"You understand why I can't stay in this house, don't you, Jess?" Lily said. "I can't take the risk that he could get his hands on my baby."
"Of course you and the baby need to be safe, Lily. You've done more than your duty by the GhostWalkers and we're all grateful to you."
"We have to find a way to stop him. I thought it was just the girls in the laboratory where I was. But he has them scattered all over."
"That would make sense. If one group was found--or destroyed--he'd have more to work with."
She rubbed her head as if it ached. "I can't find them all. I don't even know how many I'm searching for." She indicated the file on his desk. "Have you read it?"
"I haven't had time yet," Jess said. "Did he use pheromones on us?"
Lily sighed. "Yes. I'm sorry. You'll always be physically attracted to her, Jess, but that doesn't mean you won't ever fall in love with someone else."
"I'm in love with her."
Lily shook her head and leaned forward to stare into the screen. "You're in love with the image she's presenting. Look at her childhood, Jess. She's been regimented, trained, disciplined. She's an assassin. Born and bred for it."
"No, she wasn't born for it, or bred for it," Jess snapped. "She was taken as a child, essentially kidnapped, held prisoner, and subjected to torture. She learned to be what she is in order to survive, Lily. There's a difference. And if you don't know that difference..."
A male head leaned into the screen. "That's enough," Captain Ryland Miller interrupted. "She used a wrong turn of phrase, don't read anything into it that wasn't meant."
Jess swallowed his anger. Yeah, Lily misspoke, and Jess's temper was notorious. He had to keep it under control. It was just that the photographs were so heartbreaking. Whitney had documented the journey of a child into an assassin and he'd done it with obvious pride. If ever there was a man who needed killing, Peter Whitney was that man.
As if reading his mind, Lily spoke again. "You understand he could never have an operation of this magnitude--even with all of his money and the contacts and loyalties he's built up--if he didn't have sanction and a lot of help. He isn't doing all this himself. There are too many projects. He may conceive the ideas, but others are taking over the experiments and carrying them out."
Jess pushed back in his chair, this time using both hands to rake through his hair. He needed to see Saber, to touch her, to know that she was all right. He felt bruised and battered after viewing a small part of her childhood. He had been raised in a loving family, with wonderful parents and a sister who adored him. He couldn't imagine what Saber's childhood had been like.
"What else do you have for me, Lily?"
"You aren't going to like it."
"I don't doubt that." He hadn't liked anything so far. Yeah, Whitney had help and whoever he had was trying to send the GhostWalkers on suicide missions. It was Jess's job to find the leak in the chain of command and plug it up.
"He was there. When we operated on your legs, he was there."
Jess felt his heart jump in his chest. The idea of Whitney walking into the hospital and observing his operation with security everywhere was just plain frightening. Lily had been there and Ryland always, always provided her with a guard.
"Are you certain?"
"I was able to hack into your file, and he has all the notes of his observations and conclusions there. He thought Eric and I did a brilliant job. He does say that while you work very hard at physical recovery, you're neglecting the one thing that will make the bionics work and neither Eric nor I have managed to think of it. He wasn't happy with either of us. He thinks we're too focused on other things, me with the baby and Eric trying to play doctor to GhostWalkers."
"What should you have told me?" Because the truth was, Peter Whitney was a brilliant man, and if they were missing something with the bionics, he'd know it.
"He mentioned your psychic abilities. You're using physical capabilities to heal, but not mental. He notes that you should be doing exercises and imagery to form the neural pathways to map out the way from your brain to your legs."
"I've been using visualization. You were the one who told me how to work on it. Whitney is full of crap."
For the first time, Lily sent him a faint smile. "He says you're a strong psychic and your brain is very developed, enough that you should be able to form the pathways quickly using visualization through that medium. And I agree with him. You're using the normal part of your brain as well as physical therapy and we're leaving out a vital part of what could springboard you to faster health. Also"--she hesitated and glanced at her husband--"he thought we should have used electrical current to stimulate the cells."
"I'm not certain I like the speculation in your voice, Lily."
Jess reached out and picked up the file on Saber, flipping through the photographs of her life. She looked so young, so innocent and vulnerable. It made no sense that she hadn't touched Whitney's protective streak. How could he look at her and not want to take care of her when she'd been such a beautiful child?
