Twice as Hot (Tales of an Extraordinary Girl #2)(96)

"Not to die," Tanner piped up helpfully.

"Leave our personal bullshit in the car and do our jobs," Elaine added.

"Obey your every command," Jean-Luc said, "even though you might be wrong and such arrogance could get us killed."

Hearing his voice, I flashed back to when I'd walked into his recovery room, his dark eyes peering over at me.

"I still love you" had been the first words out of his mouth.

"I'm not going back on my word," I'd told him, exactly as I'd told Rome. "Soon as we rid the world of Desert Roach, we'll go on those dates."

"I hope you're ready to be romanced."

I had offered him a smile, but I'm sure it hadn't reached my eyes.

"You're begging to die," Rome told him now.

"Which is counter to the plan," Tanner said.

I rubbed my temples to ward off the oncoming ache. I sat beside Rome, who was driving the car. Our relationship might be a jumbled mess right now, but I reached over and squeezed his hand. If I needed the contact, and I did, he must, too. His fingers twined with mine, holding me captive.

"Listen up, kiddies," I said. "You all know what to do. So do it whether you like each other or not.

Let's bring our girls home. Alive, as the plan states."

We parked about a mile from the compound where our girls were being held - which meant we were about a mile from the middle of nowhere, mountains all around us - and hiked to the electric fence that surrounded it. From the photos Cody had sent, we knew it was two stories, one of them underground.

We knew it was heavily guarded by men with guns, and we knew there were planes ready to whisk Desert Hussy away if danger was suspected. So we had to get inside silently.

Once, I'd gotten Rome and Tanner (and myself) over an electric fence by forming wind under our feet, lifting us higher and higher before lowering us (not so gently) to the ground. This time, I couldn't do that.

With as many cameras as there were monitoring the area and the guards pacing back and forth across the parapet on top of the compound, that would place us directly in the line of fire.

Plus, there were twenty-foot-tall lamps strategically placed to chase away night's gloom. Suddenly I was glad for the Shadow Brothers. On our trek, Hans kept us wrapped in an umbrella of dark the entire way, no matter if someone tried to flash a light at us. It was eerie, though, because I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. Christian could have lit up our little circle, he'd explained, and no one would have been able to see inside, but combating his brother's all-encompassing darkness would completely wipe him out.

Hans, who could see through that dark as well as create it, had had to guide us. "Left turn in five steps," he would say. "Straight, ten steps."

"Belle, Elaine, you ready?" Rome whispered.

I would have looked at her nervously but I couldn't see her. We didn't want to disable the fence; that would have alerted our targets to our presence. So we had to get through it with the electricity still pumping and without killing ourselves.

I heard a whoosh of material and suspected Elaine was removing her gloves, maybe stuffing them in her pockets.

"Be careful." Tanner's voice, serious and grim, echoed through our circle.

"I will." She must have reached out and wrapped her fingers around the links because suddenly I could hear the chains rattling ever so slightly. Then I heard a little gasp escape her. The rattling increased. She was drawing the energy into herself, away from the fence.

Someone - Tanner? - shifted from one foot to the other, clearly agitated.

I fumbled around until I ran into him, squeezed his hand to offer comfort, and withdrew the wire cutters Rome had given me before we'd left the airstrip. I was shaking, but moved quickly, not wanting Elaine to have to touch the fence any longer than necessary.

You control fire. You can summon storms.Electricity was nothing. Please let it be nothing. The moment the metal came into contact with the fence, I felt the volts enter me, going straight to my core and searing.

I cut back a yelp.

Elaine must have increased her rate of absorption because I could feel the jolts leaving me and flowing back into the fence, which then must have slid back into her, because once more the rattling increased.

Just like that, I calmed. Had she not dulled the sensation, I think I would have dropped, wiped out for the rest of the night. As it was, I was sweating, burning up really, my muscles spasming as little shots of pain flickered through my veins.

With Hans guiding my movements, I cut a circle big enough that even Rome, massive as he was, could crawl through. When I finished, I fell away from the fence. "Now." Elaine fell, as well, smashing into the ground. Both of us lay there, panting shallowly.

"You good?" Tanner asked.

"I'm - "

"Not you," he told me.

"Just need...a moment..." Elaine said.

"Thanks for the concern," I muttered.

"Belle, how are - " Rome and Jean-Luc began in unison. Both stopped abruptly.

Then Rome was kneeling at my side. He could see in the dark better than anyone I knew. Well, except Hans. He reached out, cupped my chin, hissed and jerked away.

"What?" I demanded, concerned.

"You're electric."

"Elaine, too," Tanner said with his own hiss of pain. "I can feel it even through her clothes." I turned in the direction of his voice. There, a few feet away from me, I could see little sparks rising from Elaine's body - pinpricks of gold, like lightning bugs flying around her. They were lovely. Probably deadly. And they were flying off me, too.