Linked by deception, p.16
Linked by Deception, page 16
When she reached up to turn on the interior light, there was enough ambient light to note the trickle of blood seeping down her from temple to jaw. I caught her chin, stopping her from reaching up, and angled her face so I could see her in the faint light from the dash. “Neither are you.”
She held onto my shoulder. “Let me turn on the light.”
“I’ve got it.” I reached up, wincing as abused muscles protested, and hit the light. Even though it wasn’t super bright, my eyes narrowed against the glare until they could adjust. At first, all I could see was Jinx, eyes dark against her blood-streaked pale face. A bruise was forming along the side of it. Her hair had escaped the neat twist and was tangled around her jaw. She braced herself against the dash then moved off of me and into her seat.
This gave me an uninterrupted view of the windshield, which now sported a spiderweb of cracks. Outside in the inky darkness, the headlights shone into the abyss, the driver’s-side light flickering ominously. Considering my angled view of the crumbling edge of the drainage ditch, there was no way we were getting out of this without a tow truck.
Which reminded me… “The other driver?”
“We missed them, but I heard brakes, so they’ll probably be here any second.” Jinx was digging around the glove compartment. “Yes.” She lifted her hand to show off a clutch of napkins.
Taking them from her, I said, “Come here.”
She didn’t argue but gingerly moved until I could use the napkin against the cut on her temple. While I did that, she was blotting at my face. “I think you have a concussion, probably from when you hit the side window.”
I met her gaze in silent question.
“Your pupils are dilated.”
“And you’ve got a hell of a shiner coming up.” Taking in the bruising rising along the side of her face, I was grateful that seemed to be the worst of it. “Ribs?”
“Sore, but nothing’s broken.” She brought my hand up to take over holding a napkin against my nose. “Hold this. It’s bleeding.”
I held it tight.
She shifted her position, her gaze lowering before she narrowed her eyes. “Your arms.”
Without releasing the pressure on my nose, I tried to twist my arms to see what she was staring at. “What?”
“They must have hit the steering wheel at some point.” She brushed a careful hand down them. “You sure you’re okay?”
Before I could answer, a muffled voice called out. I turned my head, hissing at the tweak of pain flaring down my neck and between my shoulders, to see a shadowy figure picking its way over to us with the help of the light of a cell phone. Using my free hand, I pulled on the door handle, and the door swung open, the hinges groaning, the bottom scraping against dirt.
The figure stopped near the back end of the car. “You okay in there?”
“Banged up and bruised but breathing,” I called back. “You?”
The voice came closer. “I’m good.” An older man in business casual came over and crouched by the door. The interior light glinted off his glasses, but there was no mistaking his concern when he spotted Jinx. “Ma’am, you okay?”
She managed a wan smile. “I’ve been better.”
He switched his attention to me. “You two want to risk moving?”
“Yeah.”
It took some careful maneuvering, and I had to rely on the guy’s support to get out, but we managed to limp our way to the shoulder. Eventually, I was leaning against his sedan while Jinx sat on the back seat.
“Emergency services should be here soon. I called right after you went off the road.” He eyed me carefully. “What happened?”
Jinx answered first, injecting a hint of a tremor into her voice. “Something ran out in front of the car.”
Since we were about to have police involvement, I chose to weave a believable truth with Jinx’s explanation. “We tried to avoid it, but it was like the car went haywire.”
The man turned back to me, and I couldn’t miss his skepticism, even if he was too polite to call us on it. No doubt he thought I’d had too much to drink. The police would be sure to share that assumption, but fortunately, I’d stayed away from alcohol during dinner.
“Didn’t you see it?” Jinx’s question regained the man’s attention, drawing him in with a note in her voice and holding him spellbound. She gave a delicate shudder. “I think it was something small, maybe a dog or something?”
Her voice twined around my mind, easing the calculating edge of my speeding thoughts. It took me a second to realize what she was doing and erect the necessary psychic barrier so as not to get sucked under. We needed a reason for our erratic driving, and it would be best if both accounts agreed on the main points, such as the story that we were avoiding some animal.
Jinx held the man’s gaze as he focused on her, her voice slipping into a soothing murmur. “We’re lucky it wasn’t something bigger.”
He was nodding before she’d finished. “If it had been a deer, this wouldn’t have ended so well.”
She managed a shaky smile. “Whatever it was, it was fast.”
Her damsel-in-distress act had his voice softening with concern. “It was most likely a rabbit.”
