Sanders, p.1
Sanders, page 1
Books in This Series:
Radar, Book 1
Legend, Book 2
Bojan, Book 3
Langdon, Book 4
Walker, Book 5
Reid, Book 6
Sanders, Book 7
Nate, Book 8
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
About This Book
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
About Nate
Author’s Note
About the Author
Copyright Page
About This Book
Sanders hadn’t been expecting a rescue from his own captivity. Now free, he can do no less than help Ania, another captive, someone he barely knows. Yet his connection to her had kept Sanders alive during his darkest times. He can do no less than help her now.
Ania must escape her father’s total control. However, during Ania’s first few days in confinement, her head had to clear of the drugs her father had been feeding her, just to keep her compliant and captive. After missing a dose, clarity now returning, Ania finally understands and bolts. But where can she go? She has no one. Until Sanders reaches out …
Meanwhile her father had put a psychic tracker on Ania’s tail. Now Sanders and Ania try to hide, yet must find each other, … before her father locates them both.
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Prologue
Sanders opened his eyes, feeling the shudders rippling through his body. Once again one of the female healers was at his bedside. “Will I live?” he asked, a note of humor in his tone.
“You’ll definitely live,” she declared, “but I’m hearing rumors that some people may not be very happy that you escaped their custody.”
He winced at that. “Will that cause you guys trouble?”
“That’s not your problem,” she stated firmly. “Your problem is making sure you’re healthy.”
“I’m doing much better,” he noted. “I was thinking I could get up and come down for a meal.”
“If you feel you’re up to it, then do so.” She eyed him carefully. “However, just a few minutes ago, you didn’t seem to be up for it.”
“I’m feeling much better now,” he said.
She nodded. “I’ll give you ten minutes to get dressed, and then I’ll walk you down to ensure you’re okay and can find your way.”
“Is it that bad?”
“It’s that bad,” she confirmed, with a laugh to lighten the truth.
She closed the door behind her, and he quickly dressed in the clothing the woman had provided for him. He had no idea where he was, or when he got here. He knew this place was huge, and lots of people were here. They’d been looking after him since his rescue, but he didn’t even know who all these people were. When he opened the door, she studied him carefully and nodded.
“You look like you’re holding for the moment.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I was trying not to burn through too much energy.”
“No, never a good idea,” she agreed comfortably, as she walked downstairs at his side. When they entered this massive room with the largest table he’d ever seen in his life, all the conversations stopped.
Terk immediately stood and walked over to him. “Sanders, how’re you doing?”
“Considering what I’ve been through, I think I’m doing just fine.” He reached out a hand and shook Terk’s. “I didn’t get a chance to say it before, but thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Riff is the one who rescued you.”
Sanders nodded at Riff, seated at the table. Then Sanders turned back to Terk. “Now, if only there was a way to go back and rescue somebody else.”
At that, Terk frowned. “What do you mean, somebody else?”
“One of my jailers, his daughter has abilities, like us. She doesn’t dare tell anybody, of course,” he shared. “When she realized what I could do, we stayed in contact the whole time, without telling anybody, just to keep her safe, but she’s desperate to get out of there.”
“Where you were being held? Up north?”
“Yes, but her father moved her to the Baltic Sea area.”
He nodded. “And you think that you’ll go back and get her?” Terk asked.
Sanders winced. “If I can have another couple days to get my strength up, that would be ideal. I can’t leave her behind, and I don’t have much time to do that.”
“How old is this daughter?” Clary asked.
He looked over at her. “Twenty-seven.”
“So, she’s not a child anymore.”
“No, and she’s lived in fear all her life. Her abilities are pretty strong. Apparently her mother did her best to keep them hidden, but her mother was killed a few months back, and her father’s gotten more and more suspicious.”
“Of course. Any strong gift like that will be revealed, and, although she’s probably been good at keeping it contained, she’s obviously slipped a time or two.”
“Exactly, and I know her father. I also know that everybody there was looking for more psychics, and, if her father thought that he could curry favor by providing a bona fide one, his head position in the guard would be gold.”
“What about his daughter? Does she want to leave her father?” Clary asked.
“Her father’s the problem. Her mother is now gone, and, although he’s been a good father, I think she’s afraid he would give her up in a heartbeat to elevate his own position. Don’t forget that, for these Russians, it’s a point of honor. It’s not a case of thinking that she would be hurt because, from his point of view, she would be in an exalted position as being special. She would be a special prisoner,” he explained. “In her father’s mind, as a female, she would always be somebody’s prisoner, but he wouldn’t call it prisoner. He would call it their wife.”
“Ah, right.” Clary winced. “God, I hate that mind-set.”
“You might hate it, but it’s prevalent in those patriarchal societies,” Sanders said. “So I would very much appreciate a chance to build up my strength a bit and then get her out of there.”