"Jess," Lily said. "He may be a monster, but we should consider his medical opinion on this."
"You want to zap me to see whether or not my nerves respond?"
"Well, electrical stimulation did in fact produce results in lizards who don't normally regenerate a tail."
"Oh, for God's sake, Lily," Jess said.
Several of the photographs slipped out of the folder onto the floor, sliding just out of easy reach. Jess sighed and bent down to pick them up. Saber's hand was there first. It was the photo of her with a small chocolate dog--before and after she'd touched it.
CHAPTER 11
Saber sucked in her breath as she stared down at the photograph in her hands. A strange roaring thundered in her ears. Her heart slammed hard in her chest. There was no stopping the surge of abject humiliation. There she was at eight. Even then there were shadows in her eyes. She could see them. In the series of photographs she was smiling, playing with the dog. By the end she was crying and the dog lay in her lap, lifeless. She still woke up with her heart beating too hard and tears flooding her throat and burning her eyes at the memory of that horrible moment when she realized she had taken that life. She had killed with her touch.
For a moment she couldn't think--or breathe. The roaring in her ears increased until her eardrums ached. He had exposed the killer in her. Murderess. Assassin. Evil. She had the touch of death. Jess Calhoun, the only person in her life she had ever truly loved, saw her for what she was.
Jess drew emotions like a magnet and hers were overwhelming. She felt so vulnerable, so ashamed, so disgusting--as if she had no right to be walking on the same earth with him. With anybody. She despised what she could do, what she had done, and for him to see it--to know it--was beyond her ability to cope.
She was vaguely aware of Jess's telepathic touch trying to calm her, to reassure her. She'd been a child. Whitney was the monster, not her. Whitney had forced obedience and he alone was responsible for any deaths.
Saber took two steps back. She wanted to run, but she was frozen. Even her mind seemed frozen. She lifted her gaze to Jess's. She expected loathing. Fear maybe. But not pity. And that made her angry. More than angry. Enraged at the betrayal. "Damn you. You just couldn't leave this alone, could you?"
Jess heard the mixture of rage and shame in her voice. Her gaze flicked to the monitor behind him and he shut it off, keeping whatever had to be said between the two of them.
"Saber, you know I had to investigate you." He struggled to keep emotion--both his and hers--at bay. She looked as if she might shatter into a million pieces.
"I hope you've discovered whatever you felt you needed to know." Her chest was so tight it threatened to implode. Her hand trembled and she tossed the photograph onto the floor in front of his chair. "Everyone's out of the house." She struggled to keep her voice calm and even. "But you've got a couple of your friends watching out for you outside so you'll be just fine if you have an enemy n
earby. I'm taking off. I can't stay here." And she couldn't--not with him knowing what she was.
"Saber, stop." He kept his voice low. No challenge, no threat. He shifted his body in his chair, just a slight movement as if easing his position. "This had to come out. You can't hide from it."
She lifted her chin. "I wasn't hiding from it. I lived it." She held up her palm, fingers spread wide. "What did you want me to say, Jesse? I kill with a touch of my hand? That when I was a child, I was forced to kill animals? That he tried to make me kill children?"
He swallowed the bile rising in his throat. "Did he go that far?"
"He forced me to experiment. If I didn't touch them, he would do something awful to them. I learned to be careful fast, and maybe that was the entire point, but I could have just as easily made mistakes, as I did with the dogs. I couldn't always stay in control." She closed her eyes briefly and then glared at him. "I didn't want anyone to know. I had the right to keep it to myself."
"He's never going to give you up."
"You think I don't know that? Do you think I don't know the minute any government gets hold of that file that they'll come after me too? I'm not stupid, Jesse, I'm just not willing to kill anymore." Not for Whitney. Not for the government. She had almost killed his ex-girlfriend. How would he feel about that?
"You can't run for the rest of your life."
A small humorless smile twisted her mouth. "That's exactly what I can do."
"I want you to stay with me."
Her eyes flashed at him. Hurt. Betrayal. Anger. "You've made that impossible. Whoever was on the other end of that connection knows about me. You shared the information. You sent my prints to them and asked questions, raised flags. You knew I was on the run but you did it anyway."