Shielding Instinct, page 19
Petra would love to know what Darwin thought about that.
Still, had she just told Hawkeye that people found her odd?
Petra was fighting hard not to make the mistake she always did—to mask, to shapeshift, to try to interpret what the other person was looking for and transform into that thing. It was a typical means of survival—since they were talking about survival—for people who were differently wired.
“We can debate how people perceive you,” Hawkeye said, and his voice sounded like he was smiling. “My team thinks you’re amazing. And if I saw any red flags waving, I wouldn’t be naked with you right now. But let’s focus on the word ‘friendly.’ Take Cooper. He’s laid-back and accepting, but I wouldn’t call him friendly. He likes who he likes and tolerates others. He does a good job. He’s highly esteemed. He gets a lot of joy from his work, which helps people. But his behavior with you on the plane was atypical. He likes people at a distance. He’s also my best friend.”
“I think Cooper and I have a lot in common. I tend to keep my social circles small.”
“And trustworthy?” Hawkeye asked.
“Yes, I’d say that’s true.”
“Always or as an adult?”
Petra was having trouble considering that question as Hawkeye knelt behind her, massaging his hands over her thighs, the bite of soap in her cuts, the gentleness of his hands. “It’s more pronounced the older I get. I plan on being quite the curmudgeon in my old age.”
“Thanks for the warning.” He leaned forward and kissed her hip, then stood. He pulled Petra back into his arms, holding her against him, and she could feel his dick hard at her back.
“I’m going to say something, and I hope this isn’t offensive in any way.”
Petra braced for it. Nothing good could come next.
“We’re both exhausted. Physically and emotionally drained from today.”
This is the write-off.
“You’re covered in bruises and abrasions. It looks like every part of you is in pain.”
He doesn’t want me despite my being naked and his dick standing ready.
“I want our first time together to be more than what I can give you tonight. I want it to be special and memorable. There’s no need to rush us. We already have plans for a date at home.” He paused and she held her breath.
This must be the string it along kind of brush off.
“You’ve told me how you ruminate for years and decades about events, and I wonder if it would be a bad thing to connect this particular day with a relationship milestone. I want to make love to you, obviously. But perhaps, this isn’t the right time for significant firsts.”
Significant firsts, she let that phrase somersault through her brain.
Significant firsts wasn’t a phrase used for a stress-relieving roll. Or a “nice to know yah, that was fun.”
It was something someone said when they believed there was a future.
His hands slicked down her sides, coming to rest on her hips, holding her tightly against him. “And I’m hoping it would be all right to wait.”
Petra blinked at the wall in front of her.
She ran that conversation through her mind again without applying her “I’m not good enough” filter. Special and memorable, she cycled the phrase again and again.
That was so damned sexy.
Petra turned around, lifting to her toes to wrap her arms around his neck. She kissed him long and hard.
This experience with Hawkeye was absolutely a significant first.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hawkeye
Hawkeye hung up the hotel phone after ordering pizza.
Petra came into the room, walking tenderly. Dressed in a pair of panties and a T-shirt, she hugged a towel and comb to her chest with one hand, pressing the other into her lower back.
As hard as it was for him to ask her to wait, seeing her now was exactly why.
Did he want her? Hell yeah, he did. But not at her expense. Not when she was in such obvious pain.
He would always put her well-being first.
As she passed the open door that adjoined their rooms, Cooper whined for permission to come in to be with them.
When Hawkeye called him in, Cooper jumped down and came to sniff Petra, then rested his muzzle on the mattress.
“Load,” Hawkeye said.
Cooper bounded onto the bed, circled, and then plopped down.
“He’s exhausted, too,” Hawkeye said as Petra pushed down the comforter and crawled onto a cool white sheet.
The feel of her skin, the curve of her ass, her sweet lick-able breasts had filled him with unexpected sensations. He felt fiercely protective of her. Not violent—though if violence were required to keep her safe, he’d bring it.
Talk about significant firsts; his reaction to her was a force that thrummed through his blood.
He reached for Petra’s comb. “Come sit in front of me.”
Hawkeye thought he knew why he was on high alert. He had questions. Lots of them. “In the lobby, you were talking to Rowan Kennedy?” Parts of their whispered conversation had floated over to him.
“I was,” Petra crossed her legs in front of herself, then pulled the towel into a cape over her shoulders to catch the dripping water.
“It seemed intense. Did I hear right? He’s coming to the island?” When he said that, Hawkeye’s muscles banded, and he didn’t know why. Had he stepped into her op somehow? “Are you here working?”
“I didn’t lie to you,” Petra said. “I came in service of a friend. I just happened to see something I wanted to bring to the Bureau’s attention, which I did earlier today. Something else came to my attention tonight. I let Rowan know, and he leaped on it. Do I understand what it is? Not at all. The thing I brought to Rowan’s attention was not what he reacted to.”
The comb hit a snag, and Hawkeye held her hair as he worked the teeth through. “I’m not sure that I can follow that sentence.”
