Page 2 of Covert Affections (Shadow Agents/PSI-Ops #5)

Chapter Two

Jesse

Jesse nearly went after the men with the locked case, demanding to know the origin of the scent.

He restrained himself—barely. It seemed like forever before they were gone.

Jesse remained in place, his stomach in a knot from the serum.

The elevator doors were still open, and Jesse nearly entered the thing, though he wasn’t sure why.

For a brief second, he was sure he heard a child’s voice coming from the elevator.

He was tempted to peek in to be sure a child wasn’t somehow hiding in it.

But that was absurd. Children weren’t at the facility, and a random one couldn’t just wander in unnoticed, let alone manage to access a secure section.

The serum is making you hear shit.

The heavy elevator doors clicked shut, taking with them his illusion, leaving only the hum of the overhead lights. The faint noise was a reminder of how much the lighting hurt his eyes right now since his injection.

Stepping to the side so that he wasn’t standing in the open doorway, Jesse scratched his forearm. It was inflamed and hot to the touch.

That can’t be good.

He hated being The Corporation’s guinea pig, but had little to no say in the matter.

He also couldn’t even remember when or why he’d started working for them in the first place.

Memories of his early years with The Corporation were nothing more than a blur—hidden deep in the recesses of his mind.

Jesse clenched his jaw, his temples throbbing as he tried—and failed—to focus on anything beyond the present.

Every attempt to remember his early years with The Corporation ended the same way: with his mind tangling itself in static. Faces, voices, places—flickered just out of reach, teasing him with their familiarity before vanishing entirely.

It's the serum , he reminded himself. Has to be. Toxic crap.

The stuff left him unsure about much of anything he thought, saw, or heard. What he was sure of was that questioning The Corporation’s motives or directives was unwise.

They weren’t big on free will, and they had ways of making sure everyone complied. They weren't like other employers. A pink slip didn't come with a nice severance package and a good reference. It came with a pine box. If you were lucky enough to get a funeral at all.

He should leave. Any sane person would have walked away years ago.

But every time the thought surfaced, something held him back.

It wasn't the money, though The Corporation paid well enough.

It wasn't loyalty—hell, he didn't even like most of the people he worked with.

Yet here he stayed, taking their injections, following their orders, ignoring the growing sense that something was deeply wrong.

Don't question the process.

Obey orders.

Keep your head down.

Compliance was the only viable option—something Jesse had known when he’d signed on with them.

The risks versus the rewards were high, yet he hadn’t thought much about it all those years ago.

The money was nothing to sneeze at, but with age came wisdom and the ability to see that money wasn’t everything.

While money could technically buy happiness, it couldn’t wash away the guilt he carried deep in his soul for some of the actions his job had forced him to do.

Money couldn’t chase away his inner demons.

Money couldn’t buy him his freedom from his employer.

He’d resigned himself to the knowledge that the only way he was leaving his job was feet first. If The Corporation’s eggheads had any say in the matter, that would be happening sooner rather than later.

Whatever the scientists had done to the serum in the last few months had taken that discomfort to new levels.

Normally, the crap they pumped into his veins left him jittery and nervous for a day or two.

The new stuff left what lived in him—his mountain lion—wanting to claw at him from the inside out while simultaneously making him feel like he might scratch his skin off.

A memory flashed briefly in his mind, half-formed, so faint he wasn’t sure it was real.

Jesse saw himself in black military fatigues that differed from the ones he’d been issued by The Corporation.

His hair was shorter, and he was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with men he couldn’t place.

Men whose faces were blurred in his mind but whose presence felt like family.

The kind of brotherhood forged in combat.

He heard a garbled voice telling him something.

Giving instructions, maybe. He couldn’t make it out.

Jesse blinked, shaking the image from his mind.

He was acutely aware that the facility had cameras everywhere and someone was always watching.

Jesse rubbed his temple, hoping to push away any more flashes of memories or hallucinations.

He didn’t need the people in charge to know that he was cracking up.