“Do you think you’ll be up against much opposition?” Terk asked.
“It depends on whether her father has found out what she can do or not,” Sanders replied, “but, in my heart, I would say, absolutely.”
“Why is that?” Terk asked. “Have you had any contact with her?”
He hesitated and then shook his head. “No, not since I was rescued. She cried out for me to run and to ensure that I got free and clear. When I asked her to come with me, she said that she was hurt, and she couldn’t right then. No way she could get out at the time.”
“So, presumably, she is still there then.”
“I told her that I would come back for her,” Sanders shared. “No way I can just leave her.”
“I get that,” Clary replied, as she looked over at Riff. “You up for heading back to that lovely region?”
“It’s Estonia, so it’s beautiful, cold in the winter, but it’s a gorgeous part of the world. If she’s there, we would have a much easier time getting her out because we would have the sea available.” He looked over at Terk and shrugged. “I’m game.”
“In that case, Sanders, get your strength back up, ensure you’re grounded with somebody here, and we’ll set up a plan to rescue her. And if she has abilities …”
“She does, very strong abilities,” Sanders confirmed. “I’m just not sure they are things you can use.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s a mind reader. She can look at you and repeat what you’re thinking. But it’s more than that. It’s almost as if she can see different layers of you.”
Terk stared at him, his head tilted to the side. “We certainly have various abilities here,” he began, “but we’ve never seen that before. Still, it doesn’t mean that’s how it would stay either. The longer we all cohabitate in one place, the more we’re becoming adept at hiding our personal feelings from the others, working through multiple conversations in our head at once, learning what privacy means among psychics, while gaining more gifts,” he shared. “So, if she’s got another ability for us to adapt to, I say bring it on.” He looked around at the others.
“If she’s in trouble, and she needs help,” Clary stated, “I say, go get her.”
“Exactly,” her sister Cara agreed. “We came here because we were looking for a safe place to be us. So anybody else who needs a safe place to be themselves should be welcome too.”
And, with that, everybody agreed.
Terk looked over at Sanders. “Looks like you’re it. Give yourself three or four days, and you should be ready to go.”
“With a little bit of help from the ladies here,” he replied, “I would like to be ready to go in two.” He looked at Cara and Clary.
They both nodded. “If she’s in trouble, absolutely,” they said in unison. “Plan to be out of here by then.” They turned and looked at Riff. “Are you good with that?”
“Absolutely. Those bellies of yours are getting bigger, and I know Angela’s on her way to deal with you and the other pregnant ladies. I sure don
“We haven’t forgotten our promise to you either,” Terk pointed out. “We will find out who murdered your fiancée.”
He stiffened at that. “I knew you hadn’t forgotten. I just figured that we still don’t have anything to go on.”
“No, not yet,” Terk agreed, “but not for lack of trying.”
“I know. If it were that easy, I would have solved it already,” he murmured, looking around at the people at the table. “I appreciate that you’re all still trying.”
With that said, Riff got up and walked out the door.
Chapter 1
Sanders Willmott sat in the passenger seat and once again checked his GPS. “I can’t say that our travels have been particularly simple,” he murmured to Riff, who was driving this leg of their trip.
Riff shrugged. “Some of these ops are never easy,” he noted. “We just ensure they’re worthwhile. Ania helped you when you were in captivity, and we got you out of there. So now you will return the favor and will do what you can to help her.”
Sanders shifted to look at him. “I never expected a rescue.”
“Sometimes it happens, even when you least expect it. It’s important to put that out there to the universe and to keep sending those messages. Somebody will find them, hopefully Ania.”
“I know who gets my thanks in this case,” he replied, with a smile.
“Multiple people,” Riff clarified. “I didn’t know you were in need. So, once we found out, we came,” he explained, “and we’ll do the same for Ania.”
“I wish I could let her know we were coming,” he murmured. “I can’t reach her telepathically, which seems odd. She’s in a black hole, and I just get a blank space from her.”
“Maybe because she can’t contact you, or can’t receive your messages?” Riff suggested.
“I would certainly think that’s a legit possibility, but it’s a distressing one. It could mean that somebody has found a way to contain her or to at least stop her from sending messages. Maybe even from receiving anything too. I blame her father. She was so afraid he would sell her to the highest bidder because of her gifts, which she kept hidden. Right before I was rescued, she had injured herself. She didn’t tell me how. Yet thereafter she thought her father was drugging her, telling her it was antibiotics to stop some infection from her injury. Ania thought it was all a ruse to keep her at home.”
“Keeping her drugged would definitely interfere with her gifts. Yet she could speak to you telepathically before?”
“Yes, she was quite good at it. Better than I was. I had to improve in order to speak to her, though maybe it was just a language barrier at that point in time. I don’t know for sure.”
