Child of Recklessness (Trials of Strength Book 2) Read online

  ‘Lucas!?’ Anna said with her eyes alight with worry.

  ‘Sniper!’ I called back and limped over to where she hovered over the computer in the room.

  She inserted the USB into the socket and booted the thing up. Brian’s program took immediate control as it tore down the security and searched for the files we needed. Anna touched the headset at her ear and was connected straight to Brian.

  ‘It’s in, but we’ve got trouble,’ she said. ‘How long will this take?’

  Brian’s voice echoed from my own earpiece.

  ‘Ten minutes max,’ he replied, his breathing heavy.

  A black wire dropped through the broken skylight, and a figure slid into the room. She was like something straight from a model magazine. Her dark brown hair was slightly highlighted with blonde flecks, and her hazel eyes screamed murder. Her olive skin gleamed with a light layer of sweat, and once she landed on her feet, she levelled a gun at us.

  ‘Get down, Anna!’ I shouted.

  I kicked into gear, raced round the computer and luckily avoided a hail of gunfire. I continued round the circular room, faster than the assassin could move her arm and fire. When I heard the click of her empty gun, I changed course, bounded towards her and kicked it from her hand.

  She reacted fast. Spinning, her leg kicked out and into the shard of glass stuck in my leg. I groaned, but kept my feet on the ground and threw my fist at her. The woman dodged, coming back with an impressive slug to my cheek. But compared to my strength she had nothing.

  I grabbed for the gun at my side and pulled it free, but before I could pull the trigger, the woman had it in her hands and slammed the butt of the gun against my head. I stumbled, and she swept my legs from beneath me.

  Damn it, she’s good.

  I lay on the floor as she jumped on top and smacked me again on the forehead before her hand dove into her pocket and pulled out a syringe.

  This isn’t my father’s trap! It’s the government’s!

  I caught her arm before the needle pierced my neck. It was then Anna screamed. Both the woman’s and my head snapped to where Anna thrashed on the ground.

  ‘Anna!’ I screamed.

  I didn’t even temper my strength. I brought the palm of my hand against the woman’s chest, and she lifted off of me and flew through the air. I sprung to my feet and ran to where Anna was. Her face dripped sweat and her hands clamped over her stomach as she wriggled in pain. Instantly, I thought of the worst.

  Please God not the baby.

  Before I could even open my mouth, the assassin was on her feet. She had retrieved her lethal weapon and reloaded. She rounded and aimed at me. Instead of firing though, her gaze fixed to Anna, and mine returned to her as well.

  My eyes widened and I gasped as we both watched the unthinkable. Anna’s stomach grew. Her slim belly hadn’t showed any signs of her pregnancy yet, but it shifted and moved. Bulged and stretched with every breath she took. Eventually, it stopped and she gasped down air greedily.

  ‘Holy fuck,’ I heard the woman mutter from where she stood.

  Anna’s stomach was the size of a football.

  ‘Lucas…’ Anna whimpered.

  My defensive instinct kicked in and my head shot up to the wide-mouthed assassin, still holding her gun at us. I jumped, dove over Anna, rolled and charged into her. She sprawled along the ground and returned to her senses.

  ‘Here!’ Anna said from behind me.

  I turned and caught her tranquilizer gun, twisted round and fired a shot into the woman’s neck before she could load me with bullets. She gasped and the gun fell to the floor as her free hand clasped the feathered needle at her neck. The assassin’s eyes fluttered, before she slumped into unconsciousness.

  I slapped at my ear and walked over to Anna.

  ‘Chris, we’re coming out,’ I said.

  ‘Any trouble?’ he replied, sounding bored.

  ‘Yeah, another murderer sent by our friends in power,’ I spat.

  I heard Chris start the car and I ended the call. Anna cradled her stomach as she stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed at it, tears glimmering in her eyes. I asked her if she could walk, but she remained silent, in shock. The computer sparked behind me, and I turned to see it ladled with bullets.

  No!

  I pulled the USB from it and hoped to God it had gotten something. I turned back to Anna, my mind in agony. I picked her up, and raced past the woman’s body for the entranceway. I sprinted as best I could, with glass in my leg and Anna’s body in my arms, towards the elevator. I got in, awkwardly punched the button, and waited as the doors closed.

