Ghostwalker 04 - Conspiracy Game

hissed. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
    “Do it then,” she spat back, her mouth full of dirt and leaves. “I’m not leading you back to my family so get over it.”
    “You think this is some kind of game?”
    “I don’t care if it is.” She didn’t bother to try to control the violent trembling. What the hell did she care if he knew she was afraid? Let him kill her. He wasn’t going to get what he wanted. And why did his presence disturb her so much?
    “Get up.” He dragged her up by her hair, the knife never leaving her neck.
    She couldn’t fight him, she realized with a sinking feeling. She had four strong brothers, and, in spite of her diminutive size, she was stronger and faster than all four of them. She was trained in hand-to-hand combat and several forms of marital arts, but he didn’t give her an opening. Not one.
    “You’re hurting me.”
    “Then stop struggling.”
    She hadn’t realized she had been. She forced her body back under control. “What do you want?”
    “I was in the SEALs with a Jebediah Jenkins. The last I heard, he was the catcher for his family’s act in the circus. He had a sister, Briony, and three brothers.”
    “Let go of me.” She wasn’t feeling anything. It didn’t make sense. He had killed the three soldiers, she was certain of it. Violence made her particularly ill; in fact, most of the time, she had nosebleeds, migraines, vomited, and even once, when she’d found her parents dead, she’d gone into convulsions. She no longer had her former headache, not even with being so afraid and him pulling her hair.
    “Are you going to run?”
    “I don’t particularly want to get slammed to the ground again, thanks,” Briony answered.
    Okay. It wasn’t true that she wasn’t feeling anything. Her entire body was in some kind of weird meltdown that had never happened before. She first noticed it in the water, sitting so close to him, looking into his eyes. When his lips touched hers. She jerked her thoughts away from how hard his body was, how strong he was. She had to be sick to even have a reaction to him when he was viciously yanking her head back. “And let go of my hair, you’re hurting me.”
    Jack instantly relaxed his hold on the wet strands and then scowled, shocked that he’d done so. What in the hell was wrong with him? She was a potential enemy. There was no doubt in his mind that someone had set him up, and it had to be a conspiracy among several people to place him in the hornet’s nest—and that meant they had used his feelings for his brother against him. Ken had been lured in—captured and tortured for one purpose, and that was to bring Jack to Africa. Someone knew Jack’s triggers and they were using them ruthlessly against him. Briony Jenkins was definitely a GhostWalker, no matter what she said. And how big a coincidence was it that a friend—a fellow SEAL—was in Kinshasa at the same precise time? “Damn it, I don’t believe in coincidences.”
    Briony turned her head to look at him, startled that he was thinking the exact same thing she was thinking. Had someone maneuvered her brother into Kinshasa for some purpose other than to play the music festival? “Neither do I.” She studied his ravaged body, horror and compassion creeping in despite her resolve not to be swayed by him.
    Jack had been tortured. Deep cuts and burns marred his chest, shoulders, and belly. His eyes were flat and cold and hard as stone, yet no one could have suffered such abuse and not be in terrible pain. And she wasn’t feeling it . She always felt human and even animal suffering if she was in close proximity to it. It was almost a relief to her to be near him. He seemed to provide the necessary filters she didn’t have in order to function around people.
    “My God. How can you be walking around? Did the rebels do that?” Her voice came out a hoarse whisper. Before she could stop herself, she stepped forward and reached out to touch his muscle just above where the skin was shredded. “You need a doctor. You’re already infected.”
    A tremor ran through his body at her touch. So light. A mere drift of the pad of her fingers, but he felt it through his entire body. “We have to keep moving. I pissed off their general.” He watched her face for a reaction, but she was staring in horror at his wounds.
    “I can’t feel your pain.” Her dark gaze rose to meet his. “Why is that? You know, don’t you? You know why I’m different, why I