Trap took a deep breath and made his way to the wall in the center of the small room. This wall was the only wall shared by the cells on the other side of it. The only way to get into that side was through the second elevator. He hoped the cells on the other side were a mirror image of the one he was standing in. He didn't want to come out inside the cell with an unknown woman already condemned to death, especially one declared too dangerous to live.
He put his hands on the concrete and absorbed the feel and structure of it. This time it was a little easier, as he already was connected to the properties in the mixture. He waited, breathing deep, forcing his rebelling mind under control. No GhostWalker left another behind, and he wouldn't leave this woman, no matter what she was.
If she tried to kill him, well, that was another thing altogether, but he'd do his best to convince her he'd come to help her. He let the wrenching sick feeling overtake him as his body was torn apart, pulled in every direction. His skin felt as if it was removed, leaving his insides spilling out everywhere.
Cold set in. Darkness. He was utterly alone. There was no human sound, no human feeling, only the bitter cold and the endless darkness. He came out on the other side, staggering, going to his knees and then rolling onto his butt, his back against the wall, pressing both hands to his gut to keep his insides from spilling out.
For a moment he was so disoriented, he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. Had he arrived that way in the babies' cell, the soldiers would have easily killed him. He tried desperately to drag air into his lungs and calm his quivering gut. When he lifted his head, his neck felt as if it had been wrenched around two or three times.
"Etes-vous tous droit? Se rapprocher un peu plus, je pourrais peut-etre vous aider." The question was asked in a voice that was as sultry as any Louisiana night. Silk and satin. Candlelight.
He looked up, blinking to bring her into focus. His breath left his lungs all over again. She was small, the way Pepper was small. They easily could have been related. She had a cloud of dark hair, as black as a raven's wing, but for the brilliant red streak straight down the middle. On anyone else it might have looked terrible, but on her, it seemed as natural as her huge green eyes.
"Are you all right? Come a little closer, perhaps I can aid you," she repeated in English.
Said the spider to the fly, he reminded himself. How the hell could a woman look every bit the seductive temptress and as innocent as all get-out at the same time? Especially one so young.
He stayed where he was. "Pepper told us about you. She got the babies out and we've come to get you out as well."
Long dark lashes drifted down, veiling the expression in her eyes for a brief moment. "Why would you want to help me?"
"We're like you. Enhanced. We stick together," he added lamely. He couldn't think with his brain still rattling around in his skull, banging away at the sides until he was afraid his head would explode.
"How did you get in here?"
Her voice alone gave him the sensation of fingers trailing down his skin. "I told you, we're like you. We all have different skills. I can get through walls, although this concrete was thicker than I realized and I already went through a wall once. It's hard on the body." And clearly just as hard on his brain.
He couldn't stop staring at her. She was shapely, an hourglass figure, perfectly proportioned for one so petite. Her small fingers stroked the bars of the cell with a mesmerizing slide. There was a pull about her, a lure, and he was afraid most men would succumb. He was a little worried that he knew just what she was.
"I'm Trap Dawkins. I came here to help Wyatt, a friend of mine, get his kids out of this place. Pepper said there was another woman here, so we figured we might as well break you out as well while we were at it."
"I appreciate that. I'm Cayenne, and I don't have a last name. At least I was never called anything but Cayenne."
She had an accent - a French one, but he knew her training would have included proper accents for every language taught to her. She used her looks and her voice as a temptation. Still... There was more, something else. He just couldn't put his finger on what it was, but it was potent.
He didn't move, but continued to look at her. "I haven't made up my mind yet whether or not I take the chance and get close enough to that cell to open the locks. You're a black widow, aren't you?"
She smiled at him. Her teeth were small and very white. Her smile was beautiful. Inviting. "Some call me that," she admitted, as if amused by the accusation.
The smile in her voice only added to the sensation of dainty fingers sliding over his body. Her lips parted in invitation. "Come here. A little closer." She beckoned to him with her finger, a seductive dare in her tone.
