Frantic Minds: Forbidden Minds, #5

By R.A. Rock

 

Their escape ended in capture. Now they've got nothing left to lose…

Gracie has a broken heart, but The Agency intends to break her spirit too. The four Protectors have been sent to the far corners of the universe to live as slaves. Each day, Gracie must cope with the pain of her final, devastating fight with Shiv. She refuses to be broken in her own personal hell.

Shiv wishes he could see Gracie one last time. He's terrified that The Agency will win once and for all and that his friends will remain a distant memory. Shiv can't help but wonder if a reunion with the other four Protectors would simply show just how much damage has been done…

As Gracie, Shiv, Chad, and Yumi battle their demons in an attempt to reunite, they realize they can no longer live life on the defensive. It's time to defeat The Agency and restore order to the universe.  Can they survive their torture long enough to find each other again and achieve an impossible victory?

 

Frantic Minds is the fifth book in a series of sci-fi romance novels. If you like sizzling chemistry, constantly evolving plots, and a full range of emotions in one book, then you'll love the latest installment in R.A. Roque's Forbidden Minds series.

Note: Frantic Minds contains a cliffhanger ending that is resolved in the sixth book of the series: Defiant Minds.

Buy Frantic Minds today to start a sci-fi revolution!

 

Forbidden Minds series order...
1. Forbidden Minds
2. Wild Minds
3. Frozen Minds
4. Secret Minds
5. Frantic Minds
6. Dangerous Minds

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Windy Point Publishing Inc.
• Release date: Apr 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386263500

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title Page

About Frantic Minds

Dedication

1 - Insubordination

2 - No Escape

3 - Sheer Paradise

4 - Fairy Godmother

5 - A Whisper in My Mind

6 - Dead by Now

7 - Wounds

8 - Sheer Torment

9 - You Would Cry, Too

10 - No More Rainbows

11 - Left for Dead

12 - No Such Thing as Unicorns

13 - Fix Me

14 - Escape from Paradise

15 - Broke

16 - A Showman

17 - Significance

18 - Lucid

19 - Manticor

20 - Fancy Meeting You Here

21 - A Childish Infatuation

22 - Never Coming Back

23 - Clarity

24 - The Soul Bond

25 - Trying to Help

26 - The Well

27 - Awakening

28 - The Whole Story

29 - Solitary

30 - Baby Steps

31 - Just Ask

32 - Eavesdropping

33 - Yumi Is Right

34 - Taking Down The Agency

35 - Precocious

36 - Alone Time

37 - Strong and Beautiful

38 - Shattered

39 - Drunk

40 - Take Me

41 - I Need You

42 - In the Morning Light

43 - The Return

44 - A Revolution

45 - Let’s Do This

Dangerous Minds

Gotta find out what happens!

Author’s Note

Other Books by the Author

About the Author

Copyright Page

Their escape ended in capture. Now they’ve got nothing left to lose…

Gracie has a broken heart, but The Agency intends to break her spirit too. The four Protectors have been sent to the far corners of the universe to live as slaves. Each day, Gracie must cope with the pain of her final, devastating fight with Shiv. She refuses to be broken in her own personal hell.

Shiv wishes he could see Gracie one last time. He’s terrified that The Agency will win once and for all and that his friends will remain a distant memory. Shiv can’t help but wonder if a reunion with the other four Protectors would simply show just how much damage has been done…

As Gracie, Shiv, Chad, and Yumi battle their demons in an attempt to reunite, they realize they can no longer live life on the defensive. It’s time to defeat The Agency and restore order to the universe. Can they survive their torture long enough to find each other again and achieve an impossible victory?

Frantic Minds is the fifth book in a series of sci-fi romance novels. If you like sizzling chemistry, constantly evolving plots, and a full range of emotions in one book, then you’ll love the latest installment in R.A. Roque’s Forbidden Minds series.

Note: Frantic Minds contains a cliffhanger ending that is resolved in the sixth book of the series: Dangerous Minds.

dedicated to everyone trying to find their way back to love

The lash tore into my back, but I bit my lip and didn’t scream. It was white-hot agony, but I didn’t want to give my supervisor the satisfaction of hearing my pain. I closed my eyes, pulling air in through my nose and smelling the musty scent of the mines, waiting for the whip to descend again. When it did, it hurt twice as much this time, and I drew in a shaky breath.

