Leah couldn't stop smiling.

She had a date! A first date. With a guy she actually was attracted to. The kind of date you should be on time for.

And not show up smelling of formaldehyde, either.

Which meant she had to hurry and finish her dissection of the cat she was working on if she wanted to get back to the dorm, wash the stink off her hands and put on a clean top.

Turning back to the split, skinned and pinned corpse on the dissection board, she reached for her scalpel, her thoughts alternating between the lobes of the lungs and Hank Finn's totally kissable lips.

"Ow!" A sharp, stinging pain brought her attention back to the present. She looked down and saw she'd grabbed the wrong end of the scalpel. The surgical steel had sliced a two-inch gash along her thumb. As she watched, blood welled up and flowed out in a miniature waterfall.

"Oh d.a.m.n." Instinctively she grabbed her injured thumb with her other hand and looked around for something to pack the wound. Paper towels, Kimwipes, anything. Naturally, there was nothing there.

"s.h.i.t. s.h.i.t s.h.i.t s.h.i.t!" Now she was really going to be late, doubly so if she had to go to the college infirmary for st.i.tches.

Maybe just some Band-Aids... Praying for a shallow cut, she opened her hand and peeked at her thumb.

Under the red smears, a thin separation showed, with dried blood already crusting over the top.

"Wow." Leah breathed a sigh of relief. It was no worse than a paper cut. And yet it had bled so much...

I wonder if- The buzz of her cell phone interrupted her thoughts. She pulled it from her purse and flipped it open with one hand.

"Leah, are you still in the Anatomy lab?" Kelli Chen's exasperation with Leah's perpetual lateness was evident even through the tiny speaker in the phone. "My G.o.d, girl, get your a.s.s in gear!"

"On my way," she a.s.sured her roommate. I can always come in early in the morning and finish.

Lessons and cut both forgotten, Leah hurried for the door.

Leah's first thought when she woke up was that she'd fallen asleep on the couch again while reading, something she did more often than she liked to admit. A cla.s.sic sign of a lonely life. Her dream echoed in her head, and she wondered why she'd thought back to that day in college. Back then, she hadn't been aware how her Power worked on her own cuts and bruises, kept her from catching the flu like other people. It was only after vet school that she'd really looked back and all the little clues came together. After that, she never really thought about it. So why now? She had so much more- Reality came barreling back, driving away memories and happy thoughts in an instant. She opened her eyes, afraid of what-or who-she might see.

Across from her was the table with the computer monitors. She tried to move and found she'd been tied-chest, arms and legs-to a wooden chair, probably the same one she'd sat in when Del had threatened her earlier.

Earlier when? she asked herself, which brought back other memories. The pig. Getting knocked down. Then...blacking out? From the numbness in her arms and legs, and the cold that had her shivering, she had to have been out for a while.

Someone cleared their throat off to her right and she turned her head.

Del sat in front of a computer, smiling at her in a way that immediately set her on edge. He looked as smug as a person possibly could, his grin a sure sign she was in worse trouble than she imagined.

"Hey, Doc. Welcome back. How do you feel?" His smile grew a little wider, like a little boy with a secret he couldn't wait to share.

"Cold. Not that you care." In no mood to play his game, she let her disgust for him show in her words. Once again her death had been postponed, and she was tired of waiting. Maybe if she antagonized him enough...

"Oh, but I do care. I care a lot. In fact, I'm happier than you can imagine to hear you don't have any aches or pains."

Aches or... Leah frowned. He was right. Other than being cold and stiff, she felt fine.

The pig.

She remembered it coming right at her. Its hooves. Snapping sounds... Bones breaking? So much pain...

No. It had to be part of her dream. A false memory from hitting her head again. That was it. The pig must've knocked her over, she'd hit her head and imagined the rest.

She looked around again. There was no sign of any destruction, although a faint but suspicious red swatch on the floor had her thinking about the explosion she'd heard just before blacking out. A gunshot? More than likely.

"Doc." Del snapped his fingers. "Pay attention here, okay? Remember what you were telling me earlier? How you're no use to me because you lost your powers? Well, I think you'll find this interesting."

He touched a b.u.t.ton on the keyboard and the monitors came to life. A video started, showing a room Leah instantly recognized as the one she was in. Each monitor showed the same scene from a different angle, and as she watched the video play out, a sick feeling started in her stomach. At the point where the frantic pig charged her, Del paused the clip.

