Lost: Project Xol Read online

  LOST

  PROJECT XOL

  BOOK TWO

  AMABEL DANIELS

  Disclaimer

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 Amabel Daniels

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions

  Dedication

  For Polly

  Chapter One

  Luke

  I wrapped my arm around Cassidy’s limp body and brought her closer to me. Away from the doors sliding shut, further from the obnoxious footsteps of the subway riders who hadn’t noticed an unconscious woman nearly sprawled out on the floor.

  My heart thumped a furious tempo in my chest as I slumped to the ground. We took off. The train that had just arrived when Michael had come for us was our escape. I couldn’t have asked for a more miraculous freak of timing, but in my haste to take advantage of fleeing, I pulled Cassidy into the train and she smacked her head on the closest handrail pole.

  “Yo, you guys okay down there?”

  I ignored the stranger who’d finally noticed us and adjusted Cassidy on my lap, turning her so I could take in that damningly sweet face. Maybe dying her hair to a soft red lent her too much innocence. She didn’t fit. Not like this, unconscious on my thighs, fresh out of danger and being forced to make a twisted choice.

  When Michael had me under gunpoint, he’d made it clear. My life for the data that was strapped to her neck.

  And she chose me. Me. This spitfire angel of a bookworm chose me.

  “Cassidy.” I brushed her strawberry strands from her closed eyes. No bruises or swollen spots showed. Her only visible injuries were the abrasions from when Michael had tried to strangle her two days ago.

  “Cassidy,” I tried again, jostling her a little. Her heartbeat was strong and sure as I laid my palm over her chest. I leaned down, feeling her breaths wisp against my cheek.

  Alive. She was going to live. But how hard had she hit her head?

  “Cassidy, wake up.”

  “You need help?” a man asked this time, somewhere to our left.

  I didn’t, but Cassidy might. She had to wake up. Now. Before it was evident she needed medical assistance. Because taking her anywhere for first aid would be the opposite of staying on the down-low from the cops. I’d rather us be in the woods, somewhere away from people, instead of trapped with too many around us, any one of them capable to dispatch the authorities.

  “Wake. Up.” I smoothed my hand over her cheek. Please. The last time I’d needed to rouse her, I’d stooped to bite her ear. But we’d been cuddled—no, entangled—with each other in the privacy of an empty house. All eyes seemed to be on us in this speeding train.

  I didn’t even know where we were headed. It was in a direction away from Michael, though, and that was the pertinent fact.

  “Cassidy.”

  “I’ll call—”

  I held up my hand. “No.”

  The woman who’d spoken narrowed her eyes at me.

  No help.

  I shifted Cassidy into my arms and stood. “No, thank you. She…just missed her last medication. She’ll be fine once I get her home.”

  What? Lying had never been hard for me. Missed meds? It was a crappy way to fend off any concerned bystanders. My fear for her was overriding my cool. Think.

  “Not our first rodeo.” I tried to mask my anxiety with a neutral smile and held her small body closer to me. Try harder, idiot. I—we—didn’t need first responders coming to us. “She has a seizure disorder.”

  The woman put her phone back into her purse but still glanced at us from the corner of her eye.

  “Here.” A couple of teenagers stood and vacated a seat.

  I nodded my thanks, sat, and cradled Cassidy on my lap. Wake up! Before I could try to get her to open her eyes, I felt her phone buzzing in her pocket. It slid out with a shifting turn of the subway train and the screen offered relief. Maybe.

  Zero was calling.

  I took the device, held Cassidy tighter in my arm, and answered.

  “We need help,” I said as way of a greeting. Staring helplessly at Cassidy, I spoke low. It was loud in this hurtling space with the murmur of people and the hum of the train coasting along its track, but we weren’t in a private spot.

  “Luke?”

  Who the hell else would be answering Cassidy’s phone? I scowled at the floor. He knew I was with her. He didn’t know who I was, but still. It irked me more than it probably should have. Like another man could ever answer her phone, or ever had.

  “Help how?” Cassidy’s hacker friend asked.

  “She hit her head as we got onto the subway. Won’t wake up.”

  “S— What? Subway?” Zero started in his worked-up yet femininely pitched deep tone.

  “Michael showed up. We had to run.”

  “Mich—” Zero coughed a sound like a gasp. “Is that why you had to stop sending me the files?”

  We’d stopped sending the files Rosa had asked Cassidy to retrieve from a safety-deposit box because the power had failed at the shithole internet café Zero had directed us to use. Finding Michael on our tail was just another fun twist. “I’ll explain later. She might have a concussion. I need to”—know she’s okay—“get her help.”

  “Then call goddamn 911.”

  My jaw dropped. “Yeah, because she didn’t nearly kill a cop.” If we weren’t on the run, of course I’d fucking call for help.

  “No one’s acting like she did.”

  Huh? Yet as he stated it, I didn’t have a hard time accepting it as truth. Yesterday, that officer in that Podunk town had run her driver’s license with nothing to show. Maybe no one was chasing after her for nearly killing Michael.

  But…Michael was—is—here. He is after her. And he’s a cop. Zero said he was a cop. I saw that ID card myself.

