Hyper Lynx (The Lynx Series Book 6) by Fiona Quinn (ebook reader for pc and android TXT) 📗

the middle between Spyder and Mom as Stan, Dad’s cop buddy, drove.

No one spoke. It had been a very quiet day.

Pay attention was the impression I was picking up from that parental energy behind my shoulder. It was like my parents were right there in the car with us. All I had to do was turn my head, and there they’d be.

This sensation… I both liked and didn’t like this. I wanted my parents to be near, to guide me. I thought that was a thing. Sort of like praying. But this wasn’t supportive as much as it was anxiety-producing.

When I thought that, I got another distinct impression that they wanted me to feel angst.

Was that a thing?

I have a friend, Sophia. She was haunted by a…mmm, my mind wanted to call it a ghost, but it wasn’t. It was something right out of Hollywood—The Mummy. Sophia was an archaeologist who accidentally removed a ring from a sacred place. And until she found a way to put it back, her life had been a series of horrific events.

Maybe I’d picked up some kind of being—some force—masquerading as my parents?

No, that…that didn’t seem right.

This sensation was stressful. And to be honest, I was full up on stress today.

If this kept up, I’d talk to someone who might have experience—like a medium or something. Maybe my mentor Miriam Laugherty, who helped me develop my ESP skills, would know. Though, I didn’t remember her ever saying that she could commune with dead people.

There weren’t a lot of folks I’d talk openly about such sensations.

If this was my mom and dad, I should listen if they were trying to warn me.

And if this was the brain trauma… Well, I’d have to report that to Dr. Carlon.

Thinking my brain was manifesting hallucinations was a whole lot scarier than thinking my parents were haunting me.

Remember. You must remember, something in my head was saying.

Remember what?

I wriggled uncomfortably in my seat.

Yeah, I’d never experienced something like this before.

Striker reached for my hand. “You’re singing it again.”

I turned to him. “What’s that?”

He was off the phone now. “If my kindergarten memory serves me right, that’s London Bridges.”

“Huh. Probably just thinking about London Davidson.” She was, after all, planning that big pre-wedding shindig that no one—outside of Christen’s dad’s friends—wanted to attend. It would put me face to face with the Assembly. And I loathed them all.

“Not a knowing?”

Hmmm, a knowing?

I had two that I generally relied on.

When I got the heebie-jeebies, I knew it was time to get the heck out of Dodge because I was imminently at risk. The few times I ignored those feelings that screamed “run!” were the times that I came to regret.

I didn’t have heebie-jeebies right now. That part of me felt calm.

The second way was much more cryptic. When knowings showed up, a crisis headed my way. Usually, those warnings flashed like bright throbbing red words. Danger! Danger!

Striker had brought London Bridges to my attention. It didn’t feel like a knowing. There was no oscillating background with throbbing neon-colored words painted across my psyche.

I supposed it was nothing.

I hoped it was nothing.

But now, with this weird sensation of my parent’s etheric concern and just a general “get ready, it’s going to be bad” trepidation, this next week felt perilous.

Chapter Twelve

Once we presented our IDs at Langley’s guard station, parked, and walked the expansive lot, we’d made it to the front doors of the CIA.

Luckily, the rain had stopped.

 Oliver, a suit with a noncommittal expression, met Striker and me out front, guided us through the doors, and badged us past security.

Our footfalls on the highly polished terrazzo clacked sound waves into the gleaming white halls, where they bounced and echoed.

It was a lonely sound.

I’ve been here on several occasions. There was a mausoleum-like quality to those cold stone walls. This somberness must be hard to walk into each day and maintain warmth and contentment as a person. To me, the sterility was dispiriting.

Iniquus could be that way.

When our guests came into the front atrium, they were met with designed rigidity. The monotone was supposed to have a machine-like quality to it, everything humming along.

The colors were chrome and black. The workers’ clothing styles depended on their job titles, but always in requisite grays.

Except for me. Command preferred that I stand out amongst the Iniquus throng, wearing bright colors. It was a psychological stratagem that worked like a charm. Amongst the military-like hardness, I was a spot of soft and gentle. The bad guy could tell me all the secrets because I was different, benign, an ally against the hard men in gray.

Though Striker was dressed in a suit and tie for this meeting, he’d be back in his camouflage tactical pants and his gray compression shirt this afternoon when he returned to the Iniquus campus.

Striker makes anything he wears look good, and his dress pants sure did good things for my libido, but his shoulders were too broad, his biceps too pronounced for him to look comfortable in the confining cut and fabric of a suit coat.

I wanted to reach for Striker’s hand, but such a move was frowned upon in a business setting.

When I twitched as if to reach for him, he seemed to remember that he and our guide were both well over six feet tall, and my legs were much shorter. Running to keep up with their aggressive gait made me look ridiculous as I chased after them.

Striker paused and changed his pace to match mine.

We passed by oil paintings of men from long ago, staring down at us as we made our way toward the elevator banks.

There was no buzz here. No conversation. It was as if everything that