Phantom Game (GhostWalkers 18)

Whitney had men in high places protecting him, and they still did deals with him. They wanted his experiments. If he wanted her back, there was no doubt in her mind those men would find a way to trade her.

Even with all that in mind, just looking at Jonas, into his eyes, crumbled her resolve all over again. She had a reason for not going down to the compound and letting the other women know she was there. She had a reason for refusing to be with him, even though she knew he needed her in the way she needed him. Her reason wasn’t a trivial one. He had to understand that. She wasn’t being selfish or emotional or afraid. Her reasons were deep and elemental, and there was no repairing the damage done.

“Thank you for saying that, Jonas,” she acknowledged, “but I want you to know. Beverly found out I was missing from my bed, and she alerted the guards.” Her stomach knotted when she told him, and she pressed her hand tight over it, because what if she was wrong? What if, all this time, she was wrong?

“They caught me just as I was leaving the tunnels. Whitney had all the girls assembled in their pajamas. They were crying and scared. He asked me if I remembered the consequences for trying to escape. He walked up and down the row of girls and told me to choose one of them. I told him to go to hell, but I was so terrified. I shook so bad I could barely stand. I didn’t think he’d really do what he said. But he did. He took Ivy. I tried to attack him, but his soldiers held me back and they took her to another room. We all heard the gunshot. There was blood in the room, lots of it. He made me clean it up. We never saw her again.”

She didn’t realize she was crying again until Red dipped her branches and used the blossoms to gently touch her face.

“Whitney asked me if I really thought Beverly loved me. He said I was stupid if I believed that. That she worked for him for money.” She still remembered the sneer in his voice, the way he mocked her—all of them—for thinking anyone could ever care for them.

“Beverly denied telling the guards that I had escaped. She said it wasn’t true, but he laughed and told her none of us would ever trust her again and he had no more use for her. He let her go. Told her to pack her bags. I was going to kill her. I planned to slip into her room and kill her for what she did, although I knew ultimately it was my responsibility that Ivy died, not hers.” Camellia wiped at the tears on her face and straightened her shoulders. “Marigold stopped me. She said I would regret it later, and she was probably right. Mostly, I wanted to kill him and then myself. I’ve never been able to forgive myself.”

“That was a huge break in trust,” Jonas said. “Beverly was a mother figure to you for years.”

Camellia nodded. He got it. “The only mother I ever knew.”

5

Jonas studied Camellia’s face. Her expression. The way she held herself. There was far more to the story than she was telling him. The betrayal of her nurse alone would have given her every reason not to trust anyone. To also carry the guilt for the death of one of her sisters . . . the burden had to be horrendous. As he well knew, that sort of guilt wasn’t something you could just shrug off, no matter how many times someone told you it wasn’t your fault.

He wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her, which was an entirely unusual response for him. He wasn’t that man. He never thought he would be that man. He never thought he would or could be that man. He had the normal sexual urges of a man, maybe a little too much and too strong, but he had never wanted the emotional entanglements or physical closeness that came along with it. He wasn’t a hugger. He wasn’t a comforter. Yet looking at Camellia now and sensing her emotions more acutely than he’d ever felt another person’s, that was all he wanted to do at the moment—just hold and comfort her.

“What happened after that, Camellia?” he coaxed, keeping his voice as gentle as he could. She was picking and choosing her words so carefully, he realized she was afraid she would give too much away. This was about trust. His little Camellia had trust issues, and with his unthinking reaction earlier, he’d played right into her biggest insecurity. If he was ever going to get anywhere with her, he had to understand exactly what he was facing. He wanted to brush his fingers over her soft face and remove the last of her tears to comfort her. He needed to do it but instinctively knew she wouldn’t welcome his touch.