Heart of Danger Read online

  That eased the tightness in his chest a little. The Captain had proved the most retractable of the test subjects, by a factor of ten, yet experiments on him were yielding extraordinary data, notwithstanding the man’s resistance.

  Lee considered it a sign of his superior scientific detachment that he hadn’t had the man put to death yet. He was a scientist, not a mortal who exacted revenge at the cost of scientific progress.

  But—soon the harvested brain cells of Captain Ward would be more useful than his beating heart.

  And Lee looked forward to that day.

  Mount Blue

  “Push. Push now. We’re almost there.” Catherine kept her voice low and calm but a rush of excitement prickled her veins. The baby was coming! After four very intense, at times frightening hours, the baby was coming.

  Arriving at the infirmary, she’d seen two terrified future parents, lost and scared and excited, in equal measure.

  There had been some hemorrhaging but she had stopped it. So far, it had been a healthy, easy birth. The parents had been scared because the nurses they trusted to deliver the baby weren’t here. The only person here was a stranger their leader didn’t trust.

  Mac’s body language had been clear on that. He rarely took his eyes off her and was always within a hand’s span of her. However, for someone so large, he managed to never be in the way. He was simply . . . there. Like a huge guard dog.

  He didn’t interfere but he didn’t stand around like a lump of protoplasm as most men would have, either. She had to give him that. Actually, he’d helped, handing her instruments whose name he knew, keeping close to her without in any way impeding her movements.

  The woman—Bridget—had been in labor for two hours before they called Catherine in but was barely dilated. Effacement was almost complete and contractions had been coming every twenty minutes when Catherine entered the room. They soon started coming harder and faster. It took Bridget three hours to dilate to 7 centimeters, huffing and puffing and clinging to her husband’s hand.

  Catherine moved carefully, making sure her movements were calm and reassuring. It wasn’t hard. From somewhere deep inside came a vast assurance, an ease she’d never felt during medical school or her internship. Medical school had been training scenarios and the internship had been mostly observation. This wasn’t a training scenario or observation, this was the real thing.

  Bridget needed her.

  When she’d walked into the infirmary, the first thing Catherine had done was take Bridget’s hand and tell her she was here to help. A tidal wave of emotion had washed through her, and for the first time in her life, it hadn’t hurt. Bridget was scared and excited, in love with her child and with its father, who was holding her other hand.

  No dark swirls, no hidden hatred or aggression waiting like chunks of barbed wire to hook and hurt Catherine. There was nothing there that hurt at all, nothing to recoil from, just the bright colors of Bridget’s love and fear, the echo of her husband’s love for her and their unborn child, and at the very heart of it all, a bright, shining light that was the baby, working hard to be born.

  “We’re close, Bridget,” Catherine murmured, and the woman blew locks of sweat-soaked hair out of her eyes. Catherine shot a glance at Mac. A moment later, a sponge soaked in cold water was pressed into Red’s hand and he started wiping the sweat away from Bridget’s face and neck. “Very close.”

  It was time now. Bridget was almost fully dilated. Beneath her hands, Catherine could feel a vast strength gathering, something bigger than Bridget, something that connected to the earth and transited through one small woman and one tiny, powerful source of light inside her belly.

  The power swirled and pulsed.

  The fetal heart monitor showed the tiny heart beating perfectly, and when Catherine switched on the speakers, there it was—a healthy 140 beats a minute. As if the baby’s heart were beating fast with excitement at entering the world.

  Bridget’s husband, Red, never let her hand go, not once, not even when she was insulting him, screaming at him, promising no sex for the rest of their lives. Ever. He hadn’t even blinked, just held her hand tightly and breathed with her.

  Touching Bridget—oh man.

  Catherine was nearly overwhelmed by the emotions of the woman. Joy. Pain. Love. Excitement. Fear. But above all, love. Love for the child being born and for the man whose hand she was holding as if it were a lifeline and whom she was insulting with every word that popped out of her mouth.

