by Deadly Game
He had known there were monsters in the world—he’d met a few, destroyed a few—but who would want to do this to a woman? Someone like his father. Abruptly he pulled his mind from going in that direction.
“Are you all right, Ken?” Jack asked, touching his arm.
“I swear, Jack, this is like going through it all again. First the deer and then Mari. I don’t think I’ll ever close my eyes again.”
“We’ve got to get out of here. We don’t dare stay any longer.”
“I’ll stay behind. You take her to a safe place and get some rest. I’ll make certain they can’t come looking.”
“You can’t kill them all, Ken. And in any case, we don’t know who the bad guys are. She said they weren’t there to kill the senator—that they were supposed to protect him. If the order came down that way, they’re no different than we are. They want her back because we don’t leave a GhostWalker behind.”
“One of them did this to her.”
“We don’t know which one.”
Ken straightened slowly and turned to face his brother. “She doesn’t want Briony to know.”
“Briony’s not a child. I don’t lie to her, not even for you, and you can’t ask me to, Ken.” Jack spread out his hands. “Let’s get her on the helicopter and we can sort all this out later. We’ll take her to the small house Lily rented for us and stay there a few hours. The van will meet us there and we can disappear with her.”
“Are you bringing Briony in?”
Jack shook his head. “It’s too dangerous. She’s pregnant and Whitney wants her. I’m not willing to risk her life, although she wants to see her sister. She’s staying with Lily now at the big house, and Kadan and Ryland’s team is guarding her while we make a run for it.”
“You mean while we figure out how best to use Mari in our little game with Whitney.”
Jack pushed the gurney toward the door, ignoring the bite in his brother’s voice. “She’ll go back the first chance she gets, Ken. You can’t trust her. You heard her. You saw her. She’s not Briony, as much as they look alike. This one is tough as nails and could rip your heart out if you take your eyes off of her. Don’t you forget that. At this point I wouldn’t trust her with Briony’s life, let alone yours.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” Ken slung his rifle around his neck and checked his guns and ammunition belt. “I just am not willing to turn her back over to whoever hurt her like that.”
“Don’t identify with her. She’s our prisoner. And she could easily cut your throat—or mine. We don’t know anything about her. She’s capable of running a con just like we are. She was trained as a soldier, so her first duty is to escape.”
“Copy that, Daddy,” Ken said.
Jack halted so abruptly Ken ran into the bed. Their eyes met, a slash of steel swords clashing over Mari’s head. “I’m going to look out for you, Ken, whether you like it or not. You think I don’t know how shook up you were looking at the deer carcasses? You’re identifying with them.”
“Maybe, but I’m not letting anyone take this woman back to Whitney.”
“If she goes back, we can follow her, rescue the others, and cap Whitney’s ass,” Jack pointed out. “It all sounds good to me.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a bloodthirsty son of a bitch?” Ken asked.
“Yes,” Jack assented. “More than once.”
“Well, it’s true.” Ken lifted Mari into his arms while Jack steadied her leg and took the medical rigging. The helicopter was a few yards away, Nico waiting, rifle ready as he searched the area around them for an enemy. “You always think in terms of killing, Jack. I thought once you were with Briony, you’d get out of that habit.”
Jack shrugged. “It’s easier than jawing at everyone the way you do. By the time you finish talking to them, we realize we have to kill them anyway. I just save you all that trouble.”
Ken scowled at his brother. “You do realize everyone thinks you’re the pretty boy, now that my face is scarred. It doesn’t go well with your Dr. Death image.”
“Pretty boy!” Jack glared at him. “If I didn’t have my hands full, I’d shoot you for that comment.”
“You mean to tell me Briony doesn’t tell you how pretty you are late at night when the two of you are all alone?”
“Don’t think I won’t take you out,” Jack threatened.
Ken flashed a sudden grin, genuine this time. “She does, doesn’t she?”
“She thinks I look rough and tough,” Jack corrected.
