In the Wind

By Annie Buren

Doing her best to make the most out of life's adventures, Mary's plan never included paying off student loans by cleaning up other people's mess at Gurst International. But when that mess gets deeper and darker than her wild imagination can conceive, Mary finds herself in over her head in a world she's far more involved in than she knows. Her only road to safety is traveled in the passenger seat next to a man who has spent half his life imprisoned and most his life fighting for it, while an underground war and its killers close in on them.

Mary believes in taking all the worth and happiness one can get out of life in order to live free. Ash has lived his life for freedom without knowing what it means. Mary is caught in the run for her life, and Ash in the power of his enemies and the binds of his demons, when they embark on the greatest adventure they've ever known—the one that could lead them to freedom, acceptance, and, maybe, to love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Annie Buren
• Release date: Aug 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301925773

Annie Buren

Annie Buren was born in New Jersey and currently lives in Pennsylvania, where she is married to her writing and chocolate. She enjoys writing and reading all genres of fiction, but her interest is held primarily by romance and all its sub-genres. When she's not covered in ink, she takes care of Little Guy, her pet air plant, who has been around long enough to witness the atrocities to more demanding plants and has since learned better.A writer for fifteen years, "In the Wind" is her debut novel.

Book preview

In the Wind

By Annie Buren

Copyright 2013 Annie Buren

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

About the Author

Chapter One

There was something wrong at Gurst International, and when Mary Dallen thought that, she did not mean elevators frequently out of order, or sludge coffee in the break room, or that terrible, cloying perfume someone wore that seemed to permeate into everything around it. What Mary thought about were the levels of security for a shipping company, the white coats she had spotted over people's arms or being shoved into a bag, and the screaming. Most especially the screaming.

It wasn't the sound of an argument or your favorite football team losing so abysmally that they seemed like high school kids who had wandered onto the field. It was the sort that made goosebumps break out along her skin with the shiver up her spine, that made her freeze in whatever she was doing and hold her breath. It was the kind she saw in movies when someone was about to die or just watched someone they love die, but it was from somewhere below the floor she was scrubbing while contemplating what bills she wasn't going to be able to pay that month.

Everything had seemed fine until she accepted the graveyard shift one month ago for an extra dollar an hour. She was still paying student loans and would be until she was at least one hundred and thirty, jobs were dried up, and living wasn't cheap. She made her home in a small apartment she didn't like in the outskirts of the city, and her car enjoyed the game of dare with her every day she drove the twenty minutes to work. An extra dollar an hour was a big deal, and that dream of hitting the lottery or finding one of her old toys valued at a trillion hopes and wishes had yet to pan out.

She heard them her second night on the new shift. Arnie, the man she worked with five days of the week, didn't notice—he never noticed. She thought she might be hearing a television, or was drowsing off while still managing to wipe down the windows, or maybe it was some ritual that the employees in the warehouse did at night. People could make a lot of excuses for what they couldn't explain. She had been given clearance to clean higher floors a few days after, and she hadn't heard the screaming again.

Then two weeks ago, a mop flung over her shoulder and a bottle of bleach in her hand, she heard a man inside an abnormally open office say, The subjects haven't taken well to the new tests. The modifications are causing extreme discomfort and unrest, but no change. The voice had grown louder, closing in on the open door, and Mary had shoved a finger into the play button of her MP3 player. She walked past the office, not daring to even glance out the corner of her eye, but she felt the man's stare burning into the side of her face.

Two days later, in a drunken ramble, she confessed everything to her best friend, Kate. Kate did not seem to believe that Mary was working for a shipping company that was a possible front for top secret government operations, though she did suggest they break in and have a look-see.

If Kate were with Mary now, she'd probably be losing her mind.

The alarm had been blaring for three minutes. She had turned spastic during the first, flinging mop water and searching for disaster in the space around her. Then she went in search for one of the higher-ups who worked in the offices on that floor, since she was pretty sure someone should have been telling her by then that she had nothing to worry about or to grab a chair cushion and slide down the stairwells until she found freedom. She was turning into a hall with wringing hands and sweat at the back of her neck when she finally spotted someone, but it was not a higher-up rounding the corner like he was on fire. No, this. . .this man was certainly not a suit-and-tie.

