Lethal Game (GhostWalkers 16)

Thoughts tumbled around her head, making her feel a little crazy. Had she hesitated before exposing herself to the enemy? She didn’t know the answer to that, only that she had to save him. That Malichai had somehow become her world and she didn’t want to live without him. There was no going back to an existence of no hope of a future. Malichai was her future.

She kept repairing the bone even when the SEALs showed up, two men with grim faces, scarred and yet beautiful at the same time. They registered somewhere in her mind even though she later didn’t remember even looking at them. She was aware of them working on Malichai, setting up an IV and pushing fluids and blood into him.

Both Rubin and Amaryllis shared the exact moment when the turnaround came, when his body realized it was alive and needed to function on its own without Rubin keeping his heart and lungs working, without Rubin pushing blood through his body to his brain and vital organs. They looked at each other, sharing that triumph. She could see utter exhaustion etched into the lines of Rubin’s face. He always looked so young. Right at that moment, not so much. He looked pale and drained, but he knew, as she did, that he had saved Malichai’s life.

“Thank you,” she said softly, for only him to hear. “You’re a miracle.” The others thought they knew he was; she actually knew. What he did . . . was impossible.

He gave her a faint smile and slumped down for a brief moment. She turned back to continue her work on Malichai’s bone because she couldn’t make herself quit. She couldn’t. She blamed herself. She should have been working on his leg every single night. Not lying in her bed fantasizing about him. Dreaming of having a life with him.

“You have to stop now,” Ezekiel’s voice whispered in her ear.

He sounded so much like Malichai she felt tears burn in her eyes again. She shook her head and laid her hands over the top section of his fragmented bone. She wanted his body to be strong. No way would that bone hold up. She knew that. The bone still had numbers of tiny little fractures, tiny, barely there cracks that would get wider over time.

“Amaryllis, you have to listen to me. You aren’t going to do Malichai any good if you hurt yourself. We’ll get him back to the bed-and-breakfast, you can rest and then start again fresh.”

She could barely hear the words. Ezekiel sounded far away. She felt his arms around her and then he was lifting her, carrying her away from Malichai. She struggled, terrified of being too far away, afraid she’d lose him if she wasn’t there to see inside him, to see that every organ was working properly.

“We’ve got him. Rubin’s with him too. You know Rubin isn’t going to let go of him. You just rest. We’ll get you back to his room and you can work on him again when you’re rested,” Ezekiel assured. “In the meantime, we’ll look after all three of you until you’re on your feet again.”

He put her in the seat of a dark-colored car, snapping a seat belt in place, and then went around to the driver’s side. “I suppose Malichai didn’t have the chance to tell you we have a little bit of intel. Whoever these people are, they hired a hit man to kill you, Marie and Jacy and then set fire to the bed-and-breakfast.”

She forced her eyes open to stare into his. Malichai had told her that and she’d left them unprotected in order to follow after him and the man who had taken him. She rubbed her throbbing temples. She’d honestly forgotten that very important piece of information. What was wrong with her? “I need to get back there. Marie and Jacy are completely unprotected.”

“There’s a specific time period before they make their move,” Ezekiel assured. “Doing all that was actually to create a diversion from the real attack, which would be at a different location. We’re going to set Rubin up as a hit man, although with what just occurred today, I doubt this crew will oblige us and remain at the magic shop.”

“I doubt that as well. Who are they? What do they want?” On some level she knew he was engaging her in conversation in order to keep her from falling apart because she wasn’t with Malichai.

“We think they’re planning to bomb the San Diego Convention Center during the Ideas for Peace conference,” Ezekiel said.

Amaryllis’s entire body went still as it really sank in. “Thousands of innocent people could be in those buildings,” she whispered. “Why?”

“We don’t know the answer and we could be completely wrong. Other than what Anna and Burnell overheard or thought they overheard, we don’t have any proof of anything going on. Callendine probably has some kind of government immunity. They’ll pull him back and we’ll never know why he was here. He’s an American, on American soil. He’s sworn to protect these people. It doesn’t make sense that he would be the one leading a group of soldiers to bring down buildings on innocent people.”