“Hey, Nico,” Ken called out as they boarded the helicopter, no easy feat with trying to keep Mari’s leg from being jarred. “Don’t you think Jack here is a pretty boy?”
Nico glanced at Jack’s face and grinned. “Yeah, he’s a hot babe, all right. Must make all the women folks crazy.”
“You can both go to hell,” Jack said.
Ken turned away, depositing Mari carefully on the small gurney locked in place. Jack secured the medical gear and Nico took the pilot’s seat. They waited for the doctor, who hurried after them carrying the rest of the supplies they needed. Eric Lambert was a good doctor and often aided the GhostWalker teams, although he wasn’t physically or psychically enhanced. He knew a lot about gene therapy and was interested in Whitney’s experiments and had a high clearance, so he was often the man Lily sent out into the field to protect the GhostWalkers. He was the surgeon who had saved Jesse Calhoun’s life when he’d been shot several times deliberately in both his legs, and Jack and Ken had a soft spot for him, simply because Jesse was their friend and they had few real friends in the world.
Ken moved over to make room for him. “Are you up for some excitement, Doc?”
“No. Don’t shoot anybody.”
Jack snorted. “See, it isn’t just me. He knows you talk a lot of bull and in the end you shoot them anyway.”
Ken narrowed his eyes as Eric got up to check his patient. “Her pulse is stronger than I thought it would be with the dose we gave her. I’d like to take some more blood samples. I think she heals a lot faster than we anticipated. Whitney included an extra pair of chromosomes when he was altering all of you and that gives him a lot of genetic code to work with. The more I study all of you, the more I realize we don’t know a third of what you can do.”
“You took enough of her blood,” Ken objected. “She’s been used as a guinea pig for Whitney’s experiments all of her life. I don’t think it’s necessary for us to do the same to her.”
As always, Ken sounded mild, but Eric heard the warning note in his voice and glanced at Jack, who simply shook his head. Eric settled back in his seat. “We need to really understand what’s going on with all of you,” he pointed out. “If she heals faster and can push drugs through her system faster, we need to know. We wouldn’t want to be in the middle of a complex operation and have one of you wake up on us.”
Eric sank down onto the bench and gripped the seat as the helicopter took off. He’d never liked flying, Ken remembered, and they should be grateful that he was always willing to come when one of them was injured, but instead, Ken felt an unreasonable wash of emotions he couldn’t quite identify.
He clenched his teeth at the unbidden images that rose the moment Eric planted the idea of waking up in the middle of an operation. Was that the kind of experiment Whitney conducted on a regular basis? From all accounts he loved science and lived for little else. Was his mind so twisted that he might subject a human being to that kind of torment again and again just to see the results? Ken had been tortured—he knew what it was like to feel the slice of a knife going through his skin while he was wide awake and unable to fight back. The idea that Whitney might have done the same thing to another human being in the name of science made him ill.
A tremor went through him and he had to fight back a wave of nausea. Why was it all coming back after all these months? His belly throbbed, and lower, much lower, he could feel the mind-numbing pain, an agony crawling through his body, hear laughter echo
ing insanely through his head. Was he finally losing his mind? The rage inside of him, kept so carefully bottled up, surged up through his belly and into his throat until he wanted to scream and tear someone apart with his bare hands. Beads of sweat dropped from his forehead onto his arm. He never saw blood as red anymore, so he couldn’t tell whether the droplets were sweat, simply an illusion, or real blood the way his mind wanted to see it.
“Ken.” Jack said his name sharply.
Their eyes met across the gurney as the helicopter vibrated, shaking them as they flew through the air, just skimming the treetops. Ken could hardly bear to see the knowledge and compassion in his brother’s eyes. His mouth went dry, but he managed to pull off his slight grin, the one that he kept in reserve for moments like this. He was all right. He was just fine. They’d taken his skin, his looks, even his manhood, and made his body into something out of a horror movie, but he was just fine. No nightmares, no screaming, just a flash of a grin, telling the world a monster didn’t live and breathe inside of him, raking him with claws, demanding to get out and annihilate everyone around him.
