CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Lara stood in the front yard of The Walker House for Girls, the shelter that had been renamed when Skywalker had donated money on her behalf, with not another house for several miles. Space that Lara had planned to use for recreational facilities one day. Wind gusted around her from the ocean that was practically a part of the backyard, once enjoyed by the many girls who’d found hope here. But the shelter was vacant now, run down to the point of broken windows and even some graffiti markings.
Protectively, Damion stepped close by her side, already having expressed his concerns about the wind masking an attack, especially since he’d only started teaching her to use her mental shield before they’d left Sunrise. But she didn’t want to think about that now, not in this tiny window of time. There was a war she’d fight in only a few short hours—and fight it to win, she would.
“This was where I went to escape my stepfather’s beatings,” she told him, without turning to look at him. “It was my lifeline. So much so that when I graduated from college, I took over as the house mistress.” She turned to him then. “Skywalker taught self-defense classes for me. I was going to renovate it with his help. It was going to be an amazing place.”
“It sounds like it already was.”
“It was, and they destroyed it.”
“They were wiping away your history, making sure no one could track you down.”
She looked back at the building. “When I heard about the Wardens, I was immediately in awe of what Cassandra and the other women are doing. I think on some level, my mind was remembering this place, even in the absence of my memories.”
He motioned to the porch. “Take me on a tour. Tell me what it was like, and what you had planned. If you want to, that is.”
She smiled sadly at him. “Yes. I want to.”
They walked up the steps, hand in hand, and found the door unlocked. Lara led Damion from empty room to empty room, telling him stories of her time there—of Rebecca, who’d quite possibly saved her life by taking her in and getting her off the streets. It was somehow the salve to her wounds that she’d needed—this man, her past, the hope of a future that he gave her.
They ended up in the kitchen, leaning on the island counter. “If this place is where your heart is, we’ll rebuild it. We’ll make it matter again. We’ll remodel it and make Skywalker proud.”
His words, spoken with such conviction and tenderness, touched her deeply. “I think… the past is the past. Not that I’m big on destiny and fate, but I think that maybe this place is gone because the Wardens are my future.”
Damion’s cell phone rang. “Caleb,” he told her, looking at the ID.
She nodded and walked to the back door, stepping onto the porch and walking to the balcony, the wind whisking viciously around her as she stared at the choppy surf the way she had so many times in the past. She’d had to come back here to be able to leave it behind, but it would always be a part of her.
“Lara, sweetheart. You shouldn’t be out there alone.”
She smiled at his protectiveness—a real smile this time—and turned to face him. At the same instant, someone grabbed her from behind, and she felt a sharp bite on both sides of her neck.
In what could have been only seconds, Lara found herself face down on hard ground, that pinching feeling in her neck. Oh God. It was a collar, a thick steel collar with something sharp digging into her skin, and she could feel blood seeping down her neck.
A foot slammed into her back, and then Sabrina’s face was pressed near her cheek. “Every time you so much as speak, the remote control in my hand will pierce you with needles. If you really piss me off, the collar comes equipped with blades. One press of a button and the collar will slice your throat, peel you open like a nice, ripe peach, right to the core. So I might not be able to sedate you, but I damn sure can hurt and even kill you. And I’ll keep you alive just because I enjoy causing the pain.” Sabrina jerked Lara back to her knees with a chain attached to the collar. “Get up and walk.”
Anger roared through Lara, and she shoved herself to her feet, noting the exterior of a mountain that was all too familiar. She was at the site the Renegades had discovered. Suddenly, she realized she’d left her mental shield in place. She dropped it—or hoped she did, considering how new this was to her, praying Damion would find her through his tracking skills, but certain he’d look for her here no matter what. Even if he did not, she’d indulge in tears. Now, she was ready to fight. “You better hope I never get this collar off, because if I do—” Pins dug into her neck.
“Shut up,” Sabrina said. “Just shut up and walk.”
She’d shut up and walk, all right, walk right inside where she was going to destroy “Project Serenity” no matter what she had to do to make that happen. She straightened, and Sabrina shoved her forward. Lara ground her teeth. Just wait, Sabrina, just wait.
A few minutes later she was inside the high-tech underground world of Serenity once again, a world far more developed than she’d ever known. Then she was being shoved through a laboratory door.
“Well, hello there, Lara.” The greeting came from “Doc Logan,” as she’d called him since joining Serenity.
He patted a leather chair that resembled what you might see in the dentist’s office. She’d never seen the chair before, or maybe she had and didn’t remember. “Come pay me a visit, Lara.”
Lara narrowed her gaze on him. She’d liked Logan, thought him brilliant and efficient. Apparently he was also a snake in the same grass as Sabrina. The brain wave machine sitting by the chair set her pulse racing, a bad feeling slithering through her. They were going to brainwash her again. They were going to steal the new life she was building, and as a pin jabbed into her throat, as surely as knives could as well, she knew she had to let them. She had to let them and then pray Damion could bring her back from wherever they took her, whatever they made her.
Lara had been gone for twelve hours, and Damion was climbing the walls of Sunrise City. Nightfall and the opportunity to rescue Lara came far too slowly. The moment when Sabrina had dragged Lara into the wind replayed in his head over and over, as he kicked himself for leaving her alone outside. It had been, and would forever be, one of the worst moments of Damion’s life. So would watching the Renegades’ satellite feed of Lara wearing a damn collar like an animal, while being forced inside the Serenity cavern.
