Predatory Game

CHAPTER 17

Saber turned around slowly, trying to tamp down the anger suddenly churning in her stomach. “Open it.”

Jess reached down to the floor to scoop up his trousers and shirt. “We need to talk about this, and since I can’t chase after you…”

“Don’t you dare play your wheelchair card on me,” Saber hissed. “I don’t deserve it. I’m going to take a shower and find clean clothes. I’ll talk to you when I’ve calmed down. Open the door, Jesse.”

Jess realized getting her to say she would talk after a shower was the best he was going to get. If he made her any angrier, she wasn’t going to listen to anything he had to say. “After your shower we can meet in the kitchen.”

She stood waiting, tapping her foot in silence.

“It’s easier to close doors than open them,” he admitted. “I’ll meet you in fifteen minutes.”

Saber yanked the door open and stalked through to the hallway. She ran up the stairs, furious with Jess, angry that he would risk his life. He had a good life. Most people would have given anything to have what he had. A family. Parents who loved him. A sister like Patsy.

“Damn you, Jesse,” she yelled and slammed the bathroom door.

It didn’t improve her mood to find the stack of brand-new clothes neatly folded, tags still on, waiting for her. She wouldn’t have minded had Patsy bought them, or even Mari, but she suspected Mari wouldn’t have thought of it and Patsy was in the hospital. No, this was from Lily. All the sizes were correct and there was just about everything she would need.

She took a deep calming breath and stepped under the water, turning her face up to let the hot stream run over her. She couldn’t blame Jess for asking her to try to help him walk, as much as she wanted to. He would never have been a SEAL or joined the GhostWalkers if he didn’t have a strong need for action and risk. He had to be intensely patriotic and he desperately needed the use of his legs to get back into action.

As she shampooed her hair she thought about patriotism. She detested everything about Whitney and tended to want to believe the monster had no good qualities, but he was a brilliant researcher and his training methods did bring results. She was afraid of the dark, yet she could move through a house unerringly to find her target in complete darkness. Her natural personality was to be emotional, yet she could be tortured and not cry out. She wasn’t good at pain, but she’d learned to accept it. And why did Whitney fool himself into believing that the end results justified the means? Patriotism.

Whitney was a patriot. She washed the soap from her hair and added conditioner. The GhostWalkers were all patriots. “I’m not.” She said it aloud. Said it defiantly. She wasn’t killing because some bastard high up in the government decided someone else needed to die. What was wrong with everyone? How could they trust an order that came down from someone they didn’t even know? Someone who could care less about them. Someone who maybe even had their own agenda, or was as loony as Whitney. It made no sense to her.

She dried off, repeating to herself that she was not going to let Jess persuade her. It was the height of stupidity. But with a sinking heart she knew if Jesse said just the right thing, looked at her a certain way, she’d give in-because she loved him. And love seemed to make her do really stupid things.

She dressed carefully, hoping to provide herself with a little armor, and went back down to join him. Jess always took her breath away with how handsome he was. She’d seen him once standing and he’d been an imposing sight. She felt safer with him in a wheelchair. Was that the reason she wanted to say no? Was it more than her fear of harming him? She hoped not. She hoped she wasn’t that petty, but for the first time in her life she’d been happy. Jess standing, walking, working as a GhostWalker would change everything.

She crossed the room to avoid getting too close to him. She perched on the countertop and folded her arms, waiting for him to speak first.

“You have to be open-minded, Saber.”

He even smelled good. Her heart ached looking at him, drinking him in. It would all change. Didn’t he realize that? She shrugged. “I’m trying to be, but you have to be open-minded too, Jesse. There are a million reasons not to try this. One misstep and instead of regenerating a nerve, I could give you cancer.”

“Before we get into all the reasons we shouldn’t try it, angel face, just tell me what you remember of the report.”

Saber’s blue eyes glittered at him. “I think you’re crazy to even consider doing anything Whitney advises.”

“Whitney may be insane, but he’s still a genius. If he thinks he has a solution to making the bionics work without a power pack, I’d like to hear it.” He kept his voice calm and even.