Even though I’d witnessed this aspect of her ability before, it always caught me off guard how fast her influence could work. It was a gamble because it didn’t always work. She once explained that wielding her ability required delicate handling, because she had to create a shared experience. That was not easy to do unless there was some emotion both parties shared—in this case, relief. Thanks to the near miss of the accident, the man would be more easily influenced, more willing to fill in the blanks about facing a situation that required split-second decisions.
She leaned against the doorframe, and I didn’t think her slumped shoulders were for show. “I’m just glad we’re all okay.”
Unable to help myself, I took her hand and held it tight.
The man turned back to me. “You know, you’re lucky the car didn’t flip.”
Bloodied napkin pressed against my nose with one hand, Jinx’s hand in the other, I looked beyond him at the dark hulk of our car. “Yeah, we were.” The rear lights blinked with monotonous consistency. “I’m just glad we’re upright and breathing.” I shook my head, gritting my teeth as my head protested the move. “What a mess. The rental company’s going to have a fit.”
Catching my wince, Jinx tugged her hand free and patted my thigh. “Hopefully, the police will help us figure this out. Then we’ll worry about dealing with the rental agency.” She shifted her attention to the man watching us. “Thank you for stopping. Not everyone would.”
He looked away as if uncomfortable with Jinx’s gratitude. Flashing light cut through the darkness, and I swore there was relief in his voice when he said, “Looks like the cavalry is here.”
The next hour was spent answering questions from the police and fielding the pokes and prods of the EMTs. By the time we were bundled into the ambulance, my nose had finally stopped bleeding, and stiffness had set in. Jinx wasn’t much better. In the harsh light of the ambulance, her pale face was bordering on gray.
We hit the emergency room, and despite the fact that it was oh-dark-thirty, the place was packed. Noise and smells hit, making my stomach curl, but I swallowed it down and kept walking alongside Jinx’s rolling cot. I’d earned that position with my adamant refusal to be wheeled in despite the EMT’s insistence that I might have a concussion.
As the charge nurse gathered information, I asked the nearest EMT, “Is it always this crazy in here?”
“Saturday nights are a special kind of crazy. But this is actually not too bad.”
Before I could argue, the nurse was leading us to a room. “You two will have to share. We’re a bit tight on rooms.”
“Works for me.” Especially since I’m not keen on leaving Jinx alone.
It took another half hour or so to get through the laundry list of questions. Thank God our cover identities were solid. In between the hospital’s Q and A session and another round of “Does this hurt? What about this?” I managed to get off a quick request for assistance to the team via the customized chat app. Eventually, the hustle and bustle waned, giving us a small window of privacy. Stretched out on a bed, I laid my arm over my burning eyes.
“Told you so.” The sleepy murmur came from Jinx, who was resting on her side in the bed next to me.
I lifted my arm and turned my head to see her blinking valiantly in an effort to stay awake. There was a bandage on the cut just below her hairline and an ice pack covering the side of her face. She’d lost the gray cast to her skin and the pinched lines around her mouth, probably because the painkillers were kicking in. Seeing her like that made me want to crawl into the bed and hold her tight. Unfortunately, neither one of us was in any condition for that.
“Told me what, cher?”
“You have a concussion.”
“Well, at least we match.” I kept my voice quiet, hoping she’d give in and let sleep take her.
“Scared me.”
I barely caught her whisper. “Me too, but we’re safe.”
“For now,” she murmured.
Her eyes finally closed, and her breathing evened out as she succumbed. I lay there, watching her sleep, while images of just how horrifically wrong tonight could have gone played through my head. Could still go wrong if that damn bug on the windshield managed to catch the use of our names during the initial hack. I hadn’t had time to do more than fry the thing, but I couldn’t recall if it was active or not. Nothing I can do about it now.
I focused on who would have gained by taking us out of the picture, because this hack wasn’t just a scare tactic. If I hadn’t managed to block that last command, we would have turned straight into the oncoming car. At that speed, I wasn’t sure if anyone would have walked away.
No matter how I turned things around and over, I couldn’t fit Zane in as being behind the hacker’s attack. Even Amalia didn’t really fit. Considering the manner of attack, the only possibility I could come up with was that it was the same bastard who’d managed to break in and infect the laptop.
