Lightning Game (GhostWalkers 17)

Jonquille had managed to escape from Whitney and had been on the run ever since. She was extremely good in the wilderness. She’d excelled in her training as a soldier, particularly in isolated situations. She could blend into her surroundings easily. She could be still for hours if necessary. Had she kept to the mountains and forests, she would have stayed safe, but she wanted to find a way to undo the enhancements Whitney had amplified in her. The only way she could do that was to understand what was happening to her body in relationship to the electromagnetic fields around her. That meant consulting with experts.

She hadn’t just studied lightning in the hopes of finding a way to undo Whitney’s experiment that way. She’d also gone the medical research way, using fake IDs and going into labs late at night, using computers, covering her tracks but trying to find out exactly what Whitney had done in order to reverse the damage. She’d boldly become a research assistant to one of the leading experts in the field studying lightning, helping to provide for his every need as he developed his theories. She’d covered her bases, and so far she hadn’t been able to find a way to reverse the process.

“You can say no one is normal, but you can interact with others,” she pointed out. “I’ve seen you. You have the luxury of being a doctor and helping patients. You could have a relationship if you wanted. A family. It’s your choice whether to have a wife or children. I don’t have those choices. Several of the women raised with me didn’t have those choices.”

“Why don’t you have a choice, Jonquille?” Rubin asked, his voice as gentle as ever.

She considered showing him. Right there in the room. She could feel the heightened electrical charge moving through her. She wasn’t drawing it from him or his brother. Their combined energy was still too low to be a magnet for her body to feed off of. Her hair moved of its own accord, a subtle wave, but one she recognized as a dangerous warning.

Diego turned toward her alertly. “I wouldn’t do anything silly. I might be cooking, but the moment you threaten my brother, you’re dead.”

The moment she struck in the close confines of the cabin, they were all dead. “I could leave.” She made the offer because it was beginning to look as if that was her only option.

“There’s no need for this,” Rubin said. “We’re talking. You were telling me why you don’t have a choice, Jonquille.”

“I think that’s rather obvious, Rubin.”

She had liked him. At the conferences, she liked his personality. His calmness. He came off as a gentle man. He spoke with authority, and everyone, even the most expert there, deferred to him, and yet he didn’t have an ego that she could perceive. He presented his findings on the ability to redirect lightning to save crops and reduce damage to populated areas. At the military conference she’d attended, he was able to speak with authority on how lightning could be used to direct strikes on enemy bases. He had extensive knowledge of the uses being harnessed or potentially harnessed as weapons.

Never once did she detect a change in his vanity as others treated him with such deference. If anything, he didn’t like the spotlight. He had come to each conference to absorb as much as he had to share. She thought of him as a good man. Jonquille was also very honest with herself, and she thought he was a very attractive man. The more she watched him, the more she considered him appealing. Everything about him attracted her. In the end, that was why she decided to take the chance and ask him for help. Clearly, that wasn’t her best idea.

“It isn’t obvious to me,” Rubin persisted.

Jonquille forced down her rising temper. That low, gentle voice hadn’t changed in the least. His brother had the same soft voice, but the threat came off him in waves. There was no threat emanating from Rubin at all. None. Nor did he put up any defenses. She had been honest with them.

She’d been born with an abundance of electrical magnetic fields, far more than what were in the human body. Whitney had enhanced her further, giving her the DNA of animals as he did other soldiers, but mostly trying to construct a human lightning weapon he could use against other countries. He had failed, and like all his failures, it had angered him considerably. He never believed the fault was his—rather, the failure fell squarely on his test subject. She had suffered quite a bit at his hands while he tried to force her to “work” correctly.

“I can’t be in the company of humans. They give off too much energy. My body draws that energy to me like a magnet, especially if they’re upset and throwing off a tremendous amount. If there’s bad weather, that just compounds the problem.” She shrugged, trying to look casual.