Power Game (GhostWalkers 13)

"That's not the deal." The other man stepped closer. He had a video camera and clearly was waiting to record whatever David did to Ezekiel.

The thought of what they had in mind turned her stomach. She left the knives and all but one gun by the entrance and crawled inside the small cabin. Ezekiel stared right at her. Aware. She was in full camouflage mode, but something, maybe her movement, had given her away to him. He made no sound. He didn't even blink, but she felt him--his energy--and she didn't understand how the other two men didn't feel it building in the cabin. Building and building. The air in the cabin was thick with an electrical charge. The hair on her head went static with it. Still, the two bickered, not paying the least attention to the man on the table.

He would recognize her. She'd blown her cover big-time, but there was no taking it back--and she wouldn't have wanted to anyway. He was a man worth saving, one of the few she'd met, and the one she thought the most of. He wasn't going to die on that table, and Cheng couldn't have him to dissect. She'd get him out, patch him up and leave the area as fast as possible. Her mind shied away from the idea of leaving. She liked Louisiana. The people. The humidity. The swamp. The bayous. She liked it all. Mostly she liked being close to Ezekiel and Nonny.

She was halfway into the room when David took out a long needle, clearly intending to stick it into Ezekiel's back. She lifted the gun and shot him between the eyes, just as Ezekiel rolled from the table, dropping almost on top of her. The sound of the gunshot reverberated through the close quarters of the cabin.

Ezekiel kept rolling, somersaulting across the room in a blur of speed. He moved so fast she almost couldn't track him. He was on the cameraman in seconds, taking him down to the floor by sweeping his legs out from under him. As the man went down, Ezekiel yanked the knife from the man's boot and cut the arteries in both legs and then, as he landed hard on the floor, his throat.

"Can you walk?" Bellisia hissed. She was at the door. The others would come running. She knew there were more of them--and then there were the explosives. "We have to go now. Right. Now."

He looked like hell. Covered in blood. She couldn't assess the damage or stop to clean him up. They had to go.

"Everything is wired to blow," she explained, skirting the table to crouch by him, still looking at the door.

Ezekiel didn't ask questions. He made an effort to get to his feet, scooping up weapons as he did. He tucked guns and knives into his belt and boots. "Go. I'll be right on you."

Bellisia spared one quick look at him. He wasn't going to make it on his own. No way. He'd lost too much blood and was still losing it. He was on his feet out of sheer will. She ignored his order, as clear as it was, and dropped back to slip an arm around his waist. He was a big man, but she had tremendous hidden strength. They'd stripped his shirt off in order to get the blood and tissue samples as well as to inflict the knife wounds that were crisscrossing his chest and back. They appeared shallower than she'd first thought, but combined, they created a blood loss no one could afford.

Anchoring the tips of her fingers in his skin, she ignored his hiss of displeasure at her failure to obey. "Just move with me. We have to get out of here now," she reiterated. "We're going to jump together, roll, and then run for it. We'll have to shoot our way out, but whoever is on the other end of the claymores is going to light this place up fast."

He went with her to the door. A shot rang out as they jumped, rolled and sprinted for the boat. Fortunately, the reeds were high enough to cover most of their departure. Unfortunately, they didn't have time for stealth. Bullets hit all around them. Twice he urged her to the ground and bullets flew like angry bees right where both had been.

She didn't ask how he could do that--how he could know. They didn't have time for conversation and, in any case, she knew better than to ask--he wouldn't answer her. Like her, he was enhanced and his gifts were classified. Cheng had wanted him taken apart as fast as possible, looking for that very thing. Answers to the GhostWalkers' secrets. How Whitney had done it. Whitney was elusive, difficult to find. Had she been Cheng, she would have targeted him instead of the very lethal GhostWalkers.

Ezekiel took most of his own weight, but he ran stooped over, and every breath he took, she heard. Air left his lungs in ragged gasps and entered just as labored. If she didn't have the microscopic setae on the ends of her fingers, she never would have been able to hold on to his blood-slick skin. He was covered, looking like something out of a horror movie where they had no budget so they used copious amounts of red paint.

