Avenged (Altered #2)(66)

“You have to stop,” she whispered. “You’re killing me.”

He chuckled, the rumble against her breast doing nothing to stop the fire burning through her.

“Fine,” he sighed. “Damn gunshot.” He sobered though, his thoughts going to the compound, to Fields. “Tell me what happened.”

“Nick…” She didn’t want to get into this. He was still recovering. He needed to rest. “I should let you get some sleep. The doctors said you would be tired… You lost a lot of blood.”

More, she didn’t want to talk about it yet. It was still raw, what she’d done. She wasn’t ready to face him if he didn’t understand. Or worse, if he thought she’d done the wrong thing.

“Tell me what happened,” he said, this time more insistent. His arm had become a vise around her.

“Parker Sinclair arrived. He has the same gift I have, can read minds and control people. While I held Fields and his guards, he forced us still. Don’t you remember that?”

“No. I remember them shooting at us. I caught the first wave, but the second one…”

She didn’t want to think about how close they’d come. Blue had been shot, too, in the hand. She’d caught some of the second wave of gunfire, thank goodness, or Kitty had no idea how bad things could have been for her and her friends.

“Sinclair arrived while I held the guards and Fields still. He took the suitcase. The one with Fields’s research in it.” The failure of it still crushed her chest. Fields’s research, out in the world…“Luke destroyed the doses of Solvimine, but the research… It’s gone.”

He squeezed her hand again. “Then what?”

“Then, I lost control. And you got shot.”

“And?”

She hesitated, but saw no judgment in his eyes, only love. “I turned Fields’s guards against him.”

His brows lifted. “What?”

“Instead of shooting us, they shot Fields.” She glanced down. “After that, they were disoriented. When Pike arrived, reinforcements swooped in, and they gave up pretty quickly.”

“You had them shoot Fields.”

She nodded. “He died.” The words were simple and the truth. He’d died, because of her.

When Nick had told her that her power was more dangerous than the others, she’d written him off. She’d thought he might be trying to build her confidence. Now, she didn’t downplay what she could do. She’d convinced someone—a group of people—to kill someone else. The weight of that rested on her, had kept her up the past few nights, haunting her.

Because of her, a helicopter pilot had crashed his plane with himself, Ahmed, and Ahmed’s assistant on board. She’d made a group of men murder someone they hadn’t intended to kill. They would live with that.

She would live with all of that.

Rationally, she knew that those same men would have killed her and her friends if she didn’t do something. She’d made a quick decision, saved their lives at the expense of the life of a killer.

The line of right and wrong felt too blurry.

When Nick gripped her shoulders, he didn’t hesitate. “You did what you had to do. You made the best decision at that time. You can’t expect more from yourself than that.”

She searched his face, his thoughts, for any pity or doubt. She found none. He had complete faith in her.

It filled her heart, humbled her. She nodded, not sure what to say. There were no words for that kind of love and trust.

Finally, she cleared her throat and said, “They captured Jeremy. He’s in custody, awaiting a trial.”

Nick snorted. Hope he rots in jail.

She didn’t have anything to add to that, either, so she filled him in on the rest. “We’re still in Wyoming, but Blue, Seth, and Luke have gone to Fort Detrick, in Maryland. They’ll be working on a special task force there. Martins made a plea to his superiors, to create a special group to watch for future Solvimine threats. With Sinclair out there… They don’t want to be caught unaware.”

He mumbled something, but his eyelids had begun to droop, so she decided to end it there. He really did need some sleep, so she kissed his cheek. “I’ll go get the nurses, let them know you’ve been awake.”

He murmured again, something that sounded like agreement. But when she moved to get off the bed, his hand caught hers and his eyes were open. “Kitty?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

She smiled at him. “I love you, too, Nick. More than anything.” She had no idea what would happen now, but she knew that for sure. “Rest, please. I’ll watch over you.”

“As you do,” he mumbled.

Her grin continued as she went to the nurses’ stand. Yes, she did watch over him. That’s what people who loved one another did. She’d learned that from him.





Chapter Twenty


Nick used his key card to enter the top secret laboratory and offices underground at Fort Detrick. He slid the tag back in his pocket as he limped through the sliding doors. The locking mechanism clicked behind him.

He hurried as fast as his cane would allow. He wasn’t leaning as heavily on it as he had been a few weeks ago, and he was moving faster every day. His physical therapist hoped he’d be able to drop the cane completely by summer.