“He has a solution for a lot of things, Jesse, and none of them are acceptable in a civilized world.”

He refrained from arguing. She’d stall as long as he let her. “Just give me the information.”

“Fine.”

She shrugged, but he noticed she twisted her fingers together and held them tightly against her middle as if her stomach was churning in protest. He wanted to put his arms around her and comfort her, but he stayed still, knowing she had to come to terms with the idea of using her talent on him by herself.

“Apparently it’s been known for some time that using electrical currents on wounds can regenerate lost limbs and even repair severed spinal cords in a variety of fish and mammals. Fish, Jesse. Mammals. Not humans. No one has tried what you’re suggesting.”

“Humans are mammals,” he pointed out.

“Don’t even try to be funny.” She jumped off the counter and began to pace with quick, restless steps. “This isn’t funny, Jesse. What you’re asking me to do…”

“I know it isn’t funny,” he replied. “But there has to be something to this.”

“Maybe.” She pushed at her hair, making it more tousled than ever. “Whitney concluded that the neural pathways need electrical stimulation for regeneration, and that without it, any attempt will eventually fail. There are drugs that stimulate growth, but he concludes that they will never push the neural pathways to form correctly. The downside appears to be that if you overstimulate, it can cause excessive cell growth and cause tumors. Cancer, Jesse. That’s what he’s talking about.”

“But without the electrical current, there’s really no hope.”

She whirled around to face him. “I knew you’d jump on that. I knew it. Whitney doesn’t know everything. He doesn’t, Jesse, and he’s capable of terrible things. I’ve seen it. I’ve been a part of his experiments and believe me, he doesn’t revere life. We’re inferior to him. He wants the perfect soldier, and we’re not quite up to his standards, so if he needs to find out how far electrical current can be used before it causes cells to become cancerous, he has no compunction about doing so.”

“I’m aware of that.” Jess kept his tone low, careful not to let the energy swirling in the room near her. He was worried enough without hearing what he already knew. “But you can manipulate the electrical current and read my rhythm at the same time, can’t you? Isn’t that what you do?”

“Nothing is that simple. I’ll admit that the report supports findings that bioelectricity plays an important role in cell regeneration and that electrical induction of tissue regeneration may have some application…”

“Not some application, Saber. Significant application.”

“Maybe. But you want neural pathways reestablished from your brain to your legs. The nerves are damaged. You have no feeling.”

“I have some feeling now. Since they operated and put in the bionics. You saw me walk. Something is happening to allow that. Before the operation, I couldn’t move my feet. Now I can. I have to concentrate, but I can do it.”

“There you go, then. Give yourself more time.”

“I would be walking by now if it was going to work.”

“You don’t know that, Jesse, and you’re risking cancer.” She knelt in front of him, looking up. “Please, for just a minute, put yourself in my place. How could I live with myself if I ever harmed you? How could I go on? Do you have any idea what you’re asking of me?”

He framed her face with both hands. “Yes. I know I’m going to do this. If you don’t help me, I’ll ask Lily and Eric, and neither of them can monitor me the way you can. I’m asking you to do this because I believe you’re my best chance.”

His thumbs brushed against her soft skin as he stared down into her eyes. It was difficult to ignore the fear he saw there, but he was going to try the experiment. He’d had too many operations and had worked too hard to give up.

“Do you have any idea what this will do to us?” she asked. “The changes it will bring?” She had to bring it up. He had to go into this with his eyes open.

“Having me on my feet can only make things better.”

“Is that what you really think, Jesse? Because I love you enough to try this madness with you, but you’ll go back to active duty. You will. It’s what you live for. You and your team will be all over the place and where will that leave me?”

He shook his head. “You’re part of us, Saber.”

“How? How am I part of your team? How could that ever be? I assassinate people and I do it alone.”

“You can heal people, Saber. You could be the ultimate safety net for all of us.”

