The Protected

SEVEN

VAUGHNNE didn’t run because she liked it.

She didn’t hate it, but she sure as hell didn’t love it, and in her expert, professional opinion, all of those who talked about a runner’s high were just deluding themselves. The only time she got high off exerting herself was after a bout of particularly good sex.

Which she hadn’t had in so long, she could be delusional.

No, she ran because she knew it was necessary.

Keeping her body in top physical form was just part of the job.

It was the same reason she lifted weights and the same reason she trained in a variety of fighting styles, ranging in everything from standard tae kwon do to kickboxing to muay thai. Even though she’d spent so much time on the streets, she couldn’t rely on street fighting to get her everywhere, and she didn’t. There was always room for improvement, so improvement was what she pushed for.

After the shit way she’d felt ever since the last job in Orlando, she’d been knocked down to where she could barely manage three miles on average, and the first few times she’d run, she’d been hard-pressed to make two.

She was back up to five now, and today, she planned on going for six. It was annoying as hell, having to do it in this neighborhood. Pounding it out on the busted-up pavement wasn’t much better than running on a treadmill in the gym. She preferred the park back home, but she wasn’t leaving this area unless she had to, and she definitely wasn’t leaving it to run.

Right now, it was just after six; Gus and Alex weren’t home. According to the tracker, they were at the grocery store, just a mile away, and although she didn’t feel right not being there, hiding just out of sight, she hadn’t followed them that day.

She couldn’t explain why, but she’d felt the need to stay here. Instinct, she knew. Still, her gut was a wild, tangled mess, and she wished there was a way she could have planted a tracker on the damn kid.

She felt almost glued to this place, though. Thanks to the wonders of technology, she had the video feed coming to her live on her iPhone and she kept checking it every few minutes as she ran. At their house, everything was calm, everything was quiet.

For now. But it wouldn’t last.

Something was going to go down. The knot in her belly, the tension crawling through her. All of it added up to something, but the question was what. Yet again, she found herself checking the video feed . . . nothing.

Nothing unusual had activated the alarm sensors that fed into the program she’d set up, either.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough.

She was less than half a mile away at the most and could be over there in no time.

Stop it, she told herself. She was working herself up—

The camera feed caught the image of a car. It cut between the cameras she’d set up at her place and the house directly across from hers, rolling down the street slowly. Slowly, but not too slow.

Everything about it set her hair on end.

The camera feed on her phone wasn’t good enough for her to be able to make out anything about the driver, but everything inside her was already screaming. Long and loud.

It wasn’t screaming danger, danger, danger.

But the warning alert was bad enough.

Wheeling around in her steps, she laid on the speed and hauled ass back.

Son of a bitch.

She’d expected things to make a shift soon. Just not this soon.

The question was . . . is this for the better . . . or the worse.

TUCKER eyed the house.

Somebody who lived in that house was a problem. Whoever it was, they weren’t home now and all Tucker could pick up was a weird little buzz, kind of like an echo.

One hell of a strong echo.

If it was this strong and the person wasn’t even here, then how strong was he?

A kid. Assuming Nalini was right, and it was a kid involved. She seemed to think so, though, and he wasn’t inclined to dispute her gut feelings. People like them, they lived and died by those feelings.

Sighing, he cut around the corner and headed north, trying to decide what to do. He’d told Nalini he’d take a look around, see if he could find this item. He’d be willing to bet this kid was the item—and if so, that kid was a walking, talking hazard. If anybody in the entire town could possibly be drawing the absolute wrong kind of interest, it was the person living in that house.

Absolutely no idea how to control what he had in his head, very little control period, and more power inside him than Tucker had ever sensed in his damn life.

Swearing, he arrowed the car over to the curb, and under the pretense of making a call, he pulled out his phone and punched in the phone number for his house. He didn’t have an answering machine and Lucia was there only a few days a week, so all it was going to do was ring. And ring. It would buy him a few minutes so he could think. That was all he needed to do. Take a minute and think.