"Now watch this part carefully." He tapped one of the monitors. When the video started again, she found herself tensing as the animal trampled her. The sounds of screaming and bones breaking filled her ears.

It wasn't a dream. It was real. No, it couldn't- "This is my favorite part," Del said, raising his voice over the sounds from the monitors. On one of the screens, the camera zoomed in and she saw two men lift her into the chair. One of them cried out as his hand touched her, but he didn't let go.

Leah's body started to tremble from something other than the cold.

No. Please, no...

The camera zoomed in farther, forcing her to watch as the ma.s.sive damage to her body healed and disappeared. When her crooked nose slid back into its normal shape, Del touched another key and the screens went blank.

"Lost your powers, huh?"

She understood his smile now. He looked like he'd won the lottery because he had. She'd proven what she could do to the people who'd been watching, and now she and John would be prisoners for life.

"What...what are you going to do?"

"That's a good question, and I think you deserve an honest answer. Tomorrow night some very bad men are going to come here, and I'm going to sell you to one of them. Of course, they'll want a live demonstration of your power, so your cop friend might have a few uncomfortable minutes. But if you're lucky, you'll be able to convince whoever buys you that you and your lover come as a pair."

"You're a real piece of s.h.i.t." Leah allowed all her contempt and anger to color her words. He was basically admitting he'd be selling her into slavery, except she'd be raped in a different way. "Do you know what they'll do with me?"

Del shrugged. "What the h.e.l.l do I care? As long as I get my money, your next owner can spend the rest of his life having you keep his kids' pets alive. Of course, I'm guessing that what you'll end up doing will be a lot more dangerous, but then I figure you know that as well as I do."

"And that doesn't bother you?"

Without warning, Del stood up and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her head against the back of the chair. He'd moved so fast she didn't even have time to cry out.

"Listen, lady. You don't know what makes me tick. There's a lot of s.h.i.t in this world that bothers me, but I know better than to try and get in its way. If these people want someone dead, then that's what's gonna happen. All I'm doing is selling them a new weapon, no different than a gun or a knife. And, trust me, I thought long and hard about this. I know what happens to people who know a secret. I'll be spending the rest of my life looking over my G.o.dd.a.m.ned shoulder."

He let go and sat down again, his face returning to his normal calm expression.

"But at least I'll be looking over my shoulder in a beautiful beachside villa instead of a crummy New York apartment."

Leah stared at him. She wanted to scream out her frustrations, tell him what a horrible person he was, but she saw it would be no use.

Because he was crazy.

You wouldn't know it if you walked past him on the street, might not even notice it if you sat down and had a cup of coffee with him. But it was there, a deeply buried nugget of insanity, cloaked by ordinary looks and a friendly smile.

Not insane enough to shoot his golden goose, though, came the bitter thought. No, he was much too smart to do that.

And even if he did, what would it matter? He's not going to kill me, and apparently any other injury will just heal.

"Hey. Anybody home?"

With a start, she realized she'd become lost in her thoughts.

"What now?" she asked, expecting that she'd be locked up again until she was needed.

"I'm a man who keeps his promises," Del said, standing up. "You kept your part of our bargain, and now I'm keeping mine. Unless you don't want your conjugal visit?"

"My...?" Then it hit her. "John? I can see him?" As much as she'd told herself earlier that the best thing for both of them would be for her to be gone, the desire to be with him had never faded. In the battle between emotion and logic, logic might think itself the winner but emotion always ruled in the end.

"He's all yours from now until tomorrow morning. I'd make the best of it, if I were you," he added, opening the door and signaling to his men. Two of them came in and untied her.

The thought of seeing John again, hearing his voice, feeling his touch, had her so keyed up she hardly noticed Del's men gripping her arms with bruising force as they led her down the hall and into a different corridor, one that was even colder and fouler smelling than her own.

The moment they opened the door, she rushed inside, exclaiming John's name as he stood up.

"Leah?" The look on his face changed from shock to relief and joy, all in the few seconds it took her to cross the room.

The door slammed shut, locking them inside the murky room, but Leah didn't care. All that mattered was John's arms around her again, his chest pressed against hers, the wonderfully safe, sweaty smell of his body replacing the odor of death in her nose.

How long they stood there, embracing in silence, she didn't know, but eventually he stepped back.

"Are you all right? Did they hurt you? Did they make you...?"

