Phantom Game (GhostWalkers 18)

His breath caught in his lungs, and that fist in his belly grew to outlandish proportions, dark and ugly, because the answer was already forming in his mind. Aggression sent adrenaline rushing through his veins, and the need to hunt and kill prey was a drive that shook him.

She moistened her lips. Took a breath. He felt the air in his own lungs, as if she’d given that to him, shared it with him.

“When I went down the mountain exploring. I thought she was Marigold at first, and I was so happy to see her, but then her husband called out to her. He called her Briony. He said Mari needed her. I looked closer and Mari was looking out a window. I could see her face framed there. She waved and Briony waved back.”

“She never mentioned Briony to you before that time?”

Camellia shook her head very slowly. “Not in twenty years of being together. All those late-night chats. Of declaring ourselves sisters. Best friends. Swearing that we had each other’s backs and always would. I didn’t know what to think, so I backed off and came to my garden. I find peace here. I can think clearly. I needed to figure out what I could trust after seeing that. You seem to know all about Briony. Maybe everyone does, just not the woman who grew up with Marigold and had her back for over twenty years.”

Jonas realized that was the biggest wall of all. The steel one. The one sealing all the others. How could she trust anyone, least of all a man she barely knew? She’d just met him. He wanted her to go down to that compound with him and trust his team, a team that mixed regularly with Marigold’s team. She’d experienced one betrayal after another. She wasn’t suddenly going to take a giant leap of faith with a man she’d known for less than an hour. Truth be told, he wasn’t a man to inspire a great leap of faith in the best of times. He was too hard and dangerous. She was sensitive to what he was. She saw right through that facade he put on for others.

That little seed of doubt Whitney had planted in her head, that one of the girls may have betrayed her instead of Beverly, had grown just a little bit more. He could see Camellia was struggling with her doubts. She didn’t want to believe Marigold could ever do such a thing, and she obviously felt wretched for even considering it.

“I can see how it would hurt to have your closest friend keep such a secret.” He swept his hand through his hair, a deliberate gesture on his part. He wanted her to see him as more human than he knew he really was. It wasn’t as if he were a cyborg. Sometimes the pumped-up supersoldiers Whitney threw at them with armor plates in their bodies seemed more human than he was.

When he’d first seen Camellia, he’d thought, hoped—if only for just one fleeting moment—that he had a chance to fit in somewhere, with someone. She didn’t have to be like him. It was more than enough for her to just see him and accept him. He couldn’t quite accept himself, not after the horrible things he’d done or the equally horrible things he’d stopped himself from doing. Still, he wanted her to see the terrible truth of him and want him anyway. He’d blown his chance before he got started by inadvertently insulting her. Not accepting what she was.

“Don’t,” she said softly.

“Don’t what?” He let his hand slip to the nape of his neck where his muscles were knotted. That wasn’t feigned. He didn’t want to give her up. On the other hand, he wasn’t going to cause her further pain. He could feel it in her. The pain was very real and visceral. Tearing her up.

“Why do you despise who you are so much? You can’t change it, Jonas. You know that. Lily must have tried. If she can’t do it, and she’s a genius, then you know you have to find a way to accept what you are and live with it. There must be really great things you can do. Like tapping into the mycelium network to sense danger before anyone else.”

He sighed and leaned back in the chair, allowing blossoms of the Middlemist Red to work their magic on him. The petals were soft, the way he imagined Camellia’s skin to be. “I’m not normally quite such a pessimist. It’s just that the moment I laid eyes on you, we were connected, and I felt different. I liked the way I felt for the first time in years. Then I blew it and that feeling was gone. It’s been difficult to pull myself together again.”