Generation 18 (Spook Squad 2)

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Pain ripped through her, as sharp as a knife. She swore vehemently. “Get me some damn painkillers or I’m out of here.”

As threats went, it was pretty lame—not only because she was strapped down, but because her leg was as numb as her arm, and any sort of quick movement would be nigh on impossible anyway.

“No,” Stephan said, his voice abrupt, harsh. “Painkillers will dilute your ability to concentrate.”

She glared at him. She was really beginning to dislike the man. Yet it was easy to see why he, rather than Gabriel, ran both the SIU and the Federation. “So does pain, buddy, believe me.”

Jessie squeezed Sam’s fingers lightly. “This won’t take long, as long as you concentrate. Then we can let the medical help in.”

Meaning they were going to keep her in confinement until they’d thoroughly checked her story? Bastards. And that fact, if nothing else, hardened her resolve. She’d meant what she’d said before—she’d had enough of these people. She wanted out, wanted to go back to the State Police. At least there she’d be treated a little more fairly—even if she had shot her partner.

“Let’s get on with it, then.” She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the throbbing aches in her body.

“Bring Gabriel’s image to your mind. Concentrate on it.”

She frowned and did as Jessie asked. Gabriel’s image swam through her mind, its focus blurred, distant.

“Concentrate,” Jessie whispered. “Imagine your mind as a hand, capable of reaching out and touching him.”

Sweat trickled into Sam’s closed eyes, stinging. She tried to ignore it. Gabriel’s image went in and out of focus, as if viewed with some ill-adjusted lens.

“Reach for the image, Samantha. Reach out and touch him.”

“I can’t,” she whispered. There was some sort of barrier between them, preventing her from reaching across. A fence of her making, not his.

“Focus on the image, Samantha. Focus until you can feel his presence within every fiber of your being. Then let your mind touch his.”

She concentrated on the blurred image, willing it to become clear. Sweat trickled through her hair, along the side of her face. Abruptly, the image became focused, and she was there, sharing his mind, his thoughts. His eyes.

The ground sped underneath them. They arrowed toward a doorway, heart pumping as fast as their wings. Behind them, the air shuddered with sound. Heat sizzled. They soared upward. The shot hit the wall, spraying metal through the air. They flew through the doorway and into the open skies. Freedom, if they could get clear fast enough. Another shot. Again, they dodged. But this time the shot hit, exploding through wing and muscle and bone.

Agony surged through every fiber and tore her mind from his. She screamed, then darkness hit and she lapsed into unconsciousness.

When awareness returned, it was again to the sensation of someone shaking her shoulder.

It should have hurt, but it didn’t. She frowned. Gabriel had been shot, not her. He was alive; that much she knew. For how much longer was anyone’s guess—and there wasn’t one damn thing she’d seen that could help them in any way.

“Samantha, open your eyes and look at me,” Jessie demanded, her voice cracked with worry.

She opened her eyes and said, “He was shot while trying to escape. That’s all I know, all I saw.” All she felt.

“Fuck.” Stephan thrust a hand through his hair. “There has to have been something you saw that can help us find him.”

“He was in a warehouse of some kind. It was abandoned.”

“Which leaves us with probably a thousand choices citywide,” Jessie commented, her expression worried as she glanced up at Stephan. “How much manpower can you muster?”

“Not nearly enough, quickly enough,” Stephan muttered, and resumed his pacing. “Even if we pull in the Federation operatives, it’ll still take hours.”

In which time Gabriel could have bled to death if he didn’t get medical help. The phone rang in the brief silence.

Stephan grabbed the receiver almost savagely. “Byrne here.”

He listened quietly for several minutes and then said, “Get all available teams down there immediately, but don’t move until I join them.”

He hung up and swung round, his expression an odd mixture of anger and surprise. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d ordered a break team for Whittiker?”

“When did I have the chance? I was shot and dragged down here for questioning. I don’t believe I was given much of a chance to say anything.” She hesitated, more to keep her growing tide of anger in check than anything else. Stephan was not someone whose bad side she wanted to get on. “Why? Have they got an address out of him?”