There’s a lot going on that I don’t understand, but my instincts are telling me that Dick is in league with the person who had the previous director murdered. From everything I’ve seen over the past few days, Trevor is trying to get the evidence to prove it.”

Kathy grimaced. “And you just told the bad guy exactly what Trevor is up to.”

Alina nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t realize what I was doing, and by the time I did, it was too late to do anything about it. Then last night, Larson called and said Dick sent some guys to pay him a visit. They roughed Larson up and scared the hell out of his autistic kid. I felt like crap knowing it was my fault, but then felt ten times worse when I saw the look in Trevor’s eyes. He didn’t say anything, but he knows it was me. I feel like I betrayed him.”

Hell, she did betray him.

Kathy considered that. “Well, the first thing you need to do is stop talking to Dick. Second, talk to Trevor, and tell him exactly how you feel. Tell him that Dick duped you into spying on him and that you had no intention of betraying him.”

Alina almost laughed at the simplicity of Kathy’s plan. Leave it up to her friend to uncomplicate the situation and say what needed to be said. Considering the way the tension left her body the moment she heard her friend’s idea, Kathy was probably right on.

“You’re suggesting I blow off my boss’s calls? Ignore the man who signs my paycheck?”

“I remember you telling me that you always felt there was something off about Wade,” Kathy said. “That your instincts had screamed at you for months there was something sideways about him. You were furious you’d let your head overrule your instincts and promised me you’d never do anything like that again.”

Alina sighed. She vaguely remembered that late-night conversation with Kathy and the promise she’d made. Right now, those instincts were telling her Trevor wasn’t the bad guy in this equation. If anyone was—besides Dick and Thorn—it was her.

She nodded. “You’re right.”

“Of course I’m right,” Kathy said. “If talking to Dick feels wrong, it is. Tell the guy the battery on your cell phone died or that you dropped it in the garbage disposal. It worked for that quarterback. It’ll work for you.”

“It didn’t really work for him, Kathy,” Alina pointed out. “He was found guilty, got suspended, and lost millions of dollars in pay.”

“Well, yeah, I guess. You don’t have millions of dollars, and it’s not like your boss can be as evil as the football commissioner, so you should be fine.” Kathy shrugged. “Besides, you lie much better than that cute quarterback. His face is too honest to pull off a good one.”

Alina laughed at the image of Dick losing his mind when she told him she missed his calls because her phone fell in the garbage disposal. But her amusement disappeared as another concern took center stage.

She’d lain awake a long time last night trying to understand why she’d been so strongly affected by a simple kiss. She’d known since her first day on the job that she and Trevor had some kind of connection. And that connection was getting stronger than she’d ever experienced with any other partner or team member she’d ever had.

Who the heck was she kidding? The thoughts she’d been having about Trevor last night weren’t things she’d ever thought about any teammate she’d ever had. Those had been I-want-to-get-you-naked-and-wrestle-with-you-on-the-floor kinds of thoughts.

“Earth to Alina.”

Alina jerked out of her musings to see Kathy waving her hand in front of her face. “Sorry.”

“You’ve been sitting there grinning like an idiot for the past two minutes,” Kathy said. “What’s so funny?”

On the floor, Molly and Katelyn seemed interested in knowing the answer to that, too. They’d stopped playing with each other and were eyeing her curiously.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” she said.

“Don’t give me that,” Kathy said. “I’ve known you long enough to recognize when you’re hiding something.”

Alina picked a nonexistent piece of lint off her pantsuit. “It’s possible I’m starting to feel things for Trevor that I shouldn’t necessarily feel for my work partner.”

Kathy gaped at her. “Wait a minute. Are you saying you’re falling for him romantically? I mean, not that I blame you. Trevor is definitely hot. I haven’t seen abs like that since the Chippendales tour came to town. And he’s attractive as sin. Like that guy on that show.”

“What show?” Alina asked, knowing she shouldn’t.

Her friend was always saying someone looked like an actor on TV or in the movies, but she could never remember the actor’s name, so it usually devolved into a big game of twenty questions.

“You know, the one on the Syfy channel.”

Alina sighed. “Kathy, the Syfy channel has a lot of shows.”

