With My Soul (4) (The Mile High Club) Read online

  With My Soul

  By

  Jade Powers

  With My Soul

  Copyright Aug 6, 2018 Jade Powers

  All rights reserved. Written permission from the author must be secured to use or reproduce any part of this book except for brief excerpts to provide critical review or articles.

  The characters and settings in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons or locations is coincidental.

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  The Mile High Club

  The Mile High Club

  Book 1: In My Heart

  Book 2: On My Mind

  Book 3: In My Life

  Book 4: With My Soul

  Book 5: All My Strength

  Book 6: All My Passion

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  The End

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 1

  ~~ MIAMI, FL APRIL 1998~~

  Bryce Langden tucked the dragon statuette into a mug while students behind him strolled by. He waited just long enough before leaving the store to transfer the blue and green dragon to his pocket. Even though he was in the University of Miami bookstore, this was not technically stealing. His father had hidden the statue in plain sight on a bottom shelf behind knickknacks. There were plenty of students into D&D who would have loved a tiny dragon statue, but his dad was savvy enough to hide it in a place where only Bryce would find it.

  Just one problem. As Bryce slipped through the crowds, he realized that he was being watched. Two men tracked him. They could only want one thing, the mind-control prototype hidden away inside the statuette. Bryce walked until he was at the edge of the crowd. Then he sprinted away, zigzagging down the hallway and ducking outside. Holding his sides while he caught his breath, Bryce looked over his shoulder.

  He’d lost them.

  After a moment of rest, he had to decide which way to go. He was surviving on wits alone. Feeling a prickle between his shoulder blades, Bryce glanced over his shoulder again. A burly man had just pushed open the door and was now speaking into a walkie-talkie. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what he was saying. Which was good, because despite his father’s work in the medical tech field, his son, Bryce, was not a genius.

  Bryce ran down the sidewalk and across the foot bridge, passing two more men coming down the long stairs that skateboarders loved to trick down. He hauled ass out of there. His long legs carried him across the foot bridge and past the lake with the fountain. The student housing surrounded the lake toward the south. Speeding across the footpath, Bryce noted a student walking ahead, but she was still several yards away. He thought he heard shouts behind him and turned his head while still running.

  Misjudging the distance, he plowed headlong into the woman. She was about his age, and he felt terrible for misjudging the distance. Bryce picked up her backpack and snuck the dragon statuette out of his pocket and into the bag. He would have to figure out how to retrieve the statue back later. He held out a hand to help her up and said, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  She said, “It’s okay.”

  Seeing two of his followers exit the building, Bryce didn’t waste any time. He fled down the path. His only chance was to hide in one of the dorms. He ducked into a squat white building with two wings. Three stories tall, it was small compared to the two towers further down. The building was secure, and he couldn’t go upstairs. Still, it was better to be in a populated area with people who could call for help.

  Bryce didn’t want to draw attention to himself. The worst thing that could happen would be to hide in a place like Eaton and have the RD call security. The high tech corporate spy world would be all over that phone call and have Bryce before the RD and Security even hung up.

  He waited in Eaton for about twenty minutes. The men would have run past by now. Bryce used the back entrance that opened to the parking lot. He didn’t see anyone suspicious as he left.

  Across the parking lot and further back at the edge of campus were apartments. Bryce ran for it. He ducked into the stairwell for the second apartment building nearest the Metro Rail and climbed the first set of stairs. There was a space in the corner where he could stand and no one would see him. He wouldn’t be able to see the goons after him, but they wouldn’t see him either.

  The men would probably assume he had left campus. It was the smart thing to do. The only problem was that he knew at least five men were chasing him. They knew what he looked like. He had no idea how many people might be hunting him down or who they were. That gave them a double advantage. As long as they thought he had the sphere, they wouldn’t give up. His best option was to go to ground and escape under cover of night.

  Standing against a wall for longer than five minutes gets really boring. Bryce closed his eyes and pretended he was a super-hero rescuing a damsel in distress. Funny, that. Since Bryce found himself in trouble and there were no damsels anywhere nearby. Maybe he needed someone to rescue him.

  He was deep into his fantasy when the door three feet from him opened and the cutest girl he had ever seen stepped out. Technically she was a woman now, probably in her early twenties like him. She had long, flowing, white-gold hair. He couldn’t see her eyes yet. If he’d given it any thought at all, he would have run back down the stairs instead of gawking at her.

  She slammed the door shut and deftly locked it, swinging her purse over her shoulder. She turned. When she saw Bryce, the woman screamed and jumped. She grabbed her key ring and maced the hell out of him.

  He screeched and held his arms over his head, even though the mace had already gotten his face and made his eyes water. He cried out, “Don’t!”

  “Why the hell are you stalking me? What do you want? I don’t have any money on me, you perv,” The woman yelled at him.

  Bryce wanted to put his hands up in a friendly, non-threatening gesture, but he was too busy covering his eyes. Eyes and nose running, Bryce coughed. The woman stepped back to her door, hiding behind it, ready to slam the door shut and lock it at a moment’s notice. Bryce needed to hide here for a few more hours, especially now that he had no sight.

