Taken (Second Sight) by Hazel Hunter

felt like it was on fire. Her left arm and wrist ached, dangling somewhere above her. She tried to move her leaden limbs but it was too hard. Even the smallest movement was agony. She couldn’t even open her eyes, the lids much too heavy.  
    Sleep , she thought. That’s what she needed.
    Suddenly, something was pressed into the palm of her right hand. Something sharp.
    “No,” she gasped as her eyes flew open and she saw the Chameleon looming over her. “ No ,” she whined. “No, no, no,” she repeated, as though it was the only word she knew. But it was no use. The reading had begun.
    As reality and reading blurred, the Chameleon’s face continued to loom. His eyes were fevered, excited, only inches from hers. She could smell his foul breath and realized that she was sitting in a chair. But this wasn’t the church basement with Esme. The image vanished and was replaced by something that looked like the inside of a railroad car or a moving truck. Then that vanished too as thirst overwhelmed her and she begged for her life.
    “Please don’t kill me,” she pleaded in a voice that wasn’t her own. An enormous knife blade flashed in front of her, terror stopped her breath, and pain lanced through her leg.
    “Stop!” she screamed. “ Stop! ”
    In one corner of her mind, Isabelle tried to gain control. This wasn’t her. The pain in her leg wasn’t hers. She was in a jail cell.
    “ Is this what your mother did to you? ” she screamed, feeling the blade slice up from the knee. “ Is this how she hurt you? ”
    The reading stopped.
    Isabelle felt her back hit the metal bed, felt the burning in her throat and lungs. And as the gray of her vision turned to black, she heard the Chameleon as though he were calling to her from a great distance.
    “Yes!” he screamed.

CHAPTER EIGHT

    Mac knew he would be fired but he was way past caring. He’d worked with Special Agent Louis French at various points over the years before Lou had become Director of the FBI Laboratory in Quantico. Mac didn’t know what the hold-up was for the foreign material that had been collected from Angela’s clothes was but he wasn’t going to wait.
    “Mac,” Lou said. “It’s good to hear from you.”
    Mac stood next to his rental car, a hand on the roof as he stared down at the asphalt.
    “Lou,” Mac said, trying to smile and lighten his voice. “It must be lonely at the top if you’re glad to hear from me .”
    Lou laughed a little.
    “I wouldn’t know,” he said. “I’m so far down the bureaucratic food chain I’ll be cleaning toilets next.”
    Mac forced himself to laugh.
    “Look Lou,” he said. “I’m sure you’ve heard about our situation here in L.A.”
    “The Chameleon,” Lou said. “Of course. There’s some talk about most-wanted.”
    Normally, that would have made an investigator happy but Mac had no interest. The L.A. field office might nominate the Chameleon and then a committee at the Criminal Investigative Division would review the nomination and it might eventually land in the top ten or be added as an eleventh but Mac didn’t have that kind of time.
    “That’s what I hear,” Mac said. “But that’s not why I’m calling.”
    “Lab work?” Lou asked.
    “Yeah. I’ve got some evidence that’s been there for a week. I don’t know what the hold up is but I need someone to break it loose.”
    “A week,” Lou said. “That’s pretty standard. We’ve got two bombings we’re close to nailing down–not counting yours.”
    “I need that evidence to get top priority,” Mac said, venturing into forbidden territory.
    “I can do that,” Lou said, his voice growing serious. “With the proper authorization.”
    “You’ve got it,” Mac lied. “Ben Olivos says to make it happen.”
    Ben had said nothing of the sort. Mac had not even asked him, knowing already what the answer would be.
    “Ben?” Lou said. “Yeah, you and Ben go back quite a ways.”
    “We do,” Mac said, and the truth made