She shook her head, wishing he didn't look so gaunt. She doubted he'd slept at all, unless he'd been drugged like her, and she wondered if he'd been fed or had anything to drink.

"I'm okay. They...they want to sell me to terrorists or the mob!" She hadn't planned on telling him right away, but everything just came pouring out in a flood of words and tears. Del's plans, the fact that she had her Power back and could apparently Cure herself.

"The worst part is he said whoever buys me might not want you, that I might have to convince them to take you too."

"Hey, it's okay." John wrapped her in his arms again, pulled her close. When he spoke, she felt his words against her cheek. "We'll figure something out. We've come this far, we're not going to give up now."

Leah sniffed back tears and mucous. "Del said...he said they were going to kill us both if I couldn't Cure anymore."

"If you couldn't... Wait." He pulled back from her. "Couldn't cure anymore? What do you mean? Is that...is that why you left?"

"No." She shook her head, feeling more tears ready to come on, this time the burning tears of shame. She'd never thought she'd have to explain why she'd run away. "I left because I thought maybe if I was gone you'd be safe. After everything that happened to you, all because of me...I couldn't bear the thought of you getting hurt again."

"I can understand you feeling like that, but, Jesus Christ, couldn't you have talked to me first before taking off? I was worried sick. You should have known I'd go looking for you. If you'd stayed at the motel, we might not even be here now."

"I know!" Leah moved away, wishing there were something she could kick or punch, but the room was barren except for the single dusty light bulb overhead and a large blanket on the floor. "I was stupid and got us in more trouble."

"Hey, I'm sorry." John put his hand out but she stepped away. "I didn't mean it like that. I just... We work together better as a team than by ourselves. If we're gonna get out of this alive, we have to stick together, not be selfish."

"Selfish?" She turned to face him. "Is that what you think I was being? I was trying to save you."

"That's what you intended, but you were selfish because you weren't thinking about what I wanted, or how your actions would affect me. You came up with an idea and just did it. That's not how partners act."

"I'm not your partner." Leah knew she sounded like a petulant teenager, but his "selfish" comment had struck a nerve.

"That's right, you're not." For the first time, a note of anger crept into John's voice. "I thought you were more than that. Maybe I was wrong."

"You did? Think I was more than that?" Leah's heart did a happy dance. Did he mean what she thought he meant?

"Of course." John reached for her, and this time she didn't shy away. He took her hands in his, gripped them tight. "I know it's only been a couple of weeks, but I'm crazy about you. I was really hoping that we could...that this would...you know," he finished lamely.

Unable to resist a little teasing, Leah shook her head. "No, I don't," she said. "What do you mean?" She tried to hold back a smile but couldn't. Ever observant, John noticed it right away. He opened his mouth to respond, but she put her finger against his lips, stopping him.

"I know exactly what you mean," she whispered, pressing herself closer to him. "I feel the same way. And you were right; I was acting selfish and stupid. I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted," he said, his lips moving against hers as they both leaned toward each other. The kiss went quickly from a gentle pressure to full-on lip-smashing, tongue-wrestling pa.s.sion. When they finally separated, they were both out of breath.

"Wow," John said. "That was-"

"Nothing compared to what's coming." Leah gave him a wink and started to unb.u.t.ton her blouse.

"Wait." John looked around the room. "This isn't very private. I'm sure they have cameras hidden somewhere."

"So let them watch." She dropped her shirt and reached back to unsnap her bra, part of her amazed she was acting so boldly, part of her too fed up to give a d.a.m.n. "This might be our last night together. I don't intend to waste it."

Her bra joined her shirt on the floor, and from the look in John's eyes, she knew he no longer cared about cameras either.

Then she let her thoughts go blank and lost herself in the magic of John's hands and mouth.

And she made sure he couldn't call her selfish.

Chapter Six.

Tal Nova had just turned his computer off and grabbed his jacket when the intercom buzzed, eliciting a quick curse. He'd hoped to make a quick exit without talking to the old man.

He picked up the phone.

"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Marsh."

"I just got information on where the DeGarmo woman is being held."

"If it's a meat-packing plant in Elmira, I got the same news a few minutes ago and I'm getting ready to lead a team up there." Another half-truth, but one the old man would be so happy to hear he wouldn't bother checking the details.

"Good. This is a top priority, Tal. I want her brought home unharmed and filled with grat.i.tude for her rescue. Don't let me down."