Lightning Game (GhostWalkers 17)

“No, I do. Someone has to know besides us. There was no one to tell. He always got rid of our nurses after a few months. Even the guards, especially the nice ones. He only kept the ones that were very loyal to him, or that he could compromise in some way. We were little kids with no one to advocate for us and very confused as to what was wrong or right. Then there was Lily. She was treated differently than we were. We all loved her and thought she was one of us, but he didn’t do to her the things he did to us.”

Rubin felt very sorry for Lily Whitney. She had been officially adopted by Whitney, raised to believe she was his daughter. She didn’t know about his experiments or that he had “bought” the girls from orphanages. She couldn’t remember them at first. She didn’t know about the experiments he did on the soldiers. When she found out, she was horrified. Eventually, with both sides not trusting her, she married Captain Ryland Miller, a GhostWalker from the first team. She had rescued Team One from the cages they were in. They were being stalked by a murderer and it was impossible for them to escape, locked up as they were.

“What you’re saying is her puppy was safe, and the rest of you all had dogs at risk.” He kept his voice quiet and soothing as he continued to massage her neck.

“Exactly. That night was one of sheer terror for all of us. We were instructed to leave our dogs in our rooms, which we did. The soldiers were sitting around the arena and they were all excited, and there were other soldiers there as well, men we’d never seen before. Whitney was standing at the bottom of the stairs with his guards, just to the right of where we were all seated, and there were guards heavily around us. He instructed them to bind our hands and feet so we couldn’t move from where we were sitting.”

He could feel her heart pounding when his palm curled around her nape, his fingers gently resting on her pulse. He tasted anger in his mouth. He rarely felt the emotion, but he knew what was coming.

“They brought in a big dog. It looked savage and it was snarling. Its eyes were red and horrifying, like something out of a movie. Across from it, they brought in Flame’s dog. She was a sweet thing, and clearly, she didn’t know what was expected. None of us did. The crowd roared when that horrible animal was let loose. It rushed straight at Flame’s dog. She screamed and tried to break loose. All of us did. One by one we had to watch as our dogs were torn to pieces by various animals brought in to ‘fight’ them. Since our dogs weren’t fighters, of course they lost. They weren’t fit to live, according to Whitney. We were supposedly taught a valuable lesson. We hadn’t taught them to survive.”

She was sobbing and it was difficult to understand her. He held her tighter and let her cry, stroking her hair and murmuring soothing nonsense to her. What could anyone say to counteract the absolute cruelty of a man like Whitney?

“Some of the girls needed an anchor. They couldn’t survive very well around violence without Flame or Lily or me. It wasn’t well known that I was an anchor because I was so young. Lily was the one most of the girls relied on because Flame was so sick or put in solitary so often. But that night, Lily wasn’t there. She didn’t see what we saw. And her dog survived. What did that say about her? We didn’t understand why she was treated so differently.”

“He was already driving a wedge between you,” he murmured, nuzzling the top of her head. “I’m so sorry, Lightning Bug. Whitney deserves his own private spot in hell. There are no words for a man like him. None.”

He placed his hand under her chin and tipped her face up because he was almost desperate to find a way to make things better for her, when he knew there was no way he could. This experience could never be erased from her mind. Still, he brushed kisses across her eyelids and down the tracks of her tears to the corner of her mouth. That beautiful mouth. It made no sense to him that anyone, even Whitney, could be that cruel to children. Life, yes, but a man, no.

He brushed his lips gently over hers, settling his hand at the bare nape of her neck. She responded tentatively at first. A hesitant movement of her lips, velvet soft, sliding along his, until his stomach did a strange somersault. He had never been into kissing that much, it always seemed far too intimate, but now, intimacy was extraordinary and necessary.