“Apparently I touched a nerve.”

  Walker looked back, then stopped to see what the problem was. He called out to them, “You guys okay?”

  She took several more deep and calming breaths. “Yes, just having some rough memories.”

  He frowned at her, and his tone was harsh when he asked, “You let someone die?”

  She blanched. “Wow, you don’t pull your punches, do you?”

  He winced. “That wasn’t a precog though, was it?” he asked, his gaze searching, as if looking for more information.

  “No, that was my history. Far too many dead or dying, and I couldn’t save them all. I tried hard, until I collapsed. McClintock pulled me out of there, and, at that point in time, we lost several of our team.”

  “That was the last thing you ever did for your government?”

  “It was,” she confirmed. “I got out of the op gone bad, fought even harder to get totally out of the government, and basically told them I had burnt out at that point.”

  “Oh,” he stopped, then looked over at Calum.

  “Why? What difference does that make?” she asked.

  “Because, if somebody realizes that you are no longer burnt out, that you have healing abilities again, that changes things.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” she stated. “I would never work for them again.”

  “Unless you are forced to, … the way you were before,” Walker stated pointedly.

  She blanched and then nodded. “Even then, I can’t. I mean, being connected to those people when they died, it was brutal.”

  “Did you know them?”

  She nodded slowly. “They were my team members. One was a healer with whom I worked very closely, and another was a kidnap victim who had been shot. All of them had been shot,” she said, with a wave of her hand. “If I had been closer to the team, I might have been able to save both of them, but I wasn’t,” she whispered. “Honestly, I haven’t been the same ever since.” Then she glared at him. “Does that make you feel better?”

  “No, of course not,” he said, looking at her gently. “Yet it does help explain some of this.”

  “It doesn’t explain anything,” she snapped. “There is no explanation for this.”

  “Yes, there is, and I highly suspect that what we have is somebody in the government trying to see what your abilities are, particularly now that you’ve been brought back into the business.”

  “I haven’t been brought back into the business,” she argued, staring at him in shock. “I won’t be.”

  He looked over at Calum, who nodded. “You might not want to be, but, if somebody else is willing to be that much of hard-ass and not care about people’s lives, as he kidnaps more and more people, that person will do whatever is needed to bring you back into the fold again.” Walker took off once more.

  Calum asked her, “I presume you are a very strong healer?”

  She nodded slowly. “I was. I only heal now, as I told you, only when I have to or when somebody comes to me because I know then that they really need it and that it’s meant to be. I don’t do that high-level healing every day anymore.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because it takes too much out of me.”

  *

  Walker kept just ahead of them, close enough to hear the conversation but not so close that he was impeding their progress or his ability to keep searching. When they finally crested the hill behind her place that separated her from McClintock, Walker stood and surveyed the valley around them. He murmured to her as she approached, “You picked a hell of a place to isolate yourself.”

  She beamed. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked, her tone soft with reverence.

  He gave her a crooked smile. “Mother Nature is always beautiful, but also brutality is here.”

  “There always is. Nobody said Mother Nature was a wimp,” she declared, with spirit. She pointed up on the other side of the little rise. “He’s down there.”

  “Good enough.” Walker looked over at Calum. “I’m thinking we should split up.”

  “Got it,” Calum agreed. “I’ll head down in this direction, and you stay with her.” And, with that, he quickly scooted down the hill, heading to the left.

  Walker watched his progress from the shadows, keeping Ashley ever-so-slightly behind him.

  “Do you really think a problem is here?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I’m not sure. What I can tell you is that we were told to stay together in order to get the assistance that we needed, and we’ve just chosen to split up.” He gave a wry look in her direction.

  “Right, so how does that make any sense?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure it does, but I do think we need to scout out this area.”

  She frowned at that. “I still can’t believe McClintock would have anything to do with this.”

  “I’m not saying he did,” Walker stated, looking at her, “but I also don’t quite understand what he does here.”

  She winced. “He’s a bit of an enforcer, not that anybody here really needs it, but, because he’s always here, the sheriff’s office may have a pretty easy job. When McClintock stepped in, he made it clear that nobody was to touch me, nobody was to have anything to do with me, and we had one or two incidents, and that was it. Once everybody else realized he was here, he became this big hidden threat in the background. He never had to use any force, and just one look from him was enough to keep most people in line.”

  “So, was that his job when you were out on missions?”

  “He was a guardian,” she murmured, with a nod. “A protector of sorts. He was supposed to keep an eye on me and to ensure I got to and from the jobs safely.”

  “And that didn’t always work out, is what I’m hearing?”

  “I mean, it worked out as much as it could, but nobody can be 100 percent on all the time, and we were betrayed once from within,” she shared, with a shrug. “That changes the odds, and I am sure you understand there is little you can do about it, at least the first time.”

  “Ah, it seems there’s a lot of that going around.”

