He felt her connect to him again, slide gently, tentatively, into his mind. After being separated from her, that psychic intimacy felt so right. A relief, as if after a long cold winter, spring had finally arrived. He didn’t know how she managed to fill every dark, ugly crack and crevasse in his mind with something beautiful, as if she made memories of the two of them and inserted them where he had been ripped apart. Made him feel like he was no longer alone.
She saw the hunter. The killer. Yet that part of him didn’t seem to bother her. She didn’t cringe from it or throw herself out of his mind. She didn’t shrink away. She stayed. He knew even his fellow teammates were leery of him. They had reason to be. They’d seen his mistakes and the results of them. More importantly, they’d seen what had happened with Oliver Borders, another team member, a decorated soldier. A friend. A man enhanced in the same way Jonas was enhanced, with all the same dominant and aggressive predators eating away with their killer instincts night and day. Oliver had never been quite as dominant or aggressive as Jonas was prior to the enhancements. Oliver was dead; Jonas was not.
“Don’t think for a minute it will be simple, Jonas, because it won’t be,” Camellia warned.
What did that mean? Was she saying she was all-in with him? He hoped to hell that was what she meant.
“Maybe it won’t be, honey, but if it isn’t, as long as we trust each other and stick together, talk it out, we’ll come out on top.” He poured conviction into his voice, willing her to believe him, to believe in them. The feedback coming from the mycelium network helped soothe the worst of his nerves. She was still with him, and he was no longer getting the feeling she was ready to bolt at the first opportunity.
He examined the input flooding his senses and realized that not only was the mycelium network beneath his feet going strong, but the other one was back too—the one she hadn’t yet explained to him. That second network had reestablished its connection the moment Camellia entered his mind. Extremely strong and very personal, the mysterious second connection was the one that ran through his veins and spread to his cells with such fire. He felt the difference immediately. That pathway was growing stronger between them—growing stronger in him.
Whatever the second enhancement was, clearly Whitney had given the enhancement to both Camellia and Jonas, along with the mycelium. Whatever it was, it worked in concert with the mycelium, amplifying the mycelium-fed awareness. Now that he was past his initial knee-jerk reaction, Jonas was grateful for both enhancements, because they more than doubled his ability to protect his teammates and their families. To protect his own family, as well.
“It has occurred to me that Marigold was the one who told Whitney I wasn’t in my bed that night I tried to escape.”
Camellia’s voice was a thread of sound—so low Jonas barely heard. Mostly, he heard that shaken whisper of guilt in his mind and an echo of pain along his veins. Sorrow was a stroke of deep purplish black that ran up and down his nerve endings and drummed along his pulse.
It was difficult not to turn and take her into his arms, but both networks sparked, little flames hissing and dancing, throwing embers into the air, warning Jonas he would lose that tentative and very fragile hold he had with her. She had to tell him her own way. Talk to his broad back. Bounce the idea off of him rather than discuss it with him. She didn’t need his input right at that moment—or his sympathy. That would only make her retreat. She didn’t want to give in to emotion. She wanted to share her guilty secret—that she distrusted her best friend and sister of more than twenty years.
“She was in the same dormitory with me. I thought she’d gone to sleep, but she was a very light sleeper. I rolled blankets and stuffed them in my bed. Once, she turned over to face my bed. I stayed very still for several minutes until I was certain she was asleep again, not that I thought she would ever betray me. I didn’t. We were very close.”
She fell silent again as they made their way out of the garden. The mist beyond her garden borders was thinner and not quite as disorienting as it had been.
“When Whitney’s soldiers dragged me back and he called all the girls and the nurses out into the yard, I noticed that Marigold was very agitated. She was pale and fought her guard until Whitney snapped at her. Then she went very still. She looked like she was terrified. That was part of the reason I was terrified. There was no one else who could have seen that I escaped unless one of the guards discovered me gone. It was either Marigold or Beverly.”
“No one else shared your dormitory?” he couldn’t help asking.
“Whitney had split us up to two per room in that particular laboratory. Beverly still looked after our wing of the house. We were supposed to take a sleeping aid, all natural according to Whitney, but we knew it wasn’t. It was another one of his concoctions, and neither Marigold nor I wanted to know what it would do, so we never took it. We flushed it. He knew, of course. He always knew.”
“So you said you were all in the yard and he threatened you. What happened?” he prompted.
“I told him to punish me, it was my mistake, no one else’s, but Whitney said we all had to learn the hard way. He told me I had to choose someone, that I should choose wisely because it was a permanent choice. I was looking at Marigold when he made his decree. Mari was shaking her head and pleading with him not to take any of the girls. The others were crying and begging Whitney and me not to choose one of them. She didn’t do that. She pleaded with him not to take any of the other girls. Not herself. Looking back, it was as if she knew he wouldn’t choose her. When I refused to pick anyone, Whitney had his soldiers take Ivy away. I went crazy fighting, but Marigold just sank to the ground and put her hands over her face. She doesn’t do that. She doesn’t give up like that. Marigold is a fighter through and through. Like me, even more than me, she would normally have fought to take Ivy back.”
That sorrow hung so heavy in his mind and ran along his nerve endings, the purple growing deeper, darker by the second as he assessed the memories she’d shared with him. He replayed them over and over, analyzing them from every angle, trying to find a way to clear her friend’s name. She needed him to say Marigold hadn’t betrayed her and allowed Beverly to take the blame.
“I almost killed Beverly that night,” she confessed in a small voice. “I came much closer than I told you. If Marigold was the one to betray me, I would have murdered an innocent woman.”
“Marigold was the one who stopped you.” He kept his voice matter-of-fact. He kept walking. Betrayal was one of the worst sins, no matter what form it took. That cut was always deep, and there was no taking it back. She’d had so many. Too many.
“Yes. I told her what I was going to do. I told her how much I hated Beverly and that she deserved to die.”
“Did she know you could disappear into mist or the shadows?”
“No, I was still experimenting. I wasn’t certain how it worked, and I never told anyone what I could do until I could figure it out. Also, Whitney was already starting his breeding program, and I wasn’t certain we’d gotten rid of all the surveillance equipment in our room.”