Broken Communication Read online

  It would never happen.

  His attention went to the laptop a geek buddy of his had assured him couldn’t be tracked by anyone. The information pulled up on the screen spelled out everything that had been done in the creation of the Immortal Ops and what so many humans and supernaturals had been subjected to over the years.

  Torture.

  Testing.

  Death.

  A small piece of Casey was happy the information had gone public on the internet, despite having gone to great lengths trying to keep it from coming to light. When he’d destroyed a computer running some sort of program that was decrypting files on the creation of the ops, he’d assumed that was the end of it.

  Hardly.

  He’d never thought about a backup system. He wasn’t clueless about technologies, and was skilled enough to be dangerous, but he was out of his league in certain areas.

  The strange, sick satisfaction he got from knowing the information was now out there for those willing to listen, was because it meant the people behind all the madness were probably shitting their pants, scrambling to make it all go away. Another part of Casey understood the panic and pandemonium that would result should humans really believe what had been released. Thankfully, the information leak had occurred on a fringe site—one run by Laney, a woman he thought of as a little sister in so many ways. She’d meant well when she’d researched it all. And she’d never intended for the information to go live.

  Unfortunately, Harmony, Laney’s best friend, did as requested. She’d made the information live, thinking harm had befallen Laney. Now the shit storm raining down on them all was massive. Casey should have cut and run, forgetting about everyone else but himself. That attitude had been one he’d adopted once he’d recovered from his burns long ago. Laney, Bill, and Gus had changed that side of him. They had become a family of sorts to him.

  Bill and Gus, who were aging at a normal human pace, and who both had suffered horribly at the hands of mad scientists who worked for the government, were safe and sound for now. The Paranormal Security and Intelligence Agency was looking out for them. And Casey’s gut said he could trust PSI. Gus, who seemed connected into the greater cosmos of life, trusted PSI. That was enough for Casey.

  Reaching out to the wall again, Casey touched another sketch. This one didn’t remind him of his horrible past. No, this one gave him hope of a future. There were many, similar to this one that he’d done over the course of the past four years. All were of her.

  Harmony.

  He let out a long, slow breath, his focus pulling to her. He’d find her, no matter the cost. She’d probably have thought it creepy that he could draw her from memory. He wasn’t exactly proud of the way he’d lurked when she was near, or how often he’d trailed her back to her home to assure himself she was safe and sound before he returned to one of the many places he laid his head when the need called for it. It wasn’t as if he was proud of the beast side of him—he struggled to co-exist with the animal instincts on a daily basis. They intensified his own emotions, leaving him so close to losing his control around Harmony that he often came off as gruff with her, even harsh.

  In many ways, she reminded him of the socialites he’d known long ago, in his own days of being in the thick of it all. Not much had truly changed. The rich still considered themselves entitled. He knew there was more to Harmony than she presented to the public. He’d seen her feeding the homeless on more than one occasion, and he’d seen her in a tucked-away corner of the park, under a tree, reading a book that some of the brightest people he knew would struggle with.

  Not his Harmony.

  She was beautiful, hardheaded, often outspoken, rarely shy, and underneath it all, a very intelligent and caring woman. And right now she was out there, probably scared, more than likely hurt, and he needed to get to her.

  Chapter Two

  “She is gonna fetch some high coin.”

  Harmony glared at one of her captors, willing him to come closer so she could try again to take his eye out with her heel. She’d nearly been successful on her first attempt. Damn her for over-thinking ruining her favorite pumps. Worth it if it meant the dirtbag lost vision in one eye. Even better if she took out both eyes. She was hardly a shrinking violet, though most assumed she would be. Her love of fashion, makeup and hair tended to fool a lot of people into thinking she was one-dimensional and shallow.

  She wasn’t, but it did make for a nice suit of armor to keep others at arm’s length—protecting her closely guarded secret.

  He kept going, “Bitch is gonna make us big bank.”

  Harmony wished she had wings so she could take flight and slam into him. The men had been threatening for days that they were going to sell her on some underground sex-trading ring. So far, they’d only threatened as they continued to discuss an upcoming, large-scale event. Apparently, slimeballs could organize.

  Who knew?

  The man curled his lip at her before he leered in her direction. She flipped him off. He raised his brows. “If you don’t behave, I just might come in there and teach you how to,” he threatened.

  “In that big of a hurry to get your ass handed to you by a girl—again? Oh yeah, nothing screams manly man like crying after I kneed you in the balls.” When they’d blitz-attacked her at her friend’s backup pad, she’d been caught off guard, her mind too focused on the disappearance of her friend to worry about her own safety.

  Stupid.

  She knew that now. Though, she had given her attackers a run for their money, making it anything but easy for them to subdue her. Had one not stunned her with a stun gun, she was pretty sure she’d have been the victor, even in her heels and with her manicure intact.

  The man made a move to charge the cell bars. The other guy, who never seemed to leave Jerk Off’s side, grabbed him, yanking him back. “No. Krauss wants her without any bruises and untouched. You do not want to piss him off.”

