Ghostwalker 05 - Deadly Game

couldn't remember what she'd told him about the other women. If she didn't get back, Whitney might harm them. She couldn't take any chances; she had to go back. The pain was growing, moving through her system, making her unable to focus properly. There was something about the genetically enhanced system that allowed them to clear drugs much more quickly, and this time, it wasn't a benefit.
    "By now Whitney knows you were shot. He'll try to go through the chain of command to find you. Whoever runs our teams is going to get slammed with questions and demands.
    Whitney won't touch the other women because he can't replace them. The men are expendable – not the women."
    "Whitney had my friend killed when Cami tried to escape."
    He was silent a moment. "Did you witness it; anyone see him?"
    She shook her head. "Only the blood after."
    "You didn't see a body and Whitney is a master of illusion. My guess is she was taken to another of his facilities."
    "But you don't know that."
    "No, but we've had a lot of time to study Whitney."
    "Really?" Her voice dripped with sarcasm. "I lived my life in his compounds, with his experiments. He's a megalomaniac. He believes rules don't apply to him and that he's smarter than everyone else. He believes everyone else is a sheep and that he can manipulate them with ease. And he can – and does all the time."
    "He's one man, Mari," he said gently.
    "If men like the senator and Jacob Abrams can't keep him under control, how can we? If he ordered a hit on either one of them, he has the means to get it done."
    "Maybe," Ken conceded. What the hell is the holdup, Jack? She's shaking and beginning to sweat.
    Jack hurried into the room. "I'm sorry. Kadan called."
    "He could have waited." Ken's voice was gruff. He pushed the needle into the IV. "You'll feel better in a few minutes," he assured Mari, his thumb sliding over her skin as if it were an accident. "If not, we'll bring in the doc."
    There was real concern in his voice, but his face was as expressionless as ever. She couldn't help looking at his brother's face. Jack had a couple of scars running down one side of his face, as if Ekabela had gotten his hands on him and just gotten started. They only served to add to his good looks. It gave him a rough edge that was intriguing. Ken's face was a grid of scars, giving him the appearance of someone very frightening. A child might run from him.
    She felt his eyes on her and turned her head to catch him staring at her with glittering eyes. She flashed a small smile. "You two look amazingly alike. He has that stubborn set to his jaw that you do."

    He dipped a cloth in cool water and sponged the beads of sweat from her forehead. "How long do you think we have before they find this place?"
    "With Whitney's connections? If you used a helicopter and any aid at all from military or black ops personnel, he'll have the information in hours."
    "That's what I thought too. We moved you once after the surgery, but we had to use a helicopter. We're going to have to move you again."
    "Let them take me back."
    "No." His voice was soft, a hiss of sound, low and mean, sending chills through her body. "We've already called the helicopter. When you wake up, we'll be in another safe house."
    "And it will be a matter of hours before he has that information. Eventually he'll catch up with us and someone will get killed."
    "We'll keep moving until they can take you off the IV. Doc says another twenty-four hours. We can buy that much time."
    It hit her then what he'd said. When you wake up. "You drugged me."
    "I'm not stupid. The minute you thought your people were anywhere near, you would use telepathy to call them. Of course I drugged you. Do you think I didn't see your body when they cut your clothes off? Somebody beat the hell out of you with a cane." His voice was so low she could barely catch the flashes of repressed rage. He dragged his shirt up to show the crisscross of scars, long and deep, making a patchwork quilt of his body. "I know what it feels like to have someone cut and skin you like an animal – to treat you like you have no rights and no feelings – that you're nothing at all."
    "Stop it."
    He swung around so she could see the mess that was his back, the numerous skin grafts and the terrible scars that remained of a once beautiful man. He spun back around, his face close to hers, his silver eyes, fierce and steady and totally implacable. "I saw what they did to you and you're not going back