Nathan held up his hand and Joe grasped it. Then they started for the door.

“Now wait just a goddamn minute,” Sam said in exasperation. “I don’t know who you two knuckleheads think you are or what you’re doing, but you don’t run this operation. And Steele damn sure won’t take orders from either one of you infants.”

Donovan lowered his rifle and then glanced toward Ethan, Garrett and Sam. “You stay here. Swanny and I will go with them.”

Garrett didn’t look happy, but then he never was happy about anything that kept him out of the know.

“Steele, fall back. Have P.J. and Cole stand down. We’re out of here,” Donovan said into the radio. “Shea escaped and is on her own. It’s imperative we find her before things get any worse.”

HER head hurt. Not just headache hurt. It felt like someone had hit her with a sledgehammer and half her skull was caved in. She was so overwhelmed with nausea that even breathing was a chore.

And she was pissed.

She was tired of all the crazies in her life. The dude whose house she had been taken to gave her the creeps. Like in a stalkerish “I’m not going to hurt you but I’ll confine you to my dungeon for the next ten years and never let you come out” kind of way.

She shivered and trudged down another alleyway that reeked of garbage and God only knew what else. She had a good imagination. She didn’t really need to know.

At least she knew where she was now, thanks to her flight through the streets. The problem? It was several states away from Tennessee. Charleston, South Carolina, was a beautiful city. It really was. Just not so much right now when she had no money, no ID, no idea how to communicate with Nathan—it wasn’t as if she had his phone number.

Lord, but she was getting loopy, and if she didn’t get rid of the headache soon, she was going to vomit everywhere.

She was afraid even to think about reaching out to Nathan. The pain was already so overwhelming that anything else she did to intensify her agony would send her straight over the edge.

Still, she had to try. What other options did she have?

She stepped from the alleyway and then hurriedly crossed the street. She’d been in this situation before. Nothing had changed. She’d been running for a year. She could do this without freaking out. Or at least that’s what she kept telling herself.

Focus, Shea. Just focus, damn it.

The problem was that before she only had to run. It didn’t matter where she went as long as she was able to melt in a crowd somewhere, disappear, lie low. Now? It wasn’t that easy. She didn’t want to go off alone again. She wanted to be back with Nathan and his horde of overprotective brothers and all their hulking team members.

She slowed in her walk. She’d felt safe with them, but she hadn’t been. Maybe that was her reality. Maybe she’d never be safe with anyone. She’d allowed herself to be reeled in by the fantasy of being able to rely on someone else. To have someone to protect her. Hope had been fierce within her after dealing with cold, hard reality for so long.

And the minute she’d let her guard down and allowed herself to depend on someone else? She’d been thrown over some psycho G.I. Joe wannabe’s shoulder and nearly tossed off a cliff.

Say it with me. Safety is an illusion.

Nothing like a good shot of optimism to boost her spirits.

Seeing an empty bench by a bus stop, she sank down onto it, watching warily around her for anyone who looked remotely threatening. She needed to clear her damn mind. She needed to figure out what to do.

She had no money, no ID. If she got stopped by a cop for any reason, she was so screwed. She had stuff stashed in a few places, but that didn’t do her any good when she had no way to get to it.

Damn it. Grace wasn’t talking. Shea’s head splintered when she even tried to call out for Nathan. She wanted to bury her face in her hands and cry like a damn baby, but she was too disgusted with herself to give in to that particular dramafest.

She sat for several moments and purposely blanked her mind. She rubbed soothingly at her temples and tried to shake off the aftereffects of the drugs they’d given her. It was the only explanation for why she couldn’t use her telepathy.

And then she panicked. What if it was permanent? Who knew what kind of crazy crap they’d given her? She quickly realized the absurdity of thinking such a thing. They wanted her abilities. They didn’t want to destroy them.

She sucked in air through her nose and then held her breath as she whispered Nathan’s name in her mind.

The stabbing pain nearly flattened her. She pitched forward, gulping desperately in an effort not to cry out. There was so much pressure in her skull, it felt like it would burst at any moment. Like a volcano. It literally felt like something was about to break apart in her head.

But then she heard him. A faint whisper, so light she wondered if it was wishful thinking.

Shea, where are you, baby?

Oh God, she couldn’t answer, could she? What if something did burst in her head? What if she had some freak aneurysm? What the hell was going on with her?

She rocked back and forth, trying not to let any sound escape.

“Miss, are you all right?”

Shea jerked her head around to see an elderly man sit down on the bench next to her. She nodded jerkily. “I’m f-fine.”

He gave her a doubtful look and she shot to her feet. She hurried away, knowing she probably drew more attention than if she’d just sat there, but she didn’t trust herself not to completely lose it and that would definitely gain her far more attention than if she simply walked away.

She hugged herself close and hunched down as she passed block after block. The streetlights blurred in her vision and she winced every time she inadvertently made contact with passing headlights.

It was like having a headache on steroids. The mother of all migraines. Every sound, every touch, every shard of light was so overwhelming that she couldn’t even process her thoughts. She couldn’t put together the simplest of plans and so she wandered through the city like some zombie.

She nearly stepped off the curb in front of a car when she was yanked backward. The hand on her arm was crushing, and she winced as she tried to pull away.

“Th-Thank you,” she tried to murmur but it came out as unintelligible garble. And then she looked up and her stomach bottomed out.

It was a face she’d seen many times in her nightmares in the last weeks. He’d beaten and brutalized her and been ruthless in his determination to extract the information he wanted from her.

Nathan had told her that it wasn’t just Grace these assholes wanted. He was resolute in his opinion that they wanted her just as much. They’d taken too much care not to seriously injure her.

