Remember Jamie Baker (Jamie Baker #3)(18)

The lights and computer blitzed.

“Hey.” Ryan’s soft voice was right behind me. “Look on the bright side, Jamie. You can’t do anything about the past, but you can control your life from here on out.”

He was right, but I still couldn’t pull myself together. I used anger to keep myself from completely falling apart. “Let’s see what else the stupid jerk was keeping from me.”

The desktop background was a selfie of Tony and me at the Grand Canyon that he’d taken on his phone. It was the first time I’d been there. I loved it so much. In the picture, I was smiling as if I were the happiest person on Earth. The picture was salt in the wound now. I didn’t want to see the two of us together like that. Not now that I knew what he’d done to me.

I typed my name into the search box at the upper right corner of the screen. The top hit was a folder. Inside it, there was file after file on me. There were pictures of me at all ages, medical records, newspaper articles, even confidential notes taken by a therapist I used to see after being in a car accident when I was in high school. Tony’s Jamie Baker file was basically a detailed biography on my life before the Visticorp explosion.

When I came across a picture of a younger blonde-haired blue-eyed me wearing a sash and crown being hugged from both sides by a man and woman I assumed were my parents, I finally lost it. “Everything he ever told me was a lie. Every. Single. Thing.”

With a gut-wrenching scream, I directed all of my anger and frustration at that stupid computer and released two lightning bolts from my hands that made the entire system explode. The blast knocked me backward a few feet.

“Jamie!” Ryan shouted from where he and the rest of his team had been blown to the ground. “You might be durable, babe, but we’d rather not die right now.”

I’d forgotten they were even there.

With the rage out of my system, sadness and grief were able to break through my defenses. I finally understood the full extent of Teddy’s deceit, and it made me sick to my stomach. My eyes flooded and I crashed to the small couch, sobbing into my hands.

“Jamie?”

“How could he do that to me?” I screamed at no one in particular.

“Angel, we need to go now,” Major Wilks said.

He was going for the tough love approach of making me ignore the trauma while there were more important things to do. He probably used it on his soldiers all the time. But I wasn’t one of his men, and I didn’t want to ignore the trauma. I’d been through enough today, and I’d reached my coping limits. “So go,” I snapped. I’m sure my eyes were glowing bright yellow as I glowered at the man.

Frowning, he pulled his shoulders back, straightening to his full height. I knew what he was trying to do, but it wasn’t going to work. His dominance would have no effect on me. “Angel, this location is compromised. It’s not safe. Your friend is gone. We need to leave before—”

I rose to my feet and let my energy consume me. Whenever I did that, my eyes took on a scary glow and my hair started whipping around my head as if I were standing in the middle of a raging storm. Saying it made me look intimidating would be the understatement of a lifetime. “Leave. Me. Alone.”

The entire group gasped and collectively took a few steps back when energy began to crackle along the surface of my skin. They were right to do so. The threat I posed with just my physical presence was real. I wouldn’t have done any true damage on purpose, but one wrong move and someone was going to get hurt whether I meant for it to happen or not. I was unstable and known to have accidents when I lost control. But I couldn’t calm down. I was so upset at the moment that I wouldn’t have even cared. Not then, anyway.

“Major, may I speak with you upstairs, sir?” Ryan asked.

Major Wilks considered Ryan’s request for a long moment before he finally nodded. He looked around the room and jerked his head toward the stairs. “ACEs move out.”

No one questioned the major. As soon as he gave the command, the ACEs vacated the bunker, leaving me alone to have my breakdown privately. I was grateful to Ryan for making them give me space. As soon as they were gone, I sat back down and pulled my knees up to my chest, letting my tears flow but trying to gain control of my sobs. I was emotional, but I hated that about myself.

The soldiers must have left the bunker door open when they went upstairs because I could hear them as they left the house and climbed in the truck, leaving Ryan and the major to their conversation. One of the men made his way into the kitchen and started rummaging through the cupboards.

“What is it, Romeo?”

There was some more rustling and the clank of a cup, and then the faucet turned on. “Sir, I think you should take the team back to Las Vegas and let me stay behind with Jamie for a little while.”

I was as shocked by the request as Major Wilks was. “Absolutely not. This location is compromised, and she is the most important asset our agency has ever come across. She’s too valuable to leave unprotected like that. I want you both on that truck as quickly as possible.”

His statement made me see red, but before I had time to barge upstairs and give him a piece of my mind, Ryan said, “With all due respect, sir, she’s not an asset, and treating her as if she were one would be a huge mistake.”

I could have kissed him. Not that I was ready to even consider the possibility of getting into a relationship with him, but I had to hand it to my pre-amnesiac self. I had excellent taste in guys. I waited for the major to blow a gasket at the defiance, but he didn’t. “Explain.”