That his mind wasn’t what it used to be.

As a natural-born cat-shifter, Jesse’s healing abilities were far greater than those of a human.

Earlier testing that had been done on him back when he’d started with The Corporation had amped that considerably.

That meant his body should have cycled through the ill effects of the serum within minutes of it being injected.

That wasn’t the case, and bringing it to the scientists or the medical staff at work wasn’t an option.

Human doctors wouldn’t know anything about it or how to deal with someone like Jesse—a supernatural. It wasn’t as if humans were aware supernaturals existed. They’d piss themselves if they knew the truth of what lurked in the dark. Jesse was left to suffer the serum’s effects alone.

He’d entertained seeking outside help from other supernaturals who were in the medical field, but the last thing he needed was for The Corporation to think he was leaking information outside the organization.

There weren’t too many men who worked for The Corporation and had a medical background that Jesse trusted.

If things didn’t turn around for him soon, he’d figure out something. For now, he’d grin and bear it.

The more his arm itched, the less confidence he had in his ability to cope.

He turned partially, contemplating going back into the exam room he’d been in and demanding to speak with one of the masterminds behind the serum’s formula.

He understood that it wasn’t any of the technicians who administered the injections.

They weren’t making the big decisions. They were merely cogs in the wheel, just like him, but they could point him in the right direction.

Then Jesse could threaten to rip the scientists’ heads off if they didn’t fix whatever it was that they’d broken in him.

The thought of that brought a small smile to his face.

While holding someone accountable sounded great, it wasn’t going to happen.

He would just have to keep pushing through like he always did.

Fuck the weird side effects the serum was causing.

He could ignore them and pretend everything was right in his world.

That his shifter senses weren’t off. That he wasn’t teetering on the edge of shifting, hoping to crawl out of his skin to escape the drug’s effects.

And that the serum didn’t leave him struggling to control his temper.

For now, he’d settle for a good night’s sleep.

He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in months.

Everything in him said the serum was to blame.

It was somehow causing him nightmares. He was painfully aware that nightmares were waking him on the regular, but he couldn’t remember much about them.

In them, he saw flashes of a pretty woman with long blonde hair, wearing clothing that looked to be from the late 1800s.

She was holding a bouquet of yellow wildflowers and looked peaceful and serene if you didn’t count the fact her throat had been torn out.

He didn’t know what the dreams meant or why he could only remember fragments of them.

All he knew was that the idea of closing his eyes to rest left his chest tightening and his shifter side clawing at him to be free.

He didn’t scare easily, so whatever he was dreaming about had to be big.

The fragments he could recall from the nightmares were just flashes of faces and voices he didn’t recognize.

There was always the same voice that spoke to him, telling him not to question the process, to obey orders, and to keep his head down.

Jesse shook his head slightly, trying to get the words out of his mind, thankful it wasn’t the sound of children’s laughter—again.

The phrases were something that had started popping into his head months ago, often on an endless loop, adding to his feeling of losing control.

Even stranger than random phrases popping into his brain and hearing random giggles from what sounded like a child was the fact the phrases didn’t sound like the rest of his internal dialogue.

No.

They sounded like someone else was saying them to him over and over again.

It was a voice that seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. Whatever it was, it brought with it the urge to trust its words of wisdom, no matter how random they seemed. Regardless, they were words to live by if one wanted to survive working for The Corporation.

Words he needed to heed.

He just needed to keep his head down and do his fucking job.

That had been far easier before he’d been transferred to the new facility a few months ago.

This facility, though recently renovated, hadn’t been his first pick.

It was one of his least favorite options on the list—mostly because his direct boss was a man he loathed.

But there was also something about the facility that made Jesse edgier than usual and made him think he kept hearing voices, though that could have been the serum.

Jesse tilted his head as he heard the intercom phone in the exam room beep again.

“Oneal,” the technician said.

Ah, that’s his name.

Oneal let out a long sigh. “Can’t Hurley go down there and deal with them? They creep me out.”