  “Ma’am, please. I swear I was being chased and I just came here to hide. If you go on campus, you’ll find men looking for me. I’m not a criminal. I know how crazy this sounds. I’m not going to hurt you. If you could please just let me call my friends, I swear I won’t hurt you. I swear.”

  “Fine. I’m going to get a wet towel and you can wipe your eyes, but I’m not letting you into my apartment. And I’m meeting my friend for dinner. I’ll be late if I don’t leave now. You can hide here in the stairwell until I get back, then I’ll go into the apartment by myself and call any number you give me and tell them where to pick you up. Fair?”

  “Okay.”

  It wasn’t as if Bryce had any bartering power at all. He huddled in the corner, in pain while his eyes ran and snot flooded down his lips—everything on fire. He rubbed his eyes with his hands and then his hands burned.

  Bryce barely registered that the woman had already soaked a towel until
he felt the wet slap on his head. She’d actually just dropped the towel on the top of his head. Some part of Bryce was offended, even though he knew it was silly. He was in the wrong here, well not completely in the wrong, it wasn’t as if he had planned to assault the girl or anything, but the point was...SHE ASSAULTED HIM. To slap his face with a towel was just adding insult to injury.

  He might have said as much, but she was already down the stairs and on her way to dinner, and he certainly didn’t want to yell out and have his dad’s kidnappers on his heels. He sank to his butt and leaned against the wall. At least it was clean. He held the towel over his eyes and listened to the sounds outside the stairwell.

  At one point Bryce heard the screeching of tires. He heard footsteps running, but it was only a single pair and the methodical plodding of the strikes indicated a jogger more than a student fleeing for his life. Every sound loomed large in Bryce’s imagination. When he heard a car door slam, he imagined his kidnappers surrounding him. When a man called across campus, Bryce shrank further against the wall and felt very much alone.

  His eyes hurt, but at least he was hidden for now. Bryce held the towel against his face. When he heard two women’s voices coming toward the apartment, he looked around for a hiding place.

  The woman from earlier called up, “Hey, are you still here?”

  She brought reinforcements.

  Bryce called back, “Still here.”

  Gail jogged up the stairs past him, her friend in tow. As she passed Bryce, she said, “I’m Gail. This is Shelly. Come in.”

  Bryce couldn’t see much through his blurry vision, but the fuzzy image of Gail looked pretty. Her long white-blonde hair swung over a blue silk blouse. That hair and her willingness to mace his face attracted Bryce like nothing else.

  “You believe me?” Bryce scrambled up, following the women into the apartment. He handed Gail her towel back. He added, “You might want to wash this by itself. I’m not sure if mace spreads through other laundry or not.

  Gail took the towel but wasn’t in any hurry to do anything with it. She peered intently at Bryce, as if studying his soul with x-ray eyes. She said, “A woman was kidnapped from the campus an hour ago. Do you know anything about that?”

  “Kidnapped? From where?” Bryce asked. He thought of the statuette he’d planted in that college woman’s backpack. Surely no one had seen him.

  “Just outside the student union. Everyone is talking about it.” Gail said. “It’s a little peculiar that you turn up here right when it happened.”

  “I swear I didn’t kidnap anyone, but the guys I ran away from...that’s something they would have done. Do you have a description of the woman they took?”

  “No one said.” Gail invited Bryce to sit at the dining table. She tossed the towel into a basket in the bedroom. Despite her earlier mistrust, Gail handed him a box of tissue, which was a good thought since her assault had caused his every facial orifice to water. She came out with a wireless phone, and handed it to him. “Here’s the phone.”

  “I need to call long distance. I’ll call collect.” Bryce said. He called his mom.

  It didn’t help that his mom started crying.

  Bryce sniffed, the mace still sending rivers of mucus through his nose. He wasn’t crying. “Mom, I’m fine. No, I haven’t seen Dad. He’s here, though. I didn’t mean to worry you.” Which was male code for, We were both kidnapped, they still have Dad, and I don’t want to upset you further. He had no idea what she would do if she found out he was being chased by a bunch of mercenaries.

  “Where are you? What’s going on?”

  As calmly as possible, Bryce said, “I’m in Miami.”

  “Miami? What in blazes are you doing there?” Bryce winced and pulled the phone away from his ear while his mother yelled.

  “It’s a long story. Can you find Drake and Sven’s phone numbers for me? They’re Dad’s bosses at AIT.”

  “I have them in the book. Where is your father? He should be with you.”

  “Mom, Dad can’t help me. I’m stuck at the University of Miami with no way to contact him. Please?”

  “I’m looking them up. Just a sec. I don’t know why you would need those numbers anyway. These are your father’s bosses. He won’t appreciate you disturbing them.” His mom grumbled.

  “Please, Mom. I need them.” Bryce gritted his teeth in frustration. This is what he got for being kidnapped and protecting his mother from the truth. Getting on the plane to Miami was his fault, though. Bryce couldn’t be angry at his parents when he had acted like a complete idiot.