Sighing, he held the phone to his ear and stared straight ahead, focusing on the vibrant energy still riding in the air as he tried to think up a plan.

He would have been better off checking behind him. Then he might have seen her coming.

As it was, he didn’t see her until she already had her gun pulled.

“Well, well, well . . .”

VAUGHNNE didn’t know whether to cuss or heave out a sigh of relief.

The tattoos spiraling up his arms weren’t what had clued her into whom she was dealing with.

It was the fiery red hair spilling down into his eyes and down over his collar. Tucker couldn’t have tried any less hard to attract attention, she figured. Muscle car. Brilliant red hair . . . not carroty red, but that deep, rich fiery red that a bunch of women would probably sell their soul for, and tattoos that twisted and twined around a rather nice pair of arms. She had to admit that. He had a great set of arms.

Even as she saw them tensing, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. She pressed the gun a little harder against the area behind his ear and moved in, using her body to hide it as best as she could. He’d parked in a damned conspicuous area, so this was going to be hard.

But she wasn’t about to let Tucker, whoever in the hell he was, disappear without finding out why he was here. Because she knew better than to believe this was a coincidence. “You don’t want to go grabbing for my gun, sugar,” she said, smiling at him. “And don’t go trying any of that electrical shit I know you can do. Remember what I can do . . . I’ll shriek inside your skull until you’re ready to gouge out your own brainstem just to shut me up.”

He angled his head around just enough to look at her.

Brave guy. He apparently didn’t seem to think she was going to pull the trigger.

She probably wouldn’t, but still.

“I won’t go pulling any of my shit if you don’t make me,” he said levelly. “How about you lower the gun and we can talk . . . Vaughnne, right?”

“We can maybe talk. But we aren’t doing it here.” Arching a brow, she held out a hand. “Gimme your keys and your phone. I’m getting in and then you can have them back.”

“I can hot-wire the damn car quicker than you can get around to the other side.”

“Probably.” She smiled a little. “But you’re here for a reason . . . I bet it’s got something to do with why I am here.”

His brown eyes bored into hers, a scowl darkening his face. Finally, he jerked his head in a nod and tugged out the keys. “I’m doing it to make you feel better, darlin’. You know it’s a waste of time.”

“I’m all about feeling better . . .” She smiled at him. “Darlin’.”

He tossed her the keys. She barely had time to pocket them before the phone came flying at her. It was an iPhone, and she went into its settings, putting it in airplane mode and shutting down any of the apps that might use the GPS. It wasn’t a surefire thing, but it was all she had without destroying the phone. She didn’t think she had to take that step with him. She’d hold it in reserve, though. As she turned the phone off and slid it into her pocket, she headed around to the other side of the car, fully aware of the weight of his gaze, boring into her.

Broody bastard.

She wondered if Jones had tried to recruit him yet. He’d fit in really well.

Sliding into the passenger seat, she kept her gun in her lap, a firm grip on it, but aimed it away. “See? It’s aimed elsewhere. Better?”

Tugging out the keys, she tossed them at him and nodded behind them. “I’m living across from the house you were probably checking out. Let’s see if you know where it is. Go park in the alley behind my place.”

“See, that’s the problem with you federal types. Got to be all subterfuge, all the time. You can’t just give me the damn address,” he muttered, checking the road before he pulled out.

She shrugged. “Well, I could. I just want to see if my hunch is right.”

He slanted a narrow look at her. “The kid I’m looking for has a brain that glows like neon. He doesn’t know how to shut down. Anybody who knows how to look for people like us can see it.”

Damn. She didn’t let her reaction show, but her heart sank as she caught a glimpse of the look in his eyes. “So why are you looking for him?”

“I had a . . . request,” he said, turning into the alley just behind her street. She wasn’t surprised when he pulled into the narrow little space behind her house. “So did I pass the test?”