She opened her mouth to retort, but closed it abruptly. Could that be true? Was it possible she could really use her talent for something other than death? She’d helped Patsy, but that had been a fluke. She ducked her head, not wanting him to see her expression, knowing that he’d stirred hope and it was there in her heart, in her mind. She’d always thought of herself as a kind of terrible plague people should avoid.

“Saber? Honey, look at me. You’re amazing. The things you can do are amazing. And if you can do this for me, imagine what you could do with someone wounded. I’ve thought a lot about this.”

“I could screw up big time, Jesse. My childhood was a training ground to kill, not save lives. I need to practice and I don’t want it to be on you.” She was listening to him, wanting it, wanting to be someone different, wanting the prize he was holding out to her, but there was a cost. She wasn’t willing to gain her new life at the expense of his.

“You can already read my biorhythm, right? You monitor my pulse, even my blood pressure. Start slow. See what you can do. We don’t have to do the regeneration all in one day, in one session. Neither of us knows how it will work.”

“It’s an experiment, Jesse, and a darned dangerous one. If Lily did this, she could have the equipment ready in case anything happened to you.”

“She could have equipment ready after the fact, but you can prevent disaster from happening in the first place. You’ll know if my heart starts to go crazy, or anything else goes wrong.”

“Maybe-but you’re betting your life on a very big maybe.”

“And the other thing, Lily has no way of monitoring the cells themselves. She would have no way of knowing the cells were becoming overstimulated, so she would be guessing at the electrical pulses used. You’ll be far more accurate.”

“Jesse,” Saber shook her head, holding her shaking hand out in front of her. “You don’t have a clue of the process any more than I would have for moving objects. You’re guessing because you want it to be true.”

“Am I?”

Saber closed her eyes and let her breath out. Eric and Lily couldn’t know the amount of electrical current to introduce. How could they? Their guesses would be less precise than hers.

“Okay. But you tell Lily.”

“She’ll want to be here, and I want to start now.”

“I don’t care. We can start, but you tell her what we’re doing. If she has advice or objections, I want to hear them.”

“I thought you didn’t trust her,” he grumbled, pushing his chair down the hall to his office, with Saber walking behind him.

“I’ve changed my mind.”

He unlocked the door and waved her inside. Saber took the most comfortable chair and waited until he brought Lily up on the monitor. As Jesse explained what he wanted to do, the dawning excitement on Lily Whitney’s face made Saber’s hands clench the armrests of her chair. “Jess! I should have thought of that. It was there in his file about cell regeneration, but I didn’t think about Saber. Can you really do that? Is it possible, Saber? Can you monitor him internally and know when to stop?”

Saber shook her head. “I have no idea.”

“I studied your file. You’re unique. I’ve never run across anyone else like you, with your talent, so this would be such a gift to the GhostWalkers if you could actually use electrical currents. There’s so much I could teach on manipulating cells for wounds. This could be historic…” She broke off. “I’m sorry. I get carried away sometimes. You must be really frightened thinking about trying it on Jess.”

“It terrifies me,” Saber admitted. She still found it hard to trust Lily-to trust anyone. “No one has any idea if it will work or even how to do it.”

The thought of Jess without his wheelchair was scary. She hadn’t realized how much she relied on that chair to keep her safe. She’d seen glimpses of the real Jess Calhoun, confident and skilled, a warrior, a SEAL, a GhostWalker. He would demand she give everything and he’d give just as much. What if it worked? What if it didn’t? She could barely breathe she was so close to panic, and that was simply-unacceptable.

“If you want to try with me here, I’ll be glad to help monitor him,” Lily offered. “I’m not sure how much help I’ll be, but we can talk about it as we go.”

Saber twisted her fingers together and tried to look calm. “That sounds best. Then, if he goes down, you can get us help fast.” Her eyes met Jess’s. “You’ll have to have your legs stretched out.”

“That small couch is a futon. I rest in here sometimes,” Jess said.

“Is that what you do when I think you’re hard at work?” Saber said, trying to inject a light note into the situation. She was liable to have a heart attack before they were through she was so scared.

