Page 52 of I Dream of Danger (Ghost Ops #2)

The dark-haired man thought then shook his head. “If anything, you should download the data from the server. But that would take at least half an hour.”

“No.” Jon’s eyes narrowed. “Not half an hour.” He placed his top secret 100 petabyte flash drive into the side of a processer and switched it on. The sirens were booming now and the smell of smoke rose in the air. He pulled the drive out. “Done.”

“Wow.” The kid’s eyes rounded. “How did you do that? I mean?—”

You have to get everyone out now. Follow Les, the young kid. He knows how to get out. Go now!

“That’s it, let’s go.” Nick started herding them toward the door, Jon standing guard. He had his rifle up, shouldered, the scope down, out of the way. The scope was a Warren 509 and could pick out rocks on the moon, but was worse than useless in close quarters.

Trying one last time to ?—

The voice in his head disappeared. Elle, whose soft presence inside him had been so incredibly reassuring, had winked out, leaving emptiness, coldness. Desolation.

Jon stuck his head out in the corridor then motioned everyone to get out.

Nick stood there, like a moron. There was nothing to tap to get her back online, nothing to switch back on. Elle had disappeared and he didn’t have a fucking clue how to get her back. He missed her desperately, and recognized now how much it meant to him to have her inside him.

One thing was for sure—he wasn’t moving from where he was without her.

A click, then Catherine’s voice. She sounded rushed and there were beeping machines sounds in the background. “Nick?” She was trying to sound calm, but panic was riding her. “Nick, Elle’s vital signs are gone.”

He tapped his ear. “What?” he screamed. “What the fuck do you mean by that?”

Her voice was steadier. She’d put them all on the same channel and Jon turned his head to him, eyes wide in alarm. Yeah. Jon understood.

“I’m not getting any vital signs. Heart, brain, lungs. Stopped. Can you feel her?” Catherine asked. “Is she still there with you?”

“No!” No, no he couldn’t feel her. No, she wasn’t here with him. All he felt was cold isolation, not that warm connection that had accompanied him into the building, like gentle hands caressing him. Nothing—just blankness.

Fuck!

He turned around in despair. There was nowhere to look for her, nothing he could do to find her. Her body was 200 miles away and her spirit was… where?

He turned and turned with nowhere to go, sweat breaking out all over his body, heart pounding beneath his rib cage. He must have looked like a madman but he didn’t give a shit.

“Hey man, let’s go,” Jon shouted over the alarm. He was outside the door, the prisoners uneasily congregated around him. “She’s not here, we’re wasting time.”

The emergency lights flickered and went off, casting them into utter darkness for a couple of seconds. When they came back on, they were even dimmer than before. Backup power was fading fast. And the smell of smoke was stronger by the minute.

Mac’s voice came on. “I’ve got what looks like fire on the 11 th and 10 th floors. Fire engines are coming down Market. People are staggering out of the main entrance. We’ve got to go. That includes you, Ross.”

No, that didn’t include him. Damned if he was going anywhere without Elle. Except Elle was back in Haven?—

He heard a dull thump in his ear. “I’m defibrillating her, Nick.” Another thump. “But it’s not working. The EKG spiked but is flat again.”

“Try again,” he snarled, and he heard another thump.

Silence for what felt like five centuries but was probably only five seconds.

Then Catherine came back on. “She’s dying, Nick. There’s nothing I can do.” Catherine’s voice was sorrowful. He could hear the steady hum of machinery that should be beating, together with her heart.

“No!” he screamed. Panic pounded in every cell.

He’d never known panic like this. He didn’t know what the fuck to do.

He’d been trained and trained hard to face any kind of danger.

Bad guys with guns, ambushes, firefights—you name it, he knew what to do.

But what the hell to do now, with a dying Elle two hundred miles away and a missing Elle right here—he had no clue.

He met Jon’s eyes. “I can’t leave her. I can’t. Get out of here.”

“Dude?” The young kid stepped forward. He pitched his voice so it could be heard over the sirens. “You’re looking for Elle Connelly? Right?”

Nick jerked his head up and down. His throat was clamped shut.

“She could astrally project. That’s an electromagnetic phenomenon. There’s a Faraday cage four doors down. It says Lab 4 on the door. Maybe?—”

“Nick.” Catherine’s voice choked. “Oh, Nick I am so very sorry. She’s gone. Elle’s gone.”