  “I cannot find anything on her. No warrant for arrest. No APB. Nada. And this morning, they made a statement about Rosa’s apartment. Fluke accident. They’re ruling the explosion in the building as accidental.”

  It wasn’t. Cassidy saw the men going in there to plant a bomb. I swallowed around the lump in my throat and clutched Cassidy closer to me. How could this be?

  Zero huffed. “I don’t know what the hell is up with one Officer Michael Poole. But I can’t find any evidence of any law enforcement member trying to find Cassidy.”

  Rogue. Was Michael some kind of freestyle agent?

  “Is there anything coming up about anyone else?” Like, me? If they were closing off Rosa’s apartment fire as an accident, they couldn’t dismiss the fact my place right next door was destroyed too. And if I wasn’t around to answer questions, an ex-con gone missing, wouldn’t someone automatically lay blame on me? That was a perk of once being charged with murder. I was always the bad guy now.

  “Nothing I can see. Then again, Luke, it’s not like I’d know what to search for. Is that even your real name?

  “Luke Dixon.” Asshole. “Rosa’s neighbor.”

  “Ah. But no. Nothing about any neighbors in the arson report.”

  That was it. Nothing. Absolutely zilch to tie me to Cassidy and the man who’d almost killed us both.

  I was free to leave her. Drop her off at an ER somewhere close and take off. End this insanity. Stick to minding my own business. It was common sense. Remove yourself from danger. A motto hardwired into every species on the planet.

  Since leaving prison, I’d been borrowing time on a second chance at life. Trying to be a normal man living a normal existence. O
ne free of physical attacks and never knowing where the enemy was and when they were coming.

  Free. I could walk away.

  I’d never half-assed anything in life. Survival was my end goal. But I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I left this woman now, when I might have an easy out. I wouldn’t be able to survive the guilt and the heartache of knowing I’d walked away from the one person who’d chosen me.

  She’d saved me. Twice, actually. And it was time to even the score.

  “So take her somewhere. Tell me where and I’ll delete her files of being there. Take care of her, Luke.”

  The pleading in his voice was unnecessary. I’d take care of her regardless of any other motivators.

  “I’ll call back in a couple of hours,” I told him and then hung up. Keeping her phone out, I searched for the nearest medical facility, trusting the man who Cassidy called a friend.

  ****

  An hour later, I sat in a plastic chair next to Cassidy lying on a hospital bed. She’d woken up when I’d carried her into the Emergency Room’s entrance. Sluggishly, crankily, she’d woken up. Yet, to err on the safe side, I’d convinced her to stay and get checked out. With one stern look, I’d conveyed to her that it would be safe, and she’d settled down, likely confused with my decision to bring her in.

  The MRI showed nothing of concern, the doctor having ordered the test due to a contusion happening at her temple. Other than a slight headache, she felt fine. Fine. I didn’t know women enough to tell if she was lying or confessing the truth. Especially this woman. I hadn’t been much past strangers with Cassidy for long, yet her sweet, docile nature appeared as much as her sassy sarcasm could flare up. She did agree to wait for discharge papers before we left.

  “Michael’s not going to come here to look for us,” I told her once we were finally alone in the room. I had no clue if that was true, but I had a hunch the man who shouldn’t even be alive was chasing after the USB drive that he’d wanted from Cassidy. It’d fallen into a sewer catch, so maybe he was dashing through nasty water in the bowels of the subway lines.

  “Not here, but he probably will at the next place.”

  I nodded.

  Which was…where? I chewed on my lower lip, testing the newly split flesh from the first lucky punch Michael had laid on me in the subway when I’d told Cassidy to separate from me. Our plan, if I could even call it that, was to come to New York and get the files Rosa wanted from a safety deposit box. Which implied Rosa needing to meet up with Cassidy at some point in the future. Because as far as I could tell, Cassidy wasn’t interested in test study results from manipulating lizards’ genes twenty-some years ago.

  Wait. No. Not lizards but some freakish type of salamanders. Axolotls were regenerative species. That was a science fact I’d associate to some factoid on the inside of a Snapple bottle lid, not a detail I’d ever need to know in real life.

  Cassidy licked her lips and I held out a cup of water. She shook her head. “He’s somehow followed us from Cincy to New York. I can’t think he’s going to stop until he gets what he wants.”

  “What he wants is lost.” Floating along murky water underground.

  “Like he won’t assume we would try to make copies of the files first? He saw us exit that café. He’s got to know we were doing something with the files.” She sat up in the bed and rolled her eyes.

  Good point. And we had been doing exactly that. Downloading the files to Zero to analyze until we’d been interrupted.

  “How come no one from security has come for me yet?” She glanced at the window on the door to her room.

  I hurried to explain what Zero told me, that no one was looking for us—yet—and instead of whooshing out a breath of relief, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and glared at me. “Then why are you still here?” She scoffed and broke eye contact.

  Easy. “You.”

  She cocked her head and studied me.

  “You.” I shrugged, suddenly defensive and awkward at needing to spell it out. Hiding enough of my thoughts but still being truthful. “I’m still here because of you. Because you smashed Michael’s head with a skillet before he could kill me. Because you tried to give him that flash drive to spare a bullet in my back.”