What the fuck did we stumble into? It was bad enough we were playing footsie with Zane and Falcon. We needed to figure out who our unknown third was and quick. Since the hacker was focused on me and Jinx, it made me think we’d inherited an enemy of Elena’s. Just what we need. When pain shot through my jaw, I consciously unlocked my teeth and forced the muscles in my shoulders and neck to relax.
Movement at the door caught my attention just as a steel-haired man in a white coat spoke. “Mr. Somers, I’m Dr. Addison.”
“Doctor.” I went to sit up, but he waved me back.
“Best you remain lying down, son.” He did a quick check of Jinx and her monitors before pulling a chair between the two beds and angling it so he could face me. “I’m glad you’re awake.”
Something in his voice set my alarm bells ringing. “I take it you found something?”
“I’m afraid so.” He set his iPad on the bed, his expression grave. “Based on the information regarding your accident, I decided to run a couple of extra tests.”
When he stopped, I prompted, “And?”
“And I’m afraid you and Ms. Drake are suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.” He tilted his head. “You’ll both be fine, but I’m going to have to insist that you two stay here at least until morning.”
Leashing the useless frustration and fury curling through me, I kept my voice even. “You’ll share this with the police?”
He nodded. “From what I gathered, you were involved in a one-car accident, correct?”
“Yeah. We were coming back from a dinner. I didn’t know anything was wrong until I drifted into another lane and realized I was having a hard time staying awake.”
“Not a surprise. That’s one of the signs of CO poisoning.” Sharp intelligence burned behind the medical professional facade. “Do you mind running through what happened once you left your dinner?”
I laid it all out, the sleepiness, trying to get the window down, then turning the AC on, taking the other road, and the mechanical failures with steering and braking. By the time I was done, the doctor’s face was carved in stone.
“Did you share this with the police?”
I managed to lift an eyebrow. “I did. They assured us that they’ll be pulling the car’s black box to review the data.” I wasn’t keen on that, because I wanted to get my hands on it first. The need to track the hacker down was undeniable. My hands fisted. Maybe it was best the police got to it first. “They think the car may have been hacked.”
“Hacked? Really?”
“Like I said, it was a rental so…” I managed a half-hearted shrug despite my protesting shoulder.
The doctor shook his head. “Every day brings something new.” He picked up his iPad. “If that’s the case, then you’re lucky the only things you both are taking away from this are bruises and minor cuts. You’ll want to pay special attention to your arms. Both ulnas show deep bruising. Thankfully, everything else checked out.”
“And Elena? Is everything okay with her?”
He looked at Jinx and reached over to adjust the ice pack on her cheek. “She’ll be bruised for a few days, but it should fade. Our biggest concern is the possible concussions you two have, which is why we want you both here for observation.” He rose from his seat as a nurse came in. “I’m going to advise that neither one of you drive home. Is there someone who can pick you up?”
“I’ll make arrangements.”
“Good.” He patted my leg. “Get some rest, and we’ll double-check things in the morning, but you should be fine.” He gave the nurse a nod and a smile before leaving the room.
I watched the nurse make some minor adjustments to Jinx’s monitor before she turned to me. Whatever she saw on my face softened her expression from professional to friendly. “She’ll be okay, you know.”
“I know.”
She ran through a check on my monitors, gave me a gentle “Good night,” and left, letting the door close behind her.
I pulled my phone out of the drawer and went to the anonymous chat room that was my emergency link to the team and wrote: Need ride in a.m.
Copy. ETA 0600.
I checked the time. Four hours. Good enough. I put the phone back, settled into the battle-ready doze perfected by hours on tour, and bided my time.
Chapter 16
Jinx
“I’ve got this, cher.” Rabbit aimed one of his charming grins at me before he yanked on the wheel of the speeding car, narrowly avoiding the oncoming glare of headlights.
Braced for disaster, I managed an embarrassing squeak and closed my eyes. Instead of the expected explosion of shattered glass and shriek of sheared metal, I was thrown against the door with bruising force as the car swerved and left the road in a bone-rattling shudder. When I pried open my eyes, a terrifyingly steep descent into shades of black and white filled the entire windshield. Outside that thin pane of glass, the blur of the landscape spun in a crazy pattern as the car’s headlights danced off objects like light off a damn disco ball.
“Here, take the wheel.”
Somehow, I tore my gaze away from my impending death to gape at Rabbit, who let go of the steering to undo his seat belt. The instinct to live had me scrambling for the wheel. “What—”
“Take it, Jinx.” With an appalling lack of concern, he reached over, undid my belt and began dragging me into the driver’s seat.
