"I'm thick-headed, according to rumor," he said. "Half the time, I don't know what's good for me."
Her auburn brows quirked. "Fortunately for you, I do know what's good for you."
She pulled him up for her kiss, sealing her mouth over his in a slow, penetrating claiming that had him going stiff as granite in his fatigues. With a snarl of pure masculine approval, he caught her around her tender nape and plunged his tongue between her teeth. He already had her pressed beneath him when the phone line from the tech lab started ringing.
Lucan's warning bells went off like sirens as he tore himself away from Gabrielle's warm body and put the receiver to his ear. "What's going on, Gideon?"
"You don't, by chance, have the television on, do you?"
"No."
Gideon's voice didn't have its usual levity. Not even close. "All hell's breaking loose downtown, Lucan. You'd better come quick. You need to see this."
Chase brought his head up from the pillow of his bed in the infirmary, straining to get a better look at the television screen mounted in the corner of the room. It had been parked on one of those pointless morning chatter shows, where a pair of hosts kibitzed and chuckled over vapid news items while sipping tall cups of coffee and flashing a lot of veneered white teeth at the camera. Even on mute, the thing had annoyed him, but he'd left it on just to give his eyes something to focus on, other than the four clinical walls that caged him inside the compound. It had been either that, or let himself go mad and give in to the hunger that was still clawing at him from the inside out. The addict in him had wanted out of there in a bad way -
needed it more than anything - but he knew if he stood even a rat's ass chance of breaking his dangerous slide, he was going to have to starve the blood thirst out of himself. He could think of no better place for him to try than back here, in the compound, among the only friends he had. Friends he'd given every right to desert him.
And yet they'd taken him in.
Strapped him down and locked him up inside the infirmary, but what the hell, he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
But now, as he peered up at the monitor, his stomach sank as he watched the show being interrupted by a live news report. He reached for the remote on the wheeled tray beside him, only to be reminded of his restraints as the shackles rattled but held fast. He could have yanked them loose, but fuck it. He could handle the sound without it.
Willing the volume up, he listened in abject dread as real-time footage of a massive explosion somewhere in Boston filled the screen. A female news reporter's voice described what they were broadcasting.
" - at the UN building downtown. Police are just arriving on scene, and Channel 5 has news crews en route now. Initial reports seem to indicate this was a bomb situation of some sort. We're getting reports of significant damage to the building, and all surrounding streets in a ten- block radius have been sealed off by law enforcement."
Holy shit. Chase watched the roiling cloud of smoke and dust and flame billowing up toward the camera of the news helicopter that circled the area overhead. Although it seemed impossible - completely lacking in sense, except for the purpose of creating terror - his gut was telling him this too had Dragos's name all over it.
"Further reports from sources on the scene tell us there is a vehicle pursuit under way by law enforcement at this time. It is believed the alleged suspect or suspects in this possible terror act are in that vehicle and were spotted by eyewitnesses leaving the scene in the moments before this explosion took place. Channel 5's news copter is reporting to the scene of this pursuit, and we will update you live as we have more information."
Chase put his head back down and muttered a ripe curse at the ceiling. If Dragos was involved in this stunt, what the hell was he up to?
Chase wanted to rip loose from his forced recuperation and head down to the tech lab, where he was certain all the rest of the Order would be watching the same troubling report by now. Gideon constantly monitored human news outlets, and shit like this - terror acts in the middle of the week, rolling toward the holidays - tended to make a big splash. But he didn't belong around that long table in the lab anymore. He'd walked out on the Order, and he didn't deserve to ask them to take him back until he was sure he had his shit together.
As he kicked himself for the string of failures and fuck-ups that had been the bulk of his recent missions for the Order, the news reporter came back onscreen.
"We're breaking now to Channel 5's eye-in-the-sky, which is bringing you the latest from just outside the city, where police are currently in pursuit of the vehicle they believe is linked to this terrible incident at the UN building this morning. Again, if you're just tuning in, Channel 5
was first on the scene, bringing you news of a large explosion, a bomb of some type, that was set off downtown just moments ago ..."
While she spoke, Chase watched in astonishment - then in mounting suspicion and abject dread - as a fleet of police cruisers and SWAT vans pursued a late-model red pickup truck from out of the city, toward an area of large, tree-filled estates and sprawling private properties. Right toward the Order's domain.
Chase tried to sit up and felt his restraints bite into his wrists and ankles. The steelreinforced leather band around his torso groaned as he strained to get a better look at what was happening on the monitor.
It wasn't good.
The pursuit turned the last bend, heading right up the sunlit street toward the outer perimeter of the Order's estate. To his horror, not an instant later, the red pickup roared up toward the front gates of the mansion.
Ah, Christ.
Mother of fucking God ...
Sparks erupted as the vehicle hit the electrified gate and crashed through. Several men poured out of the truck and started pounding up the snow-filled lawn on foot. Running toward the mansion with a dozen or more cops hot on their heels.
Dragos sent them here.
He knew it.