  And behind all that—the faintest echo of something else. Another set of emotions. Almost—another soul. Like an angel hovering, like a sun spreading light and warmth. Steady and sure.

  Suddenly, Bridget’s belly rippled and she groaned through clenched teeth. She clutched Red’s hand so strongly her knuckles were white.

  Between Bridget’s legs, Catherine saw a tuft of dark red hair. The baby! Every single thought fled her mind as she concentrated on bringing a new life into the world. She knew what she was doing. The instructors in OB-GYN had been thorough and strict. But more than the scientific knowledge of how babies were born, she was imbued with some magical substance that led her through the process as if she’d been born to it. Something that steadied her hands and heart and voice. As if she were plugging into some arcane knowledge base connected with the very earth.

  Her hands moved of their own accord, quick and sure. Bridget was panting now, the ripples coming faster and faster, one closely following another. Her face was ferociously scrunched up in concentration. Red’s eyes never left her face. Bridget’s entire body worked hard, seized by some outside force working its way through her.

  “You’re doing fine, Bridget. That’s right, the baby’s crowning, another few pushes and we’re done and you’ll have yourself a beautiful new baby to love, just a few more, that’s good, concentrate on your breathing, excellent, you’re being very brave, that’s right . . .” Catherine was barely conscious of what she was saying, she just knew that as she spoke, as she touched Bridget’s thighs and belly, Bridget’s fear diminished, as if each word Catherine said whisked some of the fear and pain away.

  She could feel the effect of her words, the effect of her presence, feel how reassured Bridget was because she was there. A force was being handed back and forth, power surging between them.

  The infirmary was superbly well-equipped. Someone who knew what they were doing, someone with a lot of money to spend, had bought just about everything that could be necessary. If you needed open-heart surgery or brain surgery you should probably go elsewhere, but otherwise, the infirmary had what you needed, including episiotomy scissors.

  She made a tiny, controlled cut to help Bridget. They had Derma-Glue, which eliminated stitches that often carried infections, for after the baby was born. It was a miracle that was saving lives in the few hospitals where it was available. This small outlaw infirmary seemed to have an unlimited supply.

  Bridget was red-faced, trying to control her panting, face contorted as her belly rippled again. “How. Much. Longer.” She puffed between contractions.

  Catherine smiled at her. “Not long now. Do you know what you’re expecting?”

  Red answered. “No. We wanted the surprise.”

  Another huge contraction. Catherine could hear Bridget’s teeth grinding. Another inch of dilation. A little more and the baby would come out.

  The room was cold, as infirmaries should be, but Catherine was sweating. She tried to wipe the sweat from her brow on her sleeve but it was awkward. A handkerchief appeared and wiped her face.

  Startled, she looked up at Mac. His face was grim, as always. But the gesture had been kind.

  “Thanks,” she whispered. He nodded, stepped back slightly. There, without being too close.

  Bridget gave a controlled scream and Catherine concentrated on the new life coming out of the woman. In a few minutes of blood, sweat and tears, a miracle happened, and a little baby girl with bright red fuzz covering her head slid into her waiting arms a
nd started wailing.

  And the world stopped. Simply stopped.

  Catherine looked down into the small red face, eyes scrunched closed, mouth open, and felt her entire being suffused with light. Pure golden light, spearing through her. This little girl was hope and joy and innocence. Was light in darkness, joy in sorrow, hope in despair.

  There was no precedent in her life for what Catherine was feeling, holding the tiny baby girl in her arms.

  She was connected to the earth, to the sun, to every human being who had ever walked the earth. All their hopes and dreams—everything a human could be—was contained in this tiny little creature.

  “Hello,” Catherine whispered, dazzled beyond bearing. Her cheeks were wet and her vision was blurred, but she didn’t realize she was crying until that handkerchief appeared again.

  There was no thought in her of the origin of that handkerchief, of who wiped her face. Of the fact that she was in a hidden location. She might have days—hours—to live. The man behind her was powerful in every way there was. Physically and mentally. He was armed and dangerous and that didn’t even cross her mind until later because right now she was holding everything good and true about the world in her arms.