  I felt surreal, especially when the sickening elevator music kicked in and I had to restrain from nervously jiggling to the tune.

  ‘Lucas…’ Anna whispered.

  ‘I know honey I know,’ I said, my voice high. ‘It’s alright, I’m taking you home.’

  The doors opened at the ground level, and I raced past the reception desk, a woman’s body slumped and asleep over the computer in front of her. I shouldered the revolving doors and pushed out onto the street, my panic rising.

  ‘Here!’ Chris called from the car. He’d thankfully driven up to meet us.

  I opened the backseat door and placed Anna carefully inside.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Chris gasped.

  ‘Just go, Chris,’ I ordered. ‘Go!’

  He pulled himself from staring and kicked the accelerator. We were no longer abiding by the speed limit, but we weren’t stopped as we raced home.

  I turned back to Anna and grabbed her hand.

  ‘We’re almost home,’ I told her. ‘I’ll take care of you, don’t worry.’

  Her eyes were terrified, and I tried to send some calm by squeezing her hand.

  What in the world is going on?

  The Assassin

  We exploded through the doors to the War Room, and Brian and Paul jumped out of their seats in shock. They froze at the sight of Anna in my arms and I had to scream at them to bring them back. Chris threw open the door to my bedroom, and I followed him through. I lay Anna down on the bed, and we stepped back.

  ‘I-I-what in the world?’ Chris muttered. The man who accounted for everything was lost for words.

  ‘I’m telling you,’ Anna repeated, ‘I feel fine now.’

  She had said as much when we’d entered the elevator, and then repeated periodically to us on the ride up. How could it be alright? Half an hour before she had been two months pregnant, and then, then she looked ready to pop. I relayed as much to her.

  ‘Honestly, call it mother’s intuition,’ Anna said. ‘Whatever happened is past.’

  ‘What did happen?’ Brian choked. ‘Did I slip into a coma?’

  ‘I think we should go to a hospital,’ I said.

  Anna shook her head violently.

  ‘No,’ she replied, ‘no hospitals, big bad idea, uber-mega bad idea. We’ll be noticed for sure, we were lucky to have gotten away with breaking and entering. I will not put my baby at risk. Listen, Lucas, you can listen.’

  I did as she said. Mixed with her own heartbeat was another, much stronger than before. My forehead crunched, and the pounding in my head grew worse. For what had happened, Anna was remarkably calm, but the rest of us jittered anxiously. Paul paced the room, while Chris folded and unfolded his arms. Brian just stared at Anna’s stomach.

  ‘It won’t matter how hard you stare, Bri,’ Anna chuckled, ‘you’re not gonna see inside my stomach.’

  Brian averted his eyes and apologised.

  ‘I think Lucas could be right,’ Brian said. ‘We should get you to a hospital.’

  ‘And I’ve already said no,’ Anna replied. ‘I feel fine. The baby is fine.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ I whispered and sat next to her. ‘This isn’t normal.’

  ‘The past three months as a whole haven’t been normal,’ she replied. ‘Tell me something new.’

  I sighed exasperated. We couldn’t force her into a hospital, could we?<
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  ‘We could take you anyway,’ Chris said, reading my mind.

  ‘I could shoot you too, but we’re not going to do that now, are we?’ Anna smiled. ‘Look, I’ll say it again, I feel fine.’

  I just stared, shocked. I wanted to charge at the windows and throw myself into the twinkling lights of the city, but thankfully, I handled the urge. Nobody moved, and we lingered there for what felt like hours, gaping and making choked sounds with our throats. Anna said she was alright, but I was terrified. I couldn’t handle the thought of anything happening to her or the baby.

  ‘Come on,’ Anna moaned, ‘don’t we have information to be sifting through, an assassin to be looking out for?’

  I pulled the USB drive from my pocket and stared at it glumly. Brian slouched over, almost toppling over a chair as he stared at Anna, and held out his hand.

  ‘I don’t know if it got anything,’ I admitted. ‘It hadn’t been in long before the computer was shot to pieces.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Brian muttered, and backed out of the room.

