In His Keeping (Slow Burn #2)(17)

She did a quick assessment and knew there was no way to physically overcome this man. He was a fighter. Looked ex-military. Still wore the clothing of an enlisted man with ease and confidence that told her he hadn’t been out long.

The resolve in his features frightened her more than his obvious physical strength. He had a mission, one that would be completed at all costs.

But if he planned to drug her and hadn’t killed her outright, which he certainly could have done, then his orders were obviously to bring her in alive.

She narrowed her focus and the rest of the world simply fell away. Sweat beaded her forehead as she concentrated on the hand holding the syringe. His arm lifted, as though he were a puppet on strings. Jerky, him fighting it the whole way.

He lunged at her, reaching for her with his free hand, and she dodged out of the way, her concentration momentarily broken. She had to get to one of the vehicles and the only way to do that was to impair him enough to give her that window of opportunity. She doubted he was alone, but perhaps they’d expected her to hole up in her room like a scared, defenseless child until they came for her.

She forced every bit of her mental energy on that syringe until it took on a life of its own, wrenching free of his grasp and hovering in the air, looking suddenly like a menacing wasp. The man cursed and ducked and dodged as the syringe stabbed forward, his sunglasses falling to the ground so his eyes were revealed. The entire time, he inched his way in Ari’s direction, but she kept sidestepping, never taking her gaze from the syringe.

If it had been capable of incapacitating her, then it should do the same for him.

Impatience simmered in her consciousness. Things she used to do with ease that felt natural now seemed like such a long time ago. A lifetime. She’d grown so used to not using her powers that they seemed alien to her, not an integral part of her, as they should have been.

It required every ounce of discipline her father had instilled in her to push her panic and terror down and focus only on that syringe. She began to recognize the pattern in which he danced his intricate path to avoid being stuck by the needle.

She plunged the syringe toward him but at the last moment pulled it up sharply and then thrust with speed and accuracy exactly where she anticipated he’d be.

It struck him in the throat and she gave the plunger a strong mental push so it emptied the contents of the syringe into his body.

His expression was murderous as he reached up and yanked the needle from his neck, tossing it away in fury. But already his eyes were glazed, his movements sluggish. He staggered and collapsed to his knees but in a last rush of strength, he lifted his head, looking at her with a mixture of hatred and . . . respect?

“Don’t think this is the end,” he said, his words slurring. “We’ll come after you. You aren’t safe anywhere. There is nowhere we can’t find you. I underestimated you this time. I won’t make that mistake again. And if you ever want to see your precious mommy and daddy you’ll do just what we want. Not that they’re really your parents.”

The last words slipped nearly unintelligibly from his lips as a goofy-looking smile that was completely incongruous given the situation curved one side of his mouth upward. There was a look of triumph in his glazed eyes, and then the sedative took full effect and he rocked over to the side, hitting the paved sidewalk with an indelicate thud.

“What?” she demanded. “What did you say?”

She ran over to him and kicked him in the side, trying to rouse him, though she knew he’d be out for quite a while. It was what he’d intended for her to be. Bastard.

Had she heard him correctly?

She shook her head and turned, pissed that she’d spent those extra precious few seconds worrying over something stupid her attacker had said when he was in the grip of a strong sedative. The whole thing was crazy and in a world where she couldn’t be certain about much, the one thing she did know with certainty was that her parents loved her. She was their only child. She’d seen her birth certificate and had dual nationality since she was born outside the United States.

She was not going to give in and react to his words, because that would be precisely what he wanted. He wanted to plant a seed of doubt. He wanted to scare her. Well, he’d certainly succeeded in scaring her, because it was obvious he knew where her parents were and that it was Ari they wanted.

As she fumbled through her key set looking for the telltale symbol on the key fob that told her what key went to which vehicle, she decided on taking the biggest, toughest vehicle in her father’s arsenal of vehicles.

She knew for a fact that the bulky SUV had a reinforced steel frame, was bulletproof with shatter-proof windows and would take a beating. And if another vehicle tangled with it, there was absolutely no way for her to come away the loser unless she was flattened by an eighteen-wheeler and even then it was a coin flip as to who would come out worse for the wear.

She unlocked the vehicle, slid behind the wheel and quickly revved the engine, leaving tire marks on the pavement as she began putting as much distance as was possible between her and the people she now knew couldn’t be trusted.

EIGHT

ARI pulled her oversized purse closer to her body and walked at a fast pace toward the entrance of the building that housed Devereaux Security Services. She was dressed in a manner to indicate wealth and elegance. Designer clothing, diamond earrings and designer sunglasses with an Hermès scarf covering her head as if to protect her hair from the wind when in fact the sunglasses and scarf were to hide her distinctive hair and eyes, not to mention the bruises that colorfully adorned her face.