  Red bent forward and kissed Bridget and that small act broke her out of her reverie.

  “What is it?” Bridget asked, eyes half-closed. She must have been exhausted, but she had a dreamy smile on her face.

  “A girl. A beautiful, healthy little red-haired girl. Ten on the Apgar Scale. Probably fifteen, actually, on the scale of one to ten.” Catherine laughed from the sheer joy of it. “What are you going to call her?”

  “Mac,” Bridget and Red said together, and the big man behind her made a low sound in his throat.

  “Mac.” Catherine cleared her throat discreetly. “That’s, um, an original name. For a girl.”

  Bridget met Red’s eyes and spoke. “She would have been Mac if she’d been a three-headed Martian. We owe Mac our lives. There’s never been any question of what to call our baby.” Darkness crossed her tired features. “Not that her birth will ever be officially registered.”

  Oh. If the little girl’s birth wasn’t going to be registered, that meant—that meant they were on the run. One more secret of this secretive place to tuck away. But secrets didn’t matter right now. What mattered was the tiny creature in her arms.

  Catherine walked over to the basin, carefully washed the baby. Mac. It was really hard to think of her by the name of the huge dark warrior in the room. She wrapped Mac up in another clean blanket and walked over to Bridget, who was sitting up, Red’s hand supporting her back, and placed Mac in her arms.

  She didn’t need to touch anyone to understand the emotions between the two. You could almost see the waves of love washing back and forth between mother and child.

  Quietly, Catherine disposed of the placenta and cleaned up the birthing area.

  “Try putting her—Mac—to the breast,” she suggested softly. The baby could wait, but Bridget couldn’t. Catherine didn’t understand what was going on, but it looked like though this baby was clearly wanted, they were having a child in difficult, perhaps dangerous circumstances. Nursing her child would reassure Bridget that the sacrifice was worth it. Skin-to-skin contact—there was nothing like it. “Babies should nurse as soon as possible after birth.”

  Catherine reached out and gently guided Mac’s little head to Bridget’s breast. In her stint in OB-GYN she’d heard a nurse describe how a newborn crawled up her mother’s abdomen to her breast and latched on all by herself, finding the nipple with a little sigh of relief.

  Mac opened her little rosebud of a mouth and latched onto her mother’s nipple. She suckled contentedly, tiny hands kneading her mother’s breast like a kitten’s paw, her father’s hand cupped over the back of her head.

  Everything Mac needed to know she knew already.

  She was loved.

  It was there in her mother’s eyes and her father’s gentle touch. Catherine watched the small family fold in on itself, secure in their love for each other. Every touch had confirmed that the love was genuine, the kind that lasted a lifetime. And the little girl—pure magic.

  Whatever dangers this family faced, they’d face them together.

  Feeling all of that even secondhand dazzled her. She’d never encountered that connection between two people, as if they were one. And now a third person—tiny but so powerful Catherine could still feel the effects of her luminescence—had joined the circle.

  Powerful emotions rushed through her.

  It was too much.

  She was exhausted, a deep physical and emotional exhaustion.

  She’d spent a lifetime shielding herself from others. This little trio on the bed—father, mother and child—had cracked her open, overwhelmed her with their feelings beating against her like a hot wind scouring her. She had no defenses left.

  Their voices dimmed. Her eyes blurred, the room blurred. And a strong hand gripped her arm. Behind her Mac stepped up close, so close she could feel his body heat, so close she’d touch him if she took a deep breath. He was like a wall behind her, holding her up.

  A sharp knock and Stella walked in, pushing a serving cart.

  “Whoa, party time! We’ve got something to celebrate here!”

  Behind her, Surfer Dude, and the dark man, Nick. Behind them, ten, no, fifteen, no twenty people, laughing and chattering, filling the infirmary. Noise and colors and voices.

