Genesis (The Evolutioneers Book 1), page 16
“And you’re sure about that.”
She cocked her head and pursed her lips. “Don’t need to be a psychic to see it.”
Doc gestured to the smooth rock walls and the line of narrow windows that ran near the ceiling, letting in the last of the sun’s rays into the room. “This doesn’t appear to be the work of a man who is merely tolerating us. Crystal, look at where we are. Do you think any of us has a chance at a normal relationship if we’re living here, doing this work? If you’re positive that things with Max won’t work out, why stay? Why torture yourself with what you can’t have?”
“Kaitlyn Summerset,” she answered instantly.
“The runaway we found last week?” Alisia asked.
Crystal nodded. “At first it looked like a typical runaway case, until I used my powers and saw that her uncle was abusing her. We saved that girl’s life. Think of how many more people we can help. I don’t want to ruin this opportunity because I couldn’t keep my knees together.”
Doc leaned forward and clasped her hands on her lap. “And what happens when Max gives up and finds solace in another woman’s arms?”
The knife skidded off the top of the apple and scraped against the cutting board. “Solace? That’s a charming euphemism.” Crystal tried to make it a joke when the thought absolutely sickened her and made her want to crawl into a hole. “I…uh—I can’t stop him. I wouldn’t stop him. I’d just have to remind myself that what we’re doing is more important.”
The disbelieving shake of Doc’s head only confirmed she was being delusional. “Good luck with that.”
She’d need it.
“Crystal!” Ripley’s voice boomed down the hall.
“Crap.” Alisia jumped and raced out of the room in the opposite direction.
Crystal frowned. “What is up with them?”
“Who knows.” Doc sighed. “She refuses to talk about it, but I think it has to do with her past.”
Out of respect for her friendship with Doc, Crystal had always refrained from reading Alisia’s memories. Any demons the young woman fought appeared to be of the internal kind, and Crystal never saw a reason to use her powers to dig deeper. She liked the girl and hoped that Alisia would come to think of her as a friend as well.
Ripley’s shaggy blond head appeared in the doorway. “Hey, there you are.” He paused and inhaled deep. He frowned and turned to look down the hall in the direction Alisia had run off. His lips turned down at the corners for a second before he blinked and looked back at Crystal. “I need you.”
“To do what?”
He swiped a cluster of grapes from her plate. “I need next week’s lottery numbers.”
“No. Besides, I was only able to do that once.”
“Come on, please.”
“No.” She picked up her plate and wine and strode past him toward the great room.
He followed. “And that one time you only gave me four of the numbers. Not cool.”
Yeah, she did. She held back a telling grin. “You still won some money.”
“It wasn’t enough. I need some work done to my truck and it’s not like we’re raking in the dough working these cases for free. I don’t want to ask Max for money.”
“So instead you are going to steal it from the state.”
“I go to a legitimate store with legitimate money and buy a legitimate ticket that has not been tampered with. That’s not stealing.” One of her strawberries disappeared between his lips.
“Even if I could, I wouldn’t.”
“You’re no fun,” he grumbled.
“Yeah, Crystal,” Max chimed in when she entered the great room. She had to tilt her chin way up to meet his icy gaze that narrowed in challenge. “You’re no fun. Why is that?”
She took a moment to calm her racing heart. Oh, she wanted to give in to the desire. Craved to feel the flames, but that path only led to disaster. “I’m loads of fun.” She lifted her plate. “Gouda?”
The muscles in his jaw flexed. “No, thank you.”
She flashed him a tight smile and sat down in an overstuffed chair clear across the room. “What’s the score?” she asked Chase, who sat on the couch facing the large-screen TV.
“Mariners are losing. Enough said. A crappy end to a crappy season.”
“They have to,” Addison replied, her gaze fixed on the tiny laptop in front of her as her fingers flew across the keys. “Owners want to sell. If the team does too well, the price ramps up higher than anyone wants to buy them for. If they lose too much, then the owners lose out. So the plan is to end the season with a nice and tidy slightly above-average win percentage.”
