“I could try,” Joe said in a low voice. “You’re too worked up, man. We need to keep her calm. If she feels what you feel, I can’t imagine what that does to her. I’m more objective. At least let me try. Maybe I’ll cause her less pain.”
Nathan sighed, knowing his brother was probably right at least about him being too worked up. “I appreciate you trying to help, man, but this thing with Shea, it’s random. She told me she has no control over whom she can connect to.”
Joe slowly shook his head in disagreement. “She can speak to me. I’ve heard her in my mind. Back when we first met. I felt her and then I heard her. I thought at first that I was imagining it, but yeah, it was her.”
Nathan stared at his brother in confusion. “What?”
“She didn’t tell you?”
“No, she didn’t tell me. I had no idea. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Joe held his hands up. “Whoa. It’s not like she was cheating on you with me or anything. She was afraid I’d be pissed because she could hear me and vice versa. It was the reason I asked to talk to her alone back at the house. So we could iron out a few things.”
Nathan gripped the back of his neck and glanced at his other brothers, who were attempting not to seem interested in the current conversation. Unsuccessfully, since everyone’s eyes were glued to the twins. “I had no idea. I mean how?”
Joe shrugged. “She thought maybe because you and I were twins and were so close. Who knows why? You said yourself it was random. She said as much too. But I told her if she ever needed anything to call for me. Maybe I can reach out to her instead. It’s worth a shot, right?”
Indecision rolled through Nathan. The last thing he wanted to do was make her suffer more, but he also needed to find out where the hell she was. Resnick was working on it. He had every available resource allocated to finding Shea. But damn it, things were moving way too slow for Nathan’s liking.
“Let him try, man,” Swanny said in a low voice. “We have to find her before it’s too late. We have no idea what those bastards are doing to her, and if it’s like you already said and she’s hanging on by just a thread, how much more can she take?”
Nathan glanced again at his brothers. Then at Steele and his team. Even Resnick and his team headed by the young Marine, Phillips. Everyone was tense. Ready to move at a moment’s notice. They were just waiting. Waiting for word, information, Shea’s location, so they could go in and kick ass.
It had been hours. While Resnick had gone to work pulling out every stop in his search for information, Nathan, Swanny, Joe and Steele’s team had scoured the streets of Charleston. They’d questioned people endlessly, until finally they’d hit pay dirt when an elderly man getting off a bus had mentioned seeing a young woman in extreme distress. He’d pointed them in the direction she’d gone, and from there, they canvassed a four-block radius until they’d found one witness who’d seen her getting into a black Toyota Avalon.
Resnick had pulled metro surveillance for that location, and sure enough, hours before, they saw a man forcing Shea into a vehicle. They’d even gotten a license plate number, which so far had yielded them exactly nothing.
“I don’t know, Joe. It’s…hard. You’ll feel what she feels. I don’t know how to prepare you for that.”
“Maybe not,” Joe argued. “You love her, man. You’re emotionally involved. What you feel for her and through her is magnified ten times. I like her, yeah, but I’m not in love with her. I don’t have the emotional connection to her that you have. Let me try at least. If I sense I’m causing her too much pain, I’ll break away immediately. That’s even assuming I can reach her. I don’t know how to do this shit.”
Nathan closed his eyes and breathed deep. Joe was right about one thing. They had to at least try. Whatever pain she endured leading them to her would be worth if it they could bring her safely home.
He’d failed to do the one thing he’d promised her. Keep her safe. It was an easy thing to promise. Something to make her feel safe. But they were just words, and he hadn’t been able to make that happen, even with the backing of KGI and his family.
Resnick was partially right. He, and his brothers, had no idea what they were dealing with. They were only just starting to understand, and they still didn’t have the entire picture.
Nathan put his hand on Joe’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “Just focus on her. Think about her and remember what that pathway felt like. Then open your mind and call for her.”
Joe took a deep breath. “Okay then. I’m going to do it.”
Resnick stopped his pacing and moved in close to where Joe and Nathan stood with Swanny. Nathan’s lip curled in distaste, but Resnick was focused on Joe, watching as Joe drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes.
Around them, the others leaned forward, some taking steps to get closer to Joe. There was intense curiosity but also determination on everyone’s faces. Quiet descended until the only sound that could be heard was breathing.
Joe sucked in his breath and then exhaled long and slow. He purposely blanked his mind in preparation. He didn’t want any distractions. This was important. Nathan was suffering. Shea was suffering. If he could somehow get through to Shea, then he could help them both.
He closed his eyes, and the rest of the room fell away. His awareness of the others became dim as he focused solely on that pathway to Shea. When he was completely relaxed and felt the sensation of familiarity, he sent out a cautious inquiry.
Shea? Can you hear me? It’s Joe.
He kept it short, fearful of causing her unbearable pain. He waited, his breath held, his fingers curled into tight fists.
At first there was quiet and then he felt a slight stirring in his mind. It was unlike anything he’d ever felt before. A burst of warmth, but with that warmth came a flood of terror, panic and clawing pain.
He flinched but held on to that pathway with every part of himself. Immediately he could see her surroundings. Felt what she felt. Experienced all she was experiencing.
She was being held in a long, plastic tube that opened from the top. Steel bands clamped around her wrists, ankles and neck. He could feel the horrible panic over the belief that she would choke.
Dear God. He didn’t even know what to do to try to make her feel better, to take away the awful fear that ate at her sanity.
She closed her eyes and everything went black. He could feel her battle to remain calm.
Open your eyes, Shea. Open them for me, sweetheart. Let me see what you see.
