Page 4 of Harris

“Would you like more cream, Jennifer?” he asked calmly.

“No, thank you, sweetie,” Jennifer answered with a smile before turning her scowl back on the team.

“Um, Jennifer, can I have my laptop back?” Spencer asked, never taking his eyes off it as it floated, responding to Jennifer’s anger. Harris chuckled. Spencer was very attached to his cherished laptop. Jennifer’s emotions sometimes caused her telekinetic abilities to appear in random ways. Then again, she could be doing it on purpose, considering all the information about their plan was within those thin pieces of metal.

“I don’t know. Are you still planning on using it to send my brother back into hell?” she asked, tilting her head and waiting for his response.

Well, that answered Harris’s question. Levitation on purpose, for the win.

“Jennifer, give him back his laptop before he has a heart attack. This is my choice. I’ve made the decision alone.” He had to de-escalate this situation quickly, or more objects would fly around the room.

Jennifer huffed loudly, but the laptop lowered back into Spencer’s waiting hands.

Harris continued. “I approached the team with this idea. They’re only helping me do it as safely as possible. I’d be going with or without their help. This is the only way.”

“It’s insane. You can’t just expect to be captured back into that group and not be hurt or worse. They could kill you without a second thought. They don’t give a shit about your life or any of us survivors. We’re only good if we can be controlled and used for their benefit.”

“I’m useful to them; they won’t kill me. At least not right away.” He was betting on that, but there were no guarantees.

“Oh, that makes me feel so much better,” Jennifer growled in frustration. “Next, you’ll tell me that Woodley okayed this fucked-up idea.”

“He doesn’t know yet, and what does it matter if he did? It makes zero difference.” Why would the guy care? As Woodley repeatedly said, it was only convenient sex, nothing more. Why did everyone think there was some emotional bond between them?

Jennifer looked at him like she wasn’t buying what Harris was trying to sell.

“I realize this is a shock to you,” Brick said in an obvious attempt to bring the hostility down a few notches. “However, Harris approached us months ago with this plan, and we’ve gone over every other option, but your brother is correct, even if we don’t like it. The information he could provide us of the inner workings could lead to us shutting down at least one of the Noah Group factions, if not more.”

“It’s either we try this method, or we wait until they come for one of us next,” Harris said, trying to get through to his sister. “What if next time it’s Freddie or Frank? They’re only children. Ican’t wait around and allow that to happen. It’s past time to take the fight to them.”

Harris looked around the table at the members of the Fire Lake team as his sister slowly sat back down. He could easily discern their mixed reactions and understood why. He was a heartless criminal, after all. Why would he risk his skin for anyone other than his sister?

“They’ve already sent a bomb to a house containing innocent women and children, kidnapped John from his own shop, and messed him up. What if John hadn’t been at the lake house the day that package arrived? Most of the people around this table would be dead had he not seen the bomb in that delivery.” He waved a hand around the room. “Nothing is stopping them from doing that again or worse.” It sucked, but it was true. “Please understand why I must do this, Jennifer. It’s truly the only way left open to us now.”

This mission required a man who’d been pushed too far, a man without fear of dying, and with the brain of a supercomputer. A hacker without constraints of rules or codes. Add a healthy dose of engineered telekinetic and telepathic ability, and the Noah Project had the exact weapon they’d been trying hard to make.

Him.

That’s the thing when you rush to create a weapon of unknown strength and ability. You never really knew how or if you could control it. Attaining the necessary control was like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands. As it slips through your fingers, before you realize what’s happening, that smoke invades your lungs, cuts off your air supply, and chokes the very life from its creators.

Harris was that smoke, and he’d do what was necessary to ensure the air supply was finally cut off.

“With your heightened abilities, Harris can send vital information through your shared mental link. We’d know where he is at all times,” Spencer explained. “There’s no one else with your special abilities.”

“They’re unaware of how far your skills have advanced,” Fletcher added. “That you both no longer need to be in the same location to share thoughts or touch to move objects. We can use that to our advantage.”

“We? What ‘we’? It wasn’t that long ago that this team wanted my brother behind bars,” Jennifer said. “Or dead. And didn’t give a rat’s ass that he was trying to save my life.”

“Well, he was selling government secrets and details of US military installations,” Shaw countered with a shrug of his shoulders and a narrowed gaze. “You can’t blame us.”

“Secrets, yeah, right. You truly have no clue,” Jennifer scoffed. “If you knew—”

“Enough, Jennifer,” Harris growled harshly as he touched his sister’s shoulder to soften his words. He had to stop her before, in her anger, she blurted out the truth about the information he’d coaxed parties into buying to fund her cancer treatment. It made no difference he’d manipulated the data to target rebel encampments instead—it was amazing what changing a single number on a line of code could do for a targeting system—but perhaps it would be better if the team thought hewasthe ruthless bastard they believed him to be. “We’re past that point. There’s no need to relive it.”

Jennifer looked as if she wanted to argue but thankfully remained silent. When Harris turned back to the team, he couldn’t help but notice Brick watching them closely. The man had a habit of seeing deeper than what was on the surface. Harris had often wondered about the tough team leader, buthe was all human—no enhancements, just downright talent and skill.

“Do we have a plan then?” Harris asked, wanting to push the conversation forward. Sitting around arguing wasn’t getting them any closer to their goal.

“Yes. As far as our intel can confirm, we might have a chance of crossing paths with members of the Noah Group based out of New Orleans or at least a faction of the main group. We still don’t know how many splintered factions of the original group we’re dealing with,” Spencer explained while keeping his left arm wrapped protectively around his laptop.

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