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  “Of course not.” Terk backed away, as if to assess the damage he had done with the careless statement he had made. “We won’t keep you and your family here for very long.”

  “Set up another safe house, and we’ll move the family members over there.”

  “Not alone, no way,” Terk ordered.

  “Then give us half of what you’ve got here, … like maybe Wade and I move,” he suggested quietly. “It would also ease some of the stress and congestion.”

  “Everything is possible, Calum. It’s been an adjustment. Each time one of you came back to us, someone you loved came with you. Our family is slowly growing. I’ll talk to the others. In the meantime, you go do your thing and check out Iran.”

  And, with that, Terk walked out, leaving Calum alone in the room, where he had absolutely no idea if he could pick up anything or not. Not only was he drained, exhausted, and damaged, he was also highly stressed. Not a very good situation when it came to energy work, considering what he wanted to accomplish here, with his remote viewing of Iran. When stressed, this kind of work was damn near impossible.

  Maybe that was the overall intent of the attack and then the kidnapping. Maybe the enemy was looking to take out his family. These assholes had to figure initially that Calum could never function on this level again with the physical and psychic trauma he had sustained in the blast. Then to kidnap his family? That emotional trauma could end him. Those thoughts made him even more determined to get back out there and to get to the bottom of all this BS. He wanted so badly to get these guys for what they’d done to him, to his team, to his family.

  He closed his eyes, settled into his normal position, and tried to destress and decentralize the voices in his head. He could only travel on the ethers like this if 100 percent relaxed and in total control of his emotions. And, even though it was hard, he tried slowing down his breathing. One, … two, … three, the sun, the moon, the truth.

  He had picked up the phrase while training with Terk, and it had stayed with Cal. He could already feel himself tensing and worrying about Mariana. Not now. Instantly he pulled back and refocused. And, with the mantra ringing in his head, his vision slowly started to expand; it was working. With an enormous effort, he became a part of the soul of the world. He was soaring.

  He looked down at their temporary headquarters. Little Calum was asleep still and curled up in his mom’s lap. Calum saw them as he traveled, light on the air, through the same building that he was sitting in. It helped him to take a minute to orient himself and to mark his physical location, so he could return to these coordinates safely.

  He headed out to the main computer room, where everybody sat, working—including Tasha, Sophia, and Lorelei. Some were talking to sort out the pertinent information; others focused on different tasks, but basically everybody minded their own part of this business and continued on, pushing to the common goal. A lot to be said for that. He didn’t want to leave this atmosphere if he didn’t have to. But, no doubt, if something went wrong with one of them, it could seriously affect all of them, every single one. And that was something that Calum couldn’t handle. They’d already lost so much.

  And that just blew him away because it showed the enemy’s intel at a level that Cal didn’t even want to think about. It meant people knowing what they were doing, when they were doing it, and how. These were people with an agenda—intent on taking down Terk’s team.

  Once again, Cal tried to empty his mind of his worries, but it was hard. Pushing aside the pain in his chest, he finally stepped away from the whole mess and went back to his happy place, watching his Mariana with his son. Even as he watched her, she closed her eyes and gently tried to rest. He reached out mentally to her. Just rest. We’re all here, and we’ll look after you.

  Her eyes flew open, and she sat upright. Stunned, he watched, as she looked around, frowning.

  Had she heard him? That would be unusual and probably not a good thing in his line of work—although he wouldn’t mind if they had that level of communication in their personal lives. He had always thought that, when he found the perfect partner for him, she could do the same things he was doing, but how many people in the world did this energy work? Not that he was an egotist by any means, but the type of work he did had taken a lot of training, a lot of time invested. Yet, here on the ethers, it seemed like everything was almost timeless.

  He murmured again in her head, I’m here. Just relax. Go to sleep and rest. Little Calum will be up soon, and you’ll need to look after him.

  She frowned, then shifted her position and laid back down again, looking around the room, as if uncertain what to do.

  He immediately sent what was the equivalent of a warm hug. She smiled, pulled the blankets up to her shoulders, and snuggled in. With her calm and somewhat happy, he then branched out farther, outside of the building, checking out the defenses in place.

  Damon and Wade had both put up energy barriers that would be hard to cross, unless someone truly knew and had the kind of skills that his team had. He was proud of the team, damn proud, and they’d done incredible work for the safety of the American people. But nobody knew how their own government had fired them, and that fact made being in this position hurt so much more.

  He knew that some of the others on Terk’s team thought that the US government had been cleaning up, after closing down Terk’s special department, making sure it was closed permanently. Cal wasn’t so sure it was that simple.

  They lived in a world of deception and betrayal, and too many people could have had access to their files. He was guessing here, conjuring up threads to follow, but it was possible that somebody—who shouldn’t have had access—had sold personal info regarding Terk’s team to the unknown enemy. And the fact that Mariana was here too said an awful lot about the team’s personal files being exposed somehow and what other people knew.

  Not just their enemies but their families too. Knowing was one thing, but whether they understood what they knew was a whole different story.