There were electrodes attached to her head. When she opened her eyes, he saw through them to the machines monitoring her brain activity. She was trying valiantly to keep her mind quiet, but one of the lines spiked too high and suddenly he was assaulted with an electrical shock that sent him to his knees.
He folded over, holding his stomach with his arms, and then he had to put one down to the floor to prevent himself from pitching forward.
“Oh my God,” he rasped out, each word laced with pain.
“What is it?” Nathan demanded. “Goddamn it, Joe, talk to me. What’s going on?”
Joe held up his hand to silence his brother. He couldn’t lose concentration now. Not now. He had to fix this. He had to find a way. He was so f**king furious that she was being treated like some kind of an animal that he wanted to kill someone.
He tried to soothe her, sending her waves of comfort and love, but it was hard when his mind screamed revenge and retribution. He forced the blackness away and brought to mind all the things that made him happy.
Summer rains. A good book in a hammock. A day of fishing on the lake. Hanging out with his brothers. Seeing his mom and dad again. Knowing that Nathan was alive and coming home.
Then he forced that comfort to Shea and once again spoke to her.
Nathan is with me. Try to remain calm. Don’t speak back to me yet. Just listen. Gather your strength. Focus on the one thing that will help us the most in finding you.
Focus, Shea. Will the pain to go away. You’re strong. You can do this. Nathan and I are coming for you. Do you understand me? We’re going to get you back and then we’re going to take apart those sons of bitches who hurt you.
Breathe, baby girl. Breathe and calm yourself. And then I want you to think about the one thing you can tell me. Don’t even say it through your mind. Just picture it. Close your eyes and imagine what it looks like. I’ll see what you see.
She closed her eyes, shutting off his vision of her surroundings. She relaxed and some of the pain faded away, leaving her weak and shaky. Her nerve endings twitched and her fingers jumped spasmodically. Those f**king bastards. He’d take great pleasure in making them suffer for what they had done to her.
Slowly, the blackness drifted away and he got the sense of being outside. He bobbed up and down. It felt like someone was carrying him and then he realized he was reliving Shea’s memory. What she wanted to show him.
The surroundings came into view. Mountains. Crisp, clean air. The scent of pine. Cool temperatures. He shivered as the chill crept over his skin. Gravel crunched underneath the feet of the man carrying her. A doorway. Slowly her gaze drifted higher, above the door.
UFV5591
Then everything went black again.
“Uniform, Foxtrot, Victor, five, five, niner, one,” he said urgently. Then he repeated it again until he heard Swanny say from seemingly a mile away that he’d gotten it down.
I’ve got it, Shea, he said gently. Rest now. Save your strength. We’ll find you. Cooperate with them. Don’t do anything to anger them. Stay alive. We’ll come for you.
He wiped his face and took several deep breaths in an effort to clear his mind. He felt so goddamn weak. He didn’t know how Nathan managed to maintain any lengthy communication with her.
Swanny and Nathan hauled him to his feet, and he sank into the chair that Donovan had shoved forward. He put his face forward into his hands and leaned over, still trying to put it all together.
Nathan took the chair next to him and pushed it so he sat face-to-face with his brother. Joe was pale and shaking. He finally raised his head so that his gaze met Nathan’s, and Nathan saw something there he didn’t like. Worry.
“Tell me,” Nathan bit out.
The others gathered silently, all waiting for Joe to relate what he’d discovered.
Joe looked pissed. Angrier than Nathan had seen him in a long time. But he also looked raw and worried. Nathan’s gut knotted because he was scared to death to know what Joe had found out.
Joe lifted his gaze to Nathan, pain still reflected in his eyes. “They have her in some goddamn cage. It’s like some futuristic cryotube or something. It’s narrow and long, plastic or glass. See-through and it opens from the top.
“She can’t move. She has clamps around her wrists and ankles and also at her neck. That’s the one that causes her panic because she feels like she’s constantly choking.”
Rage exploded in Nathan’s mind until he shook worse than Joe did. Swanny put his hand on Nathan’s shoulder in an effort to calm him.
“It’s worse, man,” Joe said in a low voice. “They have electrodes attached to her head that monitor her brain wave activity. That’s why when you try to talk to her, she suffers so horribly. She gets an electrical shock every time her brain activity spikes above a certain level. They’ve tried to disable her ability to speak to anyone. To ask for help.”
Nathan upended his chair and he shot upward. “Son of a bitch!” Tears burned his eyelids. He was so furious and so damn scared for her that he didn’t even know what to do. He was unraveling at the seams as fear choked the breath out of him.
Oh God, the thought of her in such pain, and the awful fear she experienced every waking moment, was more than he could bear. He had to get to her. Whatever it took.
He turned back to Joe, his fingers balled, seething with rage and sorrow. “What are those numbers? What do they mean?”
Joe didn’t look any better. Now that he’d had that connection with Shea, he’d experienced everything she was going through, and you only had to look at Joe to know it was hell.
“I told her to close her eyes and try to remember anything that would help us locate her. I didn’t want her to try and say anything telepathically. I just wanted her to remember something, anything, and hopefully I would be able to pick up on it through my link to her.
“She remembered being carried. She was dimly aware of her surroundings. Mountains. Scent of pine. Cooler temperatures. And then she looked at the door leading into the building and those letters and numbers I recited were above the door.”
“That’s it?” Nathan asked in frustration.
“It might be enough,” Resnick said slowly.
Nathan jerked his head in Resnick’s direction. “What do you mean?”
Resnick walked over to his computer and rapidly typed in a series of commands. In a moment, he brought up a picture of what looked to be a compound carved into the side of a mountain.