  His dad was in danger, and that was one hundred percent his fault.

  His mother did one of those great guilt-inducing mother sighs and said, “I don’t know what possessed you to fly to Miami without a word to anyone. If you have a pen and paper ready, I can give you those numbers. You had better be safe. Find your father and get home.”

  “I will.” Bryce mimed pen and paper. Gail quickly grabbed a pad and pen from one of the drawers and slid it across the counter to Bryce. He quickly scribbled the numbers as his mother read them off to him.

  With a long suffering sigh, his mother said, “I will wait here for you and your father to return since you seem to think that a vacation in Miami without me was the best way to go”

  “Mom, trust me, this was no vacation.” Bryce wasn’t about to tell his mom that Dad was still held by corporate militia. Let Drake or Sven do that.

  His mom sniffed and said, “I love you.”

  Great, she started crying again. Dad said that women did that in their forties. Bryce was convinced it was some good-cop, bad-cop scheme his parents made up to keep him on edge. He rolled his eyes so that Gail could see him and then said to his mom, “I love you, too. I’ve gotta go. Thanks, Mom.”

  Bryce hung up the phone. He glanced up at Gail. “One more call.”

  He called Sven. Gail’s eyes grew wide when he told Sven that he and his father had been kidnapped and that his father was last held at the Moonwake Hotel. Her eyebrows lifted when he mentioned some kind of statue and the woman who had been kidnapped from campus.

  Shelly just looked shook her head and rolled her eyes, standing with a hand on her hip.

  GAIL LEANED AGAINST the counter, watching Bryce. His eyes were still red, and his nose was running like a faucet, but after listening to that Mama’s boy phone conversation, Gail no longer worried that Bryce was the latest serial killer cum college student. She said, “There’s a story here. Tell you what, you can take a shower here if you’ll tell us everything that’s going on, from start to finish. Deal?”

  Getting water on his face to wash out his eyes sounded like a stellar plan to Bryce. He said, “If I can shower first, it’s a deal.”

  “Say what?” Shelly’s arms were crossed and the scowl on her face could scare the Grim Reaper. She shook her head, “Do not let him in your bathroom. You don’t even know the guy. Plus, a woman was kidnapped from campus just a few hours ago.”

  “I’m fairly certain since there is no one tied up in my apartment, that Bryce had nothing to do with it,” Gail said. She smiled ruefully at her friend, “I appreciate the backup, though. Just hang out for a few hours. I think his story will be worth it.”

  “Sorry, Gail. I saw you home. If you want to kick him out now, no one would blame you, but I’m not sticking around.” Shelly looked Bryce over, waiting for Gail’s answer.

  “He’s not going to hurt me. Are you?” Gail asked pointedly.

  Bryce said, “No way.”

  “See?”

  “Then I’ll see you at dinner tomorrow, if you’re sure you don’t want to party with me.” Shelly was already halfway to the door. From the interchange, Bryce got the feeling that Gail never accompanied Shelly at party-time.

  “Thanks Shel. Maybe next time.”

  Gail found Bryce another towel and showed him the bathroom. It occurred to him that what she was offering was intensely personal in a way. A bathroom was a private place, where
sales people and acquaintances did not go. He was grateful for the help.

  Bryce stepped into the shower, expecting relief. What he got was a face-full of sharp and painful water. Something about the combination of the water and chemicals just made it hurt more. He stood under the water until he thought he would drown. His nose was still running. His face hurt. Despite the pain, the water was doing its job.

  When Bryce stepped out of the bathroom, Gail was alone. Curled up on the couch with a book, she looked completely at ease even with a complete stranger in her house. Bryce said, “I owe you a story, but I don’t think you’ll believe me.”

  “Tell me the whole thing, start to finish. I don’t care if it’s wild...just lay it on me.” Gail’s long blonde hair had fallen across her face when she was reading. Now she tucked it back behind an ear, and waved Bryce to the arm chair across from the sofa.

  Bryce lowered himself with a groan. He said, “I’ll start at the beginning.”

  It all started with Advanced Innovative Technologies and a mind control device. Bryce didn’t actually know anything about what his father worked on, not the mind control device, not the neurotransmitters. Everything at the company was confidential and top secret. He found out the specifics later, from the kidnappers.

  After a quick summary of his dad’s work, Bryce said, “I didn’t know they were after him. I was contacted by a friend of my dad’s. At least I thought he was a friend. Vice President Kendall of SpaceTech. I thought he ran with Drake and Sven and all of the guys at the company where he works. He told me he’d deposit fifteen thousand dollars into a bank account with my name, and all I had to do was catch a flight to Miami.”

  Gail laughed with one of those disbelieving barks of a laugh that said, And you fell for it.

  Bryce lifted his arms and said, “I’m not gullible. Look, these guys flash money. Contracting with the government is lucrative. He told me exactly what AIT was working on. Mind control devices, implantable in humans. He asked me to work for him awhile. I figured he wanted me to do security or something. He said I’d be in Miami for at least three weeks, but not to tell my family where I was going. He said it was dangerous, and he didn’t want my dad angry.”