She had only slept a few brief hours, but she had the feeling she’d never sleep again. She didn’t want to ever sleep again.
A puppet, a goddamned puppet, that was what that slimy son of a bitch they were after had turned her into. It didn’t matter that he had, apparently, brainwashed her into getting up, getting her gun, and making it as far as Dante’s door—but had not been able to force her to do his bidding.
No, that didn’t matter. She’d shoot herself before she would shoot a teammate.
But he had still gotten into her head, messed with her mind, her memories, making her believe she had shot and killed her partner. And he had done that because he had not been able to make her actually do it.
Robbie hesitated only a moment. She took that moment to shore up her shields, trying to make them stronger than they had ever been before. She took a quick shower and got dressed, pulled her still-damp hair back in a hasty ponytail, hesitated for a moment before clipping her gun to the belt of her jeans, then scribbled a quick note to Dante and left the suite.
Their hotel served food twenty-four-seven and kept a generous selection of fruit, cheese, and crackers just inside the main floor dining room all afternoon until dinnertime, but she paused only to get coffee in one of the cardboard cups. She had no idea what had been going on at their command center, and didn’t pause near the police station even though there seemed to be a lot of activity going on in there.
She thought it seemed dim for midafternoon, and glanced up to see the heavily overcast sky. And hear, faintly, thunder rumble.
Great. A storm. As a general rule, storms weren’t kind to psychics.
She walked into the makeshift command center, finding Lucas and Samantha working. Lucas was at one of the computer stations, and Samantha was studying the evidence boards.
Without so much as a greeting, Robbie slammed the door behind her, and said, “I want this fucker dead.”
—
HE WAS GLAD he had found a private place to do his work. No more alleys where passersby could discover him. Besides, it was still daylight—albeit overcast gray daylight. But the storage shed, as close as he had been able to get to the hotel without risking discovery, was sorely lacking in creature comforts, and he found himself lying on a wrinkled, dirty tarp that smelled of turpentine and seemed to have several small chunks of lumber underneath.
His head hurt.
His head hurt so much.
It was dim in the shed, but he felt the wetness on his face, under his nose, and knew it wasn’t tears. Blood.
He tried to use the tarp to help stop the bleeding, but it was rough and stank and seemed to make him bleed more. Just like he bled more when he tried to move, to sit up.
He could hear it thundering and wished the storm would hurry and get here. They made him feel better, storms. Made him feel . . . stronger. At least since the accident.
The dark usually helped him as well, but not this time. This time, he had pushed too hard, tried too hard.
“Bitch,” he whispered. “I’ll get you next time. I’ll be ready for you next time. Bitch . . .”
—
BOTH SAMANTHA AND Lucas turned to stare at Robbie after her rather violent entrance, perhaps a bit startled but no more than that. Taking unusual things calmly was one of the requirements to be an SCU agent.
“What’s happened, Robbie?” Sam asked.
“I just came out of a waking nightmare.” Robbie couldn’t be still, so she paced. “It seemed as real as this is. Only in that waking nightmare, I was standing by the window in our sitting room, and when Dante came in, I turned around and shot him. Killed him. You want to take my gun? I wish you’d take my gun.”
Sam was frowning slightly. “He already knew he could mess with your mind, change your memories. Why would he give you the memory of killing Dante?”
“Just for jollies?” Robbie was in no mood for speculation but gave it a shot. “I think he tried to make me actually do it. When I came out of it, I was standing outside Dante’s bedroom door, in a robe, holding my gun. So he’d gotten me that far. I really think he believed he could make me kill my partner.”
“But you didn’t,” Sam reminded her quietly.
“No, I didn’t. Not this time. But when he couldn’t make me actually do it, he made me believe I had. He really made me believe I had.” Robbie wasn’t the crying sort of woman, but her eyes glistened with tears she wouldn’t shed. “And how can I trust myself now? Around any of you? As long as this son of a bitch is alive, how can I trust myself?”
“Were you asleep or already up?” Luke asked.
Robbie didn’t even have to think about that. “I’d been asleep. Sleeping hard, because I was tired. When I came back to myself, I was standing at his door. I had my gun, but I was still dressed for bed in a sleepshirt, with a hotel robe over it.”
“So maybe it was an experiment,” Sam said. “To find out if it was easier for him to get into her head, influence her, if she was asleep when he tried. If he’s been watching us, he must know we’ve split shifts. It doesn’t seem to be working out very well, since you barely slept and Dante should be here any minute, but the unsub could have seen you two go into the hotel hours ago.”
Robbie blinked. “Dante’s coming?”
“Yeah. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s nearly as shaken as you are.”
“Why? He was asleep.”
Sam opened her mouth to reply, but Dante came in just then, not slamming the door as Robbie had, but not exactly calmly. He was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, his hair still damp from the shower, and he was rubbing the center of his chest with one hand.
He looked immediately at Robbie. “I had the most vivid fucking nightmare. You shot me. Only it wasn’t really you.”
Before Robbie could speak, Lucas held up a hand. “What do you mean it wasn’t really her?”
“It was . . . her face was like the missing people we watched on the videos. Like the face of a doll. No expression. No life. Creepy as hell, though not as creepy as seeing—and feeling—her shoot me. I mean, I got shot once; it was just a graze, but I remember how it felt. This was like that, only much, much more painful.”
“More than a dream,” Robbie muttered. “That bastard got into our heads again.”
Dante frowned. “First time for me.”
“You were asleep,” Sam told him. “More vulnerable even with that strong shield. Especially since he can’t seem to aim his energy very well.”
“Really?” Robbie said. “He aimed it at me pretty well.”
It was Lucas who said, “I doubt he meant Dante to know anything at all. It was you he was after, Robbie, you he’d already left . . . bread crumbs to follow. You he wanted to be able to control. What Dante got was . . . spillover.”
“Vivid spillover,” Dante muttered. “I swear my chest hurts like hell.”
Dryly, Sam said to him, “Power of suggestion. Robbie was convinced she’d shot and killed you, and she’s a telepath. She doesn’t usually broadcast, but in moments of extreme stress . . .”
“I have been known to,” Robbie admitted, with an apologetic grimace to her partner. “Sorry.” Then she frowned. “I don’t like the way this bastard is playing with our minds. My mind. And why’s he fixated on me?”
Musing, Luke said, “It could be yours is the only ability he really understands, or believes he does. Close to what he has himself; any kind of true mind control or mind influence has to begin with telepathy. Or it could be he wants to control you for some reason we don’t yet know.”
“We need to figure that out,” Robbie told him. “And I mean soon. I catch him in my head again, I’ll give him more than a headache or nosebleed.”
Dante said, “You can do that?”
“She’s not supposed to,” Lucas said.
“Oh, tell me Bishop wouldn’t approve, destroying a monster like this one. Besides, it’d be self-defense.”