Code Name: Aries by Janie Crouch

31

Ian

I stared up at the starry night as Wavy lay sleeping in my arms. I don’t think I’d ever been as thankful and reverent as I had been the past hour.

Not for the sex. I was thankful for that, too, and damned well reverent, but the closeness, the turns that she was taking, the healing she was doing. She couldn’t see it in herself, but I could.

I’d been willing to give everything I owned to get her back, and then everything I owned once again to help her heal, but it ended up that Wavy could heal herself.

I was beyond honored that she was letting me stand beside her as she did it.

Bringing her out here had been the right thing to do. It had nothing to do with getting her to sleep with me—I’d been more than content with all the kissing we’d been doing the past few days.

But international waters meant nobody at Omega Sector, or any other law enforcement group they might try to involve, had jurisdiction to bring Wavy in for questioning.

I’d made Dr. Rayne aware of the situation, and she’d encouraged me to tell Wavy that Callum wanted to talk to her. Dr. Rayne had also concurred that Wavy healing and remembering on her own time would be the best way to ensure she didn’t have any further emotional fallout. That trumped everything as far as I was concerned, at least for now.

If I went back and remembered all the details about the worst hours of my life, what would it bring to light? I remembered the fear the first time I’d died—the knowledge that this was really it. I was going to die in this box at my brother’s hand. The second time I only remembered how agonizing it had been to actually run out of air. The rest of it was a blessed blur, protection from my own mind.

All of Wavy’s worst days were a blur, and if it stayed that way forever, maybe it was for the best. She didn’t have to remember the agony she’d lived through that had caused her to rip at her own skin.

But fuck, Mosaic developing human weapons? That was scary as hell. I already had my team reexamining any and all data we’d acquired over the past few weeks with that angle in mind. There might be patterns we’d missed the first time because we hadn’t known what to search for.

I was wide awake now but wanted to get Wavy inside before she got chilled, and because eventually the boat staff would need to get back on this area of the deck. I slipped on my pants, then wrapped her in my T-shirt before lifting her in my arms. She still hadn’t gained back all the weight she’d lost in her captivity, but she was healthier than she had been.

She stayed asleep as I walked us both down to the master stateroom. It was only when I laid her on the bed that she murmured and reached for me, pouting in her sleep when I scooted away.

That brought a smile to my lips. Even though we hadn’t been making love, we’d been sleeping together every night, and she had no idea how much that meant to me. How having her near had helped me get more rest than I’d had in weeks.

But right now, there was work to be done. It was time to get some of our rogue Zodiac agents on this Mosaic situation. Most of them were difficult to get ahold of, but we needed them. If Mosaic was creating killers, we needed to utilize the members of our team who thought most like them. The members of the team who struggled with the gray themselves.

I’d spent a couple hours sitting at the desk near the bed putting those plans into motion when Tristan interrupted on the walkie-talkie.

“Boss, come in.”

I turned the volume down so it wouldn’t wake Wavy. “Go ahead.”

“We’ve got an incoming helicopter landing in ten. It’s Sarge.”

“Okay.” Why was Sarge coming in on a helicopter? Anything he had to say to me he could do via phone or message.

“Sarge said you weren’t going to like this, but it was the only way.”

“I’m heading up to the landing pad.” I pulled on the rest of my clothes and moved silently out the door. Hopefully, Wavy would sleep through all of this. I had a bad feeling about whatever it was Sarge had to say.

When I saw who was with him as they got off the chopper, I let out a curse. Callum Webb. I got on the walkie-talkie with Tristan.

“Under no circumstances is Callum Webb to take Wavy off of this ship, you got that?”

“What the fuck is Webb doing here?” Tristan responded.

“I’m about to find out, but I can tell you this. We’re in international waters, and he has zero jurisdiction. He’s not taking her.”

“Roger that, boss. No worries. Sarge wouldn’t want that.”

I didn’t know what the hell Sarge wanted. Or what he was thinking, bringing Callum here.

I nodded at both men, and we walked toward the conference room in silence—the rotors making too much noise to talk anyway. It wasn’t until we were inside and the door was closed behind us that I turned to the two men.

I pointed at Sarge. “I’m going to assume that there is a reason why I don’t need to fire you.” My pointed finger turned to Callum. “And throw you overboard.”

“He knows something about Bronwyn,” Sarge said. “But he would only talk to you face-to-face.”

I ran a hand through my hair. “Fine. You’re here. Talk.”

Callum sat down at the table. “We have Bronwyn Rourke in custody.”

My eyes flew to Sarge.

“What?” he roared, standing.

I put a hand out to stop Sarge from jumping over the conference room table and beating the shit out of Callum, law enforcement officer or not.

“What are you doing, Webb?” I asked quietly.

“We have video footage of her breaking and entering and robbing a well-known crime family in New York a few weeks ago. She took out three guards and fought hand to hand with an unsub that showed up out of nowhere.” Callum leaned back in his chair. “Now that I think about it, the unsub had your coloring and build, Sarge. Know anybody like that?”

I knew there had been more to Sarge’s time in New York.

“You know there are other circumstances involved with that robbery,” Sarge spit out. “Not to mention she wasn’t stealing from the most upstanding people.”

Callum shrugged. “I’m not saying she didn’t do the world a favor. All I’m just saying is that she robbed someone, we have it on video, and she’s in our custody.”

I sat back in my seat. Callum wanted to play, we could play. “Charge her then, so I can send in my lawyers. You came a long way for what could’ve been said in a three-line email.”

