Fired Up

that he be able to focus.
    “We’ll talk later,” he said. He took her hand and led her quickly toward the door. “We need to get out of here.”
    “I like a man who can prioritize.”
    He glanced down at her hand in his. “You’re burning up.”
    “The psi on top of the flu. Has that effect.”
    “It’s not the flu. They shot you up with that sedative they used on me, didn’t they?”
    “Something like that, but I’ll be okay.”
    She could see that he wasn’t buying her story, but she also knew that he was strat enough to realize that there was not a thing he could do about the fever.
    “I’ll go first,” he said.
    He released her hand, opened the door and moved cautiously out into the hall. She felt energy pulse a little higher around him and knew that he had just made someone out in the corridor very nervous.
    “Okay,” he said. “Walk ahead of me. Make it look like I’m escorting you to some other room.”
    She peered out into the hall. “Which way?”
    “Left.”
    She took a deep breath and walked forward with what she hoped looked like weary reluctance. She didn’t have to fake the weary part. Jack stayed close behind her.
    At the intersection she stopped again.
    “Right,” Jack said quietly.
    A door opened to her left just as she turned the corner to the right. Nash appeared. He had one hand on the knob, preparing to step out into the hall. He did not see her immediately because he was looking back into the room and speaking to someone else in low, tense tones. She could feel the disturbing energy of the lamp seeping out of the opening.
    She halted and took a step back. But there was nowhere to run and no time. Nash was already swiveling toward her.
    “After Brown wakes up and we’ve confirmed the success of the experiment, we’re going back to Portland,” Nash said to the other person in the room. “I want to make a few more trial runs before I let the Harper woman use that lamp on me.”
    “Yes, yes, I understand,” Hulsey said impatiently.
    Nash saw Chloe. Rage twisted his features.
    “Who let you out of your room?” he snarled.
    Jack came around the corner. “I did.”
    “Who the hell are you?”
    Nash’s fury was too sudden and definitely over the top, Chloe thought. It was as if he had skipped the more natural, preliminary stages of confusion and annoyed authority entirely and gone straight to irrational loss of temper. The Nightshade drug was affecting more than just his senses.
    “Jack Winters,” Jack said. “You stole a couple of things that belong to me. I’m taking both of them.”
    “Son of a bitch,” Nash snarled. “You’re not taking anything from me. You’re a dead man.”
    A terrible blast of mind-searing energy crackled in the atmosphere of the hallway. Although Jack was the target, Chloe got caught in the backwash of power. It was as though the entire world had been set afire. White-hot psi consumed the corridor, blinding all of her senses. She reeled and fetched up hard against the wall. Consciousness started to slip away. She could not move, let alone try to flee.
    She had guessed right, she thought. Nash did, indeed, possess a lethal talent. He was able to generate a killing shockwave of psychic energy.
    Her vision blurred. Tears scalded her eyes. Jack was a dark figure silhouetted against the waterfall of energy. He had tried to rescue her, and he was going to die for his trouble. She had drawn him to his death, and there was nothing she could do.
    The storm evaporated as suddenly as it had begun. She clawed at the wall in an attempt to stay on her feet. There was another kind of energy twisting and curling and pounding in the atmosphere now. She caught only fleeting impressions of nameless specters and heart-crushing fears, but it was enough to know that her avenging angel was exacting retribution and meting out punishment.
    Someone was screaming, but it wasn’t her. She did not have the strength. The screaming went on endlessly. Somewhere a man was sinking into hell.
    Her badly fried senses began to clear. The screaming ceased abruptly.
    She opened her eyes and saw Jack. He was still standing in the corridor, energy whipping around him. His eyes glowed like emerald coals.
    “Are you all right?” he asked.
    “Yes.” She swallowed hard and managed to push herself away from the wall. “Yes. I’m all right. I think. You?”
    “Yes. But one of them got away. There’s another door at the back of the room.”
    She looked down and saw