She wondered if the tests going on somewhere were meant to build a perfect male specimen. Then again, those sort of things were subjective, and if she got the time to really explore each inch of him, she was sure she could find some imperfections. She would need a lot of time. Thoroughness, of course, and he wasn't small. Wide, built shoulders, his bare torso sculpted from his pectorals to his abs, tapering down to slim hips. His jeans were unbuttoned, a trail of dark hair starting at the bottom of his stomach and disappearing under the zipper. He had blood slashed across his skin, which should have been enough to warn her in that first second of sight. Maybe she should have looked at his face first and she would have gotten herself together enough to run. As it were, he ran the length of that hallway in pounding feet that reached her before she could draw in a second breath.

She swayed back in time for him to wrap a large hand around her throat, forcing her face to lift and see the expression on his. Murderous rage. Locks of light brown hair fell across the wrinkles in his forehead from the furrow of his eyebrows, green eyes blazing with something near madness, and the hard line of his jaw locked tight.

Mary sucked in a breath that faltered when his head dropped, veering to the left, and she choked on her saliva when his nose touched the space between her shoulder and neck. He skimmed upward, breathing in, before the heat of his exhale sent goosebumps far beyond the skin it touched. Jesus, he was gorgeous and a psychopath, which beat out her asshole ex-boyfriend by countries.

He lifted his head and looked at her, his grip loosening, and she stared in a dazed, terrified confusion. Kate always told her never to look scared, but look like you were going to go for the balls before jabbing out their eyes. As his gaze flicked across her face, she was fairly sure she looked more like the rabbit who the wolf had by the ears.

Take her. His voice was a harsh growl of sound.

He moved around her, and Mary looked up at the two men and woman she hadn't noticed. I—

She only registered that one of the men moved toward her before there was nothing at all.

****

Her head was playing a song of hurt. There was a clenching pain that throbbed near the crown and zapped into a tight ball between her eyes. It was hard to think of anything beyond it, but the first image slithered into definition, and the rest followed it in flashes of realization. Her eyelids snapped open to her kneecaps, a gray floor, and the tip of boots before she shut them quickly, as if it could hide her from view or teleport her out of there. If time was an hourglass, this would be the bit of sand she tossed to the wind.

Open your eyes, a woman said, and it was not a polite suggestion.

Mary pulled her arms forward to ease the ache in her shoulders, but they barely budged. She yanked, feeling something hard wrapped around her wrists and restraining her to the chair she was sitting on. Oh, God, they were going to kill her. They were going to cut her up in pieces, ship her off to another country, feed her to stray animals.

Open your eyes, the woman snapped.

She breathed in deep, her heart kicking in her chest, and slowly opened her eyes. Her loose bun had flopped forward, and wisps of dark blonde hair hung over her sight of the woman staring at her, but she made out the dark eyes tilted at the corners, and the yellow light of the room gleaming off the sheet of black hair. She was wearing dark gray cargo pants and a black shirt, and there was a gun at her right hip. She looked like a woman who could kick ass, and Mary thought about having a friend like that in seedy bars or on wrong-way graffiti streets, then why she was thinking about that now of all times, then about just how screwed she was.

Name.

There were a man standing near a corner wearing the same type of clothes, hands on his hips, and his expression grim. Directly behind the woman was a metal door, the bronze knob mocking her. Mary licked her lips and lifted her eyes to the woman.

Mary Dallen. I'm a citizen of the United States. Born and raised. I have a cat. His name is Frenchie. I named him that because he struts in this. . .way, and he's white with a black spot on the top of his head like a beret. Frenchie had died seven months ago, but weren't people supposed to talk about things that relied on their life in such a situation? "I also like Grease. The movie. I hate grease, like fries or bacon, not the country. I love Greece. I love all countries. Except for the bad ones, the terrorist or dictator countries. Not that I don't believe people there are innocent, and don't deserve— Normal people. Regular citizen-type. . . I am not a terrorist."

The woman stared at her for a thick moment. How would you define a terrorist?

Um, someone who. . .brings terror, and does terrible things, in order to overthrow a, uh, government or. . .idea, or people, or religion, or. . . The door was opening. Something like that, I. . .