  Jerk Off collected himself, his gaze still hard. They’d go rounds again and she was betting on it. This time she’d be ready and she’d show him she wasn’t a girl to be messed with. At least that was what she kept trying to tell herself. The reality of it all wasn’t exactly so.

  Her gaze went to the other cell, where a hulk of a figure had remained behind a partial cinder block wall, just out of her view. She’d caught sight of clawed, fur-covered hands. She’d also seen the size of the chains around the thing’s wrists.

  She gulped. A pang of fear licked at her gut as thoughts of the guards’ previous threats played out in her head.

  Giving her to the beast-guy in the next cell as punishment.

  If that wasn’t enough to scare the living daylights out of her, hearing it roar and snarl sure did. Of course, she did her best not to show it. She stared at the wall, wondering about the man on the other side of it—if he could be called a man at all.

  She wasn’t so sure there was anything human left in him. From the sounds of it, there wasn’t. She’d been asleep when they’d first brought the guy in, his top half covered in some sort of a hooded mask and the rest of him chained, his body limp. It had been too dark in the holding area at the time to get a good look at him. That had been yesterday, if she was even counting her days and nights correctly anymore.

  She wasn’t sure about anything except she needed to get free. There was no white knight coming. No help. No one knew where she was. With Laney missing, there would be no one to notice Harmony was gone. Her father surely wouldn’t.

  Her nostrils flared, and she felt her magik prickle again, unable to surface for some reason. Her guess was that the cell she was in was lead-lined. That would prevent her from being able to properly use her natural-born gifts. Gifts her mother liked to say were curses and then pretend Harmony didn’t have.

  If Harmony could figure out how to get her magik to work, she’d stop being scared of it and use it to zap the asshole that was still making lewd gestures at her. But unfortunately, she wasn’t exactly competent in her gifts. Mo
re to the point—she seemed to excel at magikal mishaps. At least most of the incidents were in her past. With her father’s money, he’d been able to cover up the majority of them.

  Harmony exhaled slowly, thinking about her father. He threw money at everything. It was how he showed affection, how he handled problems and how he shouldered the guilt of what he’d done—aligned himself with bad men all so he and his wife could conceive a child. A daughter born from a science that was anything but ethical, and from everything Harmony could gather, had left her father a pawn in his associates’ sick and twisted world. He owed them and they’d never allow him to forget as much.

  The shame she felt knowing her father had ties to groups who experimented on supernaturals and humans was epic. She’d been trying to funnel information about them out to the proper channels, but she’d hit a snag.

  Mainly, Laney. Her best friend in all the world.

  Moisture welled in Harmony’s eyes, but she refused to cry. Refused to allow the dirtbags sitting on the other side of the bars to see her show any weakness. Her family didn’t show weakness and she wasn’t about to start now. Didn’t matter that she’d been held prisoner for so many days that she’d lost track of the exact number.

  Didn’t matter that she was battered and slightly bruised or that, despite being granted bathroom privileges and two showers since her arrival, she still felt dirty, as if the grime of the cell might never wash off.

  “Going to cry yet, bitch?” the man asked, making mocking gestures with his hands before acting as if he was jacking off.

  “Call her a bitch again,” came a shockingly deep voice from the cell next to her.

  Harmony froze in place, her eyes wide as she stared over at the cinder block wall, kind of expecting a half-man, half-beast creature to burst through it. What she’d not expected was the man to sound…like a man. She leaned some, trying to get a better view of him. The wall still blocked him from full sight, but she did catch a glimpse of his hands once more. This time they were not covered in fur with long dagger-like claws. They seemed normal. They were also big. Like him.

  Shifter, she thought, unsure if he was the kind that came out of the womb that way or if he’d been manufactured like a number of them had. A pang of guilt swept over her. If the man had been tested on and made the way he was, had her father played a part in it?

  The two men standing guard shared a look that said they too were concerned. The smaller of the men, who was slightly less disgusting than the first and whom she’d taken to thinking of as Shorty, since he was considerably smaller in stature than Jerk Off, nudged the bigger one and shook his head. Harmony didn’t need to be psychic to know the little guy wanted the big one to keep his mouth shut and avoid taunting Hulk.

  Jerk Off squared his shoulders and Harmony expected the dumbass to actually try to pick a fight with her new fellow detainee. Instead, Jerk Off rubbed his jaw line and then looked to Shorty. “Why the hell is Krauss so bent on us housing this guy? He’s got better places than this to hold the thing.”

  Notwithstanding Harmony’s fears of the newcomer, she disliked hearing him referred to as “the thing” by the guards.

  “No clue, man.” Shorty leaned and kept his gaze on whoever was behind the partial wall. The small man paled.

  Harmony gulped again and took a small step in the other direction, feeling the need for some space between her and the new arrival. Her gut said the chains weren’t as strong as everyone was banking on.

  “Nothing else to add? Done with referring to the woman as anything other than lady?” the prisoner next to her asked. This time his voice wasn’t quite as deep, but still heavily masculine all the same. Oddly, his voice made her think of Casey, and she had to push the thought aside to avoid crying. She’d never see him again. As much as the hairy jerk annoyed her, she wanted to see his face again. She wanted to hear him call her princess and mock her decision to wear heels for almost everything in life.