Her friend waved her hand. “I don’t know the name of it. I don’t think it’s on anymore, but I’m sure you know exactly what I’m talking about. It was the show about the people who go through the gate in time. They’re surrounded by water, and there are spaceships and soul-sucking aliens with white dreadlocks. He was the good looking one with the quirky smile.”

Alina had absolutely no idea what show Kathy was referring to, much less what guy. Her work schedule over the years hadn’t left her a lot of time to watch TV. But she let it go. The name of the show would pop into her friend’s head at some point.

“Okay, regardless of which movie or TV star you think Trevor looks like, I’m not falling for him romantically.”

Kathy looked doubtful. “You sure?”

Alina was about to declare that of course she was sure, but then she realized that would be something of a lie. “Okay, maybe I am…a little. But I didn’t intend for things to get out of hand like they did last night. It just happened.”

Kathy’s eyes widened. “What got out of hand? Are you talking about the way you were groping him when I walked into your apartment last night?”

“I was not groping him,” Alina insisted. “I was rendering first aid.”

Kathy snorted. “I’m pretty sure what I stumbled in on last night isn’t the kind of first aid they teach down at the local YMCA.”

“Whatever,” Alina said. She refused to engage in that line of conversation. “Besides, that’s not what I’m talking about. While we were undercover, we kissed. It was supposed to be a little smooch as part of our cover, but it ended up being hot, and I got kind of turned on. Things got even more sexually charged when we got back to my apartment. When you walked in on us last night, I was damn close to jumping him.”

Kathy blinked, clearly too stunned to speak. “Wow,” she finally said. “Not that I don’t envy the heck out of you, but doesn’t what happened last night complicate things? If they weren’t complicated enough already, I mean. I don’t suppose you have a clue if he felt the same way about the kiss?”

Alina shook her head.

Kathy thought a moment. “Remember before when I suggested you tell Trevor how you feel? Maybe you should leave out the part about wanting to have sex with him. At least for right now.”

Alina couldn’t disagree with that logic.

She would have asked if Kathy had any other suggestions, but then she heard a knock from across the hall. “That’s Trevor. I have to go.”

“Good luck,” Kathy said as Alina headed for the door.

“Thanks.”

After last night, she had the feeling she was going to need it.

* * *

Alina wanted to ask how Trevor’s gunshot wound was doing, but the silence in the SUV was so deafening she was almost afraid to break it. Not that his wound was the only thing she wanted to talk to him about, but damn, if she couldn’t talk about something that simple, how was she going to confess to betraying him?

Telling Trevor the truth had sounded so easy when Kathy suggested it earlier, but sitting beside him in the Suburban on I-95 south, it felt like the words were stuck in her throat. She had to say something, or she was going to go insane.

“Trevor, there’s something I need to tell you,” she said quietly.

“What’s that?” he asked, not looking at her.

“I owe you an explanation.”

He glanced at her, his expression unreadable. “You don’t owe me anything.”

She winced. Clearly, he wasn’t going to make this easy. Why should he? This was her screwup, not his.

“I told Dick about Larson,” she admitted in a rush. “I never dreamed he would go and harass the guy—or Cody. I’m sorry I did it, and I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.”

Alina expected questions, a furious rant, or at least an angry look. Instead, Trevor gave her nothing. He stared straight ahead as traffic jammed the highway.

She took a breath and decided to dive into the deep end of the pool. “Dick recruited me specifically to keep an eye on you, but I didn’t know that when I agreed to take the job. It was only afterward, during our first meeting in his office—when Thorn was there—that Dick told me you betrayed the DCO and had either helped murder John or were protecting those who had. I didn’t really know until later that I’d been set up and lied to.”

Trevor finally looked, his face guarded, almost thoughtful. He gazed at her for so long, she started to get uncomfortable, both at the intensity in his eyes as well as the lack of attention he was paying to the road.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” she finally asked.

He turned his attention back to the highway. “What would you like me to say?”

“I don’t know, but say something,” she said in exasperation. “Tell me you believe me, call me a liar, say you couldn’t care less about my excuses. At least acknowledge you heard me.”

