Payback

Lynn White:

With enhanced senses and superspeed and strength, this retrieval specialist can breach any security—but has she been working for the wrong side?

DECEIVED by Carla Cassidy

Faith Corbett:

This powerful psychic’s secret talent could make her the target of a serial killer—and a prime suspect for murder.

CONTACT by Evelyn Vaughn

Dawn O’Shaughnessy:

Her superhealing abilities make her nearly invincible, but can she heal the internal wounds from years of deception?

PAYBACK by Harper Allen

ATHENA FORCE: The adventure continues with three secret sisters, three unusual talents and one unthinkable legacy….

January

E-MAIL MEMO—URGENT & CONFIDENTIAL

To: Cassandras<Alexandra Forsythe, Darcy Allen, Tory Patton, Samantha St. John, Josie Lockworth>

From: Lt. Kayla Ryan

Re: Lab 33 assassin Dawn O’Shaughnessy

Phys. Description: 22, 5’7”, blonde, green eyes

Capabilities: Extraordinary strength, agility; possibly other enhanced capabilities

Skills (partial list): Weaponry, martial arts, hand-to-hand combat, stealth, B & E

Background: O’Shaughnessy conceived in vitro with egg retrieved from former Athena Academy student Rainy Miller, whose recent murder by Lab 33’s Lee Craig, code name Cipher, is being investigated by the Cassandras. Retrieval conducted by Dr. Henry Reagon under guise of an appendectomy. Actual purpose: genetic manipulation experiment headed by Dr. Aldrich Peters of Lab 33. Eggs fertilized with sperm from Navy SEAL Thomas King, whose sperm sample was stolen from a fertility clinic. Neither Rainy nor Tom King were aware of procedure carried out by Peters. Fertilized egg implanted in surrogate mother; child taken at birth to Lab 33 in New Mexico to be raised under Peters’s supervision. Subject has no knowledge of her true background; believes her black-ops instructor, Lee Craig, is her uncle.

Note: Subject actively working against the Cassandras; must be considered extremely dangerous.

Update: Subject has been told the truth about her parentage. Her failure to kill Thomas King as per Aldrich Peters’s instructions and her elimination of Dr. Carl Bradford to save Kayla and Jazz Ryan’s lives indicate that O’Shaughnessy is no longer an immediate threat. In fact, she has vowed to take down Lab 33 by herself. She will be given this memo and other documentation in the hope that learning more of the truth will encourage her to join forces with the Cassandras against—

The memo police lieutenant Kayla Ryan was holding—the memo she herself had written and securely e-mailed to her best friends, the Athena Academy graduates known as the Cassandras, and that she had updated only two days ago—had been torn in two at that point. On the back was a handwritten note, unsigned, asking Kayla to meet the writer at the Athena Academy gymnasium, which was usually deserted over Christmas break. Taking a deep breath, Kayla pushed open the double doors of the gym and saw a lithe figure pummeling the hell out of a workout bag.

She approached, noting the dampness darkening the honey-blond hair that had been secured into a thick braid, the sheen of exertion gleaming on the tanned midriff revealed between the low-rise sweatpants and the racer-back top. The only thing impossible to see was what was going on behind Dawn O’Shaughnessy’s gold-green eyes.

Kayla held up the scrap of memo. “You read this?”

A volley of punches slammed into the workout bag. Dawn stepped back. “I read it. It sums up everything you told me at your house a few days ago.” She paused. “It’s not every day a girl finds out her whole freakin’ life has been a lie.”

Kayla frowned. “You understand now why Samantha St. John had no recourse but to take down your uncle two months ago?”

“If I’d known then what I know now, I would have done it myself,” Dawn replied. “And I’d appreciate if you didn’t refer to Lee Craig as my uncle. He lied to me. He killed my biological mother. He let me go on an assignment to kill my biological father. What I felt for him is as dead as he is.”

Kayla’s gaze sharpened. When Kayla had told Dawn about her parentage three days ago, Dawn had shown no emotion. But now…. Unless she was mistaken, there were pinpricks of moisture glittering at the corners of those brilliant green eyes. I knew Lee Craig as the Cipher, she thought, the world’s most deadly assassin. But he was the only family Dawn had. Knowing he lied to her is tearing her in two—and until she deals with that conflict, she’s a ticking time bomb.

She kept her tone conversational. “There must be a part of you that wishes you could see him one more time, if only to ask him how he could betray you so terribly.”

