Zach waved his hand in dismissal. “I’m not worried about them. Dana can handle them.”
Aidan regarded him with disbelief. “How? She isn’t immortal, Zach. Violence was never a part of her world until I entered it. She’s had no combat training. No martial arts. She’s never even taken a self-defense course.”
“Nevertheless,” Zach persisted, “she can handle them.”
Lisette eyed Zach suspiciously. “Why are you so sure Dana can hold her own against military men? You’ve barely spoken with her.”
He met her gaze, then shifted in his seat. “Just a lucky guess?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Zach…”
Aidan watched the two, not knowing what to think. He had believed at first that Zach was just trying to put his mind at ease. But now that Lisette was drilling him with her gaze, Zach looked like a schoolboy whose teacher had just caught him dropping a lizard down the back of a girl’s dress.
“Fine,” Zach grumbled. “There’s a slight chance that I might have mind-controlled Dana. A little bit.”
Aidan’s breath caught.
Lisette’s face darkened with disapproval. “Zach!”
“I said might,” he reminded her.
Alarm rose once more. Dana was mortal. Mind-controlling her would cause brain damage that her body—lacking the aid of the vampiric virus—could not heal. “How slight a chance?” he demanded.
Zach glanced at Lisette, then reluctantly met Aidan’s eyes. “Gargantuan.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Aidan swore.
“Damn it, Zach,” Seth growled behind Aidan.
“What?” Zach protested, all innocence. “I did it for Aidan.”
Dozens of skeptical looks stabbed him.
“Okay, okay. I did it for Lisette. Ethan is important to her. Aidan is important to Ethan. And we all know how much Dana means to Aidan.” He looked down at his wife. “So by the transitive property, I did it for you. This is your fault.”
When Lisette opened her mouth to rebut, David held up a hand. “What exactly did you do, Zach?”
He shrugged. “Like Seth, I thought Dana remained a prime target for Gershom and decided to take steps that I believed would protect her to some extent.”
Aidan drew in a breath to start shouting as outrage rose within him like lava.
Zach stopped him with a look. “I knew she had lived a typically sheltered mortal life and, without her 9mm, wouldn’t know how to defend herself, so…” He frowned. “How can I explain this? I basically planted a how-to-kick-ass manual in her head.”
Blank stares.
“What the hell does that mean?” Aidan demanded.
“It means,” Zach told him, “that when it comes to hand-to-hand combat, she now knows how to do everything I can do. Everything that doesn’t require gifts, that is.”
Stunned silence.
Sheldon’s lips turned up in a big grin. “That is so cool! It’s just like with Neo in The Matrix.”
Aidan shook his head. “I don’t know what the hell The Matrix is, but this is not cool. She’s mortal, Zach. Mind control causes brain damage her body can’t heal without the virus.”
Chris grunted. “You weren’t so concerned about that when you mind-controlled my people here at the network.”
Aidan slammed his fist down on the table, nearly exploding with fury. “Would you fucking let that drop?” he roared. “The mind control I performed on the guards here took less than a minute. They suffered no more damage than they would have drinking and partying on a Friday night.” He turned on Zach. “How long did it take you to plant all that information in Dana’s mind?”
Zach glanced over Aidan’s shoulder at Seth. “Quite a while, actually.”
This just got worse and worse by the minute. “How much damage did it do? Were you even able to heal it?”
“Did you notice any difference in her behavior?” Zach asked in lieu of answering.
Bastien clamped a hand on Aidan’s arm when Aidan would have risen.
David looked at Zach. “When did you do this, Zach?”
“Yesterday,” Zach said, “while everyone was sleeping at your place. I stayed awake to keep an eye out for Gershom and thought I would take advantage of the opportunity and give Dana the know-how she’d need to survive whatever came.” He met Aidan’s irate gaze. “Did you notice any difference in her?”
He hadn’t. He hadn’t noticed any difference at all. “No.”
Zach nodded. “There was damage when I finished, but I healed most of it.”
“Most?” Aidan repeated. “Not all?”
Zach shook his head. “I couldn’t get it all. The damage that remains is similar to that one would have after a concussion. And I feel confident the virus will heal it when she transforms.”
Numbness began to seep in. Gershom had Dana and Dana had brain damage.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Zach said.
“I doubt you do.”
“I don’t have to read your thoughts to know what they contain. I know you’re now worried on two fronts, and I regret adding to your concern. You may think it was ruthless or irresponsible or however you choose to label it, but if you could just look at it without emotion clouding your judgment, you will see that this is a good thing. Dana is now armed with knowledge and skills that will enable her to defeat those guarding her should they try to harm her. She could even make an escape.”
Aidan shook his head. “The other gifted ones who tried to escape were killed.”
“But Dana won’t be. She’s now like those rough-and-tough marines or SEAL team soldiers in the movies Lisette and Tracy love so much. You know, the ones who go in against all odds, disarm dozens of armed combatants that grossly outnumber them, kick ass, and emerge with only a few scratches. Dana can now, with no forethought, disarm a man twice her size. If there is anything in the room with her that can be used as a weapon, she will find it.”
Aidan supposed he could take some comfort in that.
“Well,” Chris said, “hopefully it won’t come to that. We should be able to formulate a plan, implement it, and get to her in the next twenty-four hours.”
Aidan found that hard to believe. “How the hell can we blitz a United States military installation?”
General Lane frowned. “You can’t. Can you?”
Chris shook his head. “I don’t think that would be the wise play here, in part because we would risk Gershom popping in the instant the first alarm sounded and killing all the gifted ones to spite Seth.”
More cursing.
Roland folded his arms across his chest. “I say we take a page from Gershom’s book and have Seth, Zach, and Aidan do a little mind-controlling on the masses in that building. While we free the gifted ones, they can incarcerate the soldiers, then convince the scientists on site that they’re proctologists who have found the answers to all of life’s mysteries up the soldiers’ arses.”
Startled laughter erupted around the table.
Sheldon shook his head. “Dude, you have a serious mean streak.”
Roland shrugged. “I’ve just never favored blindly following orders.”
David grunted. “I can vouch for that.”
Roland’s lips twitched.