Pure instinct had me fighting the wheel to ensure that we didn’t hurtle off the edge of the world and into oblivion. With remarkable casualness, Rabbit pulled me into his lap. Heart in my throat, I managed to rasp out, “What are you doing?”
“I need to stop the program.”
At his weird answer, I managed to tear my attention away from the death-defying ski ride we were taking down a freakin’ mountain and stare at his reflection in the bouncing rearview mirror. “Rab—”
But his grinning face was melting into a stream of indecipherable green code against a black screen that began bleeding through the car.
“The Matrix? Really?” That dry question came from the passenger seat, where an unconcerned Ricochet, the team’s dream-walker, was staring at me with a bemused look. “I guess it fits, but seriously, Jinx? Rabbit’ll be so disappointed.”
His presence flicked a switch in my brain, replacing my rush of fear-induced adrenaline with a relieving sense of rationality. “I’m dreaming.”
“Yep.” Ricochet’s calm agreement soothed the ragged beat of my pulse, loosening the tight band around my chest and my grip on the steering wheel.
My surroundings began to drift away like fading fog. When it cleared, I was walking next to Ricochet in a sun-dappled wood. Trees stretched high above us, their grand stature leaving me in awe as we strolled through a thick green carpet. “Wow, where is this?”
“California.” Ricochet lifted his face, sunlight and shadows playing along its sharp planes while a soft breeze rustled the leaves overhead. “Humboldt State Park. I like to hike the trails here.”
“I can see why.”
He dropped his head, and we continued on in a companionable silence. A well of calm washed away the lingering edge of adrenaline-laced fear. Walking next to Ricochet, my pulse slowed, and the aching stiffness riding my spine seeped away. The hush of a nearby stream trickled in, adding to the sense of seclusion. The hair-raising ride down the mountain faded, replaced by nature’s serenity.
I liked this dream, which was a good thing because Ricochet was now the one in control of it, not me. He was a powerful dream-walker, an ability that meant he could influence people’s dream states, locking them inside their own minds until their dreams, or nightmares, became their realities. In essence, to anyone in the waking world, the person caught in a dream appeared to be in a coma-like state. In the wrong hands, Ricochet’s ability could be deadly because where the mind led, the body followed. If someone died in a dream under the influence of a dream-walker, that person died in the real world as well.
She held onto my shoulder. “Let me turn on the light.”
“I’ve got it.” I reached up, wincing as abused muscles protested, and hit the light. Even though it wasn’t super bright, my eyes narrowed against the glare until they could adjust. At first, all I could see was Jinx, eyes dark against her blood-streaked pale face. A bruise was forming along the side of it. Her hair had escaped the neat twist and was tangled around her jaw. She braced herself against the dash then moved off of me and into her seat.
This gave me an uninterrupted view of the windshield, which now sported a spiderweb of cracks. Outside in the inky darkness, the headlights shone into the abyss, the driver’s-side light flickering ominously. Considering my angled view of the crumbling edge of the drainage ditch, there was no way we were getting out of this without a tow truck.
Which reminded me… “The other driver?”
“We missed them, but I heard brakes, so they’ll probably be here any second.” Jinx was digging around the glove compartment. “Yes.” She lifted her hand to show off a clutch of napkins.
Taking them from her, I said, “Come here.”
She didn’t argue but gingerly moved until I could use the napkin against the cut on her temple. While I did that, she was blotting at my face. “I think you have a concussion, probably from when you hit the side window.”
I met her gaze in silent question.
“Your pupils are dilated.”
“And you’ve got a hell of a shiner coming up.” Taking in the bruising rising along the side of her face, I was grateful that seemed to be the worst of it. “Ribs?”
“Sore, but nothing’s broken.” She brought my hand up to take over holding a napkin against my nose. “Hold this. It’s bleeding.”
I held it tight.
She shifted her position, her gaze lowering before she narrowed her eyes. “Your arms.”
Without releasing the pressure on my nose, I tried to twist my arms to see what she was staring at. “What?”
“They must have hit the steering wheel at some point.” She brushed a careful hand down them. “You sure you’re okay?”
Before I could answer, a muffled voice called out. I turned my head, hissing at the tweak of pain flaring down my neck and between my shoulders, to see a shadowy figure picking its way over to us with the help of the light of a cell phone. Using my free hand, I pulled on the door handle, and the door swung open, the hinges groaning, the bottom scraping against dirt.