Only the hum of the television broke the silence of the room as they all stared at the young woman. You’d think by now they’d be used to her relaying an obscure bit of information.
“And you know this how?” Chase ventured to ask.
“It was in private emails between the owners and management. If they agreed to let the team fail on occasion, they were guaranteed positions with the prospective new owners. They have a formula of which games they’ll lose.” She shook her head with a smirk, eyes still on her monitor. “Their network security is really outdated. You’d think they would be more careful with that kind of information.”
“Addison,” Crystal whispered. “You’re not telling anyone which games to make bets on? Like Ripley?”
“I can hear you over here,” he called from his seat across the room. “Exceptional hearing. Remember?”
“I wouldn’t do that.” Addison glanced up with a secret smile and pushed her wire-rimmed glasses up her pert nose. With her freshly scrubbed face and long, blonde braids, Addison looked like an innocent teenager but the girl was pushing thirty. Definitely not a woman to underestimate. “He knows that I wouldn’t hesitate to mess with him. I could be giving him the answers, or not, then he’d run around in circles trying to decide which it was.”
Crystal smiled back and nibbled on a water cracker.
The weight of Max’s gaze from thirty feet away weighed on her, dared her to look him in the eye and acknowledge the heat between them. Instead, she lifted her glass and took a healthy swallow of wine. The spicy fluid filled her mouth, a poor substitution for the salt of his skin and the heat of his mouth. Nothing erased the taste of him. She was beginning to think nothing would.
Tears of frustration threatened to spill as she realized that ignoring him was going to be next to impossible.
“Hey, guys. Look at this.” Chase broke into her maudlin thoughts by turning up the volume on the television.
“Good evening.” A male reporter stood under a bright light on a residential street corner. “This is breaking news. We have just gotten word that police have closed down 128th St. in the Coal Field neighborhood, where an earlier drug bust turned into a hostage situation.” The reporter continued to talk over footage of a ranch house bathed in flashing red and blue lights. Behind the police and SWAT vehicles, a mob of locals had gathered and were shouting with their fists raised.
“The house was rumored to be a hub of heroin distribution and was targeted by law enforcement to be shut down. But when officers arrived on the scene this evening to enforce the warrant, they discovered small children were inside the home.
“According to sources, the accused, William Eggers, drew a gun when he spotted the police. He has shut himself inside and is threatening to open fire if they come any closer. It is also rumored that he has explosives in the house. Adding to the tense situation are neighbors who have gathered to protest the police presence. They believe that it is law enforcement who are endangering the children by not complying with Eggers’s wishes.”
Crystal’s eyes flew open as her pupils widened like a lens of a camera.
In her vision, she saw what appeared to be a tall, thin man wearing a gray T-shirt with large sweat stains under his arms standing by the window and peering through the slit in the blinds. A pistol was gripped in one hand, a near-catatonic six-year-old boy in the other. Tied back to back in banged-up wooden dining chairs were two women, both gagged, with tears streaking their cheeks. A little girl of two sat on the floor under one of the women. Her faded pink shirt was stained in red Popsicle and matched the color of the rubber bands holding her pigtails high on her head.
Outside the dilapidated house, Max stood talking with Sheriff Lancaster with Chase by their side, preparing to rush the front door.
“No!” Crystal shouted and jumped to her feet, sending strawberries and bits of cheese flying. “No, no, no, no.”
This time she was the recipient of the wide-eyed stare.
Max looked back and forth between her and the television before understanding suddenly glittered in his eyes. “What did you see?”
“No.” She shook her head. Her mouth opened to protest again then snapped shut.
He was by her side in an instant. His hands were warm on her elbow as he pulled her closer. “Crystal, what did you see?” His tone was soft, but firm.