  ‘I’m definitely going to start shooting people if they continue to stare at me,’ Anna groaned.

  Paul jumped, and followed Brian’s tracks out of the room, but Chris and I both refused to leave. Anna rolled her eyes and slumped back in the bed. My head spun. I couldn’t help but think that anymore and my head would explode. That’s when Brian screamed for help, and fighting broke out in the main room. Chris turned and bolted.

  ‘Stay here,’ I told Anna as she struggled to sit up.

  I left the room listening to her protests and shut the door behind me. Chris had his tranquilizer gun aimed over at the door to the corridor, and Brian lay sprawled at his computer. Paul, however, was in the arms of a brunette with highlights, her brown eyes full of rage, a knife in her hand tightly held against his throat.

  ‘We have some unfinished business you and I,’ she spat over at my face.

  I pulled the gun Anna had tossed me from my holster, and took aim.

  ‘I’ll help you finish it,’ I replied.

  ‘Really?’ she laughed. ‘Say that once more with feeling, and with a better gun.’

  We stood there in a tense stand-off, no one budged an inch. Finally, the woman sighed and pushed Paul away from her, threw the knife at his feet and showed her hands.

  ‘This is the part where I tell you, if I wanted any of you dead, you would be,’ she said.

  ‘So before, that was what, charades?’ I pointed out.

  ‘Well, before I wanted you dead,’ the assassin admitted.

  ‘Suddenly you don’t?’ I spat. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Jessica Reed,’ Jessica smiled, baring her pearly white teeth, frighteningly similar to a wolf’s grin.

  I walked over, kicked the knife away and kept my gun levelled at her. I warned her not to move, and asked Chris to find me something to bind her with.

  ‘Bondage,’ Jessica cooed. ‘Want to know my safe word?’

  ‘Quiet,’ I said as Chris threw me a thick rope he’d taken from a curtain at the edge of the room. ‘Turn around.’

  Jessica turned and moved her hands behind her back. I holstered the gun, and warily tied her wrists together as tight as I could, short of dismembering them. Once done, I backed up, took the gun back from its holster, and aimed again. She turned, that smile never diminishing. It dropped off though once Anna stumbled into the room.

  ‘So I wasn’t going nuts,’ Jessica whispered.

  ‘Can someone explain to me why the crazy bitch that tried to kill us is here?’ Anna cried while her hand cradled her stomach.

  ‘Your little guns have some weak shit in them,’ Jessica explained. ‘I’ve drank stronger alcohol than that. I guess it helps I’m trained to be able to fight that stuff, but hey.’

  ‘How are you here?’ I interrogated.

  ‘Followed you guys,’ she beamed. ‘Wasn’t hard, I mean before, I couldn’t even get a lock on your location, and I tried everything.’

  Paul helped Brian to his feet, both sported bloody noses. Their injury brought my mind back to mine. The glass still poked from my leg, but there wasn’t much pain, just an insane itch that took all my willpower to refrain from attacking.

  ‘Who do you work for?’ I growled, determined for a definitive answer, determined to have the thing we suspected strongly, proved.

  ‘Why the hell should I tell you that?’ Jessica said.

  ‘We weren’t giving you a choice,’ Chris said as he shuffled to my side.

  ‘Oh?’ Jessica said.

  It happened in a flash. Chris moved forward and brought his fist into her gut. Jessica doubled over and hissed, the fury in her eyes terrifying, and even the hardened man Chris was, he was smart enough to back up.

  ‘Please,’ Jessica spat, ‘you think a little rough up will open my mouth? I’ll pay you to try big man.’

  ‘Why are you here?’ Anna asked from behind us.

  Shockingly, the rage left Jessica’s eyes, and her expression softened when they fell on Anna.

  ‘My employer,’ Jessica said, standing upright, ‘wants you dead, all of you. The only reason you aren’t is because they breached something I implicitly made clear to them.’

  ‘What?’ Anna asked.

  ‘I don’t do children,’ Jessica whispered. ‘I never kill children.’

  We all lapsed into silence again. Jessica swaggered forward and threw herself down onto the couch. Chris lowered his weapon, and swung his arms. I was fine, there wasn’t even a dull ache, so I kept mine firmly aimed.

