Avenged (Altered #2)(42)

“Who’s Pike?” She asked the question to the room at large.

Nick met her eyes. In charge of this operation at Goldstone. He hired me.

“Pike changed?” she asked Fields, incredulous. “Goldstone abandoned you? All of you? Again?”

“Not abandoned.” Fields sneered at her. More like got caught. “Pike’s with the military.”The fool. All of them, fools. They don’t see the benefits of my research. But this man does. What I’ve done, what these men can do… He sees the value.

“Mr. Ahmed has agreed to hire the soldiers who remain. And, I’ve chosen an early retirement. On a beach somewhere, I think.” It’s only a matter of time before Sinclair distributes the drug, or gives it to the military… With Goldstone and Pike under such scrutiny, I’m running out of resources. The faster I sell, the better.

“He fears our military already has the drug. Or portions of it. He knows that soon, the price of it will drop.” Her insight was more for Nick than anyone else.

Interesting. Mr. Ahmed processed that information. Good thing the money doesn’t matter as much as the time.

She nudged her head toward Ahmed. “He’s more interested in getting the drug fast. He’ll pay more for it as long as he gets it soon,” she told Nick, though Fields, of course, heard.

As both men chewed on what she’d told them—Fields gleeful that the buyer would buy fast, Mr. Ahmed unfazed by the military having the information already—she and Nick worked through what this meant.

This was a disaster.

Fields was going to sell Solvimine to a terrorist. Fields had planned to use the drug to create super soldiers and save lives in the military. American lives. He’d run from Goldstone, to test the drug on her hometown, sure he could prove the drug’s usefulness. Nick said that Goldstone had reabsorbed him after seeing that the drug actually worked…to some extent. That’s how Nick had found her. He’d taken a job with Goldstone. She’d assumed they’d switched compounds because she and Nick had almost escaped, not because Goldstone had finally given up. This building felt abandoned, decrepit, and surely if they had more space, they would have separated her and Nick.

Why had the changed soldiers around them agreed to stay with Fields. Money? Had Goldstone given up on them, too?

Well, if Goldstone had cut Fields off again, she couldn’t help thinking that it was too little too late. Because the drug had been created, and Solvimine would be worth a fortune on the black market.

The government was closing in, yes. Pike had gone to the military. Who knew what they planned to do with the drug. Use it? Stop it?

All those concerns paled, though, against the most immediate problem.

If the drug went out of the country…if this man gave it to guerrilla fighters, men who didn’t care if they died…this could change the entire face of fighting in the Middle East, or anywhere else that rebels were outmanned but highly funded.

They couldn’t allow that to happen. Also, if Fields was a rogue operative and was feeling cornered, there was no telling what he would do.

“This does not prove anything, Dr. Fields,” Ahmed interrupted her thoughts.

That’s right. He was testing her. She’d gotten stuck in her head.

“She could be making the lucky guesses. While I have been here, I have seen men move things without touching them, and I have seen men with superhuman strength. But it is this talent, the ability to read thoughts, that I want.” Ahmed glared down his nose at her.

As she didn’t care to change his opinion, she remained silent.

“Ask her something that no one else would know.” Fields crossed his arms over his chest, smugness resonating off of him.

Mr. Ahmed’s brow dropped. He wanted to be rid of Fields entirely. He didn’t like him, and he didn’t want to deal with him. Kitty couldn’t blame him. But the prospect of a mind reader…

“My wife. Tell me about my wife.”

Suddenly, images of the man’s wife filled his mind—a pretty, dark-haired woman, with long slim legs. Naked, she splayed on a bed draped in fabric. But, while she smiled at him, her eyes held fear.

Kitty didn’t want to prove anything to him. She considered remaining silent, but Jeremy stepped behind Nick and raised his eyebrows in challenge.

“There’s a birthmark on your wife’s thigh, like a paw print,” Kitty finally said. She tapped above her left knee, on the inside. “Right here. And, she is afraid of you.”

The man who was calling himself Mr. Ahmed swept forward to slap her. But she had been training for moments like this. She heard his intention and tumbled sideways off the chair in time to dodge him, landing on her hands and knees. The position was awkward, with her hands still zip-tied together, but she struck out with her leg.

The move worked perfectly. Ahmed tripped over her foot and lost his balance, crashing to the side and landing on his hip with a grunt.

She scampered forward to stand and quickly balanced her weight between her feet. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed down at him.

Nick stood as well, his legs apart. His eyes were dark, his lips twisted into a snarl. He saw red. You touch her one time, and I’ll kill you, fucker, right here…

As she loomed over Ahmed, she wanted to kick him. His flank was exposed, and she could do it. The fury, the fire of it, raced through her. This man… He was not used to being bested and certainly not by a woman. He’d have hit her, after all. It would serve him right. Undoubtedly, if the fear in his wife’s eyes said anything, he deserved it.