“We can’t.” Her voice trembled. “We’re not ready. We haven’t trained for anything like that.”
Chase dropped his feet from where they had been propped up on the coffee table. “Do you see us there? I am so in.”
“What did you see?” Max asked again. His blue eyes danced as an anticipatory grin curled up one corner of his mouth.
Her heart lodged in her throat made it difficult to speak. “Two women tied back to back. A little girl sitting at their feet. Eggers using a young boy as a human shield. Outside the house, you’re talking to Sheriff Lancaster.”
“Yes.” His smile widened as he pointed a finger at her, then the others, then back at her. “Now it begins.” He turned to Ripley, excitement high in his voice. “Call in Doc and Alisia. Addison, hack into the police network and get all of the information of what exactly is going down.” His hand tightened on her arm. “This is the test, right, sweetheart?”
As much as it curdled her stomach to admit it, he was right. This was what they’d been building toward. Putting themselves in harm’s way so others wouldn’t have to. It was another step in preparation of taking on Madden. If they succeeded, they were ready to go after the big man himself.
“What’s going on?” Doc asked as she entered the room, Alisia close behind.
“Have you heard about the standoff in Coal Field?”
“Yeah. We just saw it on the news.”
Max nodded at Crystal. “Crystal saw us there. Addison, what do you have?”
Her fingers blurred across the keyboard, her superhuman powers downloading, sorting, and arranging the information faster than any processor. A few keystrokes sent the images she collected to the television for everyone to see.
“William Eggers. Age twenty-six. Black male, six feet, one hundred-eighty pounds. At least according to his last driver’s license. Out on parole three months now after doing four years for drug smuggling, dealing, and possession of illegal firearms. Warrant was issued for his arrest today after intel was received that he’s dealing heroin from his home. The house belongs to his mother Roberta, age forty-five and one of the hostages. Also living there is his girlfriend Anita, age twenty-four.”
As she spoke a mug shot of the young Hispanic woman and her statistics scrolled across the screen. “Served six months for prostitution a few years ago. They have one child together, Lucia, age two. A boy, Zach, is his child from a previous relationship. He’s six.”
The photos zipped off the screen and were replaced with blueprints of the house and an aerial map of the neighborhood. As Addison continued to speak, different graphics expanded into 3-D images.
“The two-story house is roughly twelve hundred square feet. Two bedroom, two bath. Entrances are here and here.” She indicated with her cursor. “According to the chatter, police arrived at six p.m. with information that Eggers would be home alone with two other associates. Before police entered, they heard children crying inside. They called off the bust, but Eggers saw them and fired shots out the window.
“The standoff began then. It’s not confirmed, but it’s reported that he has C-4 on the premises, hence why the bomb squad is on the scene. Word spread throughout the neighborhood and brought out the crowds. It appears the biggest protesters are Eggers’s brothers. They’re the ones enciting the crowd and pushing for the police to leave. Of course, with explosives present, the bomb squad isn’t going anywhere.”
“Thank you, Addison.” Max resumed his position front and center and clapped his hands together. “Right. This is how we’ll do this. Two teams. Chase and Doc are in one Rover, with Ripley, Crystal, and me in the other. Alisia, stay here with Addison in the comm room to assist her. Guys, this is our moment. Now is the time we make our mark and let it be known that justice is going to be handled a little differently from now on. If we do this, it will send a message and maybe Madden will hear and it will rattle him into reacting. Now, Sheriff Lancaster is not going to take our assistance easily. We’ll go in, make him see reason,” he said with a smirk. “And end it quickly, with as little bloodshed as possible. Meet in the garage in fifteen minutes. Any questions?”
They all agreed as he looked each person in the eye. When his gaze met Crystal’s, she nodded. Fight the good fight and save the day. Despite her nerves, she knew this moment had been on the horizon. Now that it had dawned, she’d be ready.
As soon as he dismissed them, she took off for her room.
“Crystal.”