I had earned ten lashes for insubordination: i.e., I went to the morning shift supervisor to request better working conditions for the Kinetics here on Manticor.

The planet has this weird magnetic field that shifts back and forth quickly. It’s not at all like on Earth, where the field only shifts every ten thousand years. Here it goes back and forth every few hours, which totally messes with the brain waves that we use to move things with our minds. This results in massive headaches for most of us as we work our sixteen-hour shifts, moving huge piles of rock in the mines.

I happen to know that The Agency has developed a simple hat that shields Kinetics from these sorts of fluctuations in the magnetic field since I had used one in my training when working on other similar planets.

But apparently, The Agency isn’t in charge here — the Mantins are. At least, that’s what my supervisor told me before he sentenced me to ten lashes in front of everyone and pulled out a huge nasty-looking whip. Then he told me to take off my shirt — leaving me only in my white cotton sports bra — and tied me with my arms up so that I was almost hanging from one of the rock outcroppings. My long red hair was in a neat bun, though wisps of hair were curling around my head from the heat. The entire shift was gathered around and forced to watch while he beat me.

The third lash hit directly above the first two, and I struggled to stay silent. The pain was overwhelming. I’ve never broken a bone or even burned myself very badly. I had never felt pain like this in my life before. My eyes were watering, and I felt a small, sorry feeling welling up inside of me, and though it wasn’t nearly as strong as my terror, it covered up the fear for the moment.

Why was he doing this to me? I hadn’t done anything wrong.

I twisted my head a bit and caught sight of my supervisor out of the corner of my eye. His leather uniform was black, and it left his arms bare. The huge muscles stood out on his whip arm as he drew it back with a nasty grin. Crack! The leather ripped through my skin, and I was panting with the pain of it, sweat dripping off my forehead.

No one made a sound. No one lifted a hand to help me. And he had placed the collar around my neck that kept me from using my powers so that I couldn’t help myself. My stomach knotted in a ball, and I thought I would throw up.

How many was that now?

With a hiss, the whip descended — three more times, one after the other, cutting across the stripes that I already had across my back and tearing them more. I screamed then. I couldn’t help it. And the tears poured down my cheeks.

If only my Circle were here, this Mantin would be sorry. If only Shiv were here. He wouldn’t let him do this to me. He wouldn’t stand idly by like the others, too scared to risk their own necks.

I began to sob, shriek, and moan in agony as he hit me over and over, going way past ten in his cruel zeal. My body twisted back and forth as my legs gave out, and I hung there in the air, trying to get away from the pain but failing. My blood dripping down my back.

At the thought of Shiv, though, the sudden pain in my heart was so much more than the pain in my body that it took my breath away.

Come to think of it, I honestly didn’t know what Shiv would do. We had parted with angry words on our lips. We had said bitter things to each other.

We had broken up.

And now I was alone. On a cruel, alien world. With my Circle light-years away and unaware of my plight. Each of us in a different corner of the universe.

And I hadn’t apologized to Shiv.

The thought made me ill.

Because now, I might never get to tell him I was sorry.

Because I probably would never see any of them again.

Take off the collar, he ordered someone. It’s in the way.

I guess he had run out of unbroken skin on my back and needed more, and that’s why he had them remove it. I froze as I felt the collar leave my neck. I was free to use my powers again. But just then the lash sliced through my mess of a back once more, and the pain was too much — my mind retreated, dropping quickly into the blessed darkness of unconsciousness.

One week earlier…

Y umi! I yelled across the good-size field that held my parents’ garden. The sun was warm on my back, but there was still a cool little breeze blowing the hair away from my face. It was spring in the northern boreal forest. Yumi and I had been planting all day. My back ached, and my fingernails were black with dirt.

My parents produced enough food in this one spot for the entire year. And since we had come back to live with them on Earth, my mother had put Yumi and me to work in the garden. Chad and Shiv were helping my father with some of the heavier work like rebuilding one of sheds, re-shingling the house, and hauling, cutting, and stacking enough wood for next winter.

Why are you yelling, Grace? Her annoyed mental voice spoke in my mind. "We’re fucking Telepaths."

I smiled at her slender form where it was bent over, planting carrots on the other side of the field.

God, I loved Yumi.