“Lots of times language doesn’t even come into it,” Riff shared, shooting him a sideways glance, as he changed lanes. They were coming up to the main area of town ahead of them. “Now we won’t be at the main city just yet,” he stated. “I wanted to do some reconnaissance ahead of time, from just outside this small village.”
Sanders looked around and nodded. “I don’t know this area, so I’m not necessarily a big help right now.”
“Yet you were in the navy, as I understand?”
“I was, but an injury sidelined me quite a few years ago. Once that happens, it’s easy to lose your skills.”
“Maybe for a time, but it’s not so easy to lose all your instincts,” Riff pointed out. “So just keep that skill honed and think about using the other skills that you have to try and reach her.”
“I have been,” Sanders muttered. “I’ve been sending out signals quite regularly, hoping she can hear me.”
“She probably does hear you, but maybe she can’t reply, which is another issue we’ll have to deal with. If she’s injured, she may not be mobile. So we must consider getting her out in another way, which may require some flexibility in our plans.”
“If she’s injured, it’s all the more reason to get her out.”
“I’m not arguing that,” Riff declared. “Yet, if she’s not ambulatory, it won’t make our job any easier.”
Sanders sucked in his breath at that thought. “You’re right. I don’t even know what I’m thinking,”
“The problem is you’re not really thinking,” Riff said, giving him a knowing smile. “By rights, you should be at home in bed. Do you think I don’t know that you lied about how strong you were?”
He flushed. “Let’s just say that this need, this strong drive to get Ania, has been constantly increasing,” he admitted, “and I couldn’t ignore it, even if I wanted to.”
“Good for you that you’re listening to it, but don’t think for a moment that you fooled any of them.”
Sanders frowned at him. “Sorry?”
“Don’t think you fooled anybody on Terk’s team, especially those healer women. They can see your energy levels in ways that you and I could never even contemplate. So I get that you think you’re helping this rescue, but you’re really not, especially if you don’t come clean about everything you know.”
“I don’t even know anything,” he replied, glancing at Riff. “Honest to God.”
“And telling me the truth is a good thing. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”
“Right. So, we’re back to the fact that everybody on Terk’s team has abilities, and God help us if we end up lying. That can’t be good to build trust.”
“True. Since we all do have abilities, we often know if someone is lying or holding back, and that makes us very wary.”
“Of course,” Sanders acknowledged. “I just want to get Ania out of there.”
“Do you have another reason?” Riff asked, with a small smile.
Sanders glanced at him. “What do you mean?”
“I want to ensure you have no revenge agenda or any other ulterior motive rolling around in your head.”
“No. It’s not about that. It’s all about Ania.” He felt Riff’s gaze, like a laser searching his soul.
With a nod, Riff relaxed and replied, “Ah, that explains it then.”
“Explains what?” Sanders asked, flushing.
“The drive inside you to save her. You really care about her.”
He grimaced. “I don’t even know Ania. However, because of that connection to her, I survived.”
“Doesn’t really matter, does it?” Riff noted, with a smirk. “Particularly in our world. Far too few of us are out there to do this energy work, and, when we do find people who are like us, a bond is created, an instant bond, that tends to transfer into an emotional bond—whether we like it or not. Therefore, we have feelings we didn’t really expect to have. Trust me that it’s happened before.”
Sanders sat back and didn’t say a whole lot. “Is that … Is that what happened to you?”
“Sure is,” he snapped. “However, mine didn’t have a happy ending. Still doesn’t, for that matter.”
“Is that what you meant about Angela?”
He nodded. “I was engaged to be married. Angela would have been my sister-in-law, but then … my fiancée was murdered,” he shared, his tone harsh. “Which is also why Terk mentioned trying to help me with that investigation. However, so far, we have no angle or lead to go on. Without that, we’re just spinning our wheels. So, in the meantime, I’m doing something useful to help the rest of his team, while we try to churn up more information. Everyone is working to find a lead, so we can go after whoever murdered my fiancée.”
“And Angela?”
“Angela is a very gifted doctor, an obstetrician—which is a good thing, considering the number of pregnant women in that castle.” Riff gave a chuckle. “It’s scary to see how many enlarged bellies are in that place, but, being who Angela is, she’ll help them all.”
“Yeah, I noticed the bellies,” Sanders quipped. “I just didn’t feel comfortable asking about it and wondered if maybe some baby factory was going on.”
Riff burst out laughing. “I’m sure they would all be less than thrilled with your interpretation on that. Yet it’s a valid observation, when you think about it. An awful lot is going on in the castle that you don’t know about. Seems energy workers who are around other energy workers get a boost in their existing gifts, as well as pick up new ones. Now that Terk’s team has been gathered together for a while, the pregnancies happened, almost all at once—another side effect to the energy workers all gathered together.