It was the man from the hallway, his eyes meeting hers the second the door cleared their views. He was in a white T-shirt and jeans fully done up, his hair darker and slicked back with wetness though a few strands still stuck straight out around his ears. His eyes made her think of summer, but there was no light in the way he was looking at her.

He sucked all the air out of the room.

I said, the woman hissed, and Mary's eyes flew back to her, explain why you do not define yourself as a terrorist.

Me? Mary cleared her throat from the squeak in her voice. Oh, I'm not. I'm definitely not. The only group I'm a part of is a book club, a group of girls I sometimes go out with on the weekends though we don't have a name for ourselves, and Joy's Jollies, which is an ice cream place by my apartment. I didn't do anything special, it's just a frequent customer thing so I get discounts, 'cause I just like ice cream, a lot of ice cream, all kinds, and it's my stress relief. That and wine. Sometimes I consume my feelings, but everyone does that. I'm not an alcoholic. Not that they serve alcohol at Joy's, though they do have—

You're an employee at Gurst International.

Mary pulled in oxygen until her lungs couldn't take anymore. Yup.

So, you're aware of the practices.

Crap. She had seen and heard too much. She saw how this played out before. It might have been in Hollywood films, but you didn't get something from nothing. Not really.

The psychopath who looked like he could have been in one of those movies crossed his arms, his feet planted in a stance that made her think she would need a gun, a bat, a taser, and magic to make it around or through him and out the door. The other man was so much the same as when she last looked at him that he might have been a prop. The woman lowered her chin and leaned forward.

See, I. . .I don't know what you guys do. You're a shipping company, I know that. I haven't been in the warehouse, but I've seen the trucks, obviously, and. . . Is this about the alarm? Because I didn't do anything to set that off. I was doing the same thing I do every night.

What's that?

Cleaning. I mean, that's my job, right? I clean.

What do you clean?

Everything.

Everything.

Yeah. The floors, walls, desks, windows, frames, shelves, trash, toilets. I go to my designated floors, and I clean them.

Prop-man turned his head toward Psychopath, but everyone else remained still. Mary tried to pull on her bindings without looking like she was. She wasn't getting out of there until they let her, but if they left for awhile, it would be good to have them already loose.

What are your designated floors?

Now, four, five, and six. Last month I was doing the first three.

The sub-levels?

Uh, the warehouse? No. I told you, I haven't been down there.

Mary, the woman said, her voice lowering as she leaned forward to put her hands on the arms of the chair and Mary leaned back, we know you're not telling us the truth. It's going to be a lot easier for you if you tell us everything. No matter what, we're going to find out. Do you understand?

Mary shut her eyes, her heart finding a heavy, hard rhythm, and pressed her lips together. She had seen Psychopath half-naked with blood on him, and they had knocked her out and taken her to a concrete room. Of course this wasn't just a shipping company, and lying about it wasn't going to save her. She just didn't know what they would do to her with the truth.

Would they send her on her way, threatening her with death if she told anyone? Would they keep her here forever, or would they kill her? She was too young to die. Ninety was too young to die. She hadn't seen the wonders of the world, or gone to Vegas, or had a love that didn't hurt, or been married, had her three children in a beautiful home with a big yard where they could build imagination. Life had not gone to the plan she made for it at twenty, but she was trying to get it back there, and she was doing her best with happiness, and she wanted life. She wanted to consume it.

She kept her eyelids closed until she got the tears to stop pricking the back of her eyes. I've heard the screaming. I still don't know why it's there. I thought it might be some ritual thing they do in the warehouse, like. . .one hundred orders complete, scream. I don't know. She shook her head. I don't know. It sounds. . . I don't know.

You thought the screaming was a celebration. Her voice shook with something that could have been anger or amusement, and Mary's head jerked up.

You're a shipping company. What am I supposed to think it was? No one told me. Arnie didn't even hear them, or seemed not to, and I thought I was going crazy, or that I had. . .sensitive hearing and it was a television or something. Then they moved me up, and I was cleaning the sixth floor, and I heard a man on the phone. He said something about test subjects, and how the modifications were causing discomfort and not changing anything.

Then what happened? The woman was glaring at her.