Without warning, Dawn faced the workout bag again and exploded into action, her gloved fists a blur. Kayla started when the bag split asunder, the sand it was filled with pouring out in a stream and the chain securing it giving way, solid steel links spilling to the floor like broken teeth. She’d hoped to get through to the woman, Kayla thought. Instead she’d set off a powder keg.

Dawn looked down at the destroyed bag. “Yeah, I’d like to see Lee Craig once more. Because it should be him lying here. If there were any justice, his death should have come at the hands of the woman he raised to follow in his footsteps.” She backed away. “I’ll have to content myself with going after my darling Uncle Lee’s boss, Dr. Aldrich Peters…but for my own reasons, not the Cassandras’. I want payback.”

Compassion filled Kayla. “Payback won’t erase the pain. You should talk to someone—”

“No offense, Ryan, but I don’t need advice on how to deal.” Dawn’s expression was shuttered. “You and your friends think you know everything there is about me. Want a demonstration of something that didn’t make it into my file?”

Swiftly she reached down to her ankle. She straightened, and Kayla saw the small, snub-nosed automatic she was holding as Dawn flicked off the weapon’s safety and jammed the muzzle against her upper arm.

“No!” Kayla grabbed for the gun, but too late. The shot’s explosion echoed deafeningly. “Dammit—why?”

Even as the shocked question left her she was wrenching the weapon away and grabbing a nearby towel. “Stanch the blood with this while I get help.”

“I told you, I don’t need help with the healing.” Dawn looked down at the wound. “Already reconstructing,” she said, her smile oddly bitter. “Hurts like hell but that’ll pass, too.”

“Already recon—” Kayla’s horror turned into bafflement. “Your body’s knitting itself back together!” she gasped. “Your arm…it’s as if—as if—” In silence she watched as the last traces of the wound disappeared, leaving only a few smears of blood. “It’s as if you were never shot,” she said unevenly. “We guessed that Peters was doing genetic experiments, but this is—”

Dawn’s smile thinned. “Freakish?” she suggested. “When I believed my regeneration was a gift of nature, I thought it meant I was special. Lee Craig lied about that, too.”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Kayla denied hotly. “Your impressive demonstration aside, I still think you should seek help with the healing process. You’ll never be able to move on till you do.”

“I’ve already moved on.” Dawn picked up a sports bag by her feet. “Like I said, I’m going to take down Lab 33.”

“The Cassandras have another assignment we’d like you to consider first.” She’d wanted to broach the subject less bluntly, Kayla thought, but from the start this meeting hadn’t gone the way she’d expected.

“Find someone else. Aldrich Peters is my business. He has been since the day twenty-three years ago when he played God with my genetic makeup.”

“Not only yours,” Kayla retorted. “We believe there was at least one other child born from Rainy Miller’s egg. A baby girl. She was kidnapped at birth, possibly because Carl Bradford leaked Peters’s plans to an interested party. Don’t you want to find your sister before turning your attention to Peters?”

“A sister like me?” Letting go of the sports bag, Dawn gripped Kayla’s arms fiercely. “Another woman who was manipulated by Peters the way I was?”

“We have no idea whether her abilities would be like yours,” Kayla explained swiftly, shaken by the raw emotion in the younger woman’s tone. “Or if she even has any. That doesn’t change the fact that, if she’s alive, she’s your—”

“So I’m still alone.” Dawn’s arms fell to her sides. “I guess it was crazy of me to hope…” Her movements stiff, she started to pick up the bag again, but Kayla stopped her.

“Hope what?”

Dawn faced her directly. “That I’d found someone to share the nightmares with. When I was working for Lab 33 I told myself I was on the side of the good guys, but that doesn’t change the fact that I was judge, jury and executioner. Lee was the only one who understood how I felt.”

“The only difference being, he carried out every assignment Peters gave him,” Kayla reminded her sharply. “He deliberately chose the dark side, Dawn.”

“And so did Aldrich Peters.” The younger woman’s features tightened. “The Cassandras want me to find my sister before I turn my sights on Peters. Fair enough, but if you’re hoping she’ll be able to help me in this healing process you say I need, forget it. I heal just fine all by myself.”

Without another word, she strode to the exit, her posture ramrod-stiff. Instead of following her, Kayla watched her go.

“That’s just it, O’Shaughnessy, I don’t think you will heal all by yourself this time,” she said under her breath. “If you don’t…” She glanced at the shattered steel chain, the destroyed workout bag. “If you don’t, neither you nor the Cassandras have a chance of walking away from this alive. And from what I know of him, that’s exactly what Aldrich Peters will be counting on.”