When Trevor still didn’t say anything, Alina thought her whole confession had been a waste of time and breath. But then suddenly, he jerked the steering wheel to the right, crossing two lanes of traffic and steering the SUV onto the shoulder of the road. Behind them, cars squawked and blew their horns, but her partner ignored them as he slammed on the brakes and turned to face her.

“Why didn’t you walk away from the job the minute Dick told you what he expected you to do? Why work with a partner you thought was a traitor?”

Alina blinked. Of all the things she expected he could have asked her, why she’d taken the job wasn’t one of them. But it was a question. And she had wanted him to say something. This was a start at least.

“I wasn’t lying when I told you it was time for me to leave the CIA,” she said. “Going back wasn’t an option. And in reality, there was some stuff in my past at the CIA that makes going after a traitor a very tempting offer. Dick obviously knew that when he recruited me.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Trevor demanded. “What stuff in your past?”

She took a deep breath. It was time to tell him about Wade and why she’d left the Agency, but before she could open her mouth to spill the secrets she’d never planned to tell anyone, Trevor’s cell phone rang. He cursed and dug it out of his pocket.

She expected him to ignore the call, since what they were discussing was kind of important, but instead, he thumbed the green button.

“Maxwell.” He listened for a moment, then frowned. “Slow down, Zarina. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

Whatever the woman had to say, it must have been bad, because Trevor tensed.

“What’s wrong?” Alina asked.

Trevor eyed her for a moment, his gaze calculating, like he was trying to decide if he could trust her. Alina fully expected him to tell her it was none of her business, so she was surprised when he hit the speaker button on the phone.

“Zarina, can you repeat that? I just put you on speaker so Alina can hear.”

There was a slight hesitation, then a woman’s accented voice came on. “Sage has escaped and is running loose through the wooded area outside the complex. I’m doing the best I can to keep it quiet while Tanner and Jaxson try to get her back. If Dick figures out she’s missing, that will be all the excuse he needs to send someone out to kill her.”

Alina might not have known Sage, or Zarina and Tanner for that matter, but that didn’t stop her from getting a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. The concern on Trevor’s face told her she was right.

“Which way is Sage heading, and how much of a head start does she have?” Trevor asked.

“Tanner said she’s heading northeast, with at least a fifteen-minute head start.”

Cursing again, Trevor threw the Suburban into gear and floored it, making the other drivers honk and swerve as he merged onto the interstate.

“We’ll try to get ahead of her,” he said as he weaved in and out of traffic. “Hopefully we can keep her from reaching any heavily populated areas outside the Quantico boundary.”

“Hurry,” Zarina said. “Sage hasn’t interacted with more than a handful of people the whole time she’s been here. I’m not sure how she’ll deal with the outside world.”

“No kidding,” Trevor muttered. “I’m going to call Tanner. We’ll let you know something as soon as we can. Do anything necessary to keep Dick from finding out about this.”

“Who is Sage?” Alina asked after he hung up. “And why do you think Dick will have her killed?”

Trevor’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t answer.

“Dammit, Trevor!” she snapped. “I admit it. I screwed up, and I betrayed you, and I’m sorry about that. But right now, I need to know what’s going on if I’m going to help you find that girl. Unless you intend to kick me out and leave me stranded on the side of the road.”

He glanced at her. “Alina, this isn’t some damn game. This isn’t about you and me and how much—or how little—we might trust each other. This is about a terrified woman who needs help. If you tell Dick about any of this, he’ll have her executed, plain and simple.”

Hearing Trevor say he didn’t trust her hurt more than she wanted to admit. “I’m not going to tell him anything.”

Trevor was silent for a moment, but then he nodded. “Okay. I’m trusting you, not just with Sage’s life, but with Jaxson’s, Tanner’s, and Zarina’s as well. If Dick finds out what they’ve been doing, getting fired will be the least of their problems.”

Alina grabbed the roll bar handle as Trevor took the next exit at warp speed and turned on state road 234 along the northeast side of the Prince William Forest. The wooded area served as a buffer along the northern edge of the Quantico training facility. Trevor must have been trying to get north of Sage and stop her before she got out of the forest.

Trevor handed his phone to her. “Hit the third number on speed dial.”