He stared her down while his brain tried to work out the puzzle of who and what she was. How she worked. What danger she represented. He was a soldier, but more, he was analytical. He didn't ever think with his emotions. Her voice, her enticement played to a man's instincts and emotions. He felt it, the dangerous, magnetic draw, but his brain shielded him from her temptation.
When he didn't respond, her lashes swept down and then up. Her full, curved lips pursed in an alluring pout. "Can you open the cell? Do you have keys?"
"I can't bring anything metal through the wall." He stuck as close to the truth as possible. He was getting his strength back, his insides settling slowly.
Trap couldn't blame her for using her wiles on him, she was probably terrified. She had to know those in charge were going to kill her, and then he came along and as far as she was concerned, he was probably another experiment she was being subjected to. She was fighting for her life, trying to figure him out the same way he was trying to figure her.
"How did Whitney find you?" he asked, needing a few more minutes to decide to chance opening her cell.
"So you do know Peter Whitney." She couldn't disguise the malevolence in her voice or the sudden flash of hatred and defiance in her eyes.
"Actually, I've never met Whitney while I was awake," Trap said. "I believe when I was put under on an operating table, he came in and did the surgery, a bit more than I ever expected. But I wouldn't know him if I met him on the street."
"I can hear your admiration for him in your voice." She gripped the bars on the cell so hard her knuckles turned white.
"If I have admiration for him, and I don't believe I do, it would be for a great mind," Trap explained, shrugging. "A mind that has clearly gone insane. No one is stopping him. No one is putting the brakes on him. He's got too many friends in high places and too much money. We've tried tracking him, but he moves all the time and there's no way to pinpoint a location where we can get there before him and then kill him." He said it matter-of-factly - the hope of all GhostWalkers. He hoped she could hear the sincerity in his voice.
Her green gaze moved over his face as if trying to see behind his skin to his bare bones. "I don't know whether or not to trust you."
Her eyes were blazing green. An astonishing green. Two glittering emeralds as c
ool as a forest and as bright as a sun. He wasn't going to allow those eyes or those long black lashes to influence him.
"We're both in the same boat," he admitted. "I'm wondering the same thing. I don't want to let a serial killer loose on the world. Are you like him? Like Whitney?"
Cayenne's breath hissed out in a long slow admission of anger. Her green eyes went vibrant and more beautiful than ever. "I can kill, yes, but so can you. I was made into what I am, but I never let that man program me to be his assassin. Why do you think I'm in this cell on death row? He's afraid of me. Why isn't he afraid of you?"
He found himself wanting to smile. He was in a rather desperate situation, trapped in a small holding area, with a woman condemned to death who easily could be a true serial killer, and he wasn't certain he could even get himself out of the cell, let alone her. He was too weak to fight more soldiers - especially ones enhanced - at least not without sustaining injuries. He calculated his odds and they weren't especially good.
"Well, woman, we have to make a decision here. I'm going to open that cell. Do you have any idea how you'll get out of this holding area once you're out of the cell? Because you're small enough to fit inside the air duct. That's how Pepper is getting the children out, but she said every so many feet there's a fan with spinning blades. She stops the blades just long enough to get through, using mind control. Are you able to do that? Can you control an object?"
She shrugged, her gaze never leaving his, and her shrug was no answer.
"You can't go through the wall. We might go in the elevator, but I can guarantee there are soldiers waiting there. Up on the third floor, where the laboratory is, shots were fired, so that may have alerted the soldiers there's trouble if those shots were heard. Even if they didn't hear them, there are soldiers stationed on every floor with orders not to abandon their posts under any circumstances and that means trouble. They'll be waiting for you, Pepper, the babies or one of us."
"Get me out of here. I can take care of my own escape."
He stepped close to the cell, to the very narrow bars, so narrow his own fingers wouldn't fit through them. She didn't step back and he could smell the fragrance of her, an alluring blend of night fantasies and silken sheets. The tip of her tongue touched her lower lip, moisturizing it further, so that the seductive curve drew the eye.