  Her throat tightened as she swallowed. As she began to drop her gaze to the floor again, I reached over and gently gripped her chin to ensure she looked me in the eye. “You have watched my back. I might not have asked for any of this. But I’ll be damned if I don’t repay the favor.”

  Her baby blues remained steady on me. I stroked my thumb along her cheekbone, drawn to that smooth, silky softness. She turned slightly, as though rubbing into my caress.

  “I trust you.” I let go, not trusting myself to want to keep my hands off her. I’d have her back, but I wasn’t trying to get her on her back. Now. Ever? For fuck’s sake. I nearly grunted at my stupid thoughts. “And…this. If we had a small piece to play in a cure for cancer…” Hell yes, I’d fight the good fight.

  “Thank you.” She licked her lips again as she straightened in her seat, rearing out of my easy reach.

  Gratitude? No. That was supposed to be my line here.

  “But I don’t get it.” She pushed to her feet and I stayed ready to catch her. There was no clumsy tripping gait or dizzying lean to her pacing though. “How is he—” She turned to face me and set one hand on her hip. The other, she rubbed at the crown of her hair. “How is he moving like that?”

  “After us?”

  “Well, it seems he was waiting for us here, more than following us.”

  “So, what, he went to Rosa’s to get the box key and you’d gotten there at the same time?”

  “I don’t know. There’s no other way to explain how he’d ended up precisely where we were.”

  Unless he knew to watch for activity at that bank and that safety-deposit box. We couldn’t know with the limited knowledge at hand. Speculation. It was an interesting game, and everything led to Rosa and her old research.

  “And how’s he getting around?” she asked.

  I waited. Literally? She wondered what he was driving? If he was affiliated with the Feds, transportation probably wasn’t a worry for him.

  “His face…” She rubbed at her injury again. “He didn’t even look like he’d come close to death.” She lowered her hand and pointed at her head. “If a knock into an aluminum pole could cause me this much pain, then the frying pan to the head? I thought it killed him.”

  “Sit down, Cassidy.” I stood. “If it still hurts, take it easy until the nurse can bring—”

  “I’m fine. But how is he?” She crossed her arms and set her feet shoulder’s width apart. No, she wasn’t fine. She was tiptoeing close to downright badass with her stubborn streak. There wasn’t even an ounce of whining or pouting with this one. “I’m not fit. I get it. But I hit him as hard as I could. To kill him. To stop him from killing me—us.”

  I didn’t need her reminder. My shoulder still smarted from where she’d struck me by accident before she hit the target on Michael’s skull.

  “How is he alive?” she whispered.

  Not only that, he was just as strong and formidable of an opponent as he had been in Rosa’s apartment. Even the cuts on his cheeks and the bruising around his eye were minimal for what I’d expect.

  Seemed stupid to question the fact. All that mattered was that he was up and running—after us.

  The ringtone she’d assigned to Zero filled the stillness in the room and she picked it up. Answered it straight to speaker because the man’s voice filled the room.

  “Luke?”

  Cassidy furrowed her brow. “No, it’s me.”

  “You’re okay?”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “Getting there.”

  I smirked at her. Oh. What happened to being fine, huh?

  “I mean, you’re okay to go? They checked out your head? No concussion?”

  “Waiting to be discharged,” she said.

  Zero huffe
d. “Screw that. Get out of there. I’ll wipe the files on their system. You were never there.”

  We shared a glance across the room.

  Zero went on, “Luke, everything we talked about before…”

  I stepped closer to the phone. “I filled her in.”

  “Then you both listen in to an update,” Zero said. “They just released a new report about the building’s fire. They’ve announced Rosa was killed in the explosion.”

  Chapter Two

  Cassidy

  Rosa wasn’t dead.

  She couldn’t be.

  I shook my head. No. This wasn’t denial. I was bullheaded, but I was also able to see with my own two eyes. My adoptive mother was not killed in the explosion and fire in her apartment. She couldn’t have been because I had been in there just before the destruction and she most definitely had not.

  Luke tilted his head lower toward the phone, as though he’d misheard Zero.

  “But—” I started.

  “But, yeah. All of it. Cassie, the preliminary arson report is nothing but a cover-up. Buildings don’t accidentally blow up. And now they’re fudging the truth even more. I don’t know why. I do know is that you two are the only ones who could refute this news. Which means someone registering your info in a hospital database might be alerted to this just-breaking news. And given that you’ve been identified as the next of kin and a person of interest—”

  I gasped. Which meant…shit. They’d be coming to me.

  “Text me the name of where you’re at. The doctor, the room now. Like, now. And get the hell out of there,” he said with no patience in his tone. “If someone’s gonna be questioning you about whatever happened that night… Can’t be good, girlie.”

  “We’ll catch up later,” I said and hung up. I didn’t need to be told twice. I caught Luke’s attention and twirled my finger, indicating for him to turn around. They’d insisted I change into a gown for the MRI, but I’d been adamant about keeping my panties and yoga pants on.