Mind Game (GhostWalkers, #2)(22)

“I know you would have saved them if you could have.” And she did know. “Tell me more about Whitney. What did he do to us?” Just the dreaded name conjured up memories she had worked to suppress.

“Lily can give you all the technical data if you want it. I listened to it and understood about a third of what she was saying. But basically, he removed all the filters in our brains. We’re always on sensory overload. Of course he went a bit further and used electric pulses and designer drugs, but you get the idea. We feel things and hear things and can do things most people can’t, but the cost is enormous. At least I volunteered. You had no choice. Whitney has a lot to answer for.”

“Yes he does.” Dahlia closed her eyes against the flood of bleak memories. Sounds of crying children. Pain that raged in her head night and day. The shadowy figure always watching, never smiling, never pleased. Not human. She thought of him that way. A tormenter, devoid of all feeling. He was a monster from her nightmares, something she pushed far away and tried never to think about.

“Dahlia?” Nicolas drew her under his shoulder. It was a measure of her distress that she didn’t notice. She had such an aversion to physical contact, yet she remained close to his body. He could feel her shivering right through the soaked clothes. “I don’t want to upset you. You’ve had a rough day. We can have this conversation another time.”

Dahlia looked up at the rain, nearly stumbled in the water. The night sky was dark and cloudy and felt very much like her weeping heart. “I have to be careful.” She tried to keep her voice as expressionless as his. “If I feel too much of anything, bad things can happen.” She looked up at his face. In the night he looked made of granite, not flesh, a beautiful stone carving with amazing eyes. “Did he do that to me?”

“Yes.” There was no reason to deny it. Peter Whitney was dead, murdered by a man far more unscrupulous and far more lethal than Peter had ever been. “I’m sorry. I wish I could say we’ve found a cure, but we haven’t. We’ve found a way to make it easier to live among other people, but so far, there is no way to reverse the process.”

The water was becoming shallow. Dahlia waited until they were back on solid ground before looking around to try to get her bearings. “It’s over there, just through that grove of trees. The cabin is small and doesn’t have hot water, but we can improvise. It sits right on the bank of a canal that runs like a ribbon through the island. Very few locals come out here because accessing it so difficult. A few of the older trappers come once in a while.” She talked fast, trying to keep his words from sinking in. She hadn’t realized until that moment, until he said there was no way to reverse the process, how she’d hoped he’d tell her they had a miraculous cure for her.

She forced herself to shrug. “I’m alive. Did I thank you for that? I doubt I would have made it away safely by myself. I would have tried to rescue Jesse right then, with all of them there. Do you think they tortured him to get him to tell them where I was?”

Nicolas wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted her over a rotted tree trunk, setting her smoothly down without missing a stride. “These type of men torture for the thrill of it. They don’t need excuses.”

They rounded a slight bend and found the shack. It sat on the edge of a canal, just as Dahlia had said, one wall sagging ominously. Cracks showed through the wood in places. A burlap sack covered a window, but the crooked door was locked.

“I’m going to get Jesse back,” Dahlia said, staring at the lock.

It was a simple combination lock. As Nicolas reached for it, the center spun, first one way and then the other. Tumblers clicked into place, and the lock sprang open. It happened fast and smooth and Nicolas realized Dahlia had opened the lock without really thinking about doing it. She reached around him and took it from the latch and shoved the door open. “I’m not leaving him with those men.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to leave him behind.” He looked around the small room. A mattress stuffed with moss lay on the floor. “He’s like us.”

Dahlia looked at him sharply. “Whitney experimented on him?”

“He’s telepathic. I’ve never come across a natural telepath that strong. I’d say he was enhanced, and as far as I know, no one else had Whitney’s formula.” Nicolas took out this canteen and handed it to Dahlia. “We have plenty left. Drink as much as you need.” He looked around him. “It isn’t a five-star hotel, is it?”

Dahlia wrapped her arms around her waist, desperate to control the continual shivering. More than anything she wanted to be alone. She hadn’t spent so much time with another human being in as long as she remembered, not even Milly and Bernadette. She forced a small smile. “I’m going outside for a while, so if you need to do anything private like dry off, the place is yours.”

“There’s no need to keep watch yet. I’ll know if someone comes up on us. You’re the one needing to dry off. My pack is waterproof. At least it’s supposed to be.” He placed his rifle on the rickety table before dragging out a shirt. “Wear this and we can spread your clothes out to dry.”

Dahlia took the shirt with reluctance and watched him as he took apart the rifle. He dried each part of the weapon carefully and oiled it. She looked around the small room. There was no hope of privacy, so she moved to the corner as far from him as possible and turned her back on him.