"Go ahead." Jess's disembodied voice bounced off the walls coming from every direction.
"You're pissed about your sister."
"Yeah, you could say that."
The lighter flared and Ben bent his head toward the flame. "I can't blame you. It's a job, you know, nothing personal." The lighter snapped off and the end of the cigarette glowed red.
"You tell yourself that."
"You gonna kill me?"
"What do you think? You tortured her. You were going to rape and kill her. You're a dead man."
"I figured as much."
Jess watched Ben take a strong pull of the cigarette. He wasn't going down easy. He was trying to buy himself time to think his way out of the mess he was in. If he could locate Jess's actual position, the man thought he'd have a chance. "Are you going to tell me who sent you after me?" He'd help the man buy time while he bought information.
"I don't think so." Ben took another drag of the cigarette, pulled it from his mouth and stared at the red tip. "Sooner or later they're going to get you, and there's some satisfaction in that." He toed open the door to the gas water heater and flicked his cigarette toward it.
Jess had been waiting for a move and he stopped the cigarette in midair, let it drop, tip down, and mash itself on the concrete.
"That was no earthquake."
"No, it wasn't."
"You're the real fucking thing."
Ben's gun swept up and he sprayed the basement with bullets in an up-and-down pattern going across the room. His finger remained steady on the trigger even when the gun began to shake in his hand, began to put pressure on his wrist, turning slowly, inevitably, inch by slow inch toward his own body. He broke out in a sweat, his heart thundering in his ears, fighting with every bit of strength he had, but he couldn't stop the turn or remove his finger from the trigger. He heard himself scream as the bullets tore into his body, one after the other, ripping through him.
"Yeah. I'm the fucking real thing and that's for what you did to my sister, you son of a bitch. It might not have been personal to you, but it was very personal to me."
The words were low, whispered in Ben's left ear as he fell back. He turned his head and stared into cold, merciless eyes. Jess lay stretched out on the floor beside him, only inches away, his face set in implacable lines. Everything blurred. He heard the gun clatter against the cement, and his hand flopped onto his chest. He couldn't feel it and his vision grew dark. He coughed. Gurgled. Spat. Ben tried to lift his hand, but he couldn't tell where it was. He died, staring at Jess's uncompromising and very unsympathetic gaze.
Jess shifted into a sitting position. "You didn't suffer nearly enough for what you did to Patsy," he told the dead man. "And I'm going to find out who sent you and rip his heart out. But meanwhile..."
He trailed off and looked around him. He was going to have a hell of time getting out of the basement now. Cursing, he made his way to the wheelchair, using his hands to walk. Dumping the body, he wiped the blood from the seat and back as best he could. Flicking a quick glance toward the light fixture, he waited until the bulb screwed itself back in, and light flooded the basement once again.
It looked like a war zone, with bodies strewn everywhere and blood splashed from one end of the room to the other. He folded the chair and locked it in a closed position. This was going to be tricky. Using the bionics always was. They could fail at any time and leave him in a vulnerable heap on the floor. He hit his leg in frustration. He'd suffered pain and the threat of bleeding out, countless hours of physical therapy, and he still couldn't use them.
He looked up at the door, allowing it to swing open. His strength was becoming a problem. Like all GhostWalkers, even those who trained as he did, mental psychic challenges drained his strength faster than anything else. Slow tremors invaded his body. He had no intention of letting the other GhostWalkers--or worse, Saber--find him lying on the floor in what amounted to a slaughterhouse. Nor was anyone carrying him out. No one.
He forced himself to stand, using his mind to command his legs. Pain sliced through his head, and his body shuddered with the effort. He broke out into a sweat. He could move objects with semi-ease now. The more he practiced, the better he got at it, but moving his legs, making them respond, was both painful and difficult. And now he was fatigued, not a good thing when he was trying to make the bionics work. He should have let them try an external power pack, but he'd been stubborn, wanting his legs to be part of his body, not some externally powered robotic limbs.
He dragged the chair to him and placed it under his arm. He had to jump into the doorway, taking the wheelchair with him. And he had to land on his feet or he'd fall backward onto the basement floor--and Ben's dead body.
Stiffening his back, he blocked out everything around him. Sight. Smell. Danger. He visualized his legs with veins and arteries and flashing nerves firing like sparkplugs in a car. He sent the signal from his brain to the nerves as he crouched low and leapt. He felt the power rush through him, the coiled readiness of the genetic enhancements springing into action. Though he hated what Whitney had turned the Ghostwalker program into, Jesse loved the rush using his physical enhancements always gave him. Loved it. Before he'd lost his legs, he'd lived for it.
He landed in the doorway and took a step forward, then a second. Exhilaration swept through him. He was doing it! He was walking again. He'd almost forgotten what it was like to stand, to feel his legs under him, to walk upright, his body once more his own and under his command. He felt tall. He hadn't been tall in a year. It was amazing to walk, to feel free. He'd learned appreciation for things most people took for granted, and he swore to himself he'd never take them for granted again.
His legs began to shake, warning him he was overdoing. He set the wheelchair on the floor near the back door and took another step to walk around it. He didn't want to stop, wishing he could just walk out into the rain and keep going until he found Saber.
Jess reached for the back of the chair, and his legs gave out, dropping him to the floor with no warning. One moment he was standing, the next he had crashed onto the tiles, the force of the fall splitting open his knees. He tried to go with it--he knew how to fall--but it happened too fast and he slammed his head against the wall.
Cursing, dizzy, he dragged himself into a sitting position and hit the wall with his fist in a fit of frustration. So much for the new and improved legs. With a little sigh he reached for the chair again. The back door swung open and he rolled, bringing up his gun, his hands steady when the muscles in his legs spasmed and cramped. He lay on his belly, his body stretched out, legs jumping, with his gun aimed.
A low, one-two whistle eased the tension in him. He rested his forehead on his arm for a moment, frowned when he lifted his head and saw his arm was smeared with blood. Wiping at his face, he rolled over, sat up, and sent the exact same one-two whistle back, but he didn't lower his weapon until Logan stepped into the room.
"You look like shit. Who beat you up?" Logan crouched beside him but kept his weapon clear and ready as he examined Jess's face.
"You ought to see the other guys." Jess pulled his face away from Logan with a small glare. "There's nothing wrong with me."
"You've got a hell of a cut on your face."
"My sister was tortured and someone kicked the crap out of my woman. I don't think a little cut is anything to worry about."
"Really? Well, you're bleeding like a stuck pig. I thought maybe one of them got you with a knife."
If Logan was looking for an explanation, he wasn't going to get one. Jess reached for his chair. "Where's Patsy?"
"Saber's got her safe in the van. She wanted us to take Patsy to the hospital so she could come look after you herself."
Jess winced. "Go to hell, Logan."
Logan frowned. He'd always teased Jess about being in a wheelchair. Jess had never reacted with anger. "You all right?"
Jess dragged his chair close with one hand and locked the wheels. "Yeah. I'm just pi
ssed that I brought this on my sister."
Logan stepped to the door of the basement and peered down. "Holy crap, Jess. You were pissed off."
"The bastards got off easy."
"Couldn't you have left one alive so we could interrogate him? The two we got earlier aren't part of this. They were amateurs hired by some bozo as sacrificial lambs, maybe to set you up to see what you could do. But this was professional."
"No, I couldn't leave one of them alive. They tortured my sister. What would you have done?"
Logan swung his head around, his gaze meeting Jess's. The easygoing mask slipped to reveal the predator underneath. "If I'd gotten to them first, they would have died hard and mean. They were lucky."