As Saber pulled off the cushion to unfold the frame, she heard Lily rattle papers. “While she’s fixing up the room, Jess, I may as well let you know we got the identities of three of the four men who attacked your sister. The fourth man is a ghost. He’s dead. I mean he was listed as dead before he ever arrived in Sheridan. The other three were all army, just as you suspected. And the ghost was a Ranger. Special Forces. He took the psychic exam, but didn’t pass it. Didn’t score any psychic ability. He was supposedly killed in Afghanistan.”

“I’ll bet that was the one they called Ben.”

“Ben Fromeyer. Supposedly deceased a couple of years ago,” Lily said. “But here’s the really interesting thing, at least to Ryland. Two of your dead men served under Colonel Higgens before he was killed. Higgens is the man who tried to have Ryland and his GhostWalker team destroyed. We thought he murdered Whitney.”

Jess noted that once again, Lily distanced herself from her father. “Higgens was selling secrets to other countries. Conspiracy, treason, espionage, murder-the man was a real piece of work.”

Lily nodded. “Ryland thought he stopped him.”

“But maybe Higgens was just a cog in the wheel,” Jess mused. “And it’s been moving right along ever since.”

“That’s what Ryland thinks. He wants to discuss this with General Rainer.”

“He can’t until Rainer is cleared. You know that, Lily.”

“He won’t. But in spite of the circumstantial evidence, Ryland doesn’t believe the general is involved.”

“Ranier’s army, and he was a good friend of Whitney’s.”

“I know. I know that. But Peter Whitney never sold out his country. Higgens wanted him dead because he found out about the espionage ring. That part was very real. Whitney faked his death and went underground so he could continue with his experiments, but you can bet he’s still got every single government contact he had before.”

“Does that include General Rainer?”

Lily shook her head. “Absolutely not. The general has been very good to the GhostWalkers. Without him, Ryland’s team would be on the run.” She looked past Jess to Saber. “Saber is ready, Jess, if you really want to try this.”

Jess didn’t make the mistake of hesitating. One look at Saber’s face told him she was ready to run. He pushed his chair close to the futon and locked the brakes so he could shift onto the open bed. Saber handed him the two pillows that he kept on the shelf in the frame, and he stretched out, positioning his legs so Saber could touch them easily.

She sank down beside him and tangled her fingers with his. “Are you certain? Very certain you want to try this?”

He could feel her trembling and raised her knuckles to his mouth. “I need to do this, Saber. If there’s a way I can walk again, then I have to try.”

She took a breath and let it out, glanced at Lily, who nodded encouragement, and moved down to the end of the futon where she could circle Jess’s ankle with her fingers. His skin was warm, so the circulation was working. She had to calm her mind, put away any possibility of mistakes, and listen, find his rhythm and hear what was happening in his body.

In actuality, it was more than hearing-Saber felt the movement of blood. Felt the way everything worked, as if it were her own body, as if they shared one skin, much like it felt when Jess made love to her. That same breath. The euphoria. He was so strong, inside and out.

She moved one hand up his leg to his calf, trying to feel the electrical pulse, that field of energy always present. She had to map the electrical properties of the damaged cells. She could identify them and keep the map in her mind, one of her greatest gifts. Lily and Eric had believed that with the DNA Whitney had given Jess during the genetic enhancement, and with the new drug accelerating cell repair, they would be able to stimulate the damaged nerves to work, but clearly the damage was far too severe.

“Tell me what you’re doing.”

She moistened her lower lip with her tongue, the only sign of nerves. “Obviously, Jesse, I’m in uncharted territory. If the damaged cells had been usable, physical therapy would have been enough along with the other things Lily and Eric have tried, but the therapy failed. Before I can stimulate new nerves to grow, I’ll have to get rid of the damaged ones.”

Jess linked his fingers behind his head. “That makes sense.”

She flashed him a brief, tentative smile. “I’m glad you think so. And I sure hope you’re right about Dr. Whitney, because I’m using everything he said in that file. According to him, many areas of the body have their own built-in programs for regrowing themselves if they’re damaged. To heal myself, or someone else, in theory, all I really have to do is trigger one of those programs and the body will do the rest.”