She just grunted as she climbed out. “Come on. Let’s get inside.” She used the cover of the car to hide it as she tucked her gun back out of sight and started toward the house.

He waited until the door was shut before he came for her.

She barely managed to duck out of the way, and the only reason she managed it at all was a weird tension in the air. It was like the air went all tight and crazy right before a bad thunderstorm. He was fast. He was quiet. And she thanked God and Taylor Jones for all that brutal, awful training he’d thrown her way before he’d agreed to let her in the unit.

It was the only damn thing that kept her out of Tucker’s reach as she spun and drew her weapon—why in the hell had she put it up, anyway? “Do we really have to do this?”

“Put that down before I decide to get pissed off,” he suggested.

“And what are you going to do if you get pissed off?” She curled her lip at him. “Call down the lightning on me or something?”

Something flashed through his eyes. “You think it’s a joke.”

“No. I got a good idea of what you can do and it’s pretty damned amazing. I’m impressed. But I’m not looking at a killer. You’re not going to hurt me, so shove the empty threats up your very nice ass, Tucker.”

Lights flickered. “I don’t have to kill you to get you the hell out of my way. Give me my phone. Get out of my way and let me do my job. Do that and we can call a truce before anything gets out of hand.” A strange smile curved his face and damned if it was a little bit unsettling. “Before you get hurt.”

“You can have your phone . . . after we talk and I’m certain you’re not a threat to the kid I’m supposed to be protecting.” Jerking her head to the table, she said, “Why don’t we sit? Talk . . . and you can have your phone back. Heaven forbid you miss an important call or something.”

The lights flickered . . . and went off.

She clenched her jaw and braced herself for an attack.

But it didn’t come from him directly.

Darkness swarmed in on her mind. And she knew her mind well enough to know one thing . . . it wasn’t natural. It was like something was pressing in, pressing down—

She sucked in a breath and felt her muscles weaken, felt her weapon hand lower.

Instinctively, she sensed him moving and she threw herself backward.

Knowing she only had a few seconds, she did the one thing she knew would work.

She screamed. But she didn’t scream with her mouth.

She screamed right inside his head, with all the force of her ability.

IT was a vicious, brutal shock to his system—it was like somebody had taken the power of a sonic boom and combined it with the loudest wail of a siren, and found a way to make the noise loud enough to cause physical harm. Except it wasn’t happening audibly. It was all inside his skull and he couldn’t block it out.

Shuddering under the shock of it, Tucker sucked in a breath as his control faltered. He had to either break his connection or risk hurting her. It was a hard-ass thing, interfering with all those little electrical connections that happened inside the human brain. Too much and he’d kill her. Too little, and it wouldn’t be enough.

As the screaming in his brain continued, he groaned and hit the heel of his hand against his temple, spinning away as he severed the link.

And still the screaming continued.

“Enough,” he snarled.

Seconds ticked by before it slowly faded away.

Silence, sweet, sweet silence fell between them and he shuddered as the raw power inside leaped and burned, clawing to get out.

Anger triggered it all, and having a gun leveled at him, having anybody threaten him . . . well. It pissed him off. He’d had it happen too many times, and most of the time, it had been because certain people from his past had been trying to drag him back to places he’d never go.

“You might be able to shut my brain down, but if you do, I’ll damn well make sure you suffer every second,” Vaughnne said from behind him, her voice harsh. “Are you and I going to sit and talk, or do we try to kill each other?”

“If I’d wanted to shut your brain down, I could have done that on the street,” he snapped. Without looking at her, he stormed over to the small dining room table and flung himself into one of the chairs. “But I’m not here to chat and I’m not here to make friends with the FBI. I’m here because I’ve got a job to do and that kid across the street is a hazard.”

Vaughnne kept her distance from him. It had just occurred to her that her table was one of those vintage sorts of dinette sets . . . shiny top, chrome plating. It looked like something you’d find in a fifties diner. Too much metal, especially considering she didn’t know just what this guy could do with electricity. Electricity and metal were a bad mix.