The figure stopped near the back end of the car. “You okay in there?”
“Banged up and bruised but breathing,” I called back. “You?”
The voice came closer. “I’m good.” An older man in business casual came over and crouched by the door. The interior light glinted off his glasses, but there was no mistaking his concern when he spotted Jinx. “Ma’am, you okay?”
She managed a wan smile. “I’ve been better.”
He switched his attention to me. “You two want to risk moving?”
“Yeah.”
It took some careful maneuvering, and I had to rely on the guy’s support to get out, but we managed to limp our way to the shoulder. Eventually, I was leaning against his sedan while Jinx sat on the back seat.
“Emergency services should be here soon. I called right after you went off the road.” He eyed me carefully. “What happened?”
Jinx answered first, injecting a hint of a tremor into her voice. “Something ran out in front of the car.”
Since we were about to have police involvement, I chose to weave a believable truth with Jinx’s explanation. “We tried to avoid it, but it was like the car went haywire.”
The man turned back to me, and I couldn’t miss his skepticism, even if he was too polite to call us on it. No doubt he thought I’d had too much to drink. The police would be sure to share that assumption, but fortunately, I’d stayed away from alcohol during dinner.
“Didn’t you see it?” Jinx’s question regained the man’s attention, drawing him in with a note in her voice and holding him spellbound. She gave a delicate shudder. “I think it was something small, maybe a dog or something?”
Her voice twined around my mind, easing the calculating edge of my speeding thoughts. It took me a second to realize what she was doing and erect the necessary psychic barrier so as not to get sucked under. We needed a reason for our erratic driving, and it would be best if both accounts agreed on the main points, such as the story that we were avoiding some animal.
Jinx held the man’s gaze as he focused on her, her voice slipping into a soothing murmur. “We’re lucky it wasn’t something bigger.”
He was nodding before she’d finished. “If it had been a deer, this wouldn’t have ended so well.”
She managed a shaky smile. “Whatever it was, it was fast.”
Her damsel-in-distress act had his voice softening with concern. “It was most likely a rabbit.”
Even though I’d witnessed this aspect of her ability before, it always caught me off guard how fast her influence could work. It was a gamble because it didn’t always work. She once explained that wielding her ability required delicate handling, because she had to create a shared experience. That was not easy to do unless there was some emotion both parties shared—in this case, relief. Thanks to the near miss of the accident, the man would be more easily influenced, more willing to fill in the blanks about facing a situation that required split-second decisions.
She leaned against the doorframe, and I didn’t think her slumped shoulders were for show. “I’m just glad we’re all okay.”
Unable to help myself, I took her hand and held it tight.
The man turned back to me. “You know, you’re lucky the car didn’t flip.”
Bloodied napkin pressed against my nose with one hand, Jinx’s hand in the other, I looked beyond him at the dark hulk of our car. “Yeah, we were.” The rear lights blinked with monotonous consistency. “I’m just glad we’re upright and breathing.” I shook my head, gritting my teeth as my head protested the move. “What a mess. The rental company’s going to have a fit.”
Catching my wince, Jinx tugged her hand free and patted my thigh. “Hopefully, the police will help us figure this out. Then we’ll worry about dealing with the rental agency.” She shifted her attention to the man watching us. “Thank you for stopping. Not everyone would.”
He looked away as if uncomfortable with Jinx’s gratitude. Flashing light cut through the darkness, and I swore there was relief in his voice when he said, “Looks like the cavalry is here.”
The next hour was spent answering questions from the police and fielding the pokes and prods of the EMTs. By the time we were bundled into the ambulance, my nose had finally stopped bleeding, and stiffness had set in. Jinx wasn’t much better. In the harsh light of the ambulance, her pale face was bordering on gray.
We hit the emergency room, and despite the fact that it was oh-dark-thirty, the place was packed. Noise and smells hit, making my stomach curl, but I swallowed it down and kept walking alongside Jinx’s rolling cot. I’d earned that position with my adamant refusal to be wheeled in despite the EMT’s insistence that I might have a concussion.
As the charge nurse gathered information, I asked the nearest EMT, “Is it always this crazy in here?”
“Saturday nights are a special kind of crazy. But this is actually not too bad.”
Before I could argue, the nurse was leading us to a room. “You two will have to share. We’re a bit tight on rooms.”
“Works for me.” Especially since I’m not keen on leaving Jinx alone.
