She suppressed a sigh. She didn’t want to feel compassion for him. She wanted to sever all connection to him and make a run for it without feeling the least bit guilty. Instead, she was already remembering every word Whitney had said about these first soldiers and how they were going to be able to go undetected behind enemy lines and wipe out entire camps without anyone ever knowing they had been there. He had designed them for perfection. They weren’t going to be the failures the women had been, because men were steadier and had better nervous systems and were so much stronger than women.
Whitney lectured the women, telling them he had bumped up the soldiers’ levels of aggression and enhanced their abilities to see and hear in any situation. They were perfect killing machines. He had bragged to them until he realized the soldiers were having the same problems as the women, some of them unable to go out on their own without severe repercussions.
It was the first time Camellia had ever seen Whitney thrown, if only for a short time. He was furious with the soldiers but soon turned the blame on the women. Somehow, it was their fault Whitney hadn’t prepared for the problems the soldiers faced. She knew some of the other women had taken his accusations to heart; by that time, thankfully, most of them knew better.
Camellia needed to change the subject, to steer it away from the things Jonas wanted to know and anything she might learn about him that would put more compassion in her heart. Already she melted each time she looked at him or heard his voice. She didn’t need to know things about him that would make him more amenable to overlooking his reaction to her.
“There was another girl I grew up with, Laurel. She was very quiet. Dark red hair and the greenest eyes you ever saw. Whitney named her after the English laurel, which is often called the cherry laurel. She had that dark red hair and did when she was a baby, so I guess all that hair reminded him of a cherry laurel.”
She waited, trying not to hold her breath or give any indication that finding out about the women meant everything to her. She didn’t want him to have anything to hold over her. Whitney was good at finding weaknesses and exploiting them. Growing up together, the girls had inevitably formed attachments to one another, and Whitney used those feelings against them as a means of manipulation, punishment and control. She was determined that no one would ever do that to her again.
Jonas shook his head with obvious regret. “I’m sorry, Camellia. I wish I could say I knew where she was, but I haven’t heard anything at all. I would think if Whitney had managed to get her back, we would have heard something. We do have a way of spying on him. We have to be very cautious, but if he had one of the women from that first group, we would know.”
If she could believe him, and he seemed certain, at least Laurel was still safe, even if no one knew where she was. Like Camellia, she’d found a place to hide.
“You said that your people were able to keep Whitney from tracking the dust particle trackers in our tattoos? Laurel has one on her ankle as well. It’s beautiful, with glossy leaves and clusters of cherries. She would have found the tracker in her hip and removed it, like I did. We all suspected Whitney had implanted us with microchips.” She pushed her hand through her hair. “Maybe she thought of her tattoo. I didn’t, but she may have.” Camellia doubted it. She was the least trusting of the women, and it hadn’t occurred to her that the one thing Whitney gave her that she loved was just as poisonous as all his other “gifts.” She should have known.
“From what I understand, he isn’t able to use that tracking system to find any of you women anymore, at least not most of the time. I’ll find out more information for you,” Jonas promised.
She wasn’t going to stick around to find out more information. The moment he headed back down the mountain with his friends, she was leaving. She’d planned for an escape. She had already decided on a destination if she had to leave. Middlemist Red would travel with her. The rest of the exotics would stay behind with the mycelium grid to buy them as much time as possible if anyone tried to follow them.
“There are children in the compound down below,” Jonas said. “Lily has a son. Whitney would do anything to get his hands on that child. He’s tried before. Ken and Marigold have twin boys. Whitney would like them as well. It has occurred to me that the threat I’m feeling is Whitney gearing up to make another try for the kids.”
Camellia couldn’t help but send out inquiries along both networks again, particularly the mycelium running beneath the forest, stretching far beyond her garden and even past the boundaries of the national forest into the wilderness areas. She had been using that connection for a long time and was very sensitive to every result. She could read the least little sign the mycelium returned to her, no matter if the source of the alert was many miles away. She needed the connections to spread out as far and wide as possible and tell her if there was anyone approaching the homes below her. Were there spies sent in the forest? One lone man? Two? An army? Animals that hadn’t been there?
Jonas looked up at her suddenly. “Camellia. What are you doing right now? I’m feeling something very subtle, as if there is a surge in the energy around me. Barely there. I know I blew it with you by my gut reaction, but I hope you can forgive me. I swear, none of what you felt from me was aimed at you. I just despise Whitney and what he did to me.” He thrust his fingers through his hair and made a sound halfway between a snarl and a growl. “Hell, maybe I was already fucked up, and all he really did was make me aware of it.”
Camellia had an inexplicable desire to put her arms around him and hold him. She felt a sudden surge of rage in him, red hot. He suppressed it automatically, as if he’d been doing it forever. She also caught a small edge of despair. He knew that level of aggression in him had been multiplied by Whitney and would never go away. Living with it had to be hell.
“Whitney didn’t much care how aggressive he made his soldiers, as long as he got the results he wanted,” she told him. “I’m glad all of you realized you shouldn’t document your talents. That must make him crazy.” She allowed satisfaction to show in her voice.
“I have to admit, we do talk about that a little too much,” Jonas confessed. “We hope Whitney is frustrated. We’re his first team, and we know he views us as his failures. He’d want to know everything about us that he could, if only to avoid making the same mistakes in future enhancements.”
Camellia had to agree with his assessment. She nodded and loosened her hold on the branch of Middlemist Red. She was able to breathe on her own and relax completely again, now that she realized just how difficult Jonas’s life had to be. Looking closely at him, she could see the lines etched into his face, when Middlemist Red was renowned for her antiaging benefits. Many thought that was a myth, but Camellia had barely aged, her skin glowing and flawless in spite of Whitney’s many experiments. Jonas looked young as well, but she could see those lines carved deep when he continually had to strive to control the raging instincts in him.