“Let’s do it then.”

Saber sighed. She’d said “in theory.” He had chosen to ignore that part. To trigger the program she needed to send a steady stream of electrical signal to the right place at the right time. The body’s own biological regrowth program for that particular area would take over and do the rest. It sure beat trying to micromanage the regrowth process herself-that is, if Whitney was correct in his findings. She could just watch it kick in after she jump-started it.

“Come on, Saber, let’s do this.”

She scowled at him. “You know this isn’t quite as easy as you want it to be. For one thing, aside from having never done it, I have to learn all kinds of little details. I have to be careful when healing wounds to apply the electrical current in the right direction. If I blow it, the wound would open up instead of close. This is going to take a little time until I figure out what I’m doing.”

He rubbed his hand up and down her arm. “I’m sorry. I know it’s going to work, Saber. If you do this, I’ll be able to walk again.”

“Well, don’t talk to me anymore. Let me visualize this.” Because she was scared now. She’d killed over and over again with the touch of her hand. Now she was going to do something good for a change-if she didn’t blow it and do further damage. And she was going to have to follow Dr. Whitney’s instructions verbatim. He had written that report for her to read, knowing she would read it and retain every word. He had described in great detail what needed to be done and how to do it. First she had to shrivel up the damaged nerve segment, using a targeted burst of electrical current. Then she needed to grow a new nerve segment to replace it.

Growth of new nerves-neurogenesis-took a special application of her skill. Like an artist, she would “direct” the electrical field from one point to another-across the gap where the damaged nerve segment used to be-“painting” where she wanted the new nerve pathway to appear. This would set up an electrical field across the space she was visualizing, and nerve cells would start growing in the direction she had “commanded.”

She started tentatively, and found that for growing neural pathways, a pulsed electrical current worked much better than a steady one. With persistence, she could generate an entire nerve segment. It was an amazing feeling. The nerve cells felt like plants sprouting in her mind; she visualized them that way. Some would push out tentative tendrils that would grow around neighboring cells. Others would retract if they touched other cells.

Once she grew some new nerve cells, she “fired” them repeatedly-just as if Jess were using those nerve cells over and over again, to break them in and to trigger growth of even newer neurons hanging off of them. If she generated more current, it resulted in faster growth of new nerve cells…but she also had to be careful to not overdo it and “fry” the new nerve segment she was creating.

It was an exhausting business, but she grew more confident as she realized the useless tissue and cells were being replaced by healthy muscle and nerves. She concentrated on the most damaged areas, around the bionics where the electrical signals had been severed, and stimulated the growth in those precise muscles and nerves needed to drive the bionics.

Growth of new muscle tissue required a little something, she discovered; it was actually easier than regenerating nerves, but required great precision for long periods of time. If she applied just the right amount of electrical current at just the right place on the edge of the healthy muscle tissue, she would trigger a biological program already built into the body, a program for regrowing new muscle tissue to replace old damaged tissue. She just had to keep the level of current steady to keep the body’s program running and sit back and “feel” it do the rest of the work. It sure beat having to micromanage all the zillions of muscle cells. She was so exhausted, she wouldn’t have been able to continue.

She pulled her hand away from Jess’s legs, aware of the time passage only because she was swaying with weariness. The room had been so silent while she worked, and when she glanced at the monitor, Ryland was watching with his wife.

Jess lay very still for a long while, so long that Saber’s heart began to accelerate. She touched his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

He glanced at her and then at the monitor. “Yes. I feel fine. Just not any different. While you were working my legs were warm, and I actually felt a couple of zaps, but now I’m not feeling much of anything.” He sat up slowly.

Lily smiled at him. “If you don’t see any improvement within twenty-four hours, you should try again. This is amazing, Saber.”

“Only if it worked,” Saber said.

“I’d like to stay and talk, this is really exciting, but I think I’m going to be having a baby here pretty soon.”

“You mean in a few weeks,” Jess corrected.

“I mean in a few hours. If you need anything else, call Eric. I’ll be out of touch for a while.”

