Rush (Phoenix Rising) (3 page)

“No. Get . . . out.”

He tried to push himself up, but his arms wouldn’t work. Another
crackle-crackle-crackle
sounded. An angrier, heavier
fizzzzz
. Panic rushed his chest.
Jess. Protect Jess.

He pulled one knee under his body with strength born of sheer horror. The move knifed pain through his leg and hip. Jess crouched before him and time slowed. He watched her beautiful mouth form his name, her tortured expression peer at him through the Plexiglas facemask.

He pushed with every ounce of power in his damaged legs and thrust himself forward. He knocked her over and covered her body with his. Absorbed the feeling—the very last time he’d touch her, he knew.

She grabbed his arms. Called his name. The blast came a second later. Ripped him away and speared him across the warehouse with the speed of a rocket. But his mind kicked into a time warp, slowing the seconds, drawing everything around him into something from a slow-motion, action-movie sequence.

Including the sound of his voice screaming her name, until he slammed into a concrete wall and felt his body shatter like sheet glass.

 

J
essica Fury paced the length of her office, trying to concentrate on the men’s voices coming through her Bluetooth headset. Even though the space was quiet at seven a.m., her mind was frayed at the edges.

She couldn’t get over this jet lag, couldn’t get any decent sleep, couldn’t cope with this agonizing build of endless days toward the fifth anniversary of Quaid’s death.

Out her expansive windows, the Capitol building stood strong, regal and righteous against a crisp blue sky. Golden, amber and fiery-red hues of fall lined the streets leading from her office building to the gleaming white dome.

The whole vision was so postcard perfect she thought she might just snap.

God, she
hated
this time of year.

Emotions stirred like acid at cell level. Emotions that would consume her if she let them. She’d made that mistake already. Repeatedly.

“Jessica.” Congressman Wyle’s senior aide’s voice vibrated in her ear, bringing her to attention. “You’ve been awfully quiet.”

She rubbed at the burn in her eyes but pushed her voice into a buoyant tone. “No need to add anything to an already brilliant presentation. Morgan is handling this legislation beautifully. He is beyond capable. I’m only here for support.”

“I agree your new associate is sharp as hell, and I’m glad you and Daryl finally pulled some help aboard, but you know I’m going to get my ass handed to me if I take this to Wyle without your opinion.”

The truth was, at the moment, she couldn’t even scrape the bottom of her soul for a sliver of enthusiasm about this initiative. But then, waking up tomorrow seemed rather pointless right now, too. Out of habit, she glanced at the wall where her calendar normally hung. She’d taken it down the last week of October, unable to face the word
November
for thirty damn days straight.

Focus. Inspiration. Purpose.
Damn, she needed help.

She looked around her gorgeous office and mentally catalogued all its material comforts. She envisioned their private lobbying firm’s bank account with the National Air Transportation Safety Association’s multi-million-dollar retainer snuggled away.

The emptiness inside intensified.

She flipped open the NATSA file on her desk and the heart-crushing image of plane wreckage glared up at her. Real lives had been taken in this crash. In so many crashes like this. Lives as precious as those with whom she’d shared her flight home from Venice two days ago. She still remembered a friendly couple and their baby daughter who’d been sitting in her row.

“My opinion is”—Jessica closed the file and made small circles at her temple to release the tension—“that this proposed hazardous materials addendum to the air cargo security legislation should have been drafted into the original 9/11 security objective. Had our leaders confronted the threat with foresight instead of fear, we wouldn’t all still be taking our shoes off at the airport.”

Stan chuckled. “Well said. Over a decade later and we’re still playing defense instead of offense.”

“Exactly,” Jessica continued. “They put a bomb in a shoe, we inspect everyone’s shoes. They mix chemicals for explosives, we limit the toiletries in carry-on luggage. They use an ink cartridge to build a bomb, we ban all ink cartridges over one pound in cargo. It’s all reactive.

