Brazen (B-Squad 1)

“That’s for comparison’s sake,” he continued. “That square is a wirelessly controlled microchip that sails through the blood stream. We think the controller was in that device Yasmin had that looked like a dog-training clicker. The microchip is three millimeters by four millimeters and can be steered by the controller toward the brain stem. Once there, it sends out electrical impulses, just like your brain does, telling your body what to do while at the same time surpassing your brain’s ability to do the same thing. The initial tests showed that a small but significant percentage of the test subjects had adverse reactions, including death.”

Her blood turned to ice. “I gave Taz two full doses. Is he going to die?”

“We don’t know.” Vivi hurried over to the bedside and took Bianca’s clammy hand. “The doctor on staff said his vitals are all good. They sedated him, just like you, because there’s no way to know if he’s going to be under Yasmin’s influence. She’s gone but there are so many variables about how Genie’s Wish works that we don’t know, like the effective distance of the wireless controller.”

It just kept getting worse. She’d never be able to forgive herself. God knew Taz would never forgive her. “So she’ll always be able to just turn it on and control us if she’s close enough?”

“No.” Clay shook his head. “That was one of their two biggest frustrations with version three, according to their files. One, they haven’t been able to make the non-microchipped version two addictive. Two, the microchip in version three is only viable for twenty-four hours. That’s why they had to continually shoot up Gidget.”

Poor Gidget. Yasmin had held her prisoner for months. That would fuck up a person without even adding any lingering effect of Genie’s Wish. Gidget was strong though, and she had her girls from St. B’s to lean on, not to mention the guys on the team who’d already devoted so much time to finding a woman they’d never met. Whatever Gidget needed and however long it took, she’d have it.

“Where is she?” Bianca asked.

“She went straight to a military hospital in Hawaii. Lexie, Elisa and Marko are with her,” Vivi said. “She was unconscious after Marko had to shoot her to save Taz and she’d been injected with so much Genie’s Wish since s

he’d been kidnapped that we needed her in a secure location while she detoxes. No one knows what she’ll be like when she wakes up.”

“But Taz will be waking up soon.” She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more they were holding back.

Clay and Vivi exchanged a look.

“We don’t know,” he said. “But we hope so.”

Gritting her teeth against the expected pain, Bianca tossed back the sheet and pivoted so her legs dangled over the edge of the bed. “I’m going to be there when he does.”

“You’re still recovering,” Clay countered, moving to stand directly in front of her in an attempt to block her way. “You need to stay here.”

That wasn’t going to happen.

Tapping into the fury and worry filling her, she lowered her feet to the cold tile floor and shoved Clay back a few inches. “Unless you pull a gun on me, you’re not keeping me from Taz—and even if you had the brass balls to do that, I wouldn’t bet on you winning.”

Vivi rolled a wheelchair over to the bedside. “Get in. We can’t have you shooting a federal agent, even if he is a total pain in the ass.”

Muscles shaking in protest after all that had happened, Bianca got into the wheelchair. Without any other comment, Vivi spun her around and wheeled her down the hall, turning into a room three doors down from where she’d been.

Her heart stopped.

Taz lay in a bed with about a dozen more beeping monitors surrounding him than were in her room. His skin was a pale imitation of his normal tawny brown color and the circles under his closed eyes were so dark they were almost black. A clear mask covered his mouth and was connected by a narrow tube to the nearby respirator.

“Oh my God, Vivi.” She covered her face with her hands. “What have I done?”

Taz

A cold darkness surrounded Taz. It was so complete, so all-encompassing that it wasn’t worth fighting against even if he could remember why he should. This coal-black blanket was all he needed. It was his soarta to be alone like this. He’d always known it, which was why he’d always held back.

Inside this cave of shadows though he was free. No angry specter of his father stalked him, thundering and threatening. No sad spirit of his mother followed him, softly weeping as she pretended everything would be alright. No quietly disappointed ghost of Freddie clung to him, wondering when he would realize there was more to life, to love, to everything than Taz had believed. There was no failure, no disillusionment, no wish for something more he couldn’t define.

Here, there was only perfect quiet and total aloneness.

But it didn’t feel right. Something—no someone—was missing.

Again, he tried to remember…but there was nothing.

A line of warmth curled around his waist, sinking into him and making the pitch dark a few shades brighter. It brought with it memories that tugged at him with silken webs. A woman’s ruby-red smile. The softness of her skin. Her teasing laughter. The sweetness of her satisfied sighs. All of it pulled him closer to the light.

Little sounds began to intrude into the gray darkness. A soft beep and another at a higher pitch. The whoosh of pumped air. Voices in the distance.

He turned away from it, but the silk strands held tight, bringing with them the smell of sweet flowers, the sky after the rain and something as enduring and illusive as hope. The darkness faded more to the pink-gray of first dawn.