  ‘That still doesn’t explain why you’re here,’ I said.

  ‘Usually I’d be hunting down the bastard that broke my number one rule of service, but, it’s not every day a woman’s stomach grows to the size of a watermelon in the space of five seconds,’ Jessica replied.

  ‘How did you know I was pregnant?’ Anna asked.

  ‘I put two and two together,’ she replied. ‘The way this chump flipped out when you went down, your stomach, and the fact I know what happened in Greystone.’

  ‘And how’s that?’ I asked.

  Jessica shrugged.

  ‘Because I’m the one that broke into Digilock to begin with,’ she explained. ‘Our employer didn’t have much information, but they found out where we might get some. When I couldn’t track you down, I waited for you to show.’

  ‘How did you know we would?’ Chris said.

  ‘Once Danny failed, you know the guy you murdered,’ Jessica smirked, ‘I knew you’d find the information he had and look for the rest.’

  ‘We didn’t murder anyone,’ Anna growled. ‘He killed himself.’

  Jessica laughed.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ she replied. ‘We all know the risks if we’re caught.’

  ‘So you kill yourselves to what? Stop people from questioning you?’ I asked. ‘He didn’t do a good job, we got his USB.’

  Jessica sat forward on the couch and looked up at me as if I was an idiot.

  ‘I’m not talking about who we work for,’ she chided, ‘that changes depending on what contract we pick. I’m talking about the group we’re part of.’

  ‘That would be?’ Anna pushed.

  ‘You ever seen Fight Club?’ Jessica said. ‘Same rules, don’t ask me again.’

  Chris bristled and shook his head.

  ‘How do we know you’re even telling us the truth?’ he spat.

  ‘I have no need to lie,’ she drawled. ‘If I’m not telling the truth, then I wouldn’t tell you anything.’

  ‘That’s exactly what a liar would say,’ I pointed out.

  Jessica gave another shrug and yawned. She stood slowly and walked around as if she owned the place, as if we weren’t ready to take her out. She stopped by Brian and Paul, and both of them backed up, much to Jessica’s delight.

  ‘Meow,’ she purred, and Brian jumped.

  ‘Why are you here?’ I asked impatiently.

  ‘Figured you could use my help,’
Jessica smiled. ‘You’re going after the guys trying to kill you, right?’

  ‘Not yet, we have other things to finish first,’ I said.

  ‘Ahh, your father,’ she replied. ‘From what I know, he’s being awfully quiet is he not?’

  ‘So, Lucas was right?’ Chris said. ‘It is the government that’s trying to have us killed, for definite?’

  ‘Lucas is a smart cookie,’ Jessica said, her eyes darkening when they turned to Chris. ‘If we were in America, I’d say you must have pissed off Uncle Sam a lot.’

  So I was right. I felt a rush of adrenaline make its way to my brain and I sighed. Finally, some solid answers. I didn’t trust Jessica much at all, but I believed her when she said she wouldn’t tell us anything at all if it wasn’t true. Part of me was stumped though. The way she looked at Anna, the way her face softened and her eyes almost looked kindly at her. What had happened to this cold-blooded assassin that gave her a soft spot for mothers and kids?

  ‘Thank you,’ I said sincerely, and Jessica beamed, before I shot another dart into her neck.

  ‘I am seriously going to hurt you,’ she slurred, and her eyes rolled back as she fell to the ground.

  ‘What the hell, Lucas?’ Chris groaned.

  ‘We’ll get more from her later,’ I said. ‘My leg itches like hell and it’s late. We can tie her up more and deal with her in the morning.’

  Chris nodded stiffly. He wanted to deal with it then, but I wasn’t lying when I’d said about my leg. I shuffled over to the couch and tore my trouser open around the glass shard. Anna waddled over and sat beside me, peering over at the wound. I grabbed the glass, and to Brian’s protests, ripped it from my leg. I winced. The shard clattered to the floor and I bent over to blood sliding down my leg.

  ‘Oh,’ Brian whimpered.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘you’ve seen worse than this.’

  Chris was done with Jessica. He’d tied her arms and legs, tightened the restraints around her wrists, and moved her onto one of the couches. He then wandered into his room, and returned with a towel, which he then handed to me.