“Were you one of them?” Kadan asked.
Tansy’s mouth tightened. She pushed around him to start up the trail again. “I think this conversation has gone on long enough. It’s getting personal and I don’t even know what you want yet. I have work to do tonight and I need food, so if you’re coming, then let’s get moving.”
Kadan fell into step behind her, alert for any more threats from the large cat, his gaze shifting around the area, but more than that, his every sense reaching out for information. “Dr. Whitney conducted experiments on children about twenty-five years ago. He collected infant girls from various orphanages around the world. He was looking for specific talents, female babies with psychic abilities.”
Tansy kept climbing while the roaring in her head sent her pulse pounding in her temples. Counting. Ten steps.
“He named each of the girls after flowers. Tansy is a flowering herb that grows in Europe and Asia.”
Fifteen steps.
“He enhanced those girls psychically and genetically altered many of them as well. When he removed the filters in their brains, he opened them up for psychic sludge. Many have a difficult time in everyday society. Most can’t be around people at all. They have frequent headaches and nosebleeds. Seizures are common when there is too much psychic overload. Some can do amazing physical things, such as leap over a man from a crouching position.”
He wasn’t lying to her. All of her life she’d been different. All of her life she’d fought to stay sane when each time she touched an object, or sat in a chair, or reached for a door handle, the door in her mind opened and the voices poured in. She kept counting, whispering the numbers under her breath, while she tried to quiet the voice inside that was wailing with fear.
“He did other things too. He has a breeding program, matching the girls, who are now women, with men he experimented on in the military. He created several GhostWalker teams. I’m a member of one of those teams. I agreed to be psychically enhanced. At the time, we didn’t know he took those experiments even further without our consent. He enhanced us genetically as well as paired us with the women from his earlier experiments. Our best guess is that he hopes to create unique soldiers from the unions.”
Thirty steps. Things were clicking into place, and the door in her mind creaked ominously, threatening her sanity. She’d been so close to peace. So close.
“You were adopted, Tansy, and Dr. Whitney allowed some of the children he experimented on to be adopted out. He usually kept tight tabs on the girls, so I’m asking you, did you see him while you grew up?”
Had she seen him? She shivered, suddenly cold, thrown back into childhood memories she didn’t want to have. Seeing Whitney was one of the few things she and her parents ever fought over. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. She would never forget that man, the way he looked at her as if she wasn’t human. He was cold and dispassionate, studying her the way a scientist might an insect. She’d begged her father not to leave her alone with him, but he would grab her mother’s hand, looking upset, and walk out of the room, pulling her mother with him. It was the only time she felt vulnerable and without their support.
“Yes.” Her voice was so low, she doubted he could hear. She made an effort to push back the images crowding into her mind. “He was—oily.” Whitney had only to touch her skin and she would drown in a black vat of oil, suffocating under the thick stain of a twisted mind. She hadn’t recognized the feeling, or identified it yet with sickness in her earlier years, but the ooze had poured into her until she couldn’t breathe, until she choked, smothered by his megalomaniacal personality.
Kadan breathed in and out, hating himself. He was hurting her. He was even skating close to her edge of sanity. He could feel the pain in her like a knife through his body and mind. He’d studied every report on her. She was very sensitive, especially to violence, and he was a violent man. She didn’t need to feel anything when she touched him or any of his belongings. In spite of the fact that she claimed her talent was gone, there was no way that it had disappeared. He was both an anchor and a shielder, which meant he could hold all psychic energy at bay and direct it away from her.
“You know your parents had to have known.”
She spun around so fast, her aggression blasting him hard enough to kick in his reflexes. His hand closed around the hilt of his knife before he could stop himself. She was thinking about kicking him in the chest, but she controlled her temper, her blue eyes shimmering with that strange violet light that intrigued him. It had to be an enhancement, but he couldn’t figure out exactly what it was used for.
Kadan lifted his hand, palm out, before she could speak. “Don’t be angry with me. I’m giving you the facts. You want to hear them, don’t you?” He kept his voice calm, soft, that little bit hypnotic. She was susceptible to sound; he could tell by the way she relaxed in spite of herself. “You seem like the kind of woman who prefers knowledge.”
“Don’t make assumptions about my parents.”
He didn’t want to hurt her, but he damn well wanted to do a number on her parents. They were both considered geniuses, and they must have guessed exactly what Whitney was up to. Sharon Meadows wanted a child at any cost, and she was more than willing to keep her mouth shut about Whitney in order to have one. With their money and connections, they could have had any child, why this one? Why one so damaged?
And why had Don Meadows agreed to stay quiet as well? Why not simply get another child for Sharon and blow the whistle on Whitney’s experiments? He needed to look a little closer into Don and Sharon’s government contracts as well as their personal lives, because their silence didn’t go with the kind of picture his reports had drawn of them.
“I’m sorry,” he said, allowing his voice to grow warm like spreading honey. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
She knew his accusation was true, but she refused to allow the thought into her mind. She needed time and he didn’t blame her. If he could have, he would have spared her that, but they were going to have to work fast to figure out what was going on.
“If Whitney conducted these experiments on military men . . .”
“Specifically men trained in Special Forces,” he interrupted.
“Great. That’s all I need.” She pressed her fingertips to her eyes. “If you’re military and no one has heard of GhostWalkers, this information has to be classified.”