  More than that—she wanted Casey.

  Jerk Off picked up another of his girlie magazines that littered the old desk near him. He eyed her and then held the magazine open in a way that suggested he was looking at the centerfold and then her, his gaze darting back and forth. He grinned and bit his lower lip.

  Perv.

  Shorty didn’t seem to care that his buddy was a creep. He also didn’t mind the guy blatantly touching himself.

  Two pervs.

  Jerk Off flipped aimlessly through the pages. She was surprised he could get any of them to turn and that they weren’t stuck together from as much as she’d noticed his hand down the front of his pants over the last few days. The sick pig had then dared to touch, with the same unwashed, jacking-off hand, what he’d tried to pass off as food for her. She nearly retched just thinking about it.

  She sighed, reflecting on her best friend Laney. Harmony had wanted to tell her the truth over the four years of their friendship, but the time never seemed right. And how did one go about telling another they weren’t human? That they’d levitated the butler more than once as a child before causing the dinnerware to dance about the table after watching the animated version of a popular French fairy tale about a beast and the beautiful woman who fell in love?

  Not to mention Laney’s strange obsession with the weird and wacky. The girl seemed to live for outing supernaturals, and Harmony had played right into Laney’s “the truth is out there” theories. She’d funneled information toward Laney, hiding behind a hacker name rather than simply telling her friend the truth.

  Supernaturals were real and Harmony just happened to be one. In her defense, Harmony had finally gotten to the point she was going to confess everything to Laney, but then Laney had been so excited about her blind date that Harmony hadn’t wanted to spoil it with a talk that would not have been short or simple.

  “I’m sorry, Laney,” she whispered, tearing up thinking about her friend. Laney had gone on a date with a man she’d met via the Net and hadn’t returned. It had been foolish to let her go off alone like that with a man neither of them knew, and it was especially dumb to let her venture off on her own when she’d been doing what Harmony had tasked her to do—discovering the truth about what the government and big financial backers like her father were doing.

  Experimenting on supernaturals and humans.

  Harmony knew the dirty, ugly truth by accident. She’d happened upon it all buried deep within one of her father’s dummy corporations. Her computer skills were impressive, and she excelled with technology. Dolls had never really interested her, but taking things apart to see how they worked did. And then there was magik. It had captivated her as a child. It didn’t matter she had little control over it. She’d been swept away by it all.

  Not her parents. They’d shared sad looks as if what she could do was something horrid and wrong. Something they’d somehow brought upon themselves.

  When she’d discovered the horrible truths her father had never wanted her to know, she’d been sickened, and it had taken all of her to keep from going to him and shoving it in his face—demanding to know everything. She knew better. She’d seen the files and the reports. People who asked questions, even family members, were dealt with accordingly. The Corporation and its reach was vast and deep. They didn’t let anyone get in their way, not even daughters.

  She swallowed hard as the awareness settled over her that the men holding her had something to do with the Corporation. She’d seen the name Krauss in the files. He was some mad scientist who was anything but human—that much she’d gleaned from the dates of the records. He’d lived far longer than a human ever should, a sicko who had even worked for Hitler at one point in his past, under an assumed name, of course.

  Harmony had known all of this, but still let her friend go off with a stranger. A man Harmony felt deep in her bones had links to the Corporation somehow, though she had no proof. Only a hunch. And she’d learned over the years her hunches were often right.

  She fought tears as she remembered how
she’d told Laney she’d have her back. That she would be her friend’s stone-cold, back-up bitch.

  Some back-up bitch she’d been.

  “I’m hungry,” proclaimed Jerk Off, standing and stretching, the girlie magazine discarded to the pile of porn. His whining pulled her from her inner thoughts and the distraction was a welcome one. “Let’s go grab some food.”

  “What about Blondie there?” asked Shorty.

  Blondie. The name made her think of Casey. He alternated between calling her that and princess. Well, and fucking ray of sunshine.

  Jerk Off laughed. “She’s not going anywhere.”

  That’s what you think.

  Harmony waited until they were gone from the area before she went to work trying to find a weakness with the cell bars. One that would permit her rather uncontrollable magik to assist in getting it loose.

  Chapter Three

  Casey stared around the small room, his gaze on the walls where he’d pinned clippings, information, and photos over the years. As someone who spent the majority of his life staying one step ahead of those hunting him, he had to be good at surveillance. The fruits of his labors were in the room. Backup copies were in the possession of a few people around the world he still trusted. If something happened to him, they’d be sure the information was protected.

  It was how he kept track of those who were doing testing on humans and supernaturals alike. How his mind put it all together. The walls were covered with his findings and with his sketches. In some areas, the information was several layers thick. Yarn stretched across varying areas and wrapped around pins, making it all look like a spider’s web.

  A web of lies.

  Of deceit.

  It looked more like the jumbled thoughts and fixations of a mad man, but Casey knew the truth. He wasn’t a conspiracy theorist. He’d lived it. He’d been a witness to just how far mankind would go in the name of science and it wasn’t fucking pretty.