Page 70 of Training Rain
They were making their way back toward the house and Jess pulled her behind the shed where an ATV and other equipment were stored. His arms banded around her and his lips pressed against her neck. For a long minute he just held her close and she breathed in his warm, masculine scent.
“I think he’s still alive.”
“I agree.” Troy stepped around the corner. He had changed into the jeans and button-down flannel that Jon had brought him. He looked as if he was a normal guy in his early twenties, though his eyes still had a haunted quality that made Rain’s heart ache.
Jess instantly put himself between her and the intruder.
Troy put his hands up in surrender. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I have a habit of doing that. It may even be a psi gift. People rarely hear me approach.” He shrugged as if it didn’t amount to anything.
Rain forced her way around Jess. “What makes you think our friend is still alive?”
“I heard Joshua say he’s not psi. The only reason my father would have taken a non-psychic is to lure some of you out into the open.”
“And?”
“I was thinking that it was a bit too easy for you to get to me.”
“We’re pretty good at what we do.” Jess sounded defensive, but Rain could see his mind working. There was merit in what Troy said. It had been particularly easy to get in and out of the hospital.
“Maybe, but I think my father might have let you take me, so he could attack and claim I was the reason. Who would blame a father for trying to protect his son?” Bitterness dripped from every word.
Rain didn’t like the sound of this. “But he’d be putting you in danger. You could get killed in the crossfire.”
If a smile could be filled with rage, that was the expression spreading across Troy Breckenridge’s face. “My father would consider that a bonus.”
“How would they find you? We checked you for hardware before we brought you here.”
Jess groaned. “Have you had any surgeries? Deep cuts that required stitches, anything like that?”
Troy cast his eyes at the ground. She could practically see his mind trying to remember something. “I’ve been pretty well drugged up for the past few months, even more than usual.”
Rain had a really bad feeling.
“Maybe we should go inside and check. They could have put a homing device under your skin and you might not even know it.”
“There is this.” Troy pulled up the back of his shirt and exposed a section of his lower back. There was a space about the size of a pea that was scarred.
Rain moved closer and ran her hand over the slightly raised scar. “How long have you had this?”
His expression twisted while he tried to remember. “I guess around six months. I remember it hurt and the nurses told me I fell and the cut got infected. They kept it bandaged for a while.”
“Troy, I know you are going to think this is crazy, but I want to cut that scar open and see if there’s anything in there.” Rain’s heart pounded and she found herself searching the sky.
“You really think I’ve got a bug inside me?”
Jess shrugged. “Only one way to find out, kid.”
Rain and Jess worked quickly to remove a small homing device from just beneath Troy’s skin. It only took one stitch to close up the wound and a bandage for the speck of blood. Rain placed her hand over the wound and called forth his natural ability to heal. The skin started to knit immediately.
Jess put the transmitter on the tile floor and crushed it under the heel of his shoe.
Rain couldn’t believe just how insane Bradly Breckenridge actually was. He would risk his own son to get his way. How far would he go? Would he kill his family? “I know this is really personal, Troy, but what exactly happened to your mother?”
She didn’t believe he’d tell them. He barely knew them and yet he didn’t get mad or walk away. He leaned against the wall and studied his fingers for a long while. He was big, maybe six and a half feet tall. He resembled an NFL linebacker. His light-brown hair had been shorn in a military style and the beginning of a beard reminded her that he was not a boy in spite of his limited exposure to the outside world. He could kill with a thought, yet she had been inside his pain and found only sorrow. Even toward his father, she only sensed disappointment.
It was a surprise when he finally spoke. “They were arguing about me. They did that a lot. My father wanted to send me away and she refused to let him. I could hear them from my bedroom and the voices were getting louder. I remember sneaking out of my bed and down the stairs to my father’s study. She was screaming that he had passed the abilities on to me and should be more understanding. That made him even angrier and books started to fly across the room. One of them hit my mother in the shoulder. He rushed at her and she screamed and threw up her hands to protect herself.” Troy stopped speaking. His face twisted with the pain of the memory.
Jess put his hand on his shoulder. His Cajun accent was thick. “It’s all right. You don’t need to tell everything in one breath.”
