Lethal Game (GhostWalkers 16)

Malichai circled Amaryllis’s waist with his arm. She was on the side where his leg was gone, and he didn’t like that. He didn’t want her looking, yet at the same time, she needed to see what she’d be dealing with for the rest of her life if she stayed with him. “Babe, I want you to know, if you want out, now’s the time to say so, no hard feelings, just walk away and I’m okay with it.” He forced himself to make the offer.

There was a long silence. She didn’t respond. He could hear the sound of the machines beeping and coughing as they did their jobs, spitting out information to the room and the nurses down the hall. He had no choice but to look up at her. Amaryllis looked down at him with her amazing blue eyes. She searched his face for a long time.

“Do you really think I’d leave you, Malichai? Do you think I’m that shallow? I love you. Absolutely love you and I’d do anything for you. In fact, now that you’ve brought the subject up, I’ve had . . . no . . . we’ve had an offer. Dr. Whitney called me a few nights ago and had a long talk with me about some research and work he’s been doing lately. I followed it up by looking into the things he was saying, and everything checked out.”

Ezekiel stood up and came around to the other side of the bed. “Amaryllis, you can’t trust a thing Whitney says. He’s very self-serving.”

“Yes, I know that. I know that’s true, other than when it comes to his GhostWalker program. He wants that to be successful. Any mistakes he makes when it comes to a GhostWalker preys on him. He’s OCD about it and can’t seem to let it go. I believed everything he said to me, although I’m certain he was twisting some facts to suit him.”

Malichai didn’t like the fact that Whitney knew how to get in touch with her, but there was no hiding the Owen deaths, or the military investigations or the bomb threats. Amaryllis was involved with the bed-and-breakfast. She was surrounded by GhostWalkers and Whitney would see that, but he also would know how to find her.

“This isn’t on him. He didn’t have anything to do with second-generation Zenith or my reaction to it,” Malichai said. “If that’s even the problem.”

“Trap says that’s it,” Ezekiel said. “He’s been working on it when he’s not been helping Cayenne with the twins. He says the problem appears to be with your bones and the DNA in them. So Amaryllis would have a similar problem using second-generation Zenith. The first time you used it just set you up for the fall. He can explain the entire sequencing thing to you and how it happened, because Trap loves that kind of thing, but I’d prefer not to go there.”

Malichai didn’t care one way or the other as long as it stopped right there. “Is it going to continue throughout my body?”

“From what he says, no. They stopped it climbing up your leg. It was aggressive because you had so many bullet holes and used five patches. That was a lot of the Zenith, and the exposure was all the way up the bone. The bone just disintegrated. Believe me, brother, Rubin examined every single bone in your body to ensure there wasn’t a problem anywhere else.”

That was a huge relief. Malichai had worried that eventually whatever was eating his bones was going to continue right through his body like a cancer.

“Why didn’t you tell me Whitney had called you, Amaryllis?” Ezekiel asked.

As head of the family, he was used to making decisions or at least being consulted. As one of the GhostWalkers’ commanding officers, he was in a position of leadership.

Amaryllis shrugged. “Before I said anything to anyone about Whitney’s proposal, I wanted to see if it had any merit. I lived in his compound for years. I grew up there. I watched him. I know him fairly well. This seemed like it could be the truth, but I didn’t want to give Malichai and the rest of you false hope.”

Malichai immediately noticed that she had distanced herself from them. It wasn’t Malichai and her. Or the GhostWalkers and her. It was Malichai and the GhostWalkers without her. He didn’t like it, but this time he managed to control his heart rate and kept the rhythm steady.

“There’s a little salamander that lives in water, called the axolotl, with the largest genome ever fully sequenced. Universities are very interested in this particular salamander. In fact, it’s becoming very popular because it has the ability to grow any limb back, including eyes. They can regenerate spinal cords, any limb you cut off, even parts of the brain, but most salamanders can do that.”