So if they didn’t want her dead, and had no intention of killing her, she had absolutely nothing to lose by making the mother of all scenes.

As if reading her mind—who the hell knows, maybe he had—his grip tightened around her wrist until she let out a cry of pain.

“If you try anything, I’ll break your arm,” he hissed. “I will make you suffer unimaginably. If you cooperate, you’ll get to see your sister again.”

Her eyes widened in fear and her stomach clenched. Was this what had happened to Grace? Did these bastards already have her?

“Where is she?” Shea demanded, ignoring the roaring in her head.

“Get in the car,” he directed as a dark sedan pulled to the curb and stopped. “Do it or I’ll make you regret the day you were born.”

“Don’t you mean created?” she said in disgust.

He shoved her forward into the open backseat and then climbed in beside her. “Drive,” he directed.

Oh God, Nathan, I hope you can hear me. The drugs they gave me, it makes using my telepathy unbearable. The pain is horrific. I can’t do this for long. They found me. They have me again. Not the same as who took me from you. Different. The ones who had me first, the ones who tortured me. Help me, please. I was in downtown Charleston, but I have no idea where they’re taking me. I’ll try to establish a link when the pain is gone.

It was too much. She grabbed her head as tears streamed down her cheeks. She rocked back and forth moaning and sobbing. Her abductor looked at her like she’d lost her mind, and then as if realizing what she’d been doing, he yanked her head up by her hair.

She saw his fist coming and didn’t even try to dodge it. At the moment she welcomed oblivion with open arms.

CHAPTER 37

AS soon as Nathan, Joe, Swanny and Donovan hit the front, where Steele was already waiting with his team, a wave of agony hit Nathan so hard that his knees buckled and he went down.

“What the fuck?” Joe demanded. He dropped down next to his brother and grasped his arm, trying to steady Nathan’s descent.

Donovan grabbed Nathan’s other arm and then bent over as he and Joe eased him to the ground.

“What’s wrong?” Donovan asked sharply. “Talk to me, Nathan. Is it Shea? You’re scaring the shit out of me here.”

“It’s Shea,” Swanny said sharply. “Something’s going on and it ain’t good.”

But Nathan wasn’t focused on his brothers. He was caught in a myriad of pain, like needles were poking into his head. The inside of his skull felt scraped and turned inside out. Dear God, was this what Shea was experiencing?

And then he heard her. So desperate, her voice cracking under the onslaught of agony.

Oh God, Nathan, I hope you can hear me. The drugs they gave me, it makes using my telepathy unbearable. The pain is horrific. I can’t do this for long. They found me. They have me again. Not the same as who took me from you. Different. The ones who had me first, the ones who tortured me. Help me, please. I was in downtown Charleston, but I have no idea where they’re taking me. I’ll try to establish a link when the pain is gone.

He roared his frustration and tried to scramble to his feet, but the lingering waves of pain—her pain—had crippled him. He couldn’t seem to be able to get anything to work right. Dear God, the horrific agony she was enduring and he was helpless. Goddamn helpless while those bastards had their hands on her again.

“Nathan, goddamn it, talk to me!” Van shouted.

“Get off me! Just get away from me. Give me a minute.”

Donovan backed off but Joe remained down, his hand locked around Nathan’s shoulder.

“Let me help you up,” Joe said in a low voice. “Then tell us what happened. We’re wasting time, man. Push through it. She needs your help. It was her, wasn’t it? Do you want me to try to get through to her?”

Joe’s words cut through the lingering pain and confusion and already Shea had faded away, gone from him, the blank void he’d grown to hate so much replacing the overwhelming torment.

His mind went quiet. So damn quiet. He preferred the agony over this blanket of silence because at least then he’d had a connection with her. He’d heard her. And now there was nothing.

He grasped Joe’s hand and hauled himself upward. For a moment he staggered and leaned into his brother. Joe wrapped his arm around Nathan’s shoulders and simply held on.

As soon as he got his bearings, he turned and stalked back into the house, leaving Joe and Donovan to call after him. He barged into the kitchen, where Resnick still sat there smoking that damn cigarette while Shea was in the hands of people who had brutalized her.

“You son of a bitch!” Nathan roared.

He knocked the cigarette from Resnick’s mouth in one punch. Resnick went sprawling to the floor and Nathan went down after him. The kitchen erupted in chaos as Resnick’s men attempted to intervene.

Sam and Garrett pulled their guns while Donovan and Joe attempted to pry Nathan from Resnick.

It took the combined efforts of Donovan, Joe and Swanny to finally get Nathan off Resnick. No one made a move to help the man from the floor. He slowly picked himself up, wincing at the injury to his arm that was still unattended. He wiped at the blood that streamed from his nose and mouth and he backed up until he leaned against the counter.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Resnick demanded. “You’re supposed to be out looking for Shea.”

Nathan lunged for him again and Sam placed his body between his brother and Resnick, his gaze boring into Nathan.

“He went crazy outside,” Donovan explained. “Something happened to Shea, and he went nuts and stomped in here to kick the shit out of Resnick. Not that I have a problem with that, but I’d like to know what the fuck is going on.”

“That makes two of us,” Garrett spoke up.

“You did this to her,” Nathan choked out. “You stupid son of a bitch. You took away her only means of self-defense. Those goddamn drugs you gave her make using her telepathy impossible. She’s in unimaginable pain every time she tries to communicate. You can’t imagine the agony she’s enduring.”

Resnick went white and he looked like he was going to be ill. “No, that’s not what should have happened. It’s experimental, yes, but there haven’t been any side effects. It just prevents a person from focusing enough to maintain a telepathic connection.”