  That Mariana was here and potentially part of the group now meant that the chances were very likely that Mariana had been told what the team does, but there was also a damn good chance that she only knew a little bit of it and not all of it. Did any of them even know all of it? Each of the guys had differing skill sets. Cal didn’t know much about what his buddies could do, any more than they understood Cal’s gifts.

  He was straining hard now to remain on the ethers, especially while distracted like this.

  Well, Terk knew everything about every guy on his team. This was his deal, his project. It had all been Terk’s idea; he had brought this dream team into fruition, and he had trained them all. The fact that he’d even found them was something else. Calum often still wondered about that because it’s not as if Terk could just place a want ad for people like them.

  Terk had searched them out, had hunted them down, had sorted them, and had brought them on board. Of course it also helped to be somebody who had the same kind of skills that Calum had. Before that, all anyone knew, and all the military knew, was that Calum had a strong intuition. It had taken a lot of time and training on the part of Terk to help Cal realize his potential, to focus on it, to embrace it, to enhance it, becoming so much more than what it had been.

  Calum wasn’t prepared to let go of that either, not at this stage. He didn’t know whether any of his team would be interested or not in forming up as an independent team, a non-governmental entity, but Cal suspected they would. They could still do so much good in the world, and, at the same time, they should be allowed to do it. However, it didn’t look like the US government was prepared to let them. In which case, governmental decisions had been made, and obviously they’d come off on the wrong side of that decision-making.

  Terk’s team was dangerous, according to the government, and maybe they were. Maybe it was true. Calum wasn’t so sure. They’d only ever worked for the US government, helping their fellow man. But fear of the unknown—and Terk’s
team was full of unknowns—makes people do all kinds of crazy things, and maybe that’s what happened.

  But where did Terk’s team go from here? How did they go from here? That was, … well, … the million-dollar question, and it was something Calum wasn’t prepared to contemplate.

  Gathering up his energy, he made a swoop into his target coordinates in Iran and homed in on his view outside of the lone building, merging into the sand, as both were the same color. He looked around and saw from his aerial viewpoint just what was here. It was interesting that he didn’t see a whole lot, and, of course, that was intentional. The goal was to be invisible to drones, so as not to pick up any activity either, since, of course, drones were out there.

  And there was energy activity. Cal could sense it, but he didn’t know who was watching the ethers. Calum had limitations, and, if Wade had his abilities back at full speed, he may see more. Calum closed his eyes and thought back to where he’d been in Iran and about the mission they’d recently completed there.

  Almost instantly he stared at the building, where their attack had happened.

  The building itself was now leveled to the ground. Calum frowned, not remembering the extent of the devastation. They had gone in silently, taking out the Iranian team with two other SEAL teams, mostly Terk’s team only in a supervisory capacity. By the time it was all said and done, they were already on their way home. It had been smooth, efficient, successful—just the way they liked to do business.

  At the same time, killing was hard for Cal to swallow, even if killing the bad guys was the right thing to do. He had known that, by killing that Iranian team, Terk’s team had saved hundreds of their own people through this assigned mission.

  Initially Cal thought that he might get used to it, but it never seemed to get any easier on him. He’d been looking forward to retiring, spending time just with his family, relaxing into some form of normalcy, ever since Terk’s team was due to be disbanded. Who was he kidding? Cal thought of retirement since the formation of Terk’s team. Now Calum had the chance to do that. And yet here he was again, … looking to save his family from whatever the hell this nightmare was that was chasing him and his team. And it was hard on him, always hard.

  He kept moving in his mind’s eye through the area, through time, but this part of Iran was dead. Nothing was there now, and, if anything had survived their attack, the remnants were long gone and had probably been intentionally moved. Nobody in their right mind would have stayed exactly in the same location where such devastation had been unleashed.

  But then Cal frowned and reconsidered that because, in reality, some people would stay in the hope that they could manage their feelings and the emotional turmoil they were going through. Unable to walk away from the scene, they may be working on their need for … vengeance. Just no way to know for sure.

  He needed to tell the team that the location was completely gone, but it was almost pointless to relay something they all seemed to know. The satellite imagery should have shown them that anyway. But then he frowned because, what if someone had access to that same satellite? Someone on the Iranian team might know where the US SEAL attackers had moved to afterward.

  Calum didn’t think his team was tracking the area, considering it safe now since they had supposedly removed their target. From what Calum saw—sensed—the area wasn’t secure. Calum pulled back out, got up, and shook off the remnants of the trip, then stepped out into the hallway.

  He moved down to the common area and walked in. Immediately everyone stopped talking and looked at him expectantly. With all of those gazes looking at him so intently, he shook his head. “Hey, it was just a test run.” Then he looked over at Terk. “You know that entire building is gone, right?”

  “I know.” He nodded.

  “So, yes, no signs of life, and the building has been demolished. Nothing is there physically, which I assume has been obvious on the satellite.”

  “It is,” Terk agreed quietly. “What we didn’t know was whether it was just a cover for something else.”