  Sharp pops and Surfer Dude was pouring champagne into flutes which had been lined up along the cart. There seemed to be endless bottles of the stuff. He poured by simply walking along the flutes with a tilted bottle. As fast as he could pour, they were lifted away, to be replaced by other glasses.

  He lifted the empty bottle, grabbed another one, nodded with satisfaction at the label and popped the cork. “Good stuff,” he noted.

  He thrust a flute in her hand, smiling at her. “Forgot to introduce myself back there. Name’s Jon.” Something soft and cylindrical was thrust in her other hand. “Have a cigar.” He beamed. Then he turned to give Mac a glass.

  Catherine put the cigar down and sipped the champagne. Good stuff, indeed.

  Bridget, still nursing, held a flute and so did Red.

  “Okay, guys, settle down.” The noise level dropped a little. Stella lifted her glass, the harsh overhead lights illuminating every single scar and the beauty beneath it. “I propose a toast, to the newest member of our community. The newest but . . . not the last.”

  Her eyebrows waggled as she looked across the room.

  A pretty brunette choked on her champagne, blushing bright red. She looked up in indignation at a tall, thin man. She narrowed her eyes at him. “You talked!”

  His head reared back in surprise. “No I didn’t, honey! Promise!”

  “Never underestimate feminine intuition,” Stella said smoothly. “So. The toast.” Something changed in her voice and a sudden quiet descended on the room. Catherine could feel Stella’s power, her charisma. She attracted attention like filings to a magnet.

  “To the newest member of our community. To the other Mac. May she grow strong and loved. May she be blessed with health and community. To Mac!”

  “To Mac!” Everyone in the room echoed the name, the overhead light reflecting brightly off the crystal flutes raised in salute.

  A quick glance up at Mac’s face and Catherine froze. He wasn’t looking at Stella, he was looking at her. He didn’t look away when she caught him staring, either. His gaze wasn’t seductive but it wasn’t hostile. It was . . . it was something and she had no idea what. The temptation to reach out to touch him, to understand what was going on in that head of his was so strong she had to curl her hands into fists to stop herself.

  And . . . well. The temptation to touch him just to feel those muscles was strong, too. Nearly irresistible. He was made of a substance harder than human skin. Like steel, only warm. And steady strength underneath it.

  Catherine o
ften felt the frailty of people under their skins.

  Their hopes and dreams, sure. But also their fears and insecurities. What made them shrink in terror, what baffled them, what weakened them. Love slipping through their fingers, the small acts of cowardice that peppered their lives, lies and swindles and vices—all there under her fingertips.

  There had been nothing like that touching Mac. He was a force of nature, a man of granite self-control, with no chinks in that muscled armor and no weaknesses. There was anger there and a strong sense of betrayal, but something rocklike, too. She’d never been near anyone like him and the urge to touch him, one last time, was almost overpowering.

  A tall, thin, pale woman and a short, stocky, dark-haired man slipped into the room.

  “You guys missed all the fun!” Jon called out. Voices vied to fill them in on what they’d missed. Pat and Salvatore, the nurses. When they were briefed on what had happened, they both lifted a glass to her and she lifted hers in return.

  “Catherine.”

  She swiveled her head in surprise. Stella had her flute still up and was looking straight at her.

  “Listen up, everyone. I’ve got another toast, an important one. To Catherine, who helped bring the latest addition to our community into the world, even though”—and here she narrowed her eyes at Mac, Nick and Jon, each in turn—“even though she hasn’t been treated too well by us.” Stella stopped and slowly looked at every person in the room. “There is an us. We’ve come to this place by ones and twos. Found our way here because . . . because the outside world became too dangerous for us. Here we’ve found refuge and protection. Mac and Nick and Jon—well, who could ask for better protectors? We’ve found each other. So tonight we have two new members of our little community. Mac, a tiny baby girl, and Catherine, who found her way to us the way we all did. By the strength of her heart. So . . . to Catherine!”

  “To Catherine!” The room echoed with the roar. Several clapped loudly, others joining in with enthusiasm. The noise level was incredible.