Petra didn’t answer, but he could feel the sleepy energy she walked in with shift to wariness.
“Can you tell me what you do for the FBI?” Hawkeye asked. “You were tracking queen bees, but you don’t do that job anymore.” When the comb slid easily through that section, he moved to the next.
“My title is ‘supervisory special agent’ in the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit.”
“Supervisory, behavioral analysis. That’s a mouthful,” Hawkeye said. “What does it mean?”
“I’m a brain researcher in a lab. I’m working on the emerging concept of brain security.”
“But you’re not in the field now, tracking and observing.”
“My observations will now be centered on content that Rowan and others gather, and when applicable, I’ll study willing volunteers.”
Hawkeye exhaled. “Safe, then.”
She looked over her shoulder and smiled at him. “Has Rowan told you what he does for the FBI?” She faced forward again, and Hawkeye continued to leisurely comb her hair.
“He told me he has a doctorate in propaganda, but he was smiling when he said it, so I assume that wasn’t quite it. I know he works over in the post-USSR countries studying how Russian psyops affects the world at large, but the United States in particular.”
“That’s right.”
“I know that when he started dating Avery, she worked with him on some big case that included Panther Force, and after that, they got married and she became an Iniquus consultant. But you know that. That’s why you asked her to identify Cerberus at the airport.”
“That case you mentioned is an interesting one. Ongoing. Partly to watch it and see how that group adapts and what they do next. Partly because the laws haven’t caught up, and a lot of what they do, while evil, is lawful.”
“And somehow Avery was involved with that?” Hawkeye asked. “She’s a romance editor.”
“Mostly classified. I can’t speak to that,” Petra said. “What I can tell you is that the Russian psyops machine is extremely effective in some countries like ours.”
“But not all countries, is what I’m hearing.”
“Bordering countries like Estonia and Finland have worked to inoculate their people against the effects of psyops. They teach the subject in school from a very young age. Once you know how it’s done, it’s harder for the psyops to work. I spent a good deal of time over in that region learning from their experts about mind manipulation. And don’t get me wrong, all mind manipulation isn’t bad.”
“How could it be good?” He pulled the comb from crown to the tips, and she hummed a little under her breath as if she had enjoyed the sensation.
“Okay, here’s an example—scientists have been studying how different sound frequencies affect the brain. Right now, you can pull up an app that will play sounds to help you get into the mind space you need for deep focus, creativity, or meditation,” she said. “By manipulating the environment, you can budge yourself toward a desired state of mind. That helps in so many ways. I use it when I need deep focus at work or when my mind is on a gerbil wheel and I can’t get to sleep. The music is specifically designed as a manipulation of brain waves.”
“Do you do what Rowan does?” An existential threat painted over him. Could Petra become a target? “Are you going after Russian psyops?” He asked directly. Hawkeye was starting to see how Petra would sidestep a subject. It might not be that she was hiding something; it could be the direction in which her brain ricocheted.
“I’m a research scientist. As I try to understand how modern brains adapt to innovations, I focus my study on cult techniques.”
“When you were a kid, you had to stand up and tell the class what you wanted to be when you grew up. Is that what you said? Not doctor or ballerina, you said cult scientist?” Hawkeye chuckled.
“I said I wanted to be smart and have fun doing things I like.”
Hawkeye held for a long moment while he processed how extraordinary that answer was. He blinked. “Wow, that went through me like a bolt of lightning. I never would have thought to answer that way.” His hand held still in her hair. “I have to sit with that for a minute. It’s a radical response. How old were you when you said that?”
Petra looked up to the ceiling, remembering. “Mmm, kindergarten graduation?” She lowered her chin again. “Yeah. I think it was graduation from kindergarten. The parents were there. I was standing on the blue rug in that itchy, yellow flower dress I hated.”
“And what was the response?”
“Indifference from the kids. From the grownups, a bit like what you’re doing now, unease. I thought I got the answer wrong.”
“Which was painful for you.”
“For a very long time, I was ashamed that I would want to be either smart or have fun. Then, freshman year in high school, I mentioned that story to my art teacher, and she reframed it for me as the best possible answer. That’s what everyone should aspire to. A decade to carry that shame was more than enough. I’m forever grateful to her, to Mrs. Barnstrom.”
“I’m sorry you carried it at all. I wouldn’t call my reaction ‘unease’ as much as you damned well shifted my paradigms. It’s so out of the box. So, while I’m going through this internal seismic event, I want to congratulate you. It seems to me you’ve met your goals. Amazing. You know you and my sister are going to get along really well. She does this to me, too, shifts my perspective. I like it. It keeps me nimble.” He paused. “You’re going to hear me mention Cora a lot around you. She’s not just my sister. She’s a very dear friend. I like to just laze about and listen to her thoughts. I can see you two becoming good friends. That is, unless you prefer to retreat into your curmudgeon shell, in which case, I can visit her and give you space.”
He realized he was talking to Petra like they’d agreed they were in a relationship.
