Strangers of the Night: Touched by Passion / Passion in Disguise / Unexpected Passion

She’d known that when she took the assignment. Breaking him out of the hospital was an impossibility, no matter her level of skill or how much the Crew could help with computer hacking or other measures to get past security. She’d always known she would have to wait until they were transferring him and move at that time. So why, then, did she feel so suddenly desperate not to wait any longer?

“It’s been years.” She leaned closer to the computer, staring into the camera. “Is it possible they’re simply going to leave him alone? There are plenty of residents at Wyrmwood living out their lives without interference.”

“Not a single one of the children captured from Collins Creek have been left to live without interference,” Vadim said. “The ones that showed no abilities were, of course, put into the foster care system. The others have either been kept, as Jed’s been kept, or exterminated.”

“There are some others,” Samantha said quietly. “The ones who got out.”

She’d read about them in the files. A few obscure references, no more than that, these special children almost as much of a myth as Bigfoot. Sometimes spotted in the wild, but never captured, their existence never proven.

“You know as well as I do that nobody’s ever been able to connect anyone out there with Collins Creek. It was swept, the residents removed and most of them died during the raid.” Vadim paused. “Certainly we’ve had many cases of men and women with extraordinary psychic talents, but none of them have been connected with the farm or the cult. And even if they were, does it matter? Your assignment is to protect this one man.”

“Of course.” She nodded, pulling the robe closer around her throat from the sudden chill sweeping over her.

“Samantha, you should know I have no doubts about your ability to handle this assignment. You’re very, very good at what you do.” Vadim did smile again, though the effect of it was probably less reassuring than he meant it to be.

Samantha saw no point in false modesty. She’d spent her childhood being trained to survive any situation, including the impossible, like an alien invasion or the rise of the undead. She’d joined the Crew after several stints in government organizations so secret even she wasn’t sure who ran them—only that the training she’d had as a kid had been nothing compared to what she’d learned there. Those skills and credentials had been what got her approved to work at Wyrmwood. “Yes. It’s not that I’m worried about it... I’ll be ready. But...”

“Yes?”

Samantha shook her head, knowing she had to own up to it. “It’s the subject. He seems to have formed an...attachment.”

“Ah. Can you use it?”

Startled, she recoiled with a grimace. “What? No! Why would I?”

“If it was necessary to gain his cooperation, I would expect you to, especially if it was to help protect him.” Vadim shrugged, eyeing her.

“I fail to see how encouraging him to have a crush on me could help protect him.” The words came out too sharply. She sounded guilty.

Vadim gave her a narrow-eyed look. “The subject has been kept in near isolation since childhood. Before that, he’d been raised in horrific social conditions. Understandably, he could be expected to form an emotional or sexual attachment to an attractive caregiver. The records show you are likely not even the first...”

That made her feel all kinds of irritable. She’d read the reports, of course, about the nurse who’d been removed from duty when her relationship with Jed had become closer than the Wyrmwood executives decided was appropriate. That had been when he was little more than a kid, though. It wasn’t like what was between the two of them. It couldn’t be. She kept her expression smooth. “We don’t talk about it, of course. I do my job. I leave the room. I wait.”

“Ah, yes. The waiting. Well, we’re all waiting.”

“And why?” she demanded suddenly. “Why not just take him out of there now? There has to be a way!”

“If there was, don’t you think we’d have gotten him out of there long ago?” Vadim fixed her with a stern look. “Even with inside help, Wyrmwood is impossible to break into or out of.”

“Nothing is impossible. I thought that was the Crew’s motto or something like that.”

Vadim laughed without much humor, although his dark eyes did twinkle. “If we had a motto, I suspect it would be more like ‘nothing is improbable.’ As it is, you won’t have to wait much longer. All the signs are pointing to his imminent transfer. Be prepared to hear more as early as next week.”

“If you can tell they’re getting ready to transfer him,” she began, but stopped at the look on the older man’s face. She’d never made Vadim angry with her, and she wasn’t about to find out now what might happen to her if she did. As charming and paternal as Vadim could be, there was a darkness in him that Samantha recognized...and didn’t want to mess with.