She looked down at the phone and realized there wasn’t a single name listed in the contacts list. Just a collection of ten speed-dial numbers. It was clearly a burner phone. Containing her curiosity for the moment, she poked the third button, then put the phone on speaker. When the call connected, all she heard was a garbled mix of what sounded like the pounding of feet.

“Trevor?” a male voice shouted over the din.

“Yeah, it’s me, Tanner,” her partner said. “Alina and I are on highway 234 heading toward the northeast side of the boundary. Where are you and Jaxson?”

“I’m tracking Sage on foot through the forest, maybe ten minutes behind her. Jaxson is in an SUV trying to keep up with me as best he can. Hold on, and I’ll pull him into the call.”

A few moments later, the roar of an engine came over the line, interspersed with a lot of expletives.

“I’m a little busy trying to read a map and drive at the same time, guys,” Jaxson said. “It’s not really the best time to chat.”

“Then just listen,” Trevor told him. “Tanner, do you think you can catch up with Sage before she reaches the perimeter fence?”

“Not a chance,” Tanner said. “Sage is really frigging fast. Probably as fast as I am, which is kind of painful to admit. She’s making a beeline for the northeast boundary and will probably come out somewhere around Independent Hill. She’s barely five minutes from the fence.”

Trevor swore and floored the gas, driving even faster. “Alina and I will try to get in front of her and keep her from getting too far into town. Hopefully we can keep anyone from seeing her.”

“Approach her slowly so you don’t freak her out,” Tanner warned. “She’s just scared.”

“It’s not her I’m worried about. It’s the civilians she runs into. I don’t want someone calling the cops,” Trevor said. “You have any idea where she’s ultimately going or what she’s trying to do?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say she’s trying to find Derek,” Tanner replied.

Trevor muttered a curse. “I’ll call you guys when we reach the outskirts of Independence Hill.”

He nodded, and Alina hung up.

“I already know Jaxson,” she said. “Who are Zarina and Tanner?”

“Good friends who are willing to risk their lives to help someone.”

She was hoping he’d say a little bit more than that, but okay. “If you’re all friends, why is Sage running from them? More importantly, what’s the big deal if someone sees her?”

Trevor passed several cars on the four-lane road before answering. “Did Dick tell you about hybrids?”

Alina shook her head. “Not really. He mentioned them, but from the way he said it, I assumed it was another word for shifter. He also used the acronym EVA once, but he never said what it meant.”

Trevor grunted. “Figures. Dick likes to paint all of us with the same brush. EVA means extremely valuable asset. It’s the bureaucratic term the DCO came up with to describe shifters. As you can imagine, it’s not a term we think much of.”

She could understand that. “Okay. So what’s a hybrid, then?”

“Hybrids are man-made shifters. It’s an attempt by some evil people to create shifters in a laboratory by giving normal, everyday people a chemical cocktail to twist their DNA around and force their bodies to exhibit the same traits shifters possess. It’s a violent, dangerous, and incredibly painful process that can have a ton of unintended side effects, especially when it comes to a person’s self-control.”

Alina already knew she wasn’t going to like where this was going. It sounded like something out of a horror movie.

“Sage was kidnapped from her home in Canada and given who knows how many different hybrid drugs,” Trevor continued. “On top of that, she was shuffled all over the world from one clandestine lab to the next, where she was experimented on. Sage isn’t the first person to fall victim to those psychopaths, but she’s by far the most unstable one we’ve been able to rescue. She’s hanging on to her sanity by a thread. We hate doing it, but we have to keep her locked up in a small apartment-slash-cell on the complex.”

“The most unstable one you’ve been able to rescue?” Alina repeated, getting a sinking feeling in her stomach. “Do you mean there have been others that you couldn’t rescue?”

Trevor nodded. “Unfortunately, there have been a lot. Many never survive the hybrid serum to begin with. Most of those who do live become so violent and insane we’ve had no choice but to kill them.”

Alina shook her head. “Who would try to play God like that?”

Trevor didn’t say anything, the same impenetrable wall shutting her out.

“Answer me,” she said. “Who did this?”

He gave her a quick glance before focusing again on the road they were speeding down.

“It was Thorn,” he growled. “That asshole has been trying to build a hybrid army for years, and Sage is just one of the many casualties that have occurred along the way.”