  Calum frowned at that, thought about what he’d seen and felt, then shook his head. “No. That doesn’t mean some activity isn’t close by—and I did get a hint of that energy—but you and I both know that I need an exact location in order to look into something like that remotely.”

  “Got it.” Terk gave a gentle smile. “And that’s good news. One less building to keep under surveillance.”

  “I get that,” Calum agreed, “but it doesn’t get us any further.” He reached up and rubbed his head.

  “How is the headache?”

  “How do you know I have a headache?” he asked briskly.

  “Well, the head rubbing is definitely indicative,” he murmured, “but so is the crease on your forehead and the pain in your voice.” Terk’s voice was laced with concern for him.

  Calum was annoyed with everything, and himself, for not being any help. “It’s just—the trip wasn’t that easy to do. Not anymore.”

  “No, it isn’t. I get that. Using our abilities right now, with the chaos and all the hassles, is a pain in the ass. Everything is hurting, and that makes it much harder.”

  “Why is that, Terk? See? I get it, but I don’t understand it.”

  “Well, you’ve been injured for one thing,” Terk replied.

  At that, Damon piped up. “And it seems like none of us are operating at full capacity. We were, … before all this,” “but now everything seems like slogging through molasses.”

  Calum looked at him in surprise. “So it’s happening to you too then?” His question was directed to team members present.

  Damon nodded.

  “Me too,” Wade chimed in.

  Cal looked around. “Gage too? Where is he?”

  Terk nodded. “Gage’s doing a perimeter check outside. And, yes, he’s reporting the same side effects.”

  “Interesting. So how do we fix that?” Cal asked. “I don’t really like being at half power.”

  “No, none of us do.” Wade laughed.

  “So how do we fix it, Terk?” Calum asked bluntly. “I don’t want to keep operating like this.”

  Everyone looked over at Terk, who was all smiles. “You guys know how to power up and how to power down,” he began, trying to calm them. “You don’t need me for that.”

  “No, but this seems like it’s a little past that,” Calum stated cautiously.

  “It really isn’t,” Terk replied. “This is definitely more about getting yourself back up and running. We’ve had pitfalls like this before—”

  “Not like this,” Calum protested vehemently.

  The other two team members looked over at Terk. “Nothing like this,” Damon confirmed.

  Terk nodded. “Okay, so it’s worse than anything we’ve gone through before. I get that, but the process is the same. You decide how much power you’ll lose, and then you reclaim the rest of it.”

  “Are you saying that somebody else is affecting our ability to reclaim our power?”

  “They have,” he stated. “This whole scenario has affected your abilities. You’ve all become victims.” Terk’s tone remained calm and serene. “And that means you have to reclaim that part of you and get out of that mentality.”

  They stared at him in shock.

  “Is that all it takes?” Calum asked in a hard tone.

  “Yes. You are back up already and functioning again,” he noted, “so I don’t expect it will take you very long to make that mental switch.”

  Damon stared at him. “Mental switch? Are you saying this is in our heads? This is something that we’re allowing to happen to us?”

  “While you were injured? While you were in a coma? No. But, once you got your energy back,” he explained, “and don’t take this the wrong way, but, on a certain level, you handed over your power.”

  At that, Damon shook his head. “You know that I don’t like hearing that shit.”

  “I know.” Terk gave him a gentle smile. “You know how
much I don’t like seeing you guys go through this too, right?” They winced and murmured their acquiescence all around, acutely aware of the energy and effort Terk had invested in their recoveries.

  They all shared a look.

  Wade shrugged. “We’ve been through recovery exercises like that before,” he admitted, “and you’ve made it very clear that it’s something we can change.”

  “It is,” Terk agreed. “You just need to make the decision to do so.”

  “Great,” Cal muttered. “Of all the things we didn’t think we would have to do today …”

  At that, Terk laughed heartily. “You each need to decide to do whatever it is you think you ultimately need to do,” he stated. “Give yourself full permission to do whatever you need to in order to regain that ability inside you. You all have something to protect. You all have something to defend. So ensure you’re up to full power. Things happened in your lives, and that’s damn bad, but now you need to be back up and running.”

  “It can’t be that simple,” Wade argued, walking closer. “We’ve all had our abilities damaged. In fact, you even said so yourself, Terk.”

  Immediately Terk nodded. “Absolutely, yet, in every step of the way, as each one of you gets stronger again, you’re producing more and more of the same energy that each of you can utilize. But, so far, you’re not doing that. You’re not taking that team energy because you’re afraid of hurting each other.”

  “Ah.” Damon nodded. “Now that makes more sense. And that’s why we’re not back to full speed … because we’re making sure our energy expenditures keep pace with the rest of the team.”

  Terk smiled and nodded. “You got it. And I love the protective sentiment. I really do. But, at this point, it’s not helpful.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Calum confirmed. “How is Rick doing?”

  “He’s okay,” Terk replied, “but he’s lost in the ethers. I’m not exactly sure how to get him back again.”

  “What do you mean by lost? Like lost, lost, or can we get him back?” Gage asked in surprise.