Twice as Hot Read Free

tears or freeze from my touch. I
was depressed and scared, and my fear always summoned ice, my sadness rain. My
anger summoned fire, of course, and my jealousy summoned earth. Yes, I could
make dirt pies. Calling the wind required an emotional cocktail of both
negative and positive, so it was the hardest to manipulate. It was hard to be
happy and sad, loving and hateful at the same time.
    Once,
for a short window of time, I’d been able to use my powers without relying on
my emotions. No longer. For whatever reason—cough John’s tests and Rome’s
absence cough—that was now nothing more than a pipe dream.
    “What
if he’s…” I couldn’t say it. I just couldn’t finish that sentence. Suddenly my
chin was trembling too badly. God, I was a wreck lately! And no, I wasn’t
pregnant. (I’d already taken a test.)
    “He’s
not. Who was Rome battling, anyway? And why didn’t you go with him?”
    “Run-of-the-mill
armed guards, most likely, and I’m an idiot. Besides, Cody went with him.” Cody
could manipulate electricity, so he was a good partner to have. Better than me,
for sure. “I’ve been planning a wedding, babysitting yo—uh, Tanner, researching
Desert Gal and—”
    “Desert
Gal, huh.” Sherridan sat up straighter. “You mean the psycho-bitch who drains
the water out of everything she touches?”
    “Yes.
That’s her.” Unfortunately—or fortunately?—I hadn’t had a face-to-face with the
sadistic woman yet. One, she’d managed to elude me and two, I’d been too busy
getting nailed by other scrims who’d started coming after me the moment I
joined PSI. Their mission: recruit me to OASS—Observation and Application of
Supernatural Studies, a nongovernment agency whose methods sometimes bordered
on criminal and sometimes straight up were criminal. Or, if they
couldn’t recruit me, plan B was to kill me.
    Eight
had tried so far, and I’d managed to beat them all. Okay, okay, Rome had
ensured victory most of the time. I was still new at the whole shadow-game
thing.
    “What’s
she look like?” Sherridan asked.
    That
was the kicker. No one had a picture of her. Well, not that they’d shown me.
Secret agents were so…secretive. But still. I’d already proven I was
trustworthy, and why not share something that would help me? “I don’t know, but
I’m envisioning a dried-up prune with teeth.”
    “Okay.
I’ve got a visual on her now. Continue.”
    “One
of Rome’s contacts intercepted a communication between her and some as yet
unknown man and learned some stuff we didn’t know. Like how Pretty Boy, her
former boss—you know, the evil guy Rome and I had to kill during our
courtship—had several warehouses filled with people he’d locked up and
experimented on. Desert Gal moved them to a central location to test them and
weed out the weaklings, and Rome went to save them. But knowing Pretty Boy, and
having studied Desert Gal, there were a few booby traps along the way.” Just
saying those two words—Pretty Boy—caused me to shudder. And I’d said them
twice. Double shudder.
    He’d
been the most beautiful man I’d ever seen, lushly sensual, darkly erotic, yet
he’d possessed a black, monstrous heart. He’d tried to experiment on me, too,
as well as attempting to kill Rome. He had experimented on others—the
ones we’d known about before his death—replacing their skin with impenetrable
metal, adding animal glands to their brains so they’d have beastlike instincts.
He’d done other stuff, too. Stuff I couldn’t even consider without gagging. All
to build an army. An army that would bring him money and (more) power.
    Très
cliché if you asked me.
    Sherridan
leaned forward, clearly intrigued. The book fell to her feet, a warrior’s
bright eyes staring up at me. “There were survivors?” she asked. “I thought all
the people Pretty Boy tampered with ended up dying. Even the ones you guys
rescued from those cages.”
    “They
did. Well, those did. Like I said, he had