  “There was, and it seemed that, for a while there, everybody was doing their best to screw everybody else over, and you didn’t know who could be trusted anymore,” she murmured. “It was pretty depressing, and I hated it. I hated everything about it. Yet I also knew that, to get us out of there, I would have to pull some strings on my own,” she stated, with a wince. “When we had a nasty op go bad, both of us took the opportunity to change our careers, so to speak,” she declared, with a hard smile.

  “And what? Up until now they’ve left you alone?”

  “Yes,” she said, with a look at him. “Absolutely. Since then, it’s been quiet, and I slowly healed and came to terms with a lot of my past. … I can’t fix some of the things I couldn’t fix, and I haven’t been able to help nearly the amount of people I used to, but it is what it is, and I can’t do anything about it.”

  “Of course not,” Walker agreed. “I still feel as if you aren’t telling me part of the story.”

  “Maybe there are parts of the story I don’t really want to discuss,” she stated, her tone cool.

  “Got it,” he muttered.

  “Nobody should be interested in what I do anymore,” she said, with another shrug. “I’m not really even sure what I can do, to be honest.”

  “But you don’t really know that, right?” he asked. “According to what Terkel and Calum are saying, everybody came back stronger. He mentioned it to me specifically.”

  “But they’re part of a team,” she pointed out. “Abilities generally grow faster in a group, than if you’re alone.”

  He nodded, not saying anything to that.

  She gave him a hard look. “I don’t think I like what you’re thinking.”

  He gave her a gentle smile. “That’s okay. You can get used to me thinking it.”

  She shook her head and turned her attention back to what was going on around them. “I want to go down there,” she said suddenly.

  “Yeah?” Just then his phone buzzed. He pulled it out and saw a text message that simply read Left. “Looks like we’re going left.”

  “That’s where Calum went,” she noted.

  “Yeah, and this is coming from Langdon.”

  She shrugged. “In that case, let’s go left.”

  And, with that, they turned left and headed down the hill, staying to the trees and the shadows. “I feel like I’m creeping up on a friend, and I don’t like it,” she snapped, her tone low.

  “You can explain it to him afterward and tell him that we forced you.”

  She snorted. “It’s not as if he’ll believe that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it takes a lot for somebody to force me to do something.”

  “Yeah? But you’re also worried about people being hurt right now,” he murmured. “So that’s hardly a fair assessment.”

  She didn’t say anything to that, and they continued to scoot their way down the hill. When they were about two hundred yards away, his phone buzzed again.

  He pulled it out, checked the message. “Now we’re to go right.”

  Startled, she frowned at him and then turned to face right. Almost in a perfect line was the centered view of a large shed. She walked toward it steadily, staying to the shadows, as Walker kept scouting the area around them.

  “Do you trust this Langdon guy?” she asked him.

  “Terkel does,” Walker replied. “I’m not as familiar with anybody on the team, but, if Terk says that he’s solid, we have no reason not to follow.”

  “Unless he’s setting us up.”

  Walker didn’t say anything to that because, if it was another betrayal from within, it would be fairly complex and complicated in order for it to involve Langdon, who was the newest member of Terkel’s team. Yet Walker could see where she was coming from, considering her history. As they reached the side of the building, he pulled her back into the shadows and whispered, “Stay here.”

  She grabbed his hand. “I’m coming with you.” He looked at her and frowned. She shook her head. “No, I’m coming. You’re not leaving me in the background like this. If people are in there, I need to be in there.”

  “Sure you do,” he agreed instantly, “but you don’t need to be there if bullets are flying.”

  She gave him a half smile. “You and I both know that, if your vision comes true, it’ll come true no matter what you do.”

  “That’s not true,” he argued in a harsh whisper. “We can change this.”

  “Can we?” she asked, staring at him wistfully.

  “Yes,” he declared. “You just have to want something past this. You plan for a life past this.”

  She hesitated, then reached up and scrubbed his cheek. “I could, if we ever get to the other side of this.”

  He pulled her toward him, gave her a hard kiss, and said, “Hold that thought. It just might keep you alive.” And, with that, he quickly disappeared around the shed, leaving her standing here, glaring at the space where he had been standing.

  Chapter 13

  Ashley hated being left behind, and she hated waiting. She understood Walker’s need to protect because she’d been up against it time and time again with McClintock. But, when bullets were flying, she was the one who could do something about it. Although, exactly how much she could do that, she didn’t really know.

  She stared down at her hands, wondering how much value she even could offer anymore. She did healings, and, when the patients came to her, she did what she could, but was there more she could do? Was there more she wanted to do? After you’ve been hurt so much, it’s hard to do anything except hide away in a huddle of misery and try not to believe that the world is better off without you. But, when you’re a survivor, and everybody else around you has gone on doing things that you could never even begin to live with yourself, it just becomes one of the hardships of being a survivor. Yet this scenario made no sense to her, unless, as they kept saying, somebody was waiting to see if she was using her healing abilities again. That would have been a long game.

