She tried to be reassured, but the idea of Whitney finding her was terrifying. “He’ll know I’m here. The computers…”
“Have been taken care of. Go to sleep and let me handle this. You’re a ghost, honey, just like the rest of us.”
She dreamt of the other girls. Young girls rocking back and forth in pain. Girls laughing together, stolen moments of happiness. She dreamt of a room with no windows and no comfort and being so alone. She dreamt of betrayal- and Lily.
It was dark the next time she opened her eyes. She looked around the room. A small woman with dark hair was adjusting the IV. “I don’t like the look of all the bruises, Ryland. I should be getting the blood tests back soon. She looks so worn down.”
A man moved into her view, his fingers going to the nape of the other woman’s neck. “She’ll be okay. Gator isn’t going to let anything happen to her, Lily.”
Flame’s breath caught in her throat. Her gaze darted around the room until she found him. He was sitting close to the bed, his legs sprawled out in front of him. He looked tired, and his five o’clock shadow was getting unruly. “I don’t like you being here, Lily. You shouldn’t have come.”
Ryland turned at the edge in Gator’s voice. “There’s no need to talk like that. Lily had to come. Flame is her sister, just as Dahlia and the other girls are. Of course she had to come.”
“Flame doesn’t trust her.”
“She has no reason not to trust her,” Ryland snapped.
“Shh,” Lily cautioned. “Don’t wake her. And she does have reason not to trust me.” She moved closer to the side of the bed to touch Flame’s arm. “She was going through chemotherapy and she planned to escape. I told him. She would have died without treatment.”
Flame opened her eyes to stare up at her, wondering why she was all grown up instead of Lily the child. “I wanted to die. I wanted to get away from him that much.”
Lily drew in her breath. Her gaze met Flame’s. “I knew you wanted to die, but I couldn’t let you. You were my family. I loved you, Flame. I know you felt it was a betrayal to tell him, but I had to save your life.”
Flame closed her eyes. “I can’t remember those days. They’re too painful and I’ve wiped them from my memory.”
“No, Flame. You didn’t. He did. He didn’t want us to be close. He didn’t want us to have memories of one another. That’s why it hurts to look at our pasts or try to remember one another. It’s why we don’t. He even took that away from us.” There was a sob in Lily’s voice. “I didn’t realize until I tried to remember why you never liked me. I knew there was something between us, but I couldn’t remember. It hurt to remember.”
“I’m not going back.” Flame sounded tired even to her own ears. Maybe she really was dreaming, otherwise she’d be telling Lily what she really thought of her. “How could you side with him when you knew what he was doing to us? Did you tell him I was here?”
“He’s dead, Flame,” Lily assured in her most soothing voice. “You’re perfectly safe now.”
Flame turned her head away from Lily to find Raoul. He was her only hope, even if she was caught in a dream. “He’s not dead,” she whispered.
Raoul caught her hand and held it to him. “I know, baby. I know. Everything’s in place. He can’t get to you.”
“You can’t possibly think Peter Whitney is alive, Gator,” Lily gasped. She threw out her hand to Ryland, who immediately took it. “He’s dead. I felt him die. I saw it. even though I wasn’t there. He disappeared, no one has found a trace of him.”
“I don’t think he is dead, Lily,” Gator said. “I’m sorry, I would have told you differently, but something’s not right. The men who attacked us are trained, just as we are. They’re all enhanced both genetically as well as psychically. I think Whitney has a private army and we either got in his way when he was trying to reacquire Flame, or he was running a little field operation to see how his boys stacked up against us.”
Pressing a hand protectively to her stomach, Lily felt behind her for a chair. “This can’t be happening. I feel like he’s taken everything from me. Everything.”
She had to be dreaming, Flame decided. Lily wept so quietly, so hopelessly it nearly broke Flame’s heart. And she didn’t feel for Lily. She would never trust her again, never be her friend, never call her sister. But if she didn’t stop crying, Flame was going to have to find a way to drag her butt out of bed and comfort her. “Men are so freakin’ useless,” she muttered.
“I’m pregnant, Ryland. It’s too late to stop trying. I’m already pregnant. What if he is alive? This is a nightmare.”
Ryland crouched beside his wife’s chair. “Listen to me, honey. This doesn’t change anything. We have a mission. We’re going to find the other girls and protect them. We’ll find them.”
“But what if this is all about the next generation? What if…” She trailed off, weeping again, this time into her hands.
Flame felt the choking terror rise. ‘Whitney was just monster enough to have created such an experiment. It would explain why she was so attracted to Raoul. Why he was in her thoughts every moment, why she dreamt about him at night. Why her body burned for his. She couldn’t have children, since the treatments had left her sterile, but all the others would have to be protected.
“Raoul?” She slipped her hand under her pillow, needing to feel as if she could defend herself. Her fingers found the smooth edge of the hilt of her knife encased in a leather sheath. She looked at him and smiled, some of the tension leaving her body. “Thanks.” She looked through the open doorway of her room and saw a man mopping the floor. He looked familiar. She was certain it was Ian, Raoul’s friend, but why would he be a janitor in the hospital? She had to be dreaming.
Gator eased his body onto the bed, stretching out be side her, careful of her broken arm as he wrapped his arm around her waist. “You’re welcome. I like you with knives.”
“You’re such a perv.” She snuggled closer to him, already drifting, uncaring anymore if she was dreaming or if Lily was real. She only cared about the warmth of Raoul’s arms.
The sound of whistling woke her. It was off-key and hurting her ears. She opened one eye cautiously. Raoul was asleep beside her; although how he could sleep through the noise she didn’t know. It was morning and there was no Lily or Ryland in the room.