She all but dumped him in the boat, shoved it off shore and slipped into the water, the rope in her hand. "Stay low. Just lie down and I'll get us out of here." She knew she didn't have a hope in hell that he'd obey. The mercenaries were firing at anything that moved in the marsh. They'd realize in just a few moments that they'd made it to the boat.

Once in her favorite environment, she wrapped the rope around her waist and surged forward, away from shore, pulling strongly with her arms and legs. She got the boat out of the reeds fast, still hearing the mercenaries firing. Just as she caught the sides of the small craft and climbed in, an explosion ripped the night apart.

Ezekiel jerked her all the way into the boat, all but throwing her to the bottom, his larger body covering hers as fiery debris rained from the sky. The smell of blood was overwhelming. He was heavy. Very heavy. Dead heavy. Her breath caught in her throat and she pushed at him. He didn't move.

"Ezekiel." She reached up and tried to find his neck to feel for a pulse. For a few horrible moments, she thought he was dead. Thankfully, it was there, that all-important heartbeat. The relief when she found it made her almost giddy.

She pushed his body off of her and crawled back into the water. There was no doubt in her mind that whoever had set off the explosions was going to be picking off any survivors. She didn't want to start the engine and tip anyone off that they'd escaped. Towing the boat was easy with the rope tied around her, but the scent of blood had to be strong and she didn't want any friendly visits from alligators, although she did consider them the least of her worries.

It took over two hours to tow the boat upriver and through a network of canals and then back to the river to the island where she lived. It was too far to take him back to Nonny and his friends. Stennis would be crawling with military personnel and she didn't want to get shot or be discovered. Whitney had a faction of supporters in the military and he still carried a tremendous amount of clout. She was not going to be delivered back into his hands.

The island was owned by a grizzled veteran of a war no one wanted. He'd come out of that war scarred, tough and dangerous. He'd bought up the land around him, brought electricity to it and sold it for a huge profit. He was good at speculation with land and turned everything he touched into a moneymaker. That gave him the ability to live as he wanted--free.

The island was difficult to breach even by boat due to the massive cypress trees guarding it, making it impossible to get too close. Several landing sites were muddy and shallow, with huge sweeping vines blocking a boat's access. She went straight to the pier. There were numerous signs warning any potential visitors that they weren't wanted, and most people living in the area knew Donny and that he meant business. His island was off-limits to anyone coming without his permission. He had dogs and weapons and no fear of using either to protect his privacy.

She had found the island while exploring, using the waterways of course. Donny had several cabins--camps--he called them. More, he had several bathrooms he laughingly called his outhouses. The bathrooms were outside the cabin but completely plumbed. The man did his own building. He ran the electricity and then hooked it up with the local electric company.

He realized someone was living in the camp closest to the water. There were two entrances, both by water. He left food for her on several occasions. She left him fish in return. She'd gotten the job at the restaurant and that gave her the ability to pick him up other types of food occasionally. They bo

th thought it a fair trade.

Eventually, she allowed him to see her and they became friends of sorts--as much as someone like Donny, who was very leery of people, and someone like her, a woman on the run from a very powerful enemy, could be friends. Donny knew she was hiding, but he didn't ask questions about what or who, and she appreciated that trait in him. He simply accepted her.

She needed him now. She doubted if she could get Ezekiel up to the cabin. It was all uphill and steep walking on the narrow trail Donny had carved into his wild habitat. They had a signal Donny had set up in case of an emergency, and she dragged herself up onto the pier, ran to the pole and triggered the alarm, praying he was home.

Ezekiel was still unconscious. He looked pale, almost gray, and he was cold to the touch, his body continually shivering. She was strong, but he was a big man and completely dead weight. She hooked his body with the setae on her fingertips and dragged him from the boat. He sprawled out on the pier. She glanced up toward the cabin. It seemed a long way up.