Instead of sitting down, she tucked her gun back into place and adjusted the holster. The damn thing was rubbing her skin raw, but there were only so many places she could carry a weapon when she was out jogging unless she wanted somebody to know she was armed.

She studied him through her lashes. “You think I don’t see how much of a hazard that kid is?”

“Then why aren’t you doing something?”

“I am.” She angled her chin up. “I’m babysitting. That’s my job for now. That’s all.”

“That’s not—”

The shrill ring of her phone cut him off and she grabbed it, swearing. That ring tone would go off for only one reason. She took off running down the hall even as she checked the display.

Somebody had activated the motion sensor she’d set up in Gus . . . stop. You’re here for the kid. Think about the kid.

“Time’s up,” she said quietly as she moved to crouch in front of her laptop, staring at the monitors.

“You bugged his house?”

She shot Tucker a dark look. “Unless I’m expected to never sleep? Yeah. I bugged his house.”

They watched for a moment as two men prowled through the back, lingering the longest outside the window to Gus’s bedroom.

“They’re looking for the kid.” Something sick spread through her.

“That’s why I’m here,” Tucker snapped.

“You knew they were coming?” She continued to watch them, eyeing the time. Keeping an eye on the monitor, she checked the location of the GPS tracker she’d planted on Gus’s truck. Crap. Leaving the store. A few minutes away at best.

“Yes.”

Tucker’s low, intense voice shattered her concentration and she glanced up at him, puzzled for a split second before she remembered. “You knew somebody would be here today.”

“Not today.” He shrugged and moved to the window, staring across the street. “One of them is psychic. I feel it. Not strong. But it’s enough. Used it to locate the kid.”

“They didn’t locate the kid. They located his house.”

Tucker shot her a dark look. “Same thing. They pull back, they wait until the kid shows up, and then they move in. That boy has no clue how to protect himself, does he?”

She rubbed her temple, thinking of how her head had felt, like somebody had reached inside and just helped themselves to her brain matter and sanity. “He might have a better handle on it than we think, but it would be purely instinctive.”

“If you’re supposed to be babysitting, why are you here?” he asked. “Isn’t part of bodyguard detail just that . . . guarding the body?”

“I’m listening to my instincts,” she said, curling her lip at him. “My gut said stay here today. If I’d followed, I wouldn’t have been here to see this happening.”

Ignoring the guilt tugging at her, she stared at the camera for another moment, debating.

Did she go over there?

If she did, her cover was blown.

Shit, it was about to get blown anyway. She shot another look at the phone and then started to swear viciously as she saw how very close that little dot was getting to the house. That dot—Gus’s truck was on the move.

“Can you sense the kid, Tucker?” she asked quietly.

He turned his head, stared at her.

After a long moment, he nodded.

She shoved upright and headed into her room. In under a minute, she emerged, wearing jeans and strapping her weapon into place where it belonged. “I need your help,” she said as she pulled her boots on. “The kid and his guardian are on their way here . . . now. And if I’m going to get them out of this place and on the road safely, I don’t have time for chatting up our boys over there, playing B and E.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw, and she pushed past him to grab her bag and shove the laptop and cords inside, pausing only long enough to check once more to make sure she had her Bureau ID, her wallet, and her keys. The other things she needed the most were tucked inside the cleverly disguised piece of shit car in her driveway. It looked like a piece of shit, but it would move and it would move fast.

She climbed inside, checking the location of Gus’s truck once more.

Couple streets away. They had a few minutes at best. She headed outside.

A hand came down on her roof.

She barely managed to resist jumping.

Turning her head, she stared into Tucker’s glittering eyes. “I can hold them up. But don’t be surprised if I show up to keep you company, darlin’. I said I’d take care of the kid. Didn’t say shit about putting him in the hands of the FBI.”

It was good enough.

It was going to have to be.

Gus’s truck had just turned down the street.