Mind Game (8 page)

Dahlia was a GhostWalker with all the extraordinary gifts and, unfortunately, the terrible penalties that often occurred with the use of those gifts. She was dangerous, perhaps even more so than any of them had considered, but not by her nature. The danger came from the energy that raced to her and crammed inside of her as if her body were an empty vessel waiting to be filled. The leftover energy she couldn’t take inside of her surrounded her so that she had no peace. It was no wonder she lived as solitary a life as possible.

Nicolas steered them first toward the interior, staying to the west and higher ground as she’d indicated, but eventually began to work toward the outer edge of the island. They had to get off. They could play hide-and-seek for a short while, but if they remained on the island, they would be found. He was certain the perimeters would be more heavily guarded, but the team had to be spread thin and they’d lost a few men.

“Dahlia, can you hang on until we’re off the island?” he asked, more to get her to stay focused on him than for any other reason.

She stopped running abruptly, going down on one knee to be violently sick. Her skin beaded with sweat that had nothing to do with the heat. She looked up at him and nodded as she wiped her mouth. “I can make it.”

He had an insane desire to pull her close and wrap her safely in his arms. She was gutsy and he was certain he could count on her in the water. “Stay close. Hopefully if I’m close to you, it will help keep the energy at bay.”

Dahlia winced at the sound of grenade fire, ducking as he pushed her toward the ground. She took a cautious look around. “It seems like the entire world is on fire. Do you really think we can get out of this?” Her vision was blurred and her head pounded until she wanted to scream, but she was determined to keep going until she couldn’t walk any longer. The closer she stayed to Nicolas the easier it was to bear the burden of the energy rushing at her from the grenades.

Nicolas handed her his canteen, urging her to drink the water. “We’ll get out,” he assured. “This island is crawling with men though.” He took the canteen back and dragged a shirt from his pack. “Put this on. The sleeves will cover your arms and you’ll blend better. I want to darken your face as well. It’s going to take a little skill to get past them.”

Dahlia sank down into the marsh. The island was mostly spongy surface. Even hunters and trappers knew to avoid it. The center had been raised by bringing in soil to build up an area for the sanitarium. Dahlia had never questioned why, but she’d heard Milly and Bernadette talking about the flooding during heavy rains and how ridiculous it was to build on the island when there was enough money to go anywhere and worse, not using stilts. One of the biggest dangers was falling through the thin layer of ground to the waters below. Sinkholes were abundant on the island and the only truly safe places were the narrow path leading to and the actual grounds surrounding her home. She realized that it had been built that way for a specific purpose.

“Did they plan all along on killing me?” She was soaked, but she put his shirt on over her own clothes. It was far too big and she tied the tails around her hips.

“My guess is yes, once you were discovered or you’d outlived your usefulness to them,” he replied honestly. He wasn’t looking at her, but out into the night, his rifle rock steady in his hands.

“It occurred to me a couple of years ago when I started asking Jesse too many questions, and he didn’t want to answer or didn’t know the answers, that maybe I was in trouble.” She tried to hold still and not wince away from Nicolas as he blackened her face with some tube he carried in his pack. She looked up at him with solemn eyes. “Who are they? Why do they want me dead?”

“These men are military-trained, but I think they’re mercenaries. No combat unit would do this. Which agency do you work for?”

Before she could answer, he clapped his hand over her mouth, pressing her body into the trunk of a tree and crouching lower to stay in the shadow of the trunk. He looked directly into her eyes, slowly removed his hand, and held up three fingers. She nodded to indicate she understood, turning her head as slowly as she could in the direction his rifle was aimed. She noted his hands were steady and his eyes like ice. Dahlia was unable to prevent the continual shivering that shook her body. Nicolas was pressed tight against her, dwarfing her, caging her between his hard frame and the tree. She hated that he was so stone cold calm and she was shaking like a leaf.

The vegetation all around them was on fire, red and orange flames reaching to the sky. The fire lit up the areas closest to it and cast macabre shadows over the rest of the shrubbery and trees. The leaping flames were reflected in Nicolas’s eyes. Her heart leapt. She was trusting him, yet she knew nothing about him. She had never met anyone that gave off such a low energy reading and yet was capable of such extreme violence. There seemed to be an endless arc of electricity that leapt from his skin to hers. She could feel a strange tingling in her bloodstream. The heat between them was tremendous . . . and frightening.

Nicolas brought his hand up and pressed her face against his chest, stroking her hair with his palm in an effort to comfort her. If she shook any harder, he feared she might break her little bird bones. He bent his head over hers, holding her there while the world burned and their enemy slipped by. He put his mouth against her ear. “Are you ready for this?”

Dahlia nodded, not certain she was, but knowing she had no other choice if she wanted to live. He put a finger to his lips, indicating the need for silence, and then walked his fingers in the air. Dahlia took a deep breath as he stepped away from her. The respite from the violent energy assaulting her had been so complete, the force of the wave hitting her nearly drove her to her knees. She steadied herself by reaching out to him, the first time she’d ever voluntarily touched him. The moment her fingers touched him, rested on him, the force battering at her lessened.

Nicolas put his hand over hers. He bent his head to hers again. “I can carry you if you think it will help.” Dahlia almost smiled. For the briefest of moments the terrible sorrow weighing her down lifted, and he caught sight of a mischievous Dahlia, but she was gone almost immediately.

