“Not if he wants to see us working with the women. If Whitney is alive and he’s conducting secret experiments by putting us into other positions using the women, that changes everything. We didn’t volunteer for that and that makes us…“ He trailed off, unable to actually voice the word without bile rising in his throat. “Damn that son of a bitch, Ian.”
“I’m not a damn victim, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Ian responded, his brilliant green eyes suddenly going flat and hard.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m getting at. Do you think we feel superior to Lily, Dahlia, Flame, and the others because we made the choice? We volunteered for psychic enhancement. Do we pity them?”
Ian opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again. “I wouldn’t say superior. But the pity might be true. Although how anyone can pity Flame is beyond me. She’s beautiful and she’s lethal. And sexy as hell.”
“Thanks. You don’t ever need to be saying that again. Or thinking it.” Gator let his breath out slowly. “We didn’t agree to physical enhancement and as cool as it has been, it also means we could get cancer just like Flame. For all I know the son of a bitch could have targeted us just like he did her. Once he realized gene enhancement could stimulate a mutant cell, he deliberately caused the mutation in order to figure out how to beat it. So he gave Flame cancer and then put her into remission a couple of times just as if she were a lab rat. Who’s to say he hasn’t done that to us?”
Ian swore softly. “Cancer? Is that for real, Gator?”
Yeah, it’s for real. Lily thinks it may recur in Flame. Whitney used viruses as the vector for the enhancement. Sometimes the enhancement stimulated a cell that it shouldn’t have been messed with and there you go. Cancer. Of course Lily explains it all a lot better, but it boils down to the fact that Whitney deliberately used Flame for medical research.”
“What about children?” Ian asked. “How do we know we’re not going to pass something on to them?”
“Exactly. Lily says the gene doping shouldn’t be on, but she’s worried.”
“She’s worried that he deliberately experimented at on the women to see if he could,” Ian guessed. “Because the question would occur to him as well. And knowing Whitney, he wouldn’t be satisfied until he had the answer.”
“And that means the women had to grow up and find a partner,” Gator said “If Whitney conducted some other kind of experiment to match us all up, he’d be in a great position to get his answers.”
“If he were still alive,” Ian added.
“Exactly. If he’s still alive.” Gator shoved a hand through his dark hair. “That sniper was too well trained to be a civilian like the others. I swear, Flame’s theory is beginning to make more sense than I want to admit.”
“How’d Flame get away from Whitney if she wasn’t adopted out? And when? How long did he have her?”
Gator shook his head. “She hasn’t confided in me yet. She thinks Whitney sent me to bring her back.”
“Well. In a way that’s the truth, isn’t it?”
“Not like this.” Gator looked around him. “I don’t want them to trace any of this back to her. It’s another gun aimed at her head.”
“Then we have to make certain they think you were on the bike, that you threw the knives, and had the garrote. We have to remove every trace of her, and we don’t have much time.” He was working as he spoke. “If they’re looking for her, Gator, and they suspect for even a moment she’s been here, they’ll crawl through this place to find a strand of her hair. I’m laying down my prints and my tracks everywhere she was, but you need to be all over that bike. A child could read what went on here. And they’ll be sending experts.”
“Chopper’s already landed.” Gator cocked his head to one side listening. “A couple of our boys, Kadan Montague and Tucker Addison, are heading this way. What would they be doing in this vicinity?” He hurried to help obliterate all signs of Flame’s participation.
“Come on, Gator. Kadan and Tucker are with us. You don’t suspect them of being part of a conspiracy.”
Gator met Ian’s gaze squarely. “Just to be on the safe side, until we know what’s happening, let’s be careful what we say.”
“She’s going to be royally pissed about you claiming that bike,” Ian warned. “She has a thing about that motorcycle.”
“Well she’ll have to get over it. Until we know what’s really going on, I’m going to assume she’s in danger. Whether Lily or anyone else likes it, Flame is a GhostWalker and is under our protection.”
Ian laughed as he turned to walk back toward the small clearing where the helicopter had landed. “You’ve got it wrong, Gator. That woman thinks you’re under her protection. She’s going to kick your ass for this. You’re taking advantage of the fact that she was a little bit shell shocked with Burrell’s death. When she recovers…”
“Stop trying to give me nightmares.” Gator righted the bike, not an easy task when it was half buried in mud and the front tire was completely twisted. It wasn’t going be easy, in fact, it was probably impossible to hide the that Flame had been there from Kadan and Tucker. He trusted them with his own life, but he wasn’t so certain he trusted them with Flame’s. He didn’t know exactly how to explain that to Ian.
“I think you’re in over your head,” Ian tossed back over his shoulder, striding away, his long legs covering t fast.
“That’s an understatement,” Gator admitted aloud.
He lifted the motorcycle out of the muck, for the first time really paying attention to the superhuman strength of muscle in his body. He could run twice as fast and twice as long as he could before the experiments. He could jump and clear unbelievable heights, but it was really his tremendous strength that astonished him. He knelt beside the motorcycle and looked as if he were examining the bent frame and wheel.
“Nice mess,” Kadan greeted as he stepped around the Jeep. “What the hell happened here, Gator? It looks like you went hunting.” His sharp gaze was already touching on the water-filled tracks in the mud.
Kadan had trained in Special Forces, served a couple of years, joined the FBI, and had a reputation for solving very difficult murder cases. He’d volunteered to join the psychic team and retrain with the rest of them when he was approached. It was common knowledge Kadan had been far more psychically gifted prior to the enhancement than any of the rest of the GhostWalkers.