He needed to slow his damned roll. “Is talking about your work too much for you right now? Should we change the subject? Would you like to be silent?”
“Me? I love talking about my work. I’m sure it’s the same with you.”
“I love doing my work. I don’t want to talk about it. I want to hear more about yours, to the extent that it’s not classified. Rowan is into post-Soviet psyops, and he’s jumping on a plane for St. Croix.”
“Yeah, I don’t know,” Petra said.
“I see.” He didn’t see at all, but he knew enough about Rowan to recognize that he played among some very dangerous and despicable characters. And Hawkeye, selfishly, wanted Petra safe. “Federal employees aren’t paid well. Your expertise is unique. You jumped into a brand-new world with brain security. I’d imagine there are any number of institutions and industries that would snatch you up and pay you royally to help them understand and exploit the human brain. Obviously, you don’t have the personality or drive to do that. Are you frightened by what you’re discovering?”
“As a scientist, I don’t want to use the word frightened. Perhaps—mmm, I’m looking for a word that’s more than cautious, less than hair on fire. I’m braced. The human brain is truly extraordinary. But living in a questionable reality is demonstrably bad. Underlying mental health issues will become more challenging. Depression, thoughts of suicide, anxiety, paranoia, anger control, and such. Our health systems aren’t equipped. We don’t have enough mental health professionals. Even if we did, the average person can’t access them for financial reasons. The consequences are widespread. An increase in self-medication with drugs and alcohol, more violence borne of frustration, and a lack of control over our environment are expected. One of the responses we see in our research is the rise of small groups that tune into each other, eschewing wider society and societal norms. That too can be problematic.”
Hawkeye drew his brows together. “Keep going with that.”
“They fold in on themselves. They develop a reality apart from others, reinforcing those beliefs in each other. That’s part of our history. The Pilgrims, for example, had unique worldviews that they tied to their faith. They were first ostracized in England fled to Holland, then fled again to what would become the United States. History redefines who and what they were, but at the time, they were radicals.”
“Sounds like you’re talking about more cults. Your research is still cult related?”
“There’s an argument for that. What are the elements of a cult?” Petra asked, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs.
“A charismatic leader. Brainwashing,” Hawkeye ventured. He hadn’t given it much thought.
“Can you imagine a world where we can’t believe our own eyes, our own ears? Then what is reality? We need someone we trust to tell us what is true. A charismatic personality is, by definition, someone who can sway people. Imagine this—a human is floundering. They feel marginalized. They want to challenge the norms because the norms make them feel bad about themselves or their circumstances. Then someone says, you’re right to be aggrieved and afraid. Come follow me, and I will show you the way to feeling content. The anxiety and anger will leave your body. The depression will lift.”
“It sounds like self-medication, desperate people seeking relief.”
She canted her head and fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Did you know that while facing a doomsday scenario like I did today, I might have fallen under the sway of a charismatic who makes me feel safe, and therefore, I put my faith in him? Does your cult have a name?”
“You’re teasing me. But I hope that’s true to the extent that I want good outcomes for you. In difficult circumstances, it’s helpful—even hopeful—to lean on someone you trust. As I’m listening to you, I’m thinking about a German philosopher I read last year who lived through WWI and WWII. She postulated in an interview that if everything is a lie, no one believes anything anymore. And then she says that when you don’t know what’s the truth and what’s a lie, you don’t know what to do.”
“You read philosophy?”
Deflection or a thought ricochet? He didn’t answer.
“I’d say if you don’t know what to do, you’d end up doing nothing, or worse, you do what you want.” She turned back around.
Hawkeye continued to slowly comb her hair. He hoped she found it as calming as he did. “Why is that worse?”
“A whole different discussion. Is that the direction you want me to take?”
“I’ll ask you about that another day. I guess I’d like to know how this applies to your work,” Hawkeye said. “This is pseudo-spiritual?”
“Spiritual groups have been around for all of humanity. People connect that way. There’s a lot of positivity. What I call pseudo-spirituality is about leadership gain at the detriment of the followers.”
“That’s an eye of the beholder kind of thing, right? The person may get everything good out of the association, but to the outside, people wonder why they might, for example, take a vow of celibacy or vow of poverty.”
“I’m talking about Jim Jones and the like.”
“That’s who you study?”
“Right now, I’m particularly focused on a UFO cult that’s been growing. They are dead set on the idea that the world is going to be overrun by aliens on a certain date in the future. Their origin story is this: After being abducted in his youth, their charismatic now has an alliance with the leadership of a distant planet. The planetary leadership contacts this guy with urgent messages, bringing him up to date on universal news.”
Hawkeye could feel not just the smile on his lips but the smile reaching his eyes. How often did that happen? This wasn’t a fun subject, but Hawkeye was jazzed by the kinds of things that Petra thought and talked about. “Nice to have connected friends.”
“Isn’t it? Right now, a battle is being mounted, and Earth’s inhabitants can’t survive it. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the charismatic’s alien friends have a ship en route to pick him up.”