It took another half hour or so to get through the laundry list of questions. Thank God our cover identities were solid. In between the hospital’s Q and A session and another round of “Does this hurt? What about this?” I managed to get off a quick request for assistance to the team via the customized chat app. Eventually, the hustle and bustle waned, giving us a small window of privacy. Stretched out on a bed, I laid my arm over my burning eyes.
“Told you so.” The sleepy murmur came from Jinx, who was resting on her side in the bed next to me.
I lifted my arm and turned my head to see her blinking valiantly in an effort to stay awake. There was a bandage on the cut just below her hairline and an ice pack covering the side of her face. She’d lost the gray cast to her skin and the pinched lines around her mouth, probably because the painkillers were kicking in. Seeing her like that made me want to crawl into the bed and hold her tight. Unfortunately, neither one of us was in any condition for that.
“Told me what, cher?”
“You have a concussion.”
“Well, at least we match.” I kept my voice quiet, hoping she’d give in and let sleep take her.
“Scared me.”
I barely caught her whisper. “Me too, but we’re safe.”
“For now,” she murmured.
Her eyes finally closed, and her breathing evened out as she succumbed. I lay there, watching her sleep, while images of just how horrifically wrong tonight could have gone played through my head. Could still go wrong if that damn bug on the windshield managed to catch the use of our names during the initial hack. I hadn’t had time to do more than fry the thing, but I couldn’t recall if it was active or not. Nothing I can do about it now.
I focused on who would have gained by taking us out of the picture, because this hack wasn’t just a scare tactic. If I hadn’t managed to block that last command, we would have turned straight into the oncoming car. At that speed, I wasn’t sure if anyone would have walked away.
No matter how I turned things around and over, I couldn’t fit Zane in as being behind the hacker’s attack. Even Amalia didn’t really fit. Considering the manner of attack, the only possibility I could come up with was that it was the same bastard who’d managed to break in and infect the laptop.
What the fuck did we stumble into? It was bad enough we were playing footsie with Zane and Falcon. We needed to figure out who our unknown third was and quick. Since the hacker was focused on me and Jinx, it made me think we’d inherited an enemy of Elena’s. Just what we need. When pain shot through my jaw, I consciously unlocked my teeth and forced the muscles in my shoulders and neck to relax.
Movement at the door caught my attention just as a steel-haired man in a white coat spoke. “Mr. Somers, I’m Dr. Addison.”
“Doctor.” I went to sit up, but he waved me back.
“Best you remain lying down, son.” He did a quick check of Jinx and her monitors before pulling a chair between the two beds and angling it so he could face me. “I’m glad you’re awake.”
Something in his voice set my alarm bells ringing. “I take it you found something?”
“I’m afraid so.” He set his iPad on the bed, his expression grave. “Based on the information regarding your accident, I decided to run a couple of extra tests.”
When he stopped, I prompted, “And?”
“And I’m afraid you and Ms. Drake are suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.” He tilted his head. “You’ll both be fine, but I’m going to have to insist that you two stay here at least until morning.”
Leashing the useless frustration and fury curling through me, I kept my voice even. “You’ll share this with the police?”
He nodded. “From what I gathered, you were involved in a one-car accident, correct?”
“Yeah. We were coming back from a dinner. I didn’t know anything was wrong until I drifted into another lane and realized I was having a hard time staying awake.”
“Not a surprise. That’s one of the signs of CO poisoning.” Sharp intelligence burned behind the medical professional facade. “Do you mind running through what happened once you left your dinner?”
I laid it all out, the sleepiness, trying to get the window down, then turning the AC on, taking the other road, and the mechanical failures with steering and braking. By the time I was done, the doctor’s face was carved in stone.
“Did you share this with the police?”
I managed to lift an eyebrow. “I did. They assured us that they’ll be pulling the car’s black box to review the data.” I wasn’t keen on that, because I wanted to get my hands on it first. The need to track the hacker down was undeniable. My hands fisted. Maybe it was best the police got to it first. “They think the car may have been hacked.”
“Hacked? Really?”
“Like I said, it was a rental so…” I managed a half-hearted shrug despite my protesting shoulder.
The doctor shook his head. “Every day brings something new.” He picked up his iPad. “If that’s the case, then you’re lucky the only things you both are taking away from this are bruises and minor cuts. You’ll want to pay special attention to your arms. Both ulnas show deep bruising. Thankfully, everything else checked out.”