She should have known Max wasn’t finished with her.
Turning to face him, she lifted her chin. Right now, he wasn’t a man she cared for. He was her commander, and she would treat him as such. “Yes, sir?”
His footsteps slowed as he neared, his brows drawn with wariness and concern. “Don’t call me ‘sir,’ Crystal. Will you be all right? You don’t have to go if you’re worried or afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” she snapped then regained her composure. “You were right. This is what we’ve been working toward. What we are meant to do. The vision just surprised me, and I don’t want you—anyone—to get hurt. Don’t worry. I can do this.”
His gaze softened as he nodded. He reached out with one finger and stroked the curl resting along her cheek. When he opened his mouth to speak, she pulled away.
“Twelve minutes, right? I’ll be ready.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Max turned the key in the ignition of the Land Rover and in his peripheral vision caught sight of his Ferrari parked beside him. Man, how long had it been since he last drove that monster?
Once upon a time, his Ferrari had been his baby. His pride and joy. Cruising along the mountain pass or speeding down the streets of long-forgotten logging towns had been his release, his reason for going out into the world and clearing his mind. And now?
He didn’t miss it one bit.
A wiry grin curled his lips as he adjusted his earpiece. “Audio up and ready?”
“Go ahead and commence with audio test,” Addison replied from the comm room.
He nodded at Chase, who was waiting in the second Rover with Doc Kelly behind the driver’s wheel. “Max, standing by,” he began.
“You mean ‘Maestro’?” Chase snickered into their earpieces. “The talent in command.”
Max rolled his eyes. He wished that nickname hadn’t stuck. It didn’t sound near menacing enough. “Knock it off, Twilight.”
“Doc standing by.”
Chase replied, followed by Crystal, who sat in the backseat behind Max.
“Red leader, standing by,” Ripley piped from the front passenger seat and shared a laughing glance with Max as the ladies responded with a groan that reverberated in their earpieces.
“Beta Team, ready to head out?” Max asked, still chuckling over Ripley’s quip.
“Ready,” Doc answered.
“Why do we have to be called ‘Beta Team’?” Chase asked.
“Would you rather be ‘Number Two’?” Max mocked as he pulled out of the cave and into the dark forest.
“I’d rather be ‘Team Intrepid.’ And why does Doc always get to drive?”
“Because she’s older and has years of experience.”
“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” she gasped.
“Of course,” Ripley agreed with a laugh. “With age comes wisdom and all of that.”
“Watch it, beast man. I control the access to your flea dip.”
“I don’t have fleas,” he grumbled with an absentminded scratch behind his ear.
Max smiled at the banter. It reminded him of the smack talk he used to engage in while playing online games. However, it was ten times better to witness the snickering grins in person. Who would have guessed he’d prefer conversing with a group of real people over avatars?
Crystal had. She’d known from day one he was meant to do greater things than to hide out on his mountain, twirling rocks and sticks around with his mind. She saw in him what he refused to acknowledge: a man desperate to belong.
Years of being treated like a freak had contributed to his “fuck-you” attitude against the world. Now that he was working on being a part of something special with others who were also considered outsiders, he recognized the life of a loner was just that, damn lonely.
Plus, there was no denying that having these specific people beside him was definitely an advantage in the fight against his father, although he did find value in them beyond their powers. Their enthusiasm, their integrity, the willingness to just try made him proud to be included in their circle.
And what of the future?
There would come a day when Madden would be no more. What then? Could he walk away from his team? Return to the solitary existence he led before?
He glanced in the rearview mirror and observed Crystal sitting in the backseat with her face turned to the window. Her thick curls were knotted in a bun and tucked neatly under a knit cap. The black uniform made her pale skin appear translucent and gave her an air of vulnerability that hid the fierce warrior who had nicked him with a blade earlier that evening. Dark Jackie-Os covered her eyes, denying him access to what she might be thinking. Were they topaz in worry? Green with stress?
