The Protected

was from here. Where had he learned . . . whatever he did, she wondered.

He’d turned all the lights off save for a dim one by the bed, enough so that the boy could see. He stood lost in the shadows, his hands empty . . . empty, and ready.

“Well?”

Swallowing, she looked away from him and shrugged. “Why not?”

He snorted. “I can think of a thousand reasons. Why work for the government? I don’t imagine it’s for the money, or the glory.”

“All about the glory,” she said soberly, shooting him a quick glance. “I get up every damn morning and do my workout and my mantra is for the glory of the FBI.”

Gus just stared at her.

Obviously, her sense of humor wasn’t appealing. Rolling her eyes, she rose from her chair and started to pace. “It just fit. I was a kid in trouble . . . a lot of trouble. The man who heads up my unit has a knack for finding the people who’ll fit best into his unit. I’d just come off a stint in juvie and—”

“Juvie?”

She lifted a brow. “Juvenile detention center. I was something of a problem child.” That last trip in, she’d stolen some food, and when she’d gotten caught by the store owner, she’d beaten the shit out of him. Not because he’d caught her. But when he did catch her, he’d decided he’d take it out of her in a rather inappropriate manner. Of course, nobody had believed her.

The story was a little different when he was arrested for sexual exploitation of a minor two years later, but by then, she was out of the system and busting her ass to get her GED so she could get into college. Still, it had been a pleasure to see that man going to jail.

“Anyway, it was right before I was eighteen and I was reading in the paper about this woman who’d found a kid down south. She was one of the bloodhounds in the unit, although I didn’t really know about them. I headed down there—my gut told me that was what I needed to do. I wanted to talk to her. I hadn’t realized there were others like me until then and I . . . hell, I don’t know. I wanted to talk to her. She was in the hospital—I never did talk to her, but her boss? I did talk to him. He told me I wasn’t ready. Had to get my GED, had to go to college. Had to get myself together and under control—in other words, I had to stay out of trouble. He helped me get my life together, and he was there walking me through the mess while I did just that.” She shrugged self-consciously and looked away. “When I got out of college, I told him I was ready. He didn’t have much to say to that, but a few days later, the paperwork showed up at my place.”

“Paperwork?”

She lifted a brow. “You don’t just walk into the FBI and say, Hey . . . I want a job, Gus.”

Swiping her palms down her jeans, she moved over by the bed and touched her palm to Alex’s brow again. “He’s still so damned hot,” she muttered.

“We should put him in a cool bath.”

Vaughnne shook her head. “Bad idea. I’ve taken basic first aid courses . . . sometimes it comes in handy. Doctors don’t always think that’s the wisest thing these days. Sometimes the body reacts by the fever shooting even higher.”

Rising, she checked the time. “The doctor will be here soon.”

Gus looked like he wanted to argue, but after a moment, he just went back to staring out the window. “You never really answered. Why the FBI?”

“Because it fit. I’ve seen too many monsters, too many assholes in my life. I know what it’s like to be victimized and I hate it. With the Bureau, I have a chance to use what I can do to help people. I don’t have to hide what I am all the time and I can actually use it to make a living.” She shrugged and then suppressed a wince as the movement sent pain streaking up her neck to echo through her skull. She was too damn tight, too damn tense. Somehow, she didn’t think she’d have time to work in a massage or anything in the next few days, next few weeks, either. “Nothing else is going to come up in my life that lets me use what I can do the way this does.”

“And how can you use it?” Gus continued to stare at her. “How does your . . . talking . . . thing make you at all useful?”

“Pair me with a telepath who can receive as well as send and the two of us can go infiltrate damn near anything without having to worry about being spied on or caught because we had to reach out and make contact with the unit. For that matter, I can always be in contact with my unit. My range is pretty much limitless.” She smirked at him and added, “Just in case you’re thinking you can use me for hostage purposes or something. It’s a bad idea. I can reach out and touch somebody, so to speak, anytime I want.”

One black brow arched fractionally as he studied her face. “Anybody?”

“I have to have had a connection with them. Even if I’ve just seen them face-to-face one time . . . that’s all I need. If I know them personally, the contact is stronger.” She didn’t mention that distance could be a factor. No point in making her ability look less impressive. Sending a message to Jones in D.C. from here wasn’t an issue. She’d be in debilitating pain for a long, long while afterward, but if the need was extreme, she could do it several times over as long as adrenaline kept her going. She’d just pay for it afterward.

“So you have to have seen the person,” he said slowly.

“Yes.”

His eyes narrowed. “Did you see the men earlier? Those who came to attack us?”

Ahhhh . . . I see. Smiling a little, she inclined her head. “Yes. I did.” Then she shrugged and turned away. “But I’d rather not reach out and make that connection blindly, so don’t go asking me to play messenger girl.”

“Why?”

She shot him a look. “Because they tracked your boy. If I send a message without knowing just how capable they are, it’s entirely possible they can track me. And my job is to keep him safe. I can’t do that if I’m leading his attackers to his door, now can I?”

Any answer he might have made was cut short. She saw him stiffen at the window, watched as he pulled out that deadly Sig Sauer he liked to shove in her ribs every few hours.

“Somebody just pulled into the parking lot,” he said quietly.

Vaughnne pulled out her phone.

Gus continued to stand there, watching. “They are just sitting in the car—”

Her phone chimed with an incoming message.

You asked for a house call? –Grady

* * *

“IF I had to guess, without doing any kind of lab work, I’d say a UTI.”

Gus stared at the doctor like he thought she was going to chop off the kid’s hands and feet and feed him to alligators. Vaughnne carefully kept her body between them, although Dr. Grady was probably used to working around temperamental, pissed-off people. She didn’t even seem perturbed at being called to come to a hotel in the middle of the night.

“A UTI.” Gus spat the words out like somebody had shoved his mouth full of horse shit.

Vaughnne glanced over at him. “A urinary infection. Somewhere in the kidneys or bladder.”

“I know what it is,” Gus said, giving her a withering look. “But how would he get one? He is a healthy boy.”

“Anybody can get one,” Dr. Grady said gently. “He’s also a preteen boy. Boys his age are often too busy to slow down and drink as much as they should. That can predispose you to a UTI. Sometimes their body hygiene starts to slip.”

Something flashed in Gus’s eyes, and as he took a step forward, Vaughnne slammed a hand against his chest. “Throttle back, big guy,” she warned. “She’s not wrong. I’ve known more than my share of kids his age. You tell them to get in the bath ten times before they do it and they are out in the blink of an eye. They barely have time to get wet, much less really bathe. She’s not saying you’re not taking care of him and she’s not calling him a sloppy little heathen, either. So chill out.”

Dr. Grady’s brows had arched up high over her eyes by the time Vaughnne was done. “Exactly so, Vaughnne. If he’s not drinking adequate fluids, if he’s not using proper body hygiene . . . that could do it. Is he circumcised?”