Lightning Game (GhostWalkers 17)

There was anguish in his heart. In his voice. The weight of those soldiers he lost pressing down on him, haunting him until he couldn’t sleep and couldn’t find a way to make it right in his mind.

“Imagine having a gift like Mama’s. Like mine. Having such a powerful gift and never being able to use it. You’re compelled to use it, but you can’t. You have the knowledge and even the medical training, but you can’t. That would be the epitome of living in hell. Worse than Mama’s hell. My hell.”

Rubin turned his dark eyes on Jonquille. She shook her head and refused to look at him.

“You did go to the conferences to see if someone could help you. But you’re too good, too careful to get caught. No one saw you. You wore that mesh clothing that concealed you. You saw them. You caught them watching me, didn’t you, Jonquille? You knew I was in trouble. You decided, like my team, like my brother, that I was more important than you.”

He didn’t even try to keep the bitterness out of his voice. He detested the way everyone became his bodyguard, his shield, throwing up a protective safeguard around him whether he wanted it or not. He had made it clear over and over that he certainly didn’t want it, but his wishes never changed anything.

She inclined her head. Just barely.

“You knew they would be coming here, so you took it upon yourself to get set so you could kill them, didn’t you?”

Jonquille glanced at Diego and again her nod was barely perceptible.

“And then you planned to suicide, didn’t you?”

She pressed her lips together, her gaze shifting away from his. She looked at the floor. “If they didn’t kill me, I would have, yes.” Her voice was very low. “I have no future, Rubin. You do. There’s no help for me. The things Whitney did to me make it impossible for me to have human contact. I can’t live like this anymore. I thought I could take out the team trying to acquire you, at least do something before I died. But then you had to come early. You were here so fast and I didn’t expect to be so …” She broke off, shaking her head, looking at her hands.

There was silence after her confession. Rubin could barely think. He forced air in and out of his lungs, letting the night sounds and the air remove the anger from his system. Part of his temper had been fear. Jonquille was the woman meant for him and she had been about to sacrifice her life for him. He would have lost her like he’d lost everyone else. One by one. It was why he held so tight to Diego. To Ezekiel, Mordichai and Malichai, his foster family. He wasn’t about to lose them.

“We’re going to come up with a different plan, one that involves you living. Staying with me. With us. Finding a way to make it work. I don’t want to hear any negative crap from either of you. We’re going to do this. So, unless you can come up with solutions, don’t bother to say anything. I’m already pissed about the lies, Jonquille.”

Jonquille leaned toward Diego. “Is he always like that?”

Diego nodded. “You may as well get used to it. He doesn’t get pissed often, but when he does, he’s like a freight train and just mows down everything in his path. Just go along with him, there’s no other way. No use fighting him. How many in this team coming after him? How close behind you are they?”

“I made certain they got wind that you and Rubin were coming here but early. Like in the next couple of weeks. I didn’t think you’d be even close to coming yet. There are a lot of soldiers and they have heavy equipment with them, which slows them down. I caught a glimpse of it on one of the roads the last place I camped. One is clearly the leader and he hangs back and gives all the orders. They have new weapons. I got up on them several times, although they guard those weapons pretty carefully. They’re getting more and more careless though.”

Diego was quiet a moment, turning that over. “How good are they in the woods?”

“They’re not bad. Nothing to write home about. I can follow their tracks easily. The bad news is, they have access to a drone. The leader likes to put that drone in the air all the time. The good news is, here in the mountains, any stranger is instantly noticed. I haven’t seen any indication that they’re here yet. If they are, they haven’t found a way to move around under the radar, and that’s slowing them down. They wouldn’t just want to kill everyone because you would instantly pick up on that.”