“And Elena? Is everything okay with her?”
He looked at Jinx and reached over to adjust the ice pack on her cheek. “She’ll be bruised for a few days, but it should fade. Our biggest concern is the possible concussions you two have, which is why we want you both here for observation.” He rose from his seat as a nurse came in. “I’m going to advise that neither one of you drive home. Is there someone who can pick you up?”
“I’ll make arrangements.”
“Good.” He patted my leg. “Get some rest, and we’ll double-check things in the morning, but you should be fine.” He gave the nurse a nod and a smile before leaving the room.
I watched the nurse make some minor adjustments to Jinx’s monitor before she turned to me. Whatever she saw on my face softened her expression from professional to friendly. “She’ll be okay, you know.”
“I know.”
She ran through a check on my monitors, gave me a gentle “Good night,” and left, letting the door close behind her.
I pulled my phone out of the drawer and went to the anonymous chat room that was my emergency link to the team and wrote: Need ride in a.m.
Copy. ETA 0600.
I checked the time. Four hours. Good enough. I put the phone back, settled into the battle-ready doze perfected by hours on tour, and bided my time.
Chapter 16
Jinx
“I’ve got this, cher.” Rabbit aimed one of his charming grins at me before he yanked on the wheel of the speeding car, narrowly avoiding the oncoming glare of headlights.
Braced for disaster, I managed an embarrassing squeak and closed my eyes. Instead of the expected explosion of shattered glass and shriek of sheared metal, I was thrown against the door with bruising force as the car swerved and left the road in a bone-rattling shudder. When I pried open my eyes, a terrifyingly steep descent into shades of black and white filled the entire windshield. Outside that thin pane of glass, the blur of the landscape spun in a crazy pattern as the car’s headlights danced off objects like light off a damn disco ball.
“Here, take the wheel.”
Somehow, I tore my gaze away from my impending death to gape at Rabbit, who let go of the steering to undo his seat belt. The instinct to live had me scrambling for the wheel. “What—”
“Take it, Jinx.” With an appalling lack of concern, he reached over, undid my belt and began dragging me into the driver’s seat.
Pure instinct had me fighting the wheel to ensure that we didn’t hurtle off the edge of the world and into oblivion. With remarkable casualness, Rabbit pulled me into his lap. Heart in my throat, I managed to rasp out, “What are you doing?”
“I need to stop the program.”
At his weird answer, I managed to tear my attention away from the death-defying ski ride we were taking down a freakin’ mountain and stare at his reflection in the bouncing rearview mirror. “Rab—”
But his grinning face was melting into a stream of indecipherable green code against a black screen that began bleeding through the car.
“The Matrix? Really?” That dry question came from the passenger seat, where an unconcerned Ricochet, the team’s dream-walker, was staring at me with a bemused look. “I guess it fits, but seriously, Jinx? Rabbit’ll be so disappointed.”
His presence flicked a switch in my brain, replacing my rush of fear-induced adrenaline with a relieving sense of rationality. “I’m dreaming.”
“Yep.” Ricochet’s calm agreement soothed the ragged beat of my pulse, loosening the tight band around my chest and my grip on the steering wheel.
My surroundings began to drift away like fading fog. When it cleared, I was walking next to Ricochet in a sun-dappled wood. Trees stretched high above us, their grand stature leaving me in awe as we strolled through a thick green carpet. “Wow, where is this?”
“California.” Ricochet lifted his face, sunlight and shadows playing along its sharp planes while a soft breeze rustled the leaves overhead. “Humboldt State Park. I like to hike the trails here.”
“I can see why.”
He dropped his head, and we continued on in a companionable silence. A well of calm washed away the lingering edge of adrenaline-laced fear. Walking next to Ricochet, my pulse slowed, and the aching stiffness riding my spine seeped away. The hush of a nearby stream trickled in, adding to the sense of seclusion. The hair-raising ride down the mountain faded, replaced by nature’s serenity.
I liked this dream, which was a good thing because Ricochet was now the one in control of it, not me. He was a powerful dream-walker, an ability that meant he could influence people’s dream states, locking them inside their own minds until their dreams, or nightmares, became their realities. In essence, to anyone in the waking world, the person caught in a dream appeared to be in a coma-like state. In the wrong hands, Ricochet’s ability could be deadly because where the mind led, the body followed. If someone died in a dream under the influence of a dream-walker, that person died in the real world as well.