Thankfully, without much ado, the Renegades had evaluated the situation and decided on an action, everyone rising to cover his back—and Lara’s. He wanted her to know that. He wanted her to see how much she was now a part of this world.
It was straight up midnight when Damion and a team consisting of Michael, Chale, Houston, Jesse, Sterling, and Becca, all dressed in black fatigues, appeared just outside the mountain range where Lara had been taken, fully expecting cameras to capture them, and not caring. Without any interior beyond basic outlines or numbers of the enemy inside the Serenity facility, the plan was to make a fast, hard hit using their most lethal resources—Becca and Michael. Becca had insisted on helping, and Sterling hadn’t argued. Like Damion and Lara, Sterling had said, Becca and I live and die together. She might as well be along for the “Welcome Home, Lara” party.
Several females charged them. Becca held up her hands—the way she’d learned to funnel her skills—and they crumpled to the ground in a heap of sleeping beauties, clearly GTECH since Becca’s ability only worked with them. “Damn, it makes me hot when she does that,” Sterling said, grabbing Becca and kissing her.
Michael lifted his hand and wind formed a ball on his palm. “Down,” he ordered everyone.
Michael blew on it, and it busted through the cavern where they knew the door to be, creating a huge hole. Rock flew everywhere and back at them, hitting a wall of wind and falling to the ground. Michael charged forward, wind blasting in front of him into the building, as a protective shield. As long as there was a seam of air, a place he could reach the wind, Michael could use it underground.
Chale whistled. “I’m straight as a steel pipe, and Michael gets me hot when he does shit like that.”
“That makes two of us right about now,” Damion said, drawing two Glocks from his double-shoulder holster, and heading into the gaping hole Michael had created and entered.
He was going to get Lara—and he was bringing her home.
Logan leaned over Lara, checking her vitals. “She seems to be doing just fine,” he said, speaking to Jenna, who was on the opposite side of Lara, the steel bracelets on Jenna’s arms his assurance that she would remain loyal. The bracelets operated like the collar they’d been forced to remove from Lara’s neck to prevent interference with the Bar-1 machine. One click of the remote control hanging from his neck, and Jenna would lose her hands, and that would pretty much undo any glory she’d garnered from being a GTECH.
Jenna glanced at Lara’s eyes, which flickered under her lids as she assimilated information. “Shouldn’t we run blood work?”
“I have no concern about what her blood work says. She’s dead soon anyway. We just need her to survive long enough to destroy the Renegades. Which means we need her Bar-1 procedure complete, so she can join the Renegades in the next few hours if she’s to convince them she escaped. Their trust is the only thing that will allow her to act quickly.”
Suddenly, the alarm screeched into a constant blast, and Sabrina busted in the door. “Hide Lara. They’ve come for her.”
Shouting sounded outside the door, followed by a blast and the pelting of bullets.
“Fuck!” Sabrina shouted. “Get her somewhere, anywhere. Just hide her.” She turned and headed out the door.
Logan whirled on Jenna, who was now standing. “Help me get her into the office, and get ready to fight.”
Jenna held out her arms. “Not until you take these things off me.”
He glowered at her. “One click of the button—”
“And you’ll be on your own. Well, you’ll have Sabrina. I’m sure she’ll protect you. You must trust her to protect you.”
If Logan had any doubt he was through with Jenna, it was gone. Another explosion sounded way too close. Jenna arched a brow. He growled low in his throat and reached for the remote at his neck. She didn’t even flinch when he punched a button, as if she were absolutely certain that she had the control, that he needed her. And damn it, he did. The cuffs fell to the ground, and Jenna walked to Lara.
“We can’t disconnect the machine or—”
“She’ll gain consciousness,” Jenna said, eyeing him with irritation. “I know.” She picked her up, as if she weighed nothing. She glanced over her shoulder. “You think you can handle the machine?”
He ground his teeth at the inference that he was a weak human and lifted the Bar-1 machine. “Just go to the damn office.”
A few seconds later, Jenna laid Lara on the ground, and Logan settled on his knees beside her to check the pads and connections.
Jenna headed for the door.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
She didn’t answer. She just disappeared into the lab. Logan cursed and quickly secured several loose leads to the pads on Lara’s forehead.
A blast at the lab’s door had him jumping to his feet and running for his desk drawer—his weapons. The sound of Sabrina’s and Jenna’s voices carried in the air, followed by a crash. Holy fuck! They were fighting. He yanked open a drawer, as footsteps pounded toward him, urgency charging through him.
The Renegade, Damion, the one who’d been with Lara on the video footage, appeared, and Logan wasted no time, survival his only motivation. He needed a head shot to kill a GTECH, but he just wanted any shot, anything to slow his enemy. He grabbed the military-issue handgun in his drawer and started firing the instant it was in his hand, too low for real damage, but it was a start.
Suddenly, pain pierced his chest, and he knew he’d been shot. He tried to fire his weapon again, and another bullet hit his chest, and this time he had a few moments to think—I’m dead. There was no plank to walk, no mountain to climb, no exhilarating ride to the end. Everything just went black.