“This connection you believe he’s begun. Is it something you reciprocate?”

“Of course not,” she said steadily, getting his gaze head-on as best she could through the computer screen. “He doesn’t deserve to be put down like a dog that’s lived past its use, that’s all.”

Vadim said nothing for a moment or so, studying her. Not for the first time, Samantha wondered what Vadim’s talents were. She wouldn’t have doubted that one of them was reading minds.

“Be ready,” he said finally.

Chapter 11 (#ude717567-7d12-5712-ab10-47a0b9cc06fa)

“How are we feeling today?” Dr. Ransom pushed his glasses up higher on his nose with one hand, tapping his pen against the desk with the other. “Nurse says you didn’t eat your breakfast.”

“Her name’s Patty,” Jed said mildly. Dr. Ransom never knew their names. Jed wouldn’t have been surprised if the doctor barely remembered Jed’s name. He certainly hardly ever used it.

“Was there something wrong with breakfast?”

“I didn’t feel like eating today. That’s all.” Jed used a small push, a tiny one, undetectable, to still the doctor’s tapping pen by making it microcosmically harder to move. Just enough to make the other man feel as though he didn’t want to make the effort, but nothing close to him feeling that he was being manipulated.

It had taken Jed a long, long time to refine that skill. Many hours of having to listen to the doctor’s relentless fidgeting.

“Not hungry? Not feeling well?”

“I don’t like pancakes,” Jed said.

Dr. Ransom looked confused. “No? Who doesn’t like pancakes?”

“Me. Never liked them.” Jed leaned back in the chair, one leg crossed over the other, with a grin. Blank and empty, stretching so wide it felt as though his teeth were the size of dominoes.

“Well. I suppose I can make sure the kitchen never sends you pancakes again.”

That wasn’t going to happen. If anything, now that he’d made his preference known, he’d be served pancakes three or four times a week, and that was because they liked to mess with him that way. The truth was, Jed preferred pancakes to eggs, but although he knew that lies were the devil speaking with his tongue, he didn’t care. He’d stopped caring about that a long, long time ago, about the same time he’d decided to stop playing by their rules. He was simply careful about how he went about it, that was all.

When Jed didn’t answer, Dr. Ransom looked concerned. “Nurse said you didn’t get out of bed at the usual time, as well.”

“Her name is Patty,” Jed repeated.

Dr. Ransom put the pen down completely and laced his fingers together. “Patty.”

“Samantha is the day nurse. Bryant and Carl are the orderlies. Stephen is the janitor.”

“You’ve never interacted with the custodial staff,” Dr. Ransom said.

And the janitor’s name was not really Stephen, but the doctor wouldn’t know that. Jed shrugged. He thought about using his talent to take up the pen and bury it point-deep into the wood of the desk, but didn’t want to give them the satisfaction or deal with the consequences.

“Is there a reason why you overslept today, Jed?”

The fact he’d been unable to sleep last night, tossing and turning after the interlude with Samantha. He wasn’t about to admit that to Dr. Ransom, though. As far as the doctor was concerned, Jed barely knew the nurse, and that was how he wanted it to stay.

When he was fourteen or so, there’d been another nurse. Miss Jean. That was how she’d referred to herself, and how Jed still thought of her. Miss Jean had worn the same uniform as all the other nurses, the same as it had been in all the years Jed had been in Wyrmwood. She’d had pale, short hair and wide green eyes and a smile that reminded him of his birth mother’s, when Mother had been happy. Miss Jean had never looked at him the way the others had sometimes. Afraid. No matter what he did or how he behaved, Miss Jean always stayed calm, friendly, kind. And because she never gave him reason to misbehave, slowly, slowly, Jed had stopped always trying to cause trouble.

When it had become apparent to the unseen—whoever was in charge, the ones he’d learned watched and judged, but never met with him in person—that Miss Jean’s influence was changing Jed from who they wanted him to be into something else, something less violent, well. Miss Jean went off shift one day and never came back.

That was when Jed had started training himself to unlearn all the things they’d taught him.