His fist hit his thigh in a frustrated protest. Mari. Damn you. Where the hell are you? He tunneled his fingers through his hair, betraying his agitation. Come on, baby. You've got to answer me. Just touch my mind with yours.
Chapter 12
"Mari, come on, hon, you have to wake up."
The voice was insistent. Mari moved her head, and immediately a jackhammer began to drive on full throttle through her head. She suppressed a groan and forced herself to reach out with her psychic senses to tell her where she was and what kind of trouble she was in.
Rose. She could never mistake Rose's soft feminine scent. Sean was there too. Bastard. He'd shot her full of something and knocked her out. He was going to pay for that. She heard the solid chink of a metal door closing. The sound of footsteps pacing. She was back in the compound.
Her body ached, her arms especially. She tried to relieve the pain by pulling them in close to her and found that she was cuffed to the metal rail of the bed.
"Mari," Rose repeated. "Wake up."
A cold cloth was pressed to her face. Rose leaned close. "Whitney's going to be here any minute Come on, honey. We need you alert."
Mari pried her eyelids open and stared up into Rose's concerned face. She looked like a little pixie with her too large eyes and sultry mouth and small, heart-shaped face. Rose was delicate and a little younger than the rest of them, with not quite as tough an exterior, but she had steel beneath that soft skin and delicate bone structure. She smiled at Mari.
"At last. We were getting alarmed."
"Sean handcuffed me." She jerked at her hands and turned her head toward the man standing guard. "'Why?"
"You were communicating with the enemy," he said.
"I was saving your butt, and right at this very moment, I can't think why." Mari maneuvered into a sitting position, clenching her teeth against the pounding in her head.
"Just how did you do that?"
She cast Sean the best glower she was capable of, dark and filled with contempt, withering even. She wanted him to wither. Switching her attention to Rose, she forced a serene smile. "I'm awake, hon. My head hurts like a bear, and I'm a little worse for wear, but I didn't get a chance to talk to the senator."
The smile faded from Rose's face. "We were counting on that." She lowered her voice. "Whitney brought in his other guards. Even if some of the men help us. those men are killers." She shivered, running her hands up and down her arms. "I hate the way they leer at us when we're in the yard."
We can't trust Sean. Something's different about him. Mari wanted to perfect her telepathic technique. Manipulating energy directly to one individual without other psychics receiving a faint "buzz" was extremely difficult. If Ken and Jack Norton could do it, then that meant it was a level of skill. Mari was always top of her class in everything. Competition alone could drive her to succeed.
He was freaked out when they said you were shot. And Brett went crazy. He tore up the complex like a madman. That's how Whitney found out. We were all trying to keep it quiet, hoping the team would find you and get you back here, but Brett didn't care about the rest of us. He made certain Whitney knew.
"Stop it, Mari," Sean snapped. "If you want to say something, say it out loud."
Mari shrugged. "I was just telling Rose what a horse's ass you are. She agreed. She especially liked the part where you were so concerned about how I was treated as a prisoner and worked so hard to make certain I was healed from the bullet that nearly killed me. Well, the Zenith nearly killed me. What about that, Sean? Did you know about the time limit on the Zenith? Do all the men know, or only Whitney's chosen few?"
The door opened. Mari stiffened. Although her back was to the door, she knew the moment Peter Whitney entered the room. There was a distinct scent about him she couldn't quite identify, something "off."
"Well, well," Dr. Whitney said in greeting. "Our little Mari is stirring up trouble as usual. You've been off on an adventure."
Mari had no idea what Whitney had been told, but she wasn't going to give him anything for free. She turned, stretching lazily, striving to look bored. "I'm a soldier. Sitting around waiting for that idiot Brett is boring. I took a chance and went for a little action. It's what I'm trained for."
"You're trained to follow orders," Whitney corrected. "Rose, leave now."
Rose squeezed Man's arm. her body blocking the gesture. Without a word she went from the room, leaving Mari alone with Whitney and Sean.
"Sean tells me you need the morning after pill to make certain you're not pregnant. Have you been a fraternizing with the enemy?"
She lifted her head and stared him right in the eye. "Ken Norton. He's the one who shot me. It seems you made him part of your program as well." She saw the shift in his expression. Elation. Hope. Emotions played behind his superior expression. He wanted her pregnant by Ken Norton.
"So Sean is right and you could be pregnant?" Whitney knew her cycle better than she did.
Mari shrugged. "We had sex. I suppose it could happen."
Whitney studied her with the same detachment she'd observed in him studying his lab animals. "We'll give it a few days and test you."
Sean took an aggressive step forward. "No. No way. If you wait to see, it will be too late and she'll have to have an abortion."
"Norton carries a remarkable genetic code," Whitney said. "Paired with Mart's, the child could be everything we've been hoping for. No, we'll wait and see. Meanwhile, Mari, you'll need a medical examination to determine if your injuries can in anyway impair you, and of course, you'll be locked up for a few days to make certain we don't have a repeat of this incidence."
If she could establish that she'd gone AWOL for reasons of inactivity, that the rebellion among the women was mostly due to boredom, he might buy it. Whitney had raised them in a military environment, and it stood to reason that after running physical exercises and learning weapons for hours every day, they would be unable to just sit around.
"I need action. Dr. Whitney. Sitting around waiting for a man to knock me up is making me crazy. I'm a soldier. At least give me some training exercises. The other women feel the same way."
He smiled at her, a cold, empty smile. "You want me to believe inactivity is the reason you've been causing so many problems lately?"
"I tried to talk to you a couple of times." She glared at Sean as if he hadn't carried messages to the doctor. "Nobody would let me near you."
"And your rejection of Brett? Was that out of boredom as well?"
Mari rubbed her pounding head. "Brett is an ass. I don't want to have his baby. I made that very clear. He's not nearly as intelligent as you seem to think he is. And it's way too easy to make him lose his temper. My child is going to be cool under fire at all times. I've never lost it during a mission, not once. I read Brett's file, and he has issues I'm not passing on to the next generation."
"Well thought out as always, Mari." Peter Whitney said. "And what are you objections to having a child by Ken Norton?"
"I have none, although I'd like to read his file if you have one on him. From what I could see. he has extraordinary psychic talents, and he's earned a reputation as one of the best snipers in the business. Sean told me."
"I did not."
"It was in your mind when I asked you about the Nortons."
"You want me to believe you left this facility in order to participate in a mission because you were bored?"
She met his gaze without flinching. "Yes. And I will do so again at the first opportunity if you make me continue to live like this. No one can live this way. We need to go running and to continue to work on our skills, both physical and mental. We're going crazy doing nothing but lying around all day."