AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He could getinto the concept of vegetarian comfort food for dinner, Luke decided, especially if there was someone to share it with. Someone interesting. Someone like Talia March.Forget it. There isn’t anyone else like Talia March out there in the known universe. She’s one of a kind.
He stopped on the sidewalk across the street from Talia’s apartment tower and looked up, mentally counting floors until he reached the twentieth. The lights glowed in the windows of her apartment. When she had ushered him out the door a few minutes ago she had mentioned that she planned to pack. That was probably what she was doing at that very moment. Packing for Night Island wasn’t going to be a problem for him. Everything he needed was on his phone or in the duffel and the pack he was carrying.
That, he decided, did not say much that was positive about his current lifestyle.
He had a brief fantasy of calling Talia to see if she would come out onto the balcony to wave goodbye. A dumbass fantasy.
He turned away from the warmly lit windows of the apartmenton the twentieth floor and kicked up his senses a little, a technique that, during the last three months, had become automatic whenever he found himself in an unfamiliar environment.
He started walking the five blocks to the hotel. The rain had stopped, leaving a sharp chill in the air. The still-damp streets reflected the lights of the shop fronts and passing cars. There were other people on the sidewalk, coming and going from the neighborhood bars and restaurants. He wondered which of the local eateries and watering holes were Talia’s favorites.
Focus, Rand.
He summoned up some willpower and concentrated on the mission to Night Island. He and Talia were in agreement on that course of action. It was not just their only solid lead, it felt like a damned good lead. If the situation looked different when they were on the ground tomorrow they could take the ferry back to the mainland and try to find another angle to pursue.
There was no question but that the new owner of Night Island, the Wynford Institute for the Study of Medicinal Botany, raised a lot of red flags. On the surface it seemed to be a legitimate nonprofit, but if there was one thing he had learned during his time in the intelligence sphere, it was that when it came to entities like privately controlled research operations, appearances were frequently deceiving.
The first shock of the ice knife struck just as he stopped at an intersection to wait for a light. It felt as if a blade had been driven into his chest. The force of the blow did not take him down, but he staggered back a couple of steps and dropped the duffel. Automatically he glanced down, expecting to see the hilt of a knife sticking out of his chest.
There was no blade, but the pain began to spread. He was growing colder.
Heart attack.
No. Someone is trying to kill you. Better do something about it.
Instinct and intuition took over. He pulled hard on his new talent, trying to push back on the icy sensation in his chest. The cold immediately retreated. That settled it. He was dealing with psychic energy.
The invisible knife of glacial ice struck again. This time the cold expanded rapidly inside him, chilling his lungs, making it hard to breathe.
He channeled the adrenaline washing through his bloodstream, concentrated, and got a fix on the frequency of the powerful wavelengths of ice coming at him. He focused, sending out subtle destabilizing currents in carefully calibrated pulses. He had never tried to flatline such energy before, but the technique turned out to be no different from the one he used to manipulate an agitated aura.
The ice knife in his chest vanished as suddenly as it had struck. He could breathe freely again. The driver of one of the stopped vehicles gunned the engine and roared through the intersection, defying the red light. Horns blared. Brakes screeched.
Luke turned quickly but the car carrying the assailant disappeared around a corner and was gone.
He waited a moment, running through scenarios and possibilities. They all ended with the same conclusion, which, in turn, left him with only one logical option.
He took out his phone and made the call. Talia answered on the first ring.
“What is it?” she asked, her voice laced with tension. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“How did you know that something was wrong?” he asked, distracted. He could not remember the last time someone had displayed so much anxiety about his well-being.
“Answer my question,” she snapped. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. I’m fine. Calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down, damn it. Tell me what happened.”
He tried to come up with a subtle way of describing the situation. And failed.
“Someone just tried to kill me,” he said.
“Oh, my God. But you’re okay?”
“Yes. Listen, Talia, this puts a twist on things.”
“This is where you tell me it wasn’t some random act of street violence, isn’t it?”