  She’d been here for five years now, and that just brought to mind that, maybe up until now, the idea hadn’t even occurred to anybody, until all of a sudden people started showing up here, and that meant one of her patients had talked.

  She wasn’t sure how that would happen. Yet it could have been an innocent conversation, as simple as somebody just saying they would go see a healer. She knew that her reputation had started to build. She had even talked to McClintock about it, wondering if it was time to relocate, but he’d been adamant that he could protect her. And so far he had, but she was beginning to realize that his protection might have carried a bigger cost than she was prepared to pay. Not that he would ever hurt her, but maybe he had done something to keep others away, something that would have hurt those others.

  With her mind still puzzling through it, she peered around the corner, but nothing was there. It was completely calm, silent even, and that was disturbing in itself because it made no sense. Where had Calum and Walker gone? Had they been taken prisoner? Even if that were the case, what was she supposed to do here? She sank back into the shadows a little deeper from where she had been standing, waiting for Walker to return to her, when she heard a voice inside her head.

  She shifted to the side, wondering who she heard. It wasn’t Terkel, and it wasn’t McClintock, not that he had that ability. Was it Walker? There was a tinniness to it, as if coming from a long distance away. But it was hard to decipher anything. She crouched against the building, hidden as much as she could be by the space she was in, then closed her eyes and opened up her senses. Almost instantly, a voice slammed into her brain, and a laugh broke through her mind. A hard tone.

  There you are.

  She opened her eyes and bolted to her feet, finding a man staring at her. He was young, possibly twenty or so, she wasn’t even sure. “Hello.”

  He just smiled. “This is even better than I could have wished for.” He chuckled.

  She stared at him. “I don’t know anything about this. What’s going on?”

  “Ah,” he replied, “it’s a fine time to pretend innocence now.”

  Then she noted his handgun.

  He motioned for her to move forward, his added push causing her to stumble in the direction he wanted, as she moved toward the front entrance of the building.

  “Who are you?” she asked. “What are you doing here? This is McClintock’s place.”

  “I know whose place it is,” he said, the handgun nudging her spine. “Hurry up. We don’t have much time here.”

  She didn’t even know who he was. “Who are you?” she repeated, suddenly feeling an odd push, an odd energy push.

  “It doesn’t matter who I am. At least it never mattered to you.” She twisted to look up at him again, but he snarled and snapped in her face, “Turn around.”

  She turned around, but that one look hadn’t helped. She didn’t know who he was. “I’m supposed to know who you are, but I’m sorry. I don’t.”

  “Yeah, and how would you? I never sent you any pictures, and my mother never did either.”

  She froze. “You’re Lawson?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m Lawson. And you are the woman responsible for my mother’s death.” He shoved her inside the building. It was a huge metal dome-looking construction, and her eyes struggled to adjust. She could see one man chained against the wall. She raced over and dropped in front of him. “Oh my,” she whispered, spinning to look at Lawson. “What have you done?”

  He shrugged. “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “What worked?” she asked.

  “It brought you in,” he replied.

  “You could have just come to my house,” she stated, staring at him. “Why didn’t you?”

  He looked at her almost in a fury. “Because you were too well hidden.”

  She blinked at that. “I see,” she murmured. “You didn’t need any healing, obviously.”

  “No, of course not,” he spat, with a wave of his hands. “What’s that got to do with it?”

  She didn’t say anything because her guards had kept out anything and everything that was dangerous to her, and only people who could heal were allowed in. Then, with McClintock’s extra protection on the same level, Lawson hadn’t been able to access her, until he drew her out.

  She sighed, as she straightened. “What do you want from me?” she asked, staring at him, trying not to see where Calum and Walker were.

  “I want vengeance,” he declared.

  And her heart sank at that. “Because of Alissa’s death, which I had nothing to do with?”

  “You did have something to do with it. You chose not to help her.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not that I chose not to help her,” she clarified, knowing that the guilt even now choked her. “There were too many dead and more dying. I had to choose who I could try to help who might live afterward.”

  “That’s right, and you chose to let my mother die.”

  “I chose to let her die because she was already so far gone.” She tried to explain, hating the note of desperation in her tone. “This isn’t all that simple to work out when you’re in the field, when everything blows up and when people are being killed all around you. Your mother was dying, and I can’t go retrieve somebody from the other side,” she stated, glaring at him. “Do you think I haven’t carried her death on my heart all this time?”

  “All this time you were talking to me as if you had nothing to do with it. I only found out recently that you were the one out there to heal them, and you chose not to heal her!” he cried out in fury.

  “I didn’t choose not to heal her. Too many dead and dying that day, and there was only one of me,” she cried out in pain. “What am I supposed to do when I can’t heal everyone?”

  “You choose those who you care about. Anybody would have.”

  She blinked at him. “There were always too many of those,” she whispered. “This was my team. All of them were members of my team. They were all dying, Lawson. What is it you wanted me to do?”