“Do you really think I’d leave you, Malichai? Do you think I’m that shallow? I love you. Absolutely love you and I’d do anything for you. In fact, now that you’ve brought the subject up, I’ve had . . . no . . . we’ve had an offer. Dr. Whitney called me a few nights ago and had a long talk with me about some research and work he’s been doing lately. I followed it up by looking into the things he was saying, and everything checked out.”
Ezekiel stood up and came around to the other side of the bed. “Amaryllis, you can’t trust a thing Whitney says. He’s very self-serving.”
“Yes, I know that. I know that’s true, other than when it comes to his GhostWalker program. He wants that to be successful. Any mistakes he makes when it comes to a GhostWalker preys on him. He’s OCD about it and can’t seem to let it go. I believed everything he said to me, although I’m certain he was twisting some facts to suit him.”
Malichai didn’t like the fact that Whitney knew how to get in touch with her, but there was no hiding the Owen deaths, or the military investigations or the bomb threats. Amaryllis was involved with the bed-and-breakfast. She was surrounded by GhostWalkers and Whitney would see that, but he also would know how to find her.
“This isn’t on him. He didn’t have anything to do with second-generation Zenith or my reaction to it,” Malichai said. “If that’s even the problem.”
“Trap says that’s it,” Ezekiel said. “He’s been working on it when he’s not been helping Cayenne with the twins. He says the problem appears to be with your bones and the DNA in them. So Amaryllis would have a similar problem using second-generation Zenith. The first time you used it just set you up for the fall. He can explain the entire sequencing thing to you and how it happened, because Trap loves that kind of thing, but I’d prefer not to go there.”
Malichai didn’t care one way or the other as long as it stopped right there. “Is it going to continue throughout my body?”
“From what he says, no. They stopped it climbing up your leg. It was aggressive because you had so many bullet holes and used five patches. That was a lot of the Zenith, and the exposure was all the way up the bone. The bone just disintegrated. Believe me, brother, Rubin examined every single bone in your body to ensure there wasn’t a problem anywhere else.”
That was a huge relief. Malichai had worried that eventually whatever was eating his bones was going to continue right through his body like a cancer.
“Why didn’t you tell me Whitney had called you, Amaryllis?” Ezekiel asked.
As head of the family, he was used to making decisions or at least being consulted. As one of the GhostWalkers’ commanding officers, he was in a position of leadership.
Amaryllis shrugged. “Before I said anything to anyone about Whitney’s proposal, I wanted to see if it had any merit. I lived in his compound for years. I grew up there. I watched him. I know him fairly well. This seemed like it could be the truth, but I didn’t want to give Malichai and the rest of you false hope.”
Malichai immediately noticed that she had distanced herself from them. It wasn’t Malichai and her. Or the GhostWalkers and her. It was Malichai and the GhostWalkers without her. He didn’t like it, but this time he managed to control his heart rate and kept the rhythm steady.
“There’s a little salamander that lives in water, called the axolotl, with the largest genome ever fully sequenced. Universities are very interested in this particular salamander. In fact, it’s becoming very popular because it has the ability to grow any limb back, including eyes. They can regenerate spinal cords, any limb you cut off, even parts of the brain, but most salamanders can do that.”
Malichai had a feeling he knew where this was going. He glanced at his brother. Another Whitney experiment. Whitney was always a step ahead of science because he was willing to step on the toes of others in their fields and also to try things before they had been tested to see if they were safe. What would Malichai be willing to do for another leg? His own leg? Would he be willing to try an untested method? An unexperimented one? A part of him didn’t want Amaryllis to go any further. He was tired and he could barely keep his eyes open. His nonexistent leg throbbed and burned and itched. He couldn’t look down at it. He didn’t want her to. He hadn’t yet gotten to the point of acceptance. She couldn’t offer him a way out and expect that he wouldn’t take it.
“He says that the axolotls use stem cells to regenerate and he’s completed the sequencing of the genome. He claims he has unlocked a method to signal the pathway between genes and activate the ability to regenerate the genetic material and ultimately tissue. In other words, he can get Malichai to regrow his leg using some drug or gene-editing tool such as the one he already used on him. He would turn all of this technology over to Lily if Malichai would be willing to be the first to be experimented on.”
Ezekiel shook his head. “You know better than that, both of you. Whitney is a genius and he’s further ahead in gene-splicing and gene sequencing than just about anyone on the planet, I’m not arguing with that. He steals from other researchers and steps on them to get ahead and never feels bad about it. We know that because he used Zara to steal from researchers and she was very good at it. I’ve certainly heard of the axolotl salamander. I believe Trap keeps some in his laboratory there at his house. He says they can regenerate new limbs in three weeks without scarring. He believes they’ll be the ones to aid humans in the future, but Whitney? Letting him back into your life for any reason? No way. That’s disaster. Trusting him? It isn’t going to happen, Malichai.”
It was his leg. His body. Malichai wanted to shout that at his brother, but he knew he would sound like a child. This was his first day and he had to take a breath and really think things through. Ezekiel was right. Any bargain with Whitney was always a steep one. He had a price and sometimes that cost was hidden, but it was there, and you had to figure it out. He was willing to let Whitney put any kind of animal or insect DNA in him if that was the cost, ramp up his testosterone or give him silk armor, whatever it took to grow back his own leg. That was his choice, and no one had a say in that but him.
“What else did he say?” Malichai asked, ignoring his brother’s outburst because Whitney would have said more than what Amaryllis was giving him.
“It doesn’t matter because you aren’t doing it,” Ezekiel snapped.
Malichai had been looking at Amaryllis, not his brother, and there was something that came and went on her face very fast. One moment there, the next gone, but he caught it. Yeah. Whitney had given her a price.
“Baby,” he said softly. “Tell me what he said to you.”
Just his tone alone kept Ezekiel silent.
She shrugged. “He said I had to come back.” She sounded nonchalant, as if it wasn’t the biggest sacrifice in the world. As if she hadn’t planned her escape so carefully to get out. “He wants to study how I can heal others in exchange for you regenerating your own limb.” She knew if Whitney got his hands on her again, there would be no way out for her. He would put her in his breeding program and her life would be hell. She would do that—for him. Give up her life in order for him to have a leg.