Yeah, yeah. I’m wonderful. What do you want? I’m almost done with this job, and I’m not stopping before I’m finished.

Oops. She had heard me.

My mental voice had got so much louder during my training with The Agency that I had to be careful of my thoughts sometimes around her and my brother, Chad, because they were such sensitive Telepaths.

I’m done here, and I’m going to go see if my mom needs any help with supper.

I felt a mental nod and collected my tools and gloves, heading for the gardening shed at the corner of the field. Once everything was stowed exactly in its proper place, the way my father liked it, I skipped toward the house. Then I broke into a run. I was so happy. This past year had been like a dream with the four of us living here with my parents.

They had been so ecstatic to have us back. Because of The Agency’s strict rules, they had thought that they might never see us in person again. The Agency usually doesn’t give Protectors assignments in their own galaxy because they don’t like them getting homesick and wanting to quit. And my parents do okay, but they could never afford the credits it would take to come and visit us at Agency headquarters. So, they had given up on the idea of ever getting to see us again — except on a screen when we called them.

But then Chad and Yumi had found out that The Agency had red-flagged our Circle for having dissident tendencies. They had discovered that we were going to be split up. And we had escaped — barely.

The only reason that The Agency hadn’t come after us was because Yumi had some dirt on our supervisor, Merrywell. Yumi had blackmailed her into convincing them to leave us alone. Or maybe Yumi and Merrywell were friends now and she had agreed to keep our secret. I don’t know.

Merrywell showed up last Christmas asking us for help, and she and Yumi had got trapped in her spacecraft. When they came out, they were both different. Almost like they were friends, which is weird because Yumi hated Merrywell before that, so much so that we had had to stop her from killing the woman at least twice.

So, yeah, Merrywell was keeping our secret for now, but we didn’t know how long it would last, and we had decided that we would need to leave Earth soon. Who knew when a Finder would crack Merrywell’s mind wide open and force her to expose us? It could happen.

It was about a year since we had first got back together and escaped The Agency. We had hoped to have longer on Earth. But Yumi had had a bad feeling for the past week, so we had been making plans and were going to be leaving tomorrow. She didn’t usually have precogs, but we trusted her instinct. And she was definitely champing at the bit to get out of here.

My heart broke to leave my parents, not knowing whether I would ever see them again. But there was no other way. We couldn’t stay here any longer. The last thing any of us wanted was to endanger my parents. We were all packed, and Mom was making a celebratory supper for our last night here. Then we would take off early the next morning. Hopefully, we would be off the planet before the sun set tomorrow.

Something twisted inside me at the thought of leaving this place yet again for the cold, empty depths of space, but I knew we didn’t have a choice. I looked around me at the green forest, the bright flowers that my mother had planted in containers around the small grassed yard that surrounded the house, I smelled the warm scent of sunbaked earth, and heard the birds twittering. Everything felt so innocent, so pure, so young, so right.

How could I leave it?

But I had left it once before, and I could do it again. And when I thought of all that I had gained from my training at The Agency, I would never wish that part of my life away, as hard as it had been. Whatever was coming would give me a chance to learn more, to grow more, to become more. Even if it was negative, it would be something that I needed to transform into the person I was supposed to be.

I knew that.

But it didn’t make the leaving any easier.

A re you insane? Gracie stepped back from me, looking at me like I had two heads. The wind rustled in the poplar leaves overhead, but the calming sound did nothing for me at the moment. The sun had set on our last evening on Earth, and the dusky light made it hard to see Grace where she was standing not far from me. But I was betting she looked pissed.

I’m not insane. You are, I said, folding my arms over my chest. We can’t rush this.

You’re the one who started talking about it back at The Agency. Christ, we’d only just been allowed to see each other again, and you were already dropping the M word.

Gracie’s green eyes were flashing with anger, and her cheeks were pink. Her long, copper-colored curls swung in their ponytail as she walked away from me, then turned and came back.

When she stands next to me, I can rest my chin on her head — she’s that much smaller than me. But you should not underestimate her based on her size or how pretty she is. She’s one of the most powerful Protectors in the galaxy, and nobody ought to mess with her.

I watched as she paced the clearing, feeling frustrated by how hot she looked in the middle of an argument. I didn’t want to think about how sexy she was when I was mad at her.

