Untouched

“Wasn’t going to grocery shop for you?”

Risa nodded, her cheeks staining.

“What else can you tell me about him?”

“Like what?”

“C’mon—if you saw him naked, even once, you’ve seen the goods, right? Impressive? Average? Museum-worthy or garage sale?”

Risa crunched her eyebrows again, unsure exactly what Kristy was hinting at.

Kristy sighed exaggeratedly. “How big is he? You know, down there?”

Risa’s eyes went wide with realization, and she suddenly couldn’t resist teasing. She marveled at it for a moment—she hadn’t felt this sensation in, well, as long as she could recall. She smiled, shrugging.

“It’s hard to tell—everything looks small on the screen.”

Kristy moaned in frustration, and then laughed, continuing to watch Ben work out. Ben Richter was attractive, she supposed. Risa knew about sex—in the technical sense. With her powers, Dr. Laslow wouldn’t permit anyone to come that close to her, and her life wasn’t one that encouraged relationships to blossom. She thought about sex from time to time out of natural curiosity, but it was such a nonissue in her life that she’d gotten used to putting it out of her mind.

However, if she were completely truthful, she’d admit that she had noticed Daniel MacAlister more than once—he was difficult to ignore. There was something about him that had always grabbed her attention. He stood apart, though she’d never really thought about why.

She’d been on a team with him for the first time when she was only eighteen. She remembered feeling awkward in his presence, something that hadn’t ever happened before. There’d been one point on the mission when he’d stripped down to change into a diving suit, and she’d had to curl her fingers into her palms to stop from running a hand down his chest. She hadn’t understood the urge—it had shocked her on some basic level. She knew the power of her touch meant it was forbidden for her to lay hands on anyone she worked with. It was standard operating procedure, and she’d never been tempted to break the rules. Until she’d seen him.

When they’d returned, Dr. Laslow hadn’t been happy with her biofeedback, which had clued him in to how distracted she’d been, and why. A long lecture on her duties, on maintaining focus, had resulted. Risa had worked hard not to let it happen again. Natural curiosity or not, her work was too important to let silly things like sex interfere.

That wasn’t the case now. However, as fascinated as she was by her response to MacAlister’s kiss, she doubted it was going to happen again.

“Oh, here we go—a phone call. Maybe this will tell me something interesting.”

Risa’s attention swung back to the screen. Ben picked up the phone and Kristy pumped up the volume until his voice could be heard clearly.

“Oh, he’s going to meet friends out—male friends by the sound of it. No trace of a girlfriend waiting in the wings so far.”

“Do you know the place he mentioned?”

“I do. And he’s going to be there at seven, so I think I might just be there, too.”

“Sounds like you have a good plan.”

Kristy bit her lip. “But it would look bad for me to just be standing around in a bar, like I do that all the time, you know, hanging out and picking up guys.”

“That’s bad?”

Kristy rolled her eyes. “Yes, unless you only want a one-night pickup, and I’m hoping for a little more than that with Ben. Maybe a lot more.”

“How can you know?”

“I told you—I have a feeling.”

“Right. The feeling.”

It was all very complicated, and Risa suspected she was fortunate to have skipped this part of human relationships.

“You have to come with me. You can wear that new dress we bought.”

Risa stepped back, hands up. “No. No way.”

“You don’t do alcohol?”

Risa had never touched a drop—she’d been on a strictly regimented diet at the compound. “I’ve never had it.”

“You’ve never been to a bar? Never had a beer, even as a teenager? What else haven’t you done?”

Risa didn’t answer, but felt heat move up into her face. She hated that—it never used to happen, unless she was angry or being chastised—but now it seemed like every five minutes her face was turning red.

Kristy somehow understood and she clapped a hand over her astonished expression. Risa was amazed at the level of communication humans could share without saying anything.

“Oh, honey…really?”

Risa answered coolly, hoping to put an end to the conversation. “I appreciate you wanting me to come with you, but I’d really rather stay here. You must have other friends you could go with….”

