Read Online Fatal Strike by Shannon McKenna - Free Book Online Page B

down the password? I remember it. All caps LARA, hashtag—”
    “Stop, Nina,” he warned, but it was too late. The questing tickle in his mind intensified as she dredged up the rest of it, picking up speed.
    “Star, exclamation point, your aunt in California’s zip code—nine two six one nine, hashtag, all caps KIRK, and two question marks!”
    Crack, she breached it—and his world collapsed inward.
    Rudd hung over him, his demonic face purple, screaming. Ear-splitting noise, nerves screaming, searing heat . . . a flash of light . . .
    . . . nothing.
    His eyes fluttered open, later. Flagstones, cool against his cheek. Wrought iron table legs. Human legs, in hose and heels, dress shoes.
    He turned his head. Leaves against a white sky. Anxious faces swam in his vision. He struggled to put names to them, to himself.
    They jolted heavily into place, like train cars coupling. The blur of rust-colored chiffon beside him was Nina. She clutched a bloody napkin to her nose, shaking with sobs. His nose bled, too. Edie passed him a napkin. He plugged the leak, glad for an excuse not to speak.
    Oh, man. And he thought his head had hurt before.
    “Would somebody please tell me what the fuck is going on?” Aaro snarled, as Kev and Davy hoisted Miles up into a sitting position.
    “Oh, God,” Nina whispered, her voice thick. “I didn’t know.”
    “It’s okay,” Miles said. Though of course, it wasn’t.
    “What didn’t you know?” Aaro bellowed.
    “Shhh.” Nina soothed, patting Aaro’s cheek. “I didn’t know how bad it was,” she said to Miles. “I shouldn’t have done that to you. I don’t know how you’re walking around, with all that going on in your head.”
    “Think I should go for the padded cell, then?”
    He’d meant it as a joke, but surprise, surprise—no one laughed.
    Nina shuddered. “That’s where I’d be,” she said.
    “You had a seizure,” Kev told him. “You were yelling. Looked bad.”
    “Stress flashback,” Sean said. “Rudd?”
    “That’s what happens if I drop the shield. The shield holds it all together.” He glanced pointedly at Nina. “If nobody fucks with it.”
    “Sorry,” Nina whispered, abjectly. “Really. Just trying to help.”
    He started to shake his head. Stopped, with a hiss of pain. “I’m past help. When you start getting text messages from dead girls in your head, it’s time to call the guys in the white coats with the little van.”
    “No,” Nina said. “You’re not crazy, Miles.”
    The murmuring stilled. Miles’ mouth was dangling. He closed it with a snap. “Ah . . . how do you figure?”
    “I saw a little in there, before the seizures,” Nina said. “I felt some of your memories. You never met Lara, but I did. I know her vibe. And I felt it. I felt her . She’s not dead.”
    Miles felt that drum roll starting up. Part dread, part compulsion, rumbling ominously inside him. “Nina. Please. Don’t do this to me.”
    “She got through the shield, just like I did,” Nina insisted.
    “You got through it because I told you the password!” he shouted. “How could she get through? I never told it to her. I don’t know her!”
    “You didn’t have to tell her,” she said. “She is your password.”
    Miles struggled to his feet, batting their hands hands away. Batting the whole thought away. Too crazy. Too weird. Blood roared in his ears. His heart thudded, a swift, panicked gallop, even as it slipped into place, with a soft, inevitable “click.”
    This explained so much. He clutched his head in his hands, on the verge of total brain meltdown. Trying to process it.
    She is your password. Holy freaking shit. Could she really . . . ?
    “You think she’s alive, then?” he blurted. “And locked in a dungeon for real? And the only person she can talk to is me? Just because I put her name into my goddamn password?”
    Nina gazed at him steadily. “You put a Lara Kirk shaped hole in your mental shield, Miles. Who better than she could find