Ryland stuck his head around Lily, a grin splitting his face from ear to ear. “We’re having a baby, Jess!”

Jess laughed. “I can see that. Good luck to both of you. Let us know everyone’s all right the minute it comes into the world.”

“I will,” Ryland promised.

Lily blew a kiss to Jess. “Be happy, you two.”

The monitor went dark and Saber flicked it off. She turned to Jess. “I can’t believe she sat there in labor the entire time. I would have been freaking out.”

“I don’t think you freak out much, Saber,” Jess said, catching her hand and tugging until she was back beside him.

“What is it?” She pushed back his hair.

Jess lay back against the pillows, trying to hide his frustration, rubbing his hand over his shadowed jaw to hide his expression when he really wanted to pound his legs with his fist.

“What?” Saber flashed a slow smile as she shook her head. “Did you think anything we did was going to meet with instant success and you’d miraculously stand up and walk? It even took a tadpole twenty-four hours to grow a new tail, and you, my impatient friend, are a lot larger than a tadpole.”

He scowled at her. “You could be a little more sympathetic.”

“Over what? You being a little kid who wants instant gratification?” She leaned over and kissed his nose. “There. It was all out of joint, but I’ve made it better.”

“It’s not better.” He pointed to the left corner of his mouth.

She rolled her eyes, but leaned closer, her lips feathering across his until she found the corner and pressed briefly. “You’re such a baby.”

He pointed to the other side.

Saber caught his head in her hands and kissed the right corner of his mouth and then settled her lips over his. Teasing. Nibbling. Sliding her tongue along the seam of his lips. She felt her stomach tighten, her womb clench with need. It didn’t take more than looking at Jess to want him. Kissing him was incredible. She loved his mouth, hot and sensual and a little ruthless.

His hand moved to the nape of her neck, holding her still, while his mouth took control of hers. His other hand urged her down on top of him. She straddled him and slid her arms around his neck, pressing close to his chest.

He kissed her over and over, deepening each kiss, demanding more and more until she felt as if she was melting in his arms. “If I didn’t say it before, thank you. And if it doesn’t work, thank you for trying. I know you were afraid.”

“If I forget to tell you,” she whispered against his mouth, “I’m very much in love with you.”

“Then marry me.”

She sat up abruptly. “Not that again. Honestly, Jess, you’re relentless when you want something.”

He tugged on a curl. “I can keep you safe from Whitney.”

“Maybe. And maybe you’ll get me pregnant and we’ll have to go underground like Lily. She’s leaving her home in order to keep her child safe.”

He shrugged. “We can go up into the mountains near Jack and Ken. They have a fortress up there. It’s all good, Saber, as long as we’re together.”

She moved from his lap. “Come on, dragon king, let’s go eat. I haven’t had food yet and I’ve got to go to work.” She needed something after expending all that energy.

He slid his body from the futon to his chair. His right calf jerked. He caught his leg and positioned it. “I’ll cook tonight. You can explain why you don’t think moving to the mountains would be a good idea.”

“Your parents, for one thing, Jesse. And Patsy. After you moved here, Patsy followed you and then your parents bought a house as well. You told me that yourself. You just can’t leave them.”

He laughed at her. “You’re really grasping at straws, aren’t you?”

“Why marriage?”

“Because I believe in it. My parents have been married for over thirty-four years. They’re still very much in love. I don’t think the real thing comes along all that often, so I’m grabbing it and hanging on.”

“How can you be so sure that it’s not pheromones?”

He caught her hand again, tugging until she was beside him. “Sex with you is fantastic, no doubt about it, better than anything I ever imagined.” His grin turned wicked. “And I can imagine a lot. But the truth is…” His smile faded and he brought her onto his lap, his arms enfolding her close, sheltering her against his heart. “I’m so in love with you I can’t think straight. One has little to do with the other. I wouldn’t feel like this if it was all pheromones.”

She bit her lip. “You thought you loved Chaleen enough to ask her to marry you.”