“Hold my hand if you can while we make our way out of here.” It cost her to ask him, but she had no choice. “I can take your pack.”

Nicolas didn’t bother to respond. His fingers linked with hers and he took her with him, moving away from the direction the three men had taken, around the wall of fire, weaving their way closer to the reed-choked channel. Nicolas didn’t hesitate at the edge of a stagnant pool, but waded in, pulling Dahlia in after him. Insects, birds, snakes, lizards, and frogs were making a mass exodus into the water right along with them, trying desperately to escape the fire. He kept a wary eye out for alligators.

Somewhere behind them, guns went off.

“AKs,” he identified. “They aren’t close, so they aren’t shooting at us. They’re either spooked or ran into alligators.”

“There are alligators all around this island,” Dahlia confirmed.

The moon crept back behind the clouds. Nicolas suddenly stopped, his head up alertly. Dahlia remained silent, waiting. If there was one thing she was certain of, it was that he knew what he was doing. She was far safer with him than without him. When he abruptly froze, not moving a muscle, she followed his lead. Dahlia found herself holding her breath, her fingers clinging to his. The water soaked into the jeans she was wearing and something live bumped against her leg, but she stood, just waiting, trying to see into the darker shadows of the bayou.

Nicolas bent his head to hers. “We are hunted.” He mouthed the words against her ear, his breath warm, sending butterflies skittering through her stomach.

“Tell me something new.” She whispered it, knowing the night carried sound easily.

“He’s like me.”

She knew what Nicolas meant. She had named him a killer, and he was telling her another of his profession followed them through the swamp. She wanted to ask how he knew but he signaled for silence and pointed to the low strip of embankment leading to the open channel. Her breath caught in her throat. The bank was stripped bare of all shrubbery. A few scattered plants grew low to the ground, but there was no cover to speak of. If they chose that entrance to the channel, anyone following them would see them immediately.

Nicolas touched her face to bring her attention back to him. She was staring in horror at the bank. He flattened his hand and slid it forward, indicating they would creep forward on their bellies simulating an alligator going into the water.

Dahlia peered at the bank as Nicolas began to submerge most of his body, holding his rifle just above the waterline. There was definitely an alligator slide. She wasn’t afraid of alligators, but she was smart enough to have a healthy respect for them. Playing in their territory seemed a drastic solution.

“You must have a boat hidden somewhere. Can’t we make our way to that?”

He shook his head. “We can’t take the chance they found it already. If they have, they’ll use it as a trap. Someone will be waiting. It’s best to do the unexpected.”

Dahlia pressed her hands against her churning stomach. “I don’t suppose you have an affinity for animals.”

“I’m afraid not,” Nicolas admitted as he moved away from her. Two steps only but the energy reached for her, a greedy monster, slipping past her guard, seeping into her pores, filling her stomach until she staggered with the weight of it. Keeping his rifle well above the surface of the water, he reached back and caught the neck of her shirt, pulling her against him, almost as if he could feel the sickness invading. He guided her hand to his waistband, tucking her fingers into the edge. Her knuckles brushed his skin.

It was ridiculous to crouch in muddy water with fires surrounding them, her home burning, her world gone, her family dead, hunted by a killer and have the thought that touching Nicolas Trevane in such a way was intimate. Dahlia snatched her hand away, shocked at the passing thought, shocked at her awareness of Nicolas as a man, not simply a human being. She had the sudden urge to run and find a place to hide on her own. She didn’t belong with people. Nothing made sense to her anymore.

“Dahlia.” He said her name softly. His tone was impossibly gentle. “Don’t panic on me. We’re almost out of here. You can do this.”

Ashamed, she realized she was backing away from him, shaking her head like a child. She forced her brain to work again, nodding to show she was in control. She had no idea what happened, only that the moment she could safely get away, she would put as much distance between Nicolas and herself as possible. To keep the violent swirls of energy at bay, she kept her hand on Trevane’s broad back, and her mind carefully blank.

They made their way slowly through the water, staying low and moving carefully to prevent splashing. As they reached the bank, Nicolas eased his body, belly down, into the mud and began to inch his way over bare ground. Dahlia swallowed convulsively and followed his example. It was impossible to keep physical contact with Nicolas while she crawled in the muck, easing her body over the strip of bare ground to get to the alligator slide. The sickness slammed into her hard, burning through her body, roaring through her head. White spots danced in front of her eyes. She bit down hard on her lip, determined not to lose consciousness.

Nicolas knew they were fully exposed as they inched their way over bare ground. It required patience to move in the open. The natural inclination was to run, get past an open area, but movement always drew the eye. He had deliberately chosen this section as an exit because it was open and they wouldn’t expect him to use it.

He could hear Dahlia fighting to breathe. The heat shimmered around her, waves of energy so strong he could actually feel them battering at her. Tuned to her now, he felt her level of exhaustion, knew she was nearing the end of her endurance. It didn’t stop her from following him, inching her way through the mud, across the bare ground to the slide. His respect for her grew. She didn’t complain even though her world had been torn apart.

She made a small choking sound. He knew she was fighting off the waves of sickness rolling over her. He breathed