“Our research was conducted by specialists from around the world who have projected every possible situation. They’ve developed a standardized method for properly labeling, packaging and storing all hazardous chemicals for air cargo. This initiative is part of the offensive we’ve been missing to ensure safe air travel with hazardous chemicals.”

“Bravo, Jessica,” Stan said with an appreciative lilt in his smooth, deep voice. “Wyle will eat that shit up.”

Morgan, based in Sacramento, California, where it was barely four freaking a.m., picked up the ball and started tossing in powerful commentary supporting NATSA’s position. Jessica let out her air and turned her mind to standby.

Her gaze followed a row of young aspens, freshly planted throughout Capitol Hill by some restoration society—just another secret plot to torture her, she was sure. The trees swayed together, standing strong in the gust of a mystery breeze, reminding her of the soldierlike camaraderie she’d once shared with her firefighting team. Reminding her of that night she’d lost Quaid.

She turned away from the window only to have her gaze land on the wide dark expanse of the flat panel television mounted in the corner of her office. Usually, she kept it on and muted. But today it was off, turning the massive, silent, black span into a threat, just like every other smooth reflective surface—mirrors, ponds, shiny chrome bumpers, for crying out loud. If she stared at any of them too long, shadows began to dance, take shape and not just show her events in other locations, but open doorways into other realms, beckoning her to take one dangerous step closer.

That damn fire had destroyed everything good in her life—stolen her husband, split her team, annihilated her sense of security and purpose. And it had imposed haunting powers. Powers Jessica didn’t want, need or understand.

She reached for the television remote on her desk, hit the power button and soaked in a split second of anticipated relief. Her panel lit up with three news channels, all reporting on some obvious disaster. Angry flames snapped across all three screens and hope for a respite to her agony dissolved.

Damn it, she was so tired of this. She yanked open her top drawer and grabbed the Xanax she left there—just in case. Even though she knew
just in case
meant: weakness. Plain and simple. This drug was no different from the others she’d used. Yes, this one might be legal, but that didn’t make it any less of a crutch.

But if she ever needed one . . .

. . . it was now.

She closed her eyes on the memory. Picking up the locket lying against her chest, she fisted it in her hand and fought back the pain that could pull her so deep, it took days to recover.

With the Xanax bottle clutched in one hand, her locket in the other, she tuned into the phone conversation again; this time with an ear toward getting off the line. She needed to make a call to her sponsor. Arrange an appointment with her therapist. Check into the local asylum.

Now there was the best idea she’d had in months.

Jessica opened her eyes and released the locket. Outside, the mystery breeze had turned into a full-fledged wind, buffeting the tender aspens until they bent to its will. Her inner disquiet was probably wreaking havoc in the local meteorologist’s office. Her mood’s bizarre effects on the weather would probably cause miscalculations in the forecast for the next two days.

Just one more thing she could blame on that damn fire.

She shot a quick glance at the television screens, even though she knew she shouldn’t.

The words popped up on the screen in closed captioning. Fire still undulated in various wide-angle video shots. But what riveted her vision and halted her breath was the color of the flames—a shifting kaleidoscope of orange, blue and purple.

Jessica squeezed her eyes shut. Shook her head so hard, the bun she’d thrown her hair into that morning uncoiled. But when she opened her eyes again, the flames on the screen continued to change color and spit cobalt blue sparks. The text on the bottom right of the screen read:
Rachel, Nevada
.

“. . . the government facility reportedly housed a state-of-the-art laboratory . . .”
Jessica lunged for her desk, trading the Xanax for the remote, and hit the mute button to enable audio.

Discomfort tightened the muscles along Jessica’s shoulders. The flames were eerily familiar. Like the ones that had erupted from those chemicals stored in that warehouse five years before. The fire that had taken Quaid’s life. The fire that had poisoned the entire team and left them all with bizarre paranormal abilities. Chemicals Teague’s research had traced back to the Department of Defense.

How
dare
they blame this bullshit on a fake terrorist cell of traitorous American citizens to cover their own sick screwup.

