Conspiracy Game (GhostWalkers, #4)(10)

How many performances had they agreed to? And did it make sense? Why would the festival pay them so much money to come up with an acrobatic performance to African music? The act was spectacular, but the offer came before they’d come up with the idea. Why didn’t that bother anyone in the circus? Where would the festival get that kind of money? And if they had that much money, when the festival was all about music, why would they want a circus act? Briony glanced around her, once again feeling unseen eyes on her. Was she the only one who wondered why her family was in Kinshasa? And why did she always feel as if someone was observing her?

The music festival was a tribute to African artists and their music. It made no sense to invite a circus act. Jebediah, Tyrel, Ruben, and Seth just shrugged their shoulders and said not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but Briony felt something was off. Everything felt a little off-kilter to her. Her bizarre education, her abilities, even the fact that she had a special doctor, flying in the moment she got a sniffle—and even that was strange—the fact that she rarely had viruses. Usually she was ill from the constant bombardment of emotions battering at her daily. Her brothers told her she was paranoid, but, as she was now, she was often uneasy, certain someone was watching her. She looked around, seeing with her enhanced vision, looking for heat images, anything that would tell her she was in danger, but there was nothing, not even a change in the constant hum of insects.

Briony rubbed her pounding temples and waded downstream, farther away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Soldiers on every corner with guns, the underbelly teeming with hidden violence, the nightlife seemed a glitzy cover for the desperate and the criminal to do their worst. She wanted to go home.

For a moment she went very still. Home. What did that even mean? She loved her family. She loved the circus, but it was killing her to stay with them. She didn’t know any other way of life and there was nowhere for her to go. At least her brothers knew she was different, and although they didn’t understand, they did their best to hide her peculiarities from others.

Briony smelled unwashed men, heard voices, and immediately shrank closer to the bank, changing her skin color, relying on her darkened clothing to help blend. As three armed soldiers approached, she looked around to ensure she was alone, crouched, and leapt effortlessly into the branches of a tree, some thirty feet up. She remained very still as they passed beneath her, searching for tracks along the forest floor. They were definitely hunting someone, and she realized it was stupid to be so far away from the protection of her brothers. These had to be the rebels everyone was so afraid of. She watched them as they made their way very stealthily through the trees toward the city.

Briony waited until she could no longer hear them before jumping back to the ground. With a little regretful sigh, she waded out into the water again. Even here, on the edge of the wild, she wasn’t really alone. Once more she bent down to soak her scarf in the cooling stream. She didn’t want to go back; her mouth was already dry just thinking of it. As she began to turn, the water around her rippled, her only warning. An arm, much like a band of iron, whipped around her throat and the tip of a knife pressed against her side.

“Don’t scream.” The voice was pitched low, but held such a threat she stiffened. Her captor’s body felt like an oak tree with no give in it, and the way he held her gave her no real chance at escape without sustaining a major injury.

She counted her heartbeats to slow her breathing. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

He spoke English with an American accent. “You’re a GhostWalker. What the hell are you doing here?”

The voice was more of a whisper in her mind than in her ear. She knew she was a strong telepath, but this was something more. And she didn’t feel his emotions. The realization stunned her. In her entire life, even with her own family, she’d been burdened with the overwhelming feelings of others. For a moment, she was so shocked her brain refused to process the information. She stayed very still, trying to reason it out, ignoring the persistent whisper in her ear.

The tip of the knife touched her skin and Briony jumped. “You do that again and I’m not going to be so nice,” she hissed. Could she take him? He was stronger than any man she’d ever trained with. She felt the power running through him, felt the difference in him—the same difference she’d always known was in her. Again she forced herself to relax. No one was like her—not even her family. How did she know he was?

“Who are you?” she asked, knowing he wasn’t going to answer. Military for certain. Maybe a mercenary.

“What the hell is a GhostWalker doing here? You don’t answer me in five seconds, I’m going to start slicing off body parts.”

“I don’t know what a GhostWalker is. I’m performing at the music festival. I do aerial stunts with my brothers, the Flying Five. I’m one of the five.”

There was a small silence. “Why the hell would a circus performer be at a music festival?”

“You tell me,” Briony said. “I haven’t figured it out yet, but they paid my brothers and me big bucks to come here.” He hadn’t relaxed his guard even for a moment.

Her captor swore, the words viciously ugly. “I saw you go up that tree and change your skin color to blend into your surroundings. Don’t lie again. No one can do that but a GhostWalker. No one.”

Briony wanted to know everything he knew about the GhostWalkers. If they could do the things she could do, was she related in some way? She felt him stiffen, arms tightening. His lips pressed against her ear. “Don’t make a sound.”