“What if we’re not looking to charge her? What if I’m looking for a trade?”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Webb? You’re wasting my time.”

“I’ll release Bronwyn into Sarge’s custody for a chance to talk to Wavy.”

Sarge didn’t say anything, but his eyes shot to mine. I knew how much he was willing to give to get Bronwyn off the streets and somewhere safe. He would pay damn near any price. But he wasn’t the one who would have to pay this one. It would be Wavy.

“Goddammit,” I said.

Callum slammed a hand down on the table. “Hell, DeRose, I’m not asking for a chance to interrogate her in a ten-by-ten room. I’m not going to fucking waterboard her. I just want to see if there’s anything she remembers and ask for her help. That’s not unreasonable.”

I knew it wasn’t unreasonable, but everything inside me said to protect her at all costs. I remembered what she’d looked like naked in that crate when we’d found her.

The three of us sat staring at each other for a long minute, and then there was a tap on the door. “May I come in?”

Wavy. Shit.

She stepped inside. “I tracked down Tristan, and he told me you were in here.” She turned to Callum. “I’ve seen you before. You were at the hospital.”

Callum nodded. “I was.”

She turned to me. “The two of you were fighting.”

“Yes,” I said. “This is Callum Webb. He’s an agent for Omega Sector, the law enforcement team I worked with to bring down Mosaic the first time.”

“And you guys are working together to try to bring them down again?”

“Sort of,” Callum answered, before I could tell him to shut the hell up.

Wavy was too damn smart for her own good. “You want to talk to me, don’t you?”

Callum shrugged. “You are our only viable lead left, but . . . we haven’t wanted to impede your recovery.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at me. “I’m going to take that to mean that Agent Webb has been asking to talk to me, and you’ve refused to let him, and this field trip was to keep me out of his reach. Is that right?”

I reached an arm out toward her. “Wavy.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Did you or did you not bring me onto this yacht to get away from that man?” She pointed at Callum.

I wasn’t going to lie to her. “Yes, I did, and I’m not going to apologize for it. Your mental and physical health are the most important things to me. You may or may not be able to help with his case, but I wasn’t going to let you suffer in order to find that out.”

“I’m getting stronger, you know that. Remembering stuff.”

I stood up and walked over to her, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I know that. But you don’t have to do this. We will find other ways.”

“No.” She shook her head. “Other ways might take too long.”

She peeked around me at Callum. “I’ve been seeing stuff. I’m not sure if it’s dreams or memories. I’m not sure what’s real and what is just in my mind. But if I can help you, I will try to figure that out.”

I had to hand it to Callum. He didn’t look smug. He only looked grateful. “Thank you. I’m not sure what you know about the whole situation.”

She looked embarrassed, and I wanted to stop this before it got started. “Not very much, I’m ashamed to admit. I’ve buried my head in the sand.”

Callum’s smile was gentle. “I don’t blame you for staying away from it as much as you could.”

She nodded. “Tell me what you know.”

“Mosaic has developed new technology, a blend of chemicals and genetic editing to control people. We thought it was for human trafficking. But it’s more than that.” He rubbed his forehead. “It looks like Mosaic is using their protocol not to turn people into more pliable sex slaves, but to develop a team of assassins and spies.”

“Protocol. I remember that word. They used that on me. I remember being hooked up to medical equipment.”

My hand fisted. Wavy’s voice was barely more than a whisper, and we hadn’t gotten to the hard part. She turned to look at me.

“What if I’m an assassin? What if they did something to me to—”

“You’re not,” I told her. “Your body rejected the treatment they tried to give you. It’s one of the things we found out about when the Linear guys cracked the computer drive. It can’t be used on everyone.”

“How do you know I rejected it?”

“The pain, Rainbow. That’s why you don’t remember much. Your brain has blocked out the pain.” Now it was my voice that was hoarse. “When we found you, we thought you’d been tortured. You had scratches and bruises all over your body.”

She sat down in the chair beside me, staring straight ahead at something no one else could see. “I did it to myself. To try to stop the fire burning me inside. It was boiling me alive.”

I turned to Callum with a glare. This was why I’d kept him from her. Because all we were doing was causing her pain without getting any usable intel. “Yes. We didn’t find that out until you were in the hospital and the doctors saw what shape your fingernails were in. The scratches, you’d done to yourself. But the people who’d held you had driven you to it. They could’ve stopped the pain at any time.”

Finally, she dragged herself back into this room. She looked at Callum, taking a steadying breath. “Does this help you? I would think you need other info.”

“You don’t have to do this, Wavy,” I said.

She shook her head. “I do. I do have to do this if I ever want to move on with my life.”

I offered her my hand. Thank God she took it.

“Ask me what you want to know,” she said to Callum.

“We know you were held in at least three places. The first was a lab where Ian found the small painting that had Dr. Tippens’s blood on it. Tippens told Ian about the warehouse where you were found. But there was a second lab. That’s the one we don’t have any info on, the one we need to find.”

“Dr. Tippens,” she whispered.

“Do you remember him at all?” I leaned closer.

She blinked at me. “He was working for Erick Huen, the man I thought was Louis Noeya. I was dizzy and sick . . . in a hospital bed. He and Erick were talking. They knew you were coming so they wanted to move—oh God.”

“What, Rainbow? It’s okay. You’re safe now.” Her grip on my hand was like iron, and I covered our hands with my other one. “They knew we were coming so they wanted to move you? Is that what you were going to say?”

“Us,” she croaked out. “They wanted to move us. There were dozens of people in beds like mine. One of them was a girl, a teenager named Janice.”