Kristy shook her head, stepping forward and taking both of Risa’s hands in hers. “I don’t—not here. All of the women at work are older or married and with families. My friends are all back in Boston. I know it’s a lot for you, but it would be fun for you to get out, to live a little. Sounds like you missed a lot while you were working for the government. Don’t you deserve to have some fun? To have a life?”

The words burned through Risa’s objections and stoked the flames of deeply hidden desires and curiosities so long denied. While she knew that Kristy was being convincing partly for self-serving reasons, Risa wondered if she wasn’t right. She had missed out on a lot. If she had to be stuck in this “normal” life, maybe it was time she started grabbing it by the horns and catching up.

She lifted the bags and looked at Kristy, relenting. “You think I should wear the red dress?”

4

DANIEL SAT ON THE EDGE of his bed, flipping through Laslow’s reports on Risa—he was supposed to destroy them as per Jack’s orders, but he’d held on to the files, reading them again to remind himself that what he was seeing was real. His eyes moved over one paragraph:

1992. Mission objective: detect terrorist communications on emerging Internet chatrooms—sift through data to select most likely targets and associations. The resource collapsed after six hours of sifting, emergency care implemented. More effective use of our resource in this capacity will require research to prevent overloads. The resource seems to experience great deal of pain when not protected from overload, though all of its physical indicators show no permanent damage. Increased healing capacity? More experiments need to be done to define its upper and lower ranges of sensitivity.

He’d known that Risa had mind-reading abilities, but no one outside of her handlers really knew the total extent of her powers. Most knowledgeable of all was the author of the reports, Dr. Peter Laslow, who’d been studying and training her since birth. Now Daniel knew everything, too, and he was having difficulty reconciling it all. Little he read in the reports seemed reflective of the woman he’d met in the store today.

He winced every time Laslow referred to Risa as “the resource” or “it.” Daniel knew it was to protect her identity should the files get into the wrong hands, but still. She’d been just thirteen years old when that entry was written.

She’d been used for just about everything he could imagine—interrogations, most frequently. When she was barely more than a child she’d spent weeks on end meeting with some of the worst terrorist suspects on the planet, probing their minds for what information she could relay to her handlers.

The notes detailed a string of collapses occurring with increased frequency in the adolescent years. Some were more serious than others as they discovered and tested the limits of her powers. They’d eventually developed ways for her to filter what her mind grabbed on to, to protect herself—not out of compassion, but because they couldn’t risk losing her as an asset. After her accident, she’d suffered frequent blackouts and headaches; Daniel wondered if they were still happening.

He’d seen the ravages of terrorism. The images were scarred onto his mind. But Risa had actually been inside of the minds of people who committed, or intended to commit, some of the worst crimes in history. She’d learned their languages and had been a part of them when she explored their minds. What did that do to a person? Could she ever adjust to ordinary life?

Hell, he’d had a wonderful, loving childhood. Even in the course of his work, he hadn’t been subjected to half of what she had, but he didn’t think he could ever go back to ordinary life again. In fact, he knew he couldn’t. Once he’d seen the utter destruction one person could wreak upon another, and even more disturbing, what he himself was capable of, there was no way to work back from that.

The thought distracted him—his situation at the moment was difficult. There were eight messages on his room’s phone, all from his family. Three were from his mother. Anna hadn’t wasted any time getting the word out. They were voices from another lifetime—familiar and foreign all at once, connecting to something deep inside of him he’d thought was gone. But he had no intention of responding, at least not until he knew what was going on with Risa. Just being around his family could put them in danger if Risa were aligning herself with bad people. Daniel would rather risk his family’s ire than their safety.

Levering himself up, he grabbed his keys. He was back on task. Rereading the files reaffirmed his mission, reminding him why he was here. Risa could be a threat. She’d also been a victim, the way he saw it, but he had to push that aside and deal with the facts. If she was a problem, he’d have to take care of it.