I wanted to call the police, but I knew how it sounded. I knew they would think I was insane, I didn't have proof of anything. All the offices are locked at night. Papers on the desks in the cubicles are just about clients and shipping orders. I thought, with how reputable your business is, that you might be a government front, doing top secret things, had terrorists down there or something. How do you go to a government agency about the government? Maybe I was just imagining things, was being too paranoid.

What else?

I get that way sometimes. I once thought the fast food place on my block was dealing drugs out the back, always saw these little plastic bags being loaded into boxes. I went with my friend to spy on them, and they were the kid toys. I thought kid toys were a nefarious fast drug plot. She decided not to tell them that she and Kate were loosely planning to spy on them as well, or that she had told anyone at all.

I said, what else?

Wh— Nothing. Nothing. I was mopping, the alarm went off, I looked around to see what was happening, and then Psychopath came charging at me, knock out, wake up here. That's it. And I saw a couple people with white coats, which I thought was really weird, but that's it. That's everything.

The woman turned to look at the men behind her, and they all shared glances.

Where's your uniform? Psychopath asked, his voice raspy. Probably from all that growling he did.

The shirt? I took it off when the alarm started going. Flammable chemicals. It was on the cleaning cart.

The woman shook her head and started for the door as Psychopath cursed, his arms uncrossing to drag a palm across his mouth. As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, his eyes slanted toward her and his feet followed the direction. Adrenaline surged through Mary, her body trembling with it and her heartbeat in her ears. She yanked on the bindings and pushed her heels down, the chair scraping back, back again, again, and then tilted. He lunged forward, and she screamed, eyes squeezing shut, but no pain came. Instead, the chair clunked back onto all four legs, and she opened her eyes to his face hovering inches above her own.

His hand was gripping the seat of the chair between her legs. He smelled like mint and soap, and the curve of his body over hers was overwhelming—she felt breakable. His eyes burned into hers as she held her breath.

Relax, he said quietly. He leaned closer. Breathe.

She released the breath, gasped in another one, and held it. A muscle in his jaw twitched, but he straightened and moved around her. His hands were quick on the knot around her right wrist, and she tugged it toward herself as soon as it was loose enough. Her arm didn't make it fully around before he grabbed it, pulling back when she tried to tug it away.

She gave in to the burn in her lungs, panting for oxygen as one of his fingers skimmed across her wrist. She didn't know if anyone had ever touched her so carefully, and certainly not someone who might be readying to break her neck. She yanked again, and he let her go, moving for the rope around her left.

Her wrist was red and chaffed, skin broken around the outside of it. She took note of it fleetingly, because what was a broken twig to a fallen tree. As soon as her other arm was free, she was on her feet, sprinting for the door. The woman and Prop-man might have been outside, she might get lost before she found the exit, but hell if she wasn't going to try. The only failure was in not trying, that's what her dad used to say, and Mary lived by that. Hopefully, literally.

The door slammed off the wall as she lunged to the left, making it a single step before a hand clamped down on her shoulder and jerked her to a halt. Wrong way.

He was calm. Sunday morning, stroll in the park, breeze of Spring calm, and it shot anger into all that panic and fear. Mary spun around with a hand up, but it wasn't high enough, and her palm slammed into his jaw. His head snapped to the side as she heaved back, but, God, he was quick. She managed a hard shove to his chest before he blocked all the flailing of her hands toward his torso and face, hitting his arms and jerking out of his holds instead. Her knee met his thigh when he grabbed her wrist and spun her, crossing her arms in front of herself and slamming her back to a rock hard chest.

Mary surged forward but his arms were steel around her, closing her in and keeping her tight against him. The heat of him seeped through her clothes from her shoulders to her butt pressed into his lap, and her mouth went dry. He was curved over the lean of her back, his steady exhales warm on her neck, and she thought she could feel his heartbeat against her. His nose skimmed upward, breathing her in again, and any hope that he hadn't felt the shiver that accompanied it was obliterated when his arms convulsed around her.

I've had a tough couple months, he rumbled into her ear. I'm really not in the mood to play.

Neither am I. She cleared her throat, tried to get her breathing together, harden her voice. So you should let me go.

That's not going to happen.

I won't te—

You don't need to. I fucked up, but we're both going to deal with the consequences, and I'm not taking any of your shit while we do.