Jesse’s cat-shifter side stirred, taking a keen interest in what the technician was talking about.

His shifter side rarely, if ever, gave a flying fuck about phone calls.

If this was another side effect of the serum, Jesse was going to lose his mind.

The absolute last thing he wanted to do was start caring about other people or what they had going on in their lives.

The cat pushed at him, leaving him no choice but to concede and tap into his shifter hearing to catch the other side of the conversation. Strangely, it didn’t work. He should have been able to hear it with ease, but the serum was messing with his senses.

He wondered if this was what humans felt like only being able to hear a little of what was actually happening around them. If so, it sucked.

“No, man. I’m telling you…they stare at me in a weird way,” said the technician. “They’re like something out of a horror movie. And I don’t believe for a second that they’re harmless.”

Jesse stiffened, his hands tingling as the urge to do a partial shift and take the man’s head from his body came rushing over him. Since The Corporation would frown on him randomly offing one of their techs, he refrained—for now.

The sound of a child laughing filled Jesse’s head again, leaving him backing away from the door to the exam room and abandoning his thoughts of killing the tech. Jesse put his hands to his head, hoping it would somehow hold on to what was left of his sanity. All it did was make his arm itch more.

He dragged his hands over his face.

“Yeah, well, get a fucking smaller needle if you want me to stop growling at you when you do it!” shouted Nick Payne, who was one of only a handful of men Jesse trusted beyond measure at work. “I swear, you keep using a bigger needle every week. It’s like you want me to break you in two.”

Nick exited the exam room next to the one Jesse had just been in, rubbing his forearm as well. He was glaring into the room he’d just left, growling. It was no secret that the wolf-shifter hated needles.

Jesse always found it mildly amusing that someone as tough as Nick had such an aversion to needles.

The man could take down multiple targets without breaking a sweat, yet mention getting an injection, and he turned into a whining pup.

Jesse would have teased Nick more about it, but he wanted to stay on his good side in hopes Nick would bring in more baked goods.

A few weeks back, it had been a three-tier cake.

One Nick said he'd won in some raffle. Then, it had been cupcakes.

They were as good as the cake, and last week, it had been cookies.

The door to the room remained open for a moment, gifting Jesse a view of a nervous-looking young man wearing scrubs within. The smell of fear permeated from the young male. The guy shot forward and closed the door to the room behind Nick, causing Jesse to chuckle and Nick to growl more.

“Little fucker,” spat Nick, continuing to glare at the closed door.

“Scaring the staff again?” asked Jesse. He’d once seen the medical staff playing rock, paper, scissors to see who would have to jab Nick with a needle. Jesse pitied the man who lost that game.

“I do what I can. Hey, is it me, or does that crap burn more than usual lately?” Nick flexed his hand, his expression dark. “Last week, it just itched. This week, it’s like my bones are trying to crawl out of my skin.”

Jesse tugged the sleeve of his black shirt down, hiding the large hive that had formed around the injection site. Showing vulnerability wasn’t wise, and being allergic to the serum was a sign of weakness. “Yeah, well, what doesn’t kill us makes us wish it had.”

Nick snickered. “Not sure that’s how the saying goes. Besides, I’d like to think they aren’t giving us something toxic, but who the fuck knows?”

Jesse shrugged. “You really think they’d tell us if they were?”

Nick stilled, a horrified look flashing through his eyes. “Good point.”

Jesse squinted, trying to reduce the amount of light coming into his eyes from the harsh, iridescent lighting mounted throughout the hallway.

Dynamics Corp. spared no expense for their facilities, located worldwide.

From what he’d heard, they’d retrofitted the building they were currently in with massive laboratories.

Jesse wasn’t entirely sure what they used all the labs for and didn’t ask.

Some things were better left unknown. To date, his guard duties hadn’t extended to the labs in the lower levels, so he had no direct dealings with the area.

He knew shady stuff went on down there, but since it didn’t involve him, he kept his nose out of it.

That was how one stayed alive and avoided becoming a missing person.