It took some maneuvering but she managed to get him over her shoulder, and she cautiously stood, taking his full weight. The smell of blood sickened her, and he was slick with it. It took a couple of minutes to anchor him to her when he wanted to slip off due to the amount of blood coating his chest and back. By the time she got him up to the cabin she was sweating, unusual for her, even in the humidity of the swamp.

She put water on to heat, but didn't wait until it was warm to inspect him and the numerous cuts. Some needed stitches to close. All needed to be thoroughly washed and treated. Infections in the swamp were common. The good news was that none of the lacerations were life-threatening. She suspected he was out more due to whatever drug they had injected him with than from any of the wounds.

She bit down hard on her lip. He had lost a great deal of blood. She could give him her blood, she knew she would be compatible, but she didn't really know what she was doing in that regard. She cleaned him up as best she could, washing the blood from his body so she could try to see to the worst of the cuts. Considering that she'd been only a few minutes behind them, Cheng's man had worked fast to collect the blood and tissue samples and record the amount of pain Ezekiel's body could stand.

"You all right, Bella?" Donny demanded, sounding out of breath.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. Donny was in his seventies, but he was still a strong, steady man. He held his guns as if he meant business.

"You have blood all over you."

"It's his blood. He was training some men at Stennis. All of them got really sick and were staggering around, vomiting and . . . other things. I saw two men take him away from the others. They injected him with something, put him into a boat and took him to a camp in the marsh. The local helping them is dead, they killed him. They met more men at the local's camp and started taking him apart with a knife. They had mercs in the brush so I was busy with them and they managed to do all this damage to him."

Donny looked her over, one eyebrow raised, clearly surprised at the anxiety she couldn't keep out of her voice. "There's a first aid kit in the other room, on the top shelf, kid. Bring it here."

"Do you think he's lost too much blood? I don't want him to get brain damage or something." She jumped up, although she feared leaving him even with Donny.

"Go get the kit. I'm not going to hurt your man."

She didn't even protest his remark. Maybe in a secret fantasy, he was her man. She just knew he was too good of a man to lose to Cheng.

Donny knew his way around a first aid kit. He worked efficiently and very fast, stitching up the three wounds that were very deep, butterfly stitching a dozen more and bandaging the rest. He worked in silence while she stroked Ezekiel's hair back from his forehead.

"In my day, no one wore their hair like that. Not in the military. They'd have received a midnight visit and gotten their head shaved."

She glared at him. "Don't you dare even think about touching his hair, Donny. I love his hair."

"Yeah. I kinda noticed. As soon as we get him fixed up a bit, he has to go back. He's not a pet you can keep."

Donny sounded sarcastic, but she knew him well enough now to know he was teasing her.

"Very funny."

"I'm going to strip him and wash the rest of him. His clothes aren't sanitary, and with all these open cuts he could get a nasty infection. Go shower and change, and for God's sake, wash your hair. You stink of bayou water. There's a T-shirt and sweats in a box just outside the door. I was going to give a few things away to . . ." He trailed off, scowling. "They'll be too short for him, but better than his own clothes."

Donny provided for quite a few of the people living far below poverty level, there in the swamp. He'd put several local children through college and paid for dental as well as vision care for others. To the outside world he was a cranky, dangerous man, considered a little mentally unstable, and who knew? Maybe he was. To his trusted friends, he was a kind, generous man with a soft spot for those in need. She knew he would defend her with his life even though they really barely knew each other.

"They might be coming for him, Donny. Whoever those men were, you see what they're capable of. They blew the marsh up just to cover what they were doing and there were men they'd paid still there. They killed them without thinking twice about it."

"I can take care of your man. No one sets foot on my island without my knowledge."

She hesitated, her hand hovering just above Ezekiel's forehead. Her eyes met Donny's.

He snorted. "You don't count. You're some kind of evolutionary anomaly. I expect your offspring will have gills."

