That seems to be the name of the game all over the place, doesn’t it? Camellia said. You really can’t trust anyone, can you?
That’s not necessarily true, honey, Jonas said. Let’s hear him out. And let’s not lose sight of why they’re here. Even if I did everything wrong and murdered their brother the way they think I did, it still doesn’t give them a reason to wipe out men, women and children who had nothing to do with it.
It was the first time he’d said anything that might be a rebuttal to the version of the story Angel was telling her.
I’m not about to forget why these men are here. She wouldn’t. The idea that they had so callously decided that Marigold’s twins could be murdered right along with Mari and her twin sister and nephews sickened her. What was wrong with them? No matter how charming Angel thought he was, she would always keep that purpose uppermost in her mind. There was no forgiveness for that.
“As the mission was being carried out, several of the team members were wounded. They were in a valley surrounded by heavy gunfire with the enemy above them.”
She could smell the gunpowder and hear the heavy shells hitting all around them. Jeff and Kyle as well as Jonas were thrown back in time, remembering the tense moments when they all thought they wouldn’t make it out.
Nico got to higher ground and gave us covering fire. I’m not sure any of us would have made it out alive without him, Jonas supplied. It was chaotic with so many wounded and the enemy surrounding us.
“The enemy had them pinned down. Oliver decided to make a run for it. He figured he could break through the enemy lines and get help for everyone. They were running out of ammo and desperately needed medical supplies. He went to the commanding officer, Ryland Miller, and told him his plan. If he succeeded, they would all be saved. If he didn’t make it, only he would suffer the consequences. He was extremely fast. Their sniper could help him get through.”
So far, he’s right on the money, Jonas informed her.
They could have access to the report, Jeff said. Ryland files a report with the general each time we come back from a mission. Someone could have hacked into the general’s files.
It’s a possibility, Jonas agreed.
My leg is cramping, Jeff said.
Don’t you move, Jonas snapped, the order clear. The one in the clearing is definitely directing everyone, and he’s got his ears on you. No one is killing you today, Jeff.
That brought Camellia’s gaze back to the bats. Gray, Blue, run them out of here. Chase them far away.
“Oliver was a hero that day. He broke through enemy lines and got the word back to his superiors that his team needed aid. Jonas couldn’t take that he received all the attention from everyone. It was too much for him. When Oliver snuck back to his team, there in the valley, determined to help carry the wounded out, Jonas attacked him. The entire team witnessed it, including Miller.”
Camellia felt the instant rejection from all three of the men sharing the telepathic communication with her.
That’s bullshit, Kyle whispered. That’s not the way it happened.
Hear him out, Jonas said. Clearly, he believes what he’s telling her.
Camellia repeated the last phrase to herself. Clearly, he believes what he’s telling her. Jonas had distanced himself from her, almost as if being close to her hurt. She didn’t reach out to him along the familiar lines of connection. They were still there, still intact, but she didn’t test them for strength.
In that moment, Camellia’s relationship with him felt fragile. She didn’t know the first thing about relationships. She could admit that. He knew far more than she did. If he thought pulling away from her when she needed them to stand strong together was the right course of action, so be it.
She needed to hold on to something, and that was going to have to be her own power. The character traits she’d come to rely on. She was strong when she needed to be. She could expertly use nearly any weapon. She had weapons no one knew about, not even Jonas. They’d talked about them, but he was really unaware of what they could do.
Regardless of what any of these men said or did, the decisions they came to, she would not allow them to harm Mari and her babies, Briony and her twins, Lily and young Daniel, or any other mother and child who happened to be in the compound above them.
“Don’t stop there, Angel,” she whispered.
“Whitney put so many aggressive animals’ genetic matter into both Jonas and Oliver. Not just mammal, but reptile as well. The two were pumped up beyond belief. They came together like animals, Jonas roaring a challenge that could be heard throughout the valley. There were no guns. No knives. They went at each other bare-handed. Bare-knuckled. Beating each other’s bodies. The way they hit should have smashed bones, but neither went down. Blood ran down their chests and necks as they circled one another, roaring like animals.”
Overhead, the owls screamed a challenge and dove at the hoary bats, chasing them through the night sky. Gray sounded so feral Camellia nearly jumped out of her skin. She’d heard him countless times.
Jeff’s telepathic gasp could be heard by all of them. At first she put it down to the owls relentlessly chasing the bats away from the small grove of trees, but his protest followed swiftly on the heels of Angel’s commentary.
“Jonas went berserk. He attacked the wounded, ripping open bandages and tearing at their wounds. He fed on the blood like a wolf and then howled for his pack to join him.”
“Angel . . .” she protested.
Again, Jeff made a soft, telepathic protest while Jonas and Kyle remained silent. She knew Angel’s account couldn’t be accurate, but Middlemist Red was assessing his voice along with her, and Red was affirming what he said as strictly the truth. Jeff and Kyle weren’t able to do anything but hear Angel’s voice and assess it themselves, but Jonas would feel what Camellia was. He would know Red was making the same evaluation she was.
The tension and hostility, as well as grief, in Shaker and Tusker were palpable. The other men’s emotions fed the need for violence into the darkness of the fog so the colors shifted slightly from blue-gray to a darker purplish gray. Or was that Jonas feeding the fog? Camellia felt the familiar flow between Jonas and her, the neurons suddenly flooding her body with adrenaline-laced chemicals.
Jonas was angry; there was no doubt about it. She would be too if she heard someone saying such things about her. Most people would never believe a story like that could be real, but she’d seen Whitney’s experiments when they’d gone terribly wrong. She’d seen his soldiers going mad, foaming at the mouth, raging, throwing themselves at electric fences and taking a hail of bullets before going down.
“I’m not making this up, Camellia. A witness who was there told the story. I swear to you. Jonas killed Shaker and Tusker’s brother. My friend.” Angel’s voice broke, and he pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead for a brief moment before he lifted his head and looked at her again. He would have been looking her in the eye had she been allowing him to actually see her.