This was no different from the lies Schaeffer had created about the warehouse fire to cover the true cause of Quaid’s death. No different from the way that bastard—the director of DARPA’s Biological Sciences division then, a senator now—had declared the warehouse fire classified and then barred her team from ever understanding what had really happened.

And then he had the audacity to follow them all like members of the FBI’s top ten most wanted.

Teeth clenched, she tossed the remote down. It clattered against the cherry surface of her desk, tipped over her pencil holder and sent her cell phone and the Xanax skidding across her blotter and onto the floor.

“Jessica?” Morgan’s voice floated through her fog. “Everything okay?”

She tore her eyes from the television. Holy shit. She’d forgotten she was still on the phone. Had completely tuned the men out.

“Yes, of course.” Her shields came up. Her discipline took over. She hurried to the other side of her desk and crouched to scoop her cell phone from the carpet while still talking into her headset. “What you need to stress to Congressman Wyle is that in a recent poll, eighty percent of his constituents in the beautiful state of California had high concerns over this topic, and a whopping seventy-six percent voiced being in favor of
immediate action
to remedy the problem.

“Listen . . .” She wiped a palm over her damp forehead. Her hand was shaking. Her mouth was dry. A tight sensation tugged at her stomach. God, she hadn’t had a craving attack like this in . . . months. “Something’s come up. I’ve got to get going. I’ll talk to you both soon.”

She barely heard the men’s good-byes, already pulling the Bluetooth off her ear and dropping it on her desk.

She picked one news channel and brought it up full screen. A beautiful African-American woman reported from the ravaged area, the scene a significant distance behind her. Still, pillars of smoke spiraled from the decimated remnants of torn concrete buildings and turned the sky an angry iron.
“. . . sixteen confirmed dead with thirty-eight still missing, including a high-ranking official of the Department of Defense. . . .”

Jessica pulled in a shocked breath and wrapped her arms around herself. “Jesus.”

What did this mean? Her mind strayed to Kai, their former team leader, and his ability to sense when the team was in danger. Surely he or someone on the team would have alerted her. She and Kai had their issues, but still . . .

An unfamiliar fear vibrated deep inside her.
Deep breath in. Slow breath out.

She dialed Keira’s number at the FBI field office in Sacramento, where she’d become a special agent after leaving the fire service within a year of the warehouse incident.

After only three rings, Keira’s voicemail picked up, and a sickening sensation stabbed at the very pit of Jessica’s gut. As an active member of the FBI SWAT team, Keira always forwarded her calls, always carried her cell and
always
answered.

“Shit.” Jessica disconnected and dialed Keira’s home number. She and Keira had remained close despite much of the discord Jessica’s move had caused with both her family and some other members of the team.

Her friend’s phone rang five times before an answering machine picked up. Jessica sucked in a pained breath and stabbed END. She refocused on the television as if the news would tell her what to do next.

A pained, worried sound bubbled up from Jessica’s throat as she dialed Teague’s cell. God, she hated to bother him now, with his new wife, Alyssa, nearly eight months pregnant. But aside from Keira, Jessica was closest with Teague and Alyssa, and spoke with them and their daughter Kat weekly over Skype. Teague had suffered the most at DARPA’s hands and kept his fingers on the DoD’s pulse. If anyone knew what was happening, Teague would.

As the fire raged on television, Jessica listened to the news anchor drone in one ear and Teague’s phone ring in the other. He’d recently joined the ATF alongside Luke and had always been as available by phone as Keira. When Teague’s voicemail answered, she disconnected, clutched her phone, crossed her arms again and swiveled toward the window.

“Damn it,” she whispered, holding tight to the panic that tried to spill over. Outside, the smooth blue sky was gone, replaced by sleek storm clouds, mirroring her emotions. “What’s going
on
?”

Maybe Alyssa had gone into early labor. Maybe everyone had joined her and Teague at the hospital. But if that were the case . . . No. Teague had promised to call the minute Alyssa went into labor so Jessica could make arrangements to be there. Maybe she should check into available flights . . .