Lightning Game (GhostWalkers 17)

Yeah, I figured as much. That’s got to be a Whitney thing if it’s happening this fast, you know that, right? Another thing to be suspicious about. Diego sounded resigned.

Rubin was already well aware that Whitney had a penchant for “pairing” his experiments. He often used pheromones to cause attraction between the two he wanted paired. Rubin had seen the results of those pairings. Whitney had definitely caused a physical attraction, but he hadn’t counted on an emotional one. There was no controlling that side of things. Whitney didn’t feel real emotion, so he couldn’t comprehend it.

Whitney certainly didn’t understand the closeness or the loyalty the GhostWalker teams developed among one another. He had no idea of the protectiveness they could feel toward their women and children or even one another.

“Jonquille?” Rubin prompted.

She gripped the arm of the rocker with one hand, and her thigh with the other, the first sign of real tension she’d shown since Rubin had made himself known. “Whitney had this notion when I was about four that it would be a great idea to use lightning against our enemies. He’s always wanted to use weather rather than soldiers, so no loss of life to us, but he could ruin their food sources and destroy their satellites, or use a series of devastating direct strikes against military installations. Several of us were used in related experiments, all considered failures. I am his lightning failure.”

Rubin was gripped by the utter sorrow in her voice. His heart actually jumped in his chest. A human lightning bolt? He leaned toward her. That was impossible. But was it? If Whitney had really paired them, he would be a logical match. He was a master of electrical control.

Is it possible? Diego asked. ’Cause this doesn’t feel like a lie.

I don’t know.

“Are you saying that when a storm brews you can actually direct lightning? Not only direct lightning from the storm but produce it?” Rubin asked.

He had to work to keep his voice mild. He didn’t want to sound in any way like Whitney had to have sounded when she had been a child and the cold-blooded man had tested her over and over. Suppressing excitement wasn’t easy. There was no one like her in the world that he’d ever heard of, if what she said was true. A human lightning bolt?

“I can’t direct lightning. That was the problem. And disappointment. Just produce it.”

But he could direct it. Jonquille was the weapon. Rubin was the trigger. He met his brother’s gaze over her head. Whitney had definitely paired them.

2

Jonquille didn’t take her eyes from Rubin. He was either going to believe her or he wasn’t. He was her last hope for any kind of a life. “Do you think you can help me? Can you find a way to undo what he did to me?” She hated that her voice was thin and weak.

She wasn’t a weak person. She had depended on herself because she had to. She didn’t dare be around others. Even Whitney had gotten to the point that he was afraid to be around her. As she’d grown up, her ability to control her talent had gotten worse, not better. Her body had drawn so much energy from others that she could barely contain the electrical charges.

“What do you mean by helping you?” Diego asked.

He had busied himself preparing food. It smelled delicious. She was hungry after hiking all day in search of flowers and mushrooms to sketch. It was nice that someone else was cooking, although he hadn’t specifically said he was going to offer her food. She just took it for granted she’d be included for dinner.

She lowered her lashes. That didn’t sound good. What did he think she meant? She’d just confessed to being a human lightning bolt. “I was hoping your brother might be able to make me normal.” It took effort to keep sarcasm from her tone. She didn’t enunciate as if he were two and couldn’t possibly understand her, although the desire was there. She had the feeling that wouldn’t win her any points with Rubin. The brothers appeared to be close.

“What’s normal in the GhostWalker world?” Rubin asked gently. “None of us are normal. Whitney experimented on all of us.”

She resisted rolling her eyes. Instead, she pushed the hem of the sleeve of her sweater into her mouth and bit down to keep from calling him on his far-too-obvious shit. He was the elite. Team Four. Pararescue. The holy grail of GhostWalkers. Word was, they were perfection. They could do no wrong. They didn’t get brain bleeds. They didn’t accidentally set the world on fire or slam lightning bolts into laboratories.

She attracted electrical energy from everything around her. The moment she entered the cabin, she should have known she wasn’t alone. She should have known Diego was close by when she approached the cabin. Neither brother gave off enough electrical energy to cause the least bit of alarm. She always knew when another GhostWalker was close. At least she thought she knew. She relied on her warning system. Now she was very concerned that all this time she had been wrong and she couldn’t identify other Ghost-Walkers. That would be a disaster for her.