Sometimes Ken thought that monster would rip open his belly from the inside out. Jack thought he wanted to talk everyone to death. He was the good twin. The easygoing twin, the one that got along with everybody. His fingers curled into two tight fists and then, aware of what he was giving away to his sharp-eyed brother, he spread his fingers out in front of him. Steady as a rock. He could always count on that. His hand might be scarred, his fingers not as flexible as they should be, but Ekabela and his sadist friends had made the mistake of mutilating them but not taking away his ability to shoot. They were too eager to get down to the real pleasure of cutting him in other, much more painful and frightening places.
He shifted his gaze away from his brother. Jack could read his mind. Hell, they’d been slipping in and out of each other’s mind since they were toddlers. Even then it had been self-preservation. They learned at an early age to count only on each other. Jack knew him too well. He knew that the monster that lived inside of both of them was all too close to the surface these days. Jack had to be worried that Ken was not going to able to keep it contained. Insanity was a very real possibility he had to face.
Dr. Peter Whitney was a man with far too much money and power. He didn’t believe the rules were for someone like him, and unfortunately he had the backing of some very powerful men. Jack and Ken, like several other men in the military, had fallen for his enthusiasm over his psychic experiments. It made perfect sense at the time—to take men from all branches of the service with Special Forces training and test them to see if they had potential to use psychic abilities. The doctor would enhance the inherent talent and create a unit of men who could save lives with their abilities.
Whitney hadn’t said a word about gene therapy and genetic enhancement. He hadn’t mentioned cancer or brain bleeds or strokes either. He certainly had never admitted he would pit the men unknowingly against one another. And never once had he mentioned a breeding program, using pheromones to pair a supersoldier with a woman.
Ken rubbed his pounding temples. Whitney hadn’t screened them very carefully—or maybe he had. Maybe he knew about Jack and Ken’s father and how he was so jealous and obsessed with their mother he couldn’t bear to share her with his own children. Obsession was a very ugly word, and Whitney had certainly compounded the demon the twins fought on a daily basis. They had vowed they would never chance becoming the man their father had been, yet they had both been chosen, without their knowledge, to participate in Whitney’s breeding experiment.
Of course he knew about the old man, Jack said. He’s the reason Whitney chose us. We’re twins. He’s paired us with twins and he’s kicking back waiting to see the results.
You’re fishing, bro, Ken replied. You want to know if I’m somehow affected by Mari’s scent.
Aren’t you?
Ken glanced at his brother. He couldn’t tell—and that meant neither could Mari. She had a chance then, a slim one, but still a chance when he’d thought they were all lost. He didn’t watch tragic movies and he sure as hell wasn’t going to live a tragic life, nor was he going to allow Jack and Briony and certainly not Mari to live one either. Whitney be damned and his experiments too. If necessary, Ken would go hunting the man.
Aren’t you? Jack repeated.
You’d know it if I was, wouldn’t you?
Jack swore under his breath. That’s not an answer and you know it.
Ken shrugged, making it as casual as he could. Evidently, my genes are not quite as in demand as yours.
Jack narrowed his eyes and frowned at his twin. Suspicion pushed at Ken’s mind. Jack was not in the least bit satisfied with his answer.
You’re acting possessive of her.
I shot her. She’s Briony’s sister. Not just a sister, her twin sister. If this doesn’t end in a good way, do you really think Briony’s going to be okay with that? You can’t get anywhere near Mari, because if she dies, Briony will blame you whether she wants to or not; it’s human nature. You can’t, Jack. You have to let me handle this one.
Jack shoved his fingers through his hair, a rare moment of agitation. It’s not right. Because you’re looking out for me, you’ll destroy your own relationship with Briony.
I’m not married to her. And that’s what we do. We look out for one another.
Keep that in mind if you decide to take any unnecessary risks just to protect me with my wife.