And the annoying thing was that I knew she was right in a way. I didn’t want to upset her. I didn’t want to have a bunch of conflict about our wedding. That’s not how it should be. And I did want to marry Gracie. There was no other woman I would even consider. Certainly, no other woman could make me as crazy as she does.

But all I could see was my mother’s face when I told her I had gotten married by a justice of the peace at a ceremony with only five people in attendance. I couldn’t do it. It simply was not possible. My mother had let me down in so many ways, but I still loved her with all the fierce protectiveness that a son has for a mother.

I grew up here steeped in North American culture. But she’s straight from India, and having a big wedding, inviting all the family from back home and from here — dancing, feasting. It’s all she’s dreamed about since I turned fifteen. I knew it had nearly killed her to have me go and train with The Agency and she almost hadn’t signed the papers.

If I suddenly messaged her saying that I was married, just like that, it would kill her. If not literally, then it would kill her spirit, and I couldn’t have that.

Of course, Gracie, I said, trying to make my voice soothing, but her ire was up and I would have a hard time making her see reason. I tried anyway. That’s because I want to marry you. That hasn’t changed.

But…

But it’s a big deal to my mother that she plan my wedding…

"That she plan your wedding?" Gracie looked at me like I was the biggest jerk on the planet.

Gracie, you have to understand. My mother is old school. Of course, you would help to plan it. Maybe you might consider wearing a sari for me? I said, making my voice lower and giving her the look that usually made her melt. But it wasn’t working today. She was already too angry.

Now you’re dictating my wedding dress? she said, as if she couldn’t believe what was coming out of my mouth. What will you be like once we’re married, Shiv?

I felt like the next words out of her mouth would be: Who are you and what have you done with my boyfriend?

Okay, let’s calm down here, she said, sitting down on the rock in the middle of the clearing. We were at our meeting place, where we usually made out. But I was pretty sure there wouldn’t be any making out today. Not even my good looks could save me from the hole I had dug for myself. I would have to rely on my intellect, though I wasn’t sure I could sway her with reason. She seemed to have taken her unreasonable pills this morning. We need to look at this rationally.

I lifted one eyebrow at her, and she got a sour look on her face.

We. Could. Die.

Aw, come on, Gracie.

Are you saying we won’t? she said, disbelief on her face. We’re setting off into the wild blue yonder with no plan other than leaving Earth and avoiding The Agency. The Agency, meanwhile, is probably pretty keen on us dying by now. And you think that I’m being irrational, oh genius of astrophysics?

Gracie, that doesn’t mean we should get married. And it’s Elinnian physics; nobody uses astro —

She held up her hand to stop my words.

That is exactly why we should get married. Because we may die very soon. I don’t want to die a virgin, do you? she said, knowing that would get to me.

"Of course not. But neither do I think we will die virgins, either. It’s important to my mother and me that we have a big, traditional wedding, Gracie. We can have a Western one, too, if you want. But not yet. Not now. Not like this."

You think we’re rushing. What are the chances that we will ever come back here, Shiv? she said softly, her eyes suddenly showing the fear she must have been hiding. I know we’re good, but The Agency is determined. And if they should manage to split us up…

They won’t, I said, my heart clenching at the thought of being separated from her. I closed the distance between us, needing to touch her. I sat beside her and ran the back of my hand down her face. She closed her eyes.

Shiv, they might. And if they do, we simply are not as powerful when we’re by ourselves. Our power comes from the synergy of our Circle. Alone, we are powerless to defend ourselves from them. I want to marry you, Shiv, she said, her eyes pleading. And I knew that she felt that she was begging but that it was too important to her not to ask. I want to be as close to you as I can get.

I swallowed.

Jesus, I wanted that too, didn’t I?

I… She hesitated and then said it. I love you.

It was the first time she had ever told me, and I was stunned by the admission.

She pulled me down for a kiss. I melted into her as always, losing myself in her sweet lips, her soft body pressing against mine. My hands went to her hips, and I pulled her close, feeling her let out a quiet gasp into my mouth as our bodies touched.

But I couldn’t get my mother’s face out of my mind. And I pulled away from her, setting my jaw. I know that some people call me stubborn, but it’s not that, not really. I’m persistent. And it has made me successful. I would be successful in convincing her of this, too.

You know I want that, too, Gracie, I said, not saying it back. I did love her.