“And we have to go too.” Mac’s hard voice didn’t betray anything, just resolute purpose. “You have a mission, soldier. Get out. Now.”

“ No! ” Nick screamed again, and for the very first time in his life, he disobeyed direct orders. He waved at Jon. “Get these people out and into the van! I’ll be right behind you.”

Elle wasn’t gone. Elle couldn’t be gone.

He’d just found her, after losing her for ten years.

This wasn’t happening. He was going to hop into the van with the former prisoners and Jon and Mac, and they were going to drive as fast as the van could carry them to Mount Blue and away from this place with the stench of human sacrifice.

And Elle would be waiting for him, just as she’d be waiting for him every single day for the rest of their lives.

She’d welcome the kid, the dark-haired man, the woman with the frizzy hair to Haven, and they’d stay.

Of course they’d stay. They were renegades, and they had special powers so they would fit right in, particularly with Catherine and Elle around.

Woo-woo stuff was the staff of life on Haven now.

There would be kids born who could levitate and travel in time and heal, and their kid would be one of them.

Because he and Elle were going to have kids, no question. He’d never wanted children. Why bring a kid into the world? The world was broken and there was no fixing it. Except—Elle wasn’t broken and neither was he. Their kids would be strong and talented and smart.

And he wanted them. He wanted it all. He wanted the fights they’d have and he wanted the make-up sex.

He wanted to watch Elle bloom with his child as Catherine was blooming with Mac’s child.

They were creating something in Haven. Nick had no idea what—he was a soldier, for Christ’s sake.

What did he know? But Catherine knew and Elle sure knew.

He wanted to be there and he wanted her by his side.

She wasn’t dead. He wouldn’t let her be.

Jon was herding the fugitives down the corridor to the right, and he looked back at Nick.

What Jon was doing was a two-man job. It should have been one man taking point, the other watching everyone’s six.

It was almost impossible for Jon to do it alone.

Their eyes met and Nick couldn’t see any censure in Jon’s gaze.

He was doing what he had to do so Nick could do what he had to do.

Teamwork.

That’s what he had with Elle, goddammit. They were a team, a couple. The two of them belonged together. Always had, always would. Nick’s vision blurred and he swiped at his eyes. Goddamned smoke.

He took off in the opposite direction.

“Nick!” Mac roared. He was watching their movements on his handheld and he saw Nick move in the opposite direction from Jon. “You head back right this second!”

Nick switched his comms off, which next to disobeying a direct order was one of the biggest offenses in soldiering. You don’t switch comms off because you don’t like orders. It was an offense that carried the death penalty.

He pelted down the corridor as fast as his legs could carry him.

It wasn’t the thought of Mac waiting or Jon and the fugitives that drove him.

It was the thought that maybe just maybe he could save Elle.

Crazy as that sounded. There was a 99% chance it wouldn’t work, but that was better than 100%.

Because 100% meant Elle was lost to him forever, and he couldn’t, wouldn’t accept that.

Lab 1, Lab 2, Lab 3, Lab 4. There it was! He was running so fast he skidded as he turned into the laboratory, frantically looking for a Farraday cage. He hadn’t paid much attention in high school physics, and though he’d caught up in the military, he knew he’d never seen one.

The lab was huge and filled with equipment. He raged his way to the end wall smashing equipment out of his way with his rifle butt without finding anything that even vaguely resembled a cage. He slid to a stop at the far wall, chest heaving, vision blurred looking around wildly.

He recognized one piece of equipment in ten. Everything here was Geekland stuff, hard metallic shells hiding mysterious workings inside, and oh shit oh shit oh shit, he didn’t know what he was looking for.

In a rage, Nick kicked over some free-standing pieces, watching them shatter, bits of plexiglass tinkling to the floor, dials rolling, and there it was.

He stood, panting, looking at a metallic cage.

A Faraday cage, it had to be. He stared at it like a dumb beast, tears and sweat dripping down his face, and he had to shake himself into action because every second counted.

Go go go ! Pulling a grenade out of his combat vest, he tossed it at the metal cage then ducked down behind a big piece of equipment with two huge centrifuges on top and crouched.

After a second that felt like a century, the grenade exploded, spewing metal shards everywhere, some embedding themselves into the wall behind him.

Nick rose out of his crouch to look at the smoking mess, ready to scrabble around in the debris looking for something that would lead him to Elle when he heard Catherine’s gasp in the ear bud.