Her shit? She shook her head. I don't understand. You screwed—

All you need to understand is that you're not leaving until I let you. You keep trying to get out, you're going to piss me off. I'd advise against that.

She pressed her lips together, looking up from her feet to the basement in front of her. Does that mean you're not going to kill me?

You'd be dead already.

So, if I'm not a threat to you, which I'm definitely not, then there's no reason to keep—

You go out, you're dead.

You just said—

Not by us.

That made as much sense as his screw up and her consequences. Listen, Psy—er, sir, man, guy, I need to go home. I have a cat. That sounded too pathetic. Friends. A life. Things to do. Things that count on me doing them.

That's over.

I also have a boyfriend who is a boxer and. . .an ex-UFC fighter. Ex because he was too good. Killed a lot of people. So they kicked him out. He was too dangerous. He'll come looking for me.

I'm not worried about it.

He's also a bodybuilder. He looks like the Hulk. Except not green, obviously.

His arms tightened around her and he pressed in harder along her back. You leave, they kill you or you'll wish they did. They know we took you, they want you. Found you on the executive floor, figured you had to be involved, you weren't, now you are. There's no going back.

Who is they?

Gurst.

You're Gurst.

She winced as his hands clenched on her wrists, and she felt him take in a long breath before they eased. Wrong.

Then who are you?

He pulled back from her, his hands sliding up and then gripping her upper arms as they both straightened. He didn't answer, and she reluctantly started forward at his insistence.

Can we discuss this logically? You kidnap me, tie me to a chair, then tell me you won't kill me but I can't leave, can't know who you are, or why, or—

I told you why.

You told me a shipping company will kill me if I do. First, yeah, that makes sense, and second, why should I trust you? All right, she knew it was more than just a shipping company, but it still made no sense.

He turned her around in front of a door, and she tilted her head back to hold his eyes. When your boyfriend comes ripping the walls down, maybe you can ask him.

He's also very skilled with a gun.

Psychopath leaned in, and she went still at the brush of his hand across her hip. I'm better. He pushed her back, and she stumbled three steps into a room. Unless you want to be the new screams the cleaning lady ignores, you'll stay. The fuck. Put, and do as you're told. I don't give a shit if you trust me or not.

The door closed, and she listened to the sound of his footsteps until everything faded to silence.

****

The twin bed smelt like mold, and Mary turned onto her side, opening her eyes to the dark. She was contemplating what had woken her and why she felt so uneasy when she heard a rush of feet above her, then pop, pop, pop. It was the crack of gunfire after that sent her flying, blankets tangling her ankles before her knees hit the floor.

She crawled forward and toward the tiny closet that held a toilet inside of it. A sheet dangled over the doorway to serve privacy, which would do absolutely nothing when it came to bullets, but the only other thing in the room was the bed. She made it to her feet when the door creaked open, and she froze mid-step, her heart in her throat.

A silhouette stood outside the room, a blackness in dark gray, and she screamed at the gunshot. No pain blew through her, but the figure dropped, and more shots followed the first, rapid and deafening. Mary was stuck in fear and indecision, unmoving even when the roar turned into a buzz of silence in her ears.

She didn't know how to shoot a gun. She sometimes went with Kate and Jackie to watch them blow holes into paper people, but she didn't want anything to do with it. She carried mace on her keychain, and guns terrified her. She ran from the monsters in video games. She could run. She ran twice a week in the park, and some people passed her, but she could run steadily for a few miles.

Except now she had nowhere to run to, and another figure was in the doorway. It bent over, and the shadow on the ground was hauled up and thrown to the side. Mary held her breath.

Behind me, now.

Air left her like a punch to the gut, and she did not delay. She might not know for sure if Psychopath was an enemy, but he was obviously good with a gun and his body, and he didn't want her dead. She had no time to evaluate how her life had led her to believe these were the best possible traits a person could have, but he seemed like a miracle to her in that moment.

Hand on my back, he said, and his heat hit her palm. Keep it there.

She rushed behind him through the basement, blind, and tripped up the first two stairs before curling a hand into his shirt to steady herself. She should have been prepared with forewarning on his lack of giving it and her own common sense, but when he came to an abrupt halt on the top landing, she hit her face off his back. She reached up to hold her burning nose,