Wild Card Read Online Free

images, without a thread to connect them. And my mind sliding away as I tried.
    Who had been running Obs before Colonel Laine arrived? Petersen? My skin crawled.
    Why hadn’t I thought about it? Why was it so difficult to think about it?
    What had Judicator Remy said at the Assembly? He’d said he detected evidence of mental blocks in my head. Remy’s conclusions about me were false, forced on him by Basilikos, but that didn’t mean he’d made up his evidence. I hadn’t dismissed his talk of blocks, but I’d thought maybe there were things I had done to myself. Strong places in my head for memories I wanted locked away. A stomach-sickening lurch accompanied that thought and I stamped down on it.
    “They screwed with your head, Amber,” Julie whispered carefully. “When Colonel Laine was about to take over Obs, they closed it all up, sure they’d get their hands on you again soon.”
    Now my heart was racing. When Keith had yelled out something like that to me as he was arrested, I’d gone and gotten drunk. Why? What was there? What made me not want to confront it?
    “But Laine put a new team into Obs and sent you out here to Denver,” Julie went on remorselessly. “He became suspicious of what they’d done. They knew he was on to them, but they have support he doesn’t. That’s why he’s running now.”
    Things clicked into place. The feeling that the colonel was always giving me extra leeway. In truth, he was doing whatever he could to keep me away from the base and Petersen while he figured out what had been done to me.
    “But it’s been too long. Whatever they did to hide what was done to you was supposed to be a temporary fix. They think it might be about to fail. They don’t know what’ll happen.” She paused. “And the catch is, my telling you about it might speed that up.”
    “And what were they trying to do?” I asked. I felt cold and remote. My wrist itched where my bracelet sat. The bracelet was a gift from the Adepts. It was intended to warn me of danger, but it’d gotten a little freaky over the last couple of days.
    The van stopped and I tensed up. Victor knocked on the door panel.
    I moved across and knelt by the door. “Yeah?”
    “Things movin’,” he said. “Gotta make time to talk.”
    Julie put out a hand to take my arm, then stopped without touching me.
    “One minute,” I said to Victor, and turned to listen to her.
    “Amber, I don’t like doing this, but I’m desperate. Keith and I can’t go back. That’s fine, we can handle that. But Keith’s where he is now because of what he tried to do for you. You get him out, and we’ll tell you everything we know.”
    I blinked. I hadn’t expected that, but I could understand her position. I just nodded and opened the sliding door.
    Victor was standing outside, with his cell dwarfed in his hand. He glanced behind me, into the back of the van, and hid his sigh of relief.
    “It’s Trey,” he said, handing the cell over.
    Trey was the one I’d assigned to watch Julie’s motel.
    “Talk to me,” I said.
    “Good thing Ms. Alverson is clear of here.” He was talking low, as if he wanted to whisper. “Team of three freaking ninjas just went in her room. Slick as anything. Four came out, so I figure someone else went in through the back too. Black clothing, ski masks, MP5s with silencers. Got in a truck, but not moving yet. Took some stuff from the room.”
    “Shit. Trey, get away. Now.”
    “They haven’t made me.”
    “Don’t risk it. Move. Keep the cell on, keep talking.”
    Julie’s motel was on East Colfax as it headed out from Aurora. I’d told Trey to watch from across the road, in the RV park. Four lanes and a median strip on top of the forty yards to Julie’s room. He should be safe, but if I was running the op, I’d have had a couple of people on roofs scanning the area with nightscopes.
    “Your motel just had a visit from the Nagas,” I said to Julie as she came out of the van to join us.
    “Sweet