“She was pretending to be someone she wasn’t. I thought she liked all the same things I did, and I didn’t know what real love was. I mistook a sexual attraction for the real thing. I think I knew all along, but I didn’t want to know because a home and family meant so much to me. You’re the real thing.”

“What if you’re wrong?” she persisted, turning her face up to his. “You could be wrong.”

He slid his hand around the nape of her neck, the pad of his thumb caressing her face. “I’m not, Saber.”

She shook her head. She was tired already and she had a show to do. “I’ve got work tonight. Do you think we could talk about this later? I’m starving.”

“Fortunately for you, I called and had dinner delivered earlier. I just have to heat it up.”

“You cheat,” she accused, sinking into a chair. Her hand was shaky as she pushed it through her hair. “That was more difficult than I imagined.” She had to hide the effects of the psychic drain from him or he’d insist she stay home, and she needed a little time to put everything in perspective. But she was exhausted.

“It makes sense, you’re using energy to direct an electrical current. And you worked for over an hour and a half.”

“I didn’t notice the time passing,” she admitted. “Whitney’s file was actually more helpful than I would like to admit. Everything he speculated and how to do it was dead on.” She hadn’t deviated at all from the instructions, too afraid of doing harm.

He put a plate in front of her and turned back to get his own. “You said you read the second file, on your target. Senator Ed Freeman was your target, right?” He looked back at her when she didn’t answer.

Saber’s gaze slid away from his. “I don’t like talking about what went on before I came here. I’m trying to be someone else and forget all of that happened. Maybe, just maybe if I could help you, I wouldn’t feel like the villainess of the world all the time. And maybe your friends wouldn’t look at me like they expected me to fry them with my gaze.”

Jess put his plate on the table and rolled his chair beneath it. His legs were twitching, both of them, tiny sparks of pain zapping him. He didn’t dare mention it, not when she was so certain she could harm him. “You’re too sensitive. No one looks at you like that except you. What happened to you made you who you are, the woman I’m in love with, Saber. And we need to figure out who is trying to kill the GhostWalkers.”

“Whitney is a good start.”

“Maybe. Possibly. But then maybe it’s someone else and Senator Freeman was involved in espionage.” The pins and needles were painful and his muscles cramped and spasmed.

She shrugged. “Whitney thought so. Freeman’s father was friends with Whitney but apparently they had a falling out over Whitney documenting the senator’s involvement with a General McEntire, who was part of an espionage ring. I saw the evidence and it was pretty damning. The senator looked a legitimate target to me, but then evidence can be falsified fairly easily.”

“I don’t think Whitney made anything up, Saber. Freeman set up two GhostWalkers for capture and torture in the Congo. He’s part of a ring trying to destroy us, although it doesn’t make sense because he’s married to one of us.”

“Violet. I read about her,” Saber said. “Whitney wants her dead too.”

“He would if they were selling secrets to foreign countries, especially now with all the terrorist attacks. And I can’t blame him. Freeman was about to be named as a vice presidential candidate. Can you imagine what he’d have access to?”

Jess’s legs were jumping. Beneath the table he pressed his hands down hard on his knees in an attempt to control the involuntary spasms. Pins and needles were like hot pokers stabbing into his flesh. He broke out in a sweat. He had meant to have her stay home from work, but he didn’t want her to see him like this.

Deliberately he glanced at his watch. “Have I made you late?”

She grabbed his arm and turned his wrist over. “Oh no. I’ve got to go. Brian’s going to be pulling out his hair. I’m sorry about the dishes. You heated up the food, I should clean up. Just leave them for when I get home.”

She rushed around the table, dropped a quick kiss on his head, and catching up her purse, paused at the door. “If you need me tonight, you call me, Jess.”

“I’ll be all right.” She had to leave fast or she was going to notice he was in trouble.

“Your friends will be hanging out tonight, right? Watching over you?”

The anxiety in her voice turned his heart over. “Yes. Now go, Saber. I’ll be listening.”

She smiled at him and hurried out the kitchen door to the garage.

Jess put his head down on the table and prepared himself for a long night.