The Protected

We got problems, she said into Gus’s mind, not bothering to shield her voice. It took everything she had just to fight that pull. Sweat broke out on her skin and she dropped down on the ground, digging her hands into the damp earth, anything to ground herself as she fought that pull on her mind.

It hurt, and the harder she fought, the more it hurt.

A hand touched her arm and she looked up, saw that Gus had come to her side.

“What’s wrong?” Gus murmured, his voice calm, unaffected.

Somebody there can force people to do shit. Look for him. He’ll be focusing—She wasn’t even able to finish the thought as the strain on her brain increased. Biting down on her lip, she slammed her hands against her skull, but it didn’t even touch on the pain there. Damn it, damn it, damn it—

She slammed up her shields, the ones she’d lowered when she tried to draw them in, but it was hard, so hard to concentrate, and it felt like she was trapping him inside those shields with her. Him. That nasty, slippery presence. It was like having a giant, mutant slug trapped inside her head, in the innermost part of her.

But as she formed one set of shields, then another, and another, some of the pressure on her brain eased off. Panting, she slid Gus a look. “They ought to be close now, really close.”

He lifted a hand to his lips.

She sucked in a breath, a second one. Okay. Better now. That pressure was still there and the intensity of it increased, but instead of a rope that was trying to drag her away, it was more like a raging thunderstorm. She wasn’t inside a house—she felt like she had an umbrella over her head, though. It was enough to protect her from the impact. It worked.

She focused on Gus. Do you see them?

He gave a small, almost imperceptible nod.

Watch for a reaction . . . whoever reacts, take him out.

Maybe she should thank the son of a bitch who’d just tried to mind-rape her. It made this easier. Controllers were dangerous. If they used that ability without any sort of care . . . yeah. He’d made this a lot easier.

She gathered up her control and narrowed her thoughts down. It was like weapons practice, really. Just a different sort of weapon. She had a line of sight, thanks to what that son of a bitch had tried to pull. With her mind’s eye, she could see that line, that connection that led her to his mind . . . and once she was there, she unloaded.

A shriek rose up—yeah, she’d been right. They were close.

An odd little pop echoed through the air.

Somebody swore.

She didn’t have time to process that, because a hand appeared in her line of vision. She reached up blindly and found herself on her feet a second later, staring up into Gus’s face. Her head was screaming at her but that pressure on her brain was gone, too. “He’s dead,” she said softly.

He didn’t respond.

She didn’t guess there was any point.

Out behind them, in that little field behind the house, somebody called out, “Y’all can’t avoid all of us, not for forever. Just tell us where to find the kid and this all stops.”

She snorted. Yeah. Sure it would stop.

Gus stroked a hand down her arm and then crowded her back against the tree. She didn’t know what he was doing, or why, and just then, she decided she was maybe okay with that. She was out of her element here. She worked on task forces. She’d been shot at before, had been hunted before, and done her share of hunting before, but it had all been within the confines of the law. On her part, at least. There were rules in her world.

She’d left her world behind and she was still struggling to adjust to that.

Gus dipped his head and whispered in her ear, “Any idea what he can do?”

She turned her head and looked at him. Then, silent, she shook her head. Whatever the guy was, he either wasn’t very strong, or he was very, very smart, and very, very good because she couldn’t feel much more than the faintest buzz from him.

“Y’all really want to come out of there now. Come on now,” the unknown psychic said. “Don’t make me force it.”

Don’t make me force it. Those words sent a shiver of trepidation down her spine. Force it. Force them? His partner had already tried that, ended up dead for his trouble. Just what was he going to . . .

An odd crackle reached her ears. Familiar, that sound. She hissed out a breath and jerked her head around to stare at the orange glow. It shimmered off in the brush about a dozen yards away. “There’s the first one,” he called. “Do I have to—”

The words ended in a scream and Gus was already striding out of the trees, his Sig Sauer in his hand, the Heckler & Koch hanging from his shoulder. “Bring my bag,” he said over his shoulder.

Vaughnne stared at the flickering orange flames for a minute longer, watching as they raged higher. “Don’t kill him yet, Gus. We need him.”

* * *

DON’T kill him yet, she says.

Gus crouched down by the man and shot out a hand, fisting it in the bastard’s hair. “You want to try and burn me out of there, hmm?”

The man clutched at the bleeding hole in his belly. “Fuck you,” he rasped.

Gus took his weapon and pressed the muzzle to the sensitive underside of the man’s chin. “That hole in your gut isn’t going to kill you,” he said softly. “Not for a long, long while. So I have time to make you suffer.”

“Gus.”

He looked up as Vaughnne came closer. “Wait for me by the car,” he said shortly. She was already upset by this. He’d known it would happen, that she would see the monster inside him. He could handle that. But he’d rather her not see it.

“Stop,” she said, grabbing his wrist and tugging until he eased up.

“Stop?” He stared at her. The cabron had been ready to burn her and she wanted him to stop?

“If you don’t stop, that fire can burn out of control. You want that?”

He wanted to say he didn’t care, but realized he couldn’t entirely say that, not without lying. Perhaps he wasn’t as far gone as he’d always thought. He didn’t want to think of this quiet little place gone, lost to a fire.

Sighing, he looked back at the bastard on the ground and instead of pressing the muzzle to the man’s chin, he dragged the tip of it down his torso, along his hip, and then jammed it hard against his scrotum. “Here is the deal, cabron. You’re going to put that fire out now. If you don’t, I’m going to kill you, ojete, in the slowest, most painful way you can possibly imagine. And if you can’t imagine a slow and painful way, let me know. I’ll give you some ideas.”

The man sneered at him.

Gus shifted the Sig Sauer to his other hand and reached down, grabbed the man’s penis and twisted. Once the man’s shrieking had faded away into whimpers, Gus started to speak. “The first thing I’ll do? I’m gonna pull your balls out through your nose. If that doesn’t get your attention, I’m gonna slice your dick off. In pieces.”

He let go and smiled down at the man. “Have I made the matter clear now?”

The man sucked in a breath and nodded.

“You’ll put out the fire?”

“Are you going to kill me when I do?”

Gus smiled. “No.”

And he wasn’t lying. He had questions. After he was done with those questions, though . . .

Vaughnne stood just to the side. From the corner of his eye, he could see her face, grim and unsmiling. Some of her tension eased and she blew out a sigh. “The fire is dying. I’m going to go check, make sure it’s out. Don’t kill him before I get back here, Gus,” she warned.

He didn’t answer.

Once she was gone, he pressed the muzzle of his weapon against the man’s groin. “Here is where we can