She forced her pretend outraged smile while deep inside she winced. She was never going to have a home and family so it really was a moot point, but if she ever was in a position to have children, he might not be that far off.

By the time she got back, Ezekiel lay under a blanket, his head on the only good pillow in the cabin. She'd bought it at a little boutique and it was embroidered with a silly looking sea anemone, at least that's what she hoped it was, otherwise it looked like something she might find in an adult toy store. Still, they were practically giving it away and it was a pillow.

Wrapped in a light sweater, she handed the clothes to Donny. "Thank you for helping me, I really appreciate it. You can't stay after he's dressed, it's too dangerous. The minute he's strong enough, I'll take him back to Stennis, and then they'll leave us alone."

They'd only leave her alone if they couldn't find her. She'd blown her chances of ever settling down in Louisiana--and she loved it there. She really liked the people--especially Donny. She wanted to get to know Nonny and her family. She'd envisioned herself staying there, building something--a home like Ezekiel had.

"What are you into, girl?" Donny snapped, his faded blue eyes shrewd. "You think I don't know trouble when I see it? You're in all kinds of trouble, but this is a safe place for you."

She struggled against an odd feeling welling up. A burn behind her eyes. A lump in her throat so big she couldn't swallow, couldn't quite catch her breath. Feeling vulnerable, she turned her back on him with the excuse that it gave Donny privacy to pull the sweatpants on Ezekiel. "It was safe, but not so much anymore. Still, I couldn't let him die like that. Look what they did to him. I think they planned to torture him even more, but I can't understand why. None of this makes any sense."

But it was Cheng. Cheng had stayed alive and in business because he cut all ties if things got out of hand. It made sense that he wouldn't want the actual GhostWalker, not one he had no idea if he could control. He'd get whatever data he could on one and then he'd study it before he made his move to actually grab one to keep. The mercenaries hadn't been there to collect other members of his team as she first thought, it was to protect the project as long as they could, all the while sending the information to Cheng via satellite. They'd planned to kill Ezekiel and, if possible, the others all along.

She pressed her fingers to her pounding temples.

She was exhausted. She wanted to curl up under a blanket and go to sleep for hours, but she knew that was impossible. She had to get Ezekiel back to his people as fast as she could.

"He's coming to, Bella," Donny said.

"Then you have to get out of here. He can't see you."

"He's seen me before. He's one of Grace's boys. She's got more boys than any woman should have to raise. This is one of them. If they belong to Grace Fontenot, then they're good people."

"He shouldn't see you. He can't know that you ever saw him tonight. They're training for a mission and . . ." She broke off, turning back to him and putting one hand on his shoulder.

They hadn't got to the touching stage or showing any kind of overt affection yet, and the gesture surprised both of them. She snatched her hand away as if she'd been burned as his eyes flared with surprise. She'd never voluntarily touched a man, not unless she planned on killing him. Not unless she had no choice. Or she was saving his life.

Ezekiel groaned. She gasped and stepped back, pointing toward the stairway. "Please, Donny. You have to go."

"Will you be all right?"

She nodded, uncertain if that was the truth. She just needed to know he was safe, that she hadn't brought down the wrath of a GhostWalker team on him. In her experience, supersoldiers were unpredictable.

Donny reluctantly left. She watched him disappear into the night. He moved like a cat, an old veteran, a man weary of war but ready to fight if the situation called for it. When she turned back, Ezekiel's strange amber eyes were staring at her. For a moment, they glowed at her, the way an animal's eyes did when it could see in the dark. He blinked and the illusion was gone.

"You. I should have known."

"What does that mean?"

He patted the floor. "Sit down. It's too difficult to keep looking up at you."

She hesitated and then sank down beside him. "What did you mean, you 'should have known'?"

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, but even that small gesture seemed to tire him out. "I lost too much blood."

"You need to drink water. I can't give you a transfusion because I don't know how. In any case, we might not be compatible." They would be, but a stranger wouldn't know that, and she had to play her part as best she could.