I didn’t know there was such a thing as an unnecessary risk. Ken flashed a small, cocky grin at his brother and was relieved to see him relax.
Nico set the helicopter down on a small pad just above the house Lily Whitney-Miller had rented for them. A brilliant woman, she was the only orphan Peter Whitney had raised as his own daughter, and the betrayal of all that she had known and believed had been devastating. Married to a GhostWalker, Ryland Miller, she’d opened her home, a huge estate, and her resources, to the GhostWalkers. It was Lily who had found ways for them to build shields to protect their brains from continual assault. And it was Lily who had put Flame’s cancer into remission. And it was always Lily who stayed one step ahead of her father to keep the GhostWalker teams safe. When they didn’t know who else to turn to, they called on her.
As the helicopter settled to earth and Nico shut it down, Eric slipped from his seat and once more bent over his patient, stethoscope to her heart. His hand slid down her arm until he found her wrist, searching for her pulse.
Ken’s gaze jumped to the palm sliding over Mari’s bare flesh, and a roar of protest started deep in his belly. Primitive and ugly, the monster inside gnashed its teeth and clawed for freedom.
“Didn’t you just listen to her heart rate?” Ken asked, keeping his voice even. “Is something wrong that you’re not telling us?”
Eric turned his head with a small frown. “She lost a great deal of blood and we could only give her—”
His voice broke off abruptly as Mari caught his hair, jerking his head back and down toward her. Her hand slid from his hair to his belt, extracting the knife there and whipping it around his throat.
Jack already had his gun out, aimed between her eyes. “I’ll fuckin’ put a bullet in your head if you don’t drop that knife right now.” His voice was low and frightening and he meant every word.
Mari tightened her hold on the knife, pushing it against the doctor’s throat. “Take out the IV. You shoot me and I’ll still have enough time to cut his throat.”
“Maybe, but I don’t think so,” Jack said. “And either way you’re still dead.”
“Let’s all calm down here.” Ken moved into her sight. His eyes were pure mercury, a slash of liquid steel. “This can only end badly, Mari, and no one wants that.” He was gliding across the helicopter, a silent, graceful flow of muscle and sinew that was as intimidating as hell.
“Stop moving,” she bit out between clenched teeth, tightening her grip on the knife until her knuckles turned white.
Stay the hell away from her, Ken. Don’t you damn well get between us. I’ll kill her right now, Jack warned.
There’s no need for this; she can’t go anywhere.
“I fuckin’ mean it, Ken. I’ll take her out.”
“Just be calm and think about this,” Ken said. He didn’t look at his brother or acknowledge the warning, and he didn’t stop moving. “You still have a catheter in. How far do you think you’re going to get with that?”
“The doctor is going to tell you how to take it out. I mean it, Doc, rip the IV out and do it now.”
“Jack isn’t a nice man, sweetheart,” Ken said. “He looks handsome and talks soft, so people sometimes get the wrong impression about him. Remember when I was telling you how he pulled me out of Ekabela’s camp? He was captured and escaped. Now, anyone in their right mind just keeps running, especially when they’re in the middle of rebel territory, but not Jack.” His voice was low and conversational, as if they were sitting across a table from each other, not staring down death.
He kept coming, a silent stalker, making her feel small and vulnerable. Was he within striking distance? He didn’t appear to have a weapon, yet she was suddenly terrified. Not of the fact that she might cut a man’s throat, or that Jack would shoot her, but of those glittering eyes that never left hers, eyes so cold she shivered.
“Stay away from me,” she said, her voice choking.
“Jack went back into that camp and rigged everything to blow. He stole weapons and sat up in the trees and picked them off one by one. He killed over—” Ken exploded into action, moving so fast he was a blur, his elbow slamming into her head as his hands locked hers around the knife, jerking it down and away from the doctor, his enormous strength pinning her wrist to the gurney. For a moment everything went black and a million stars danced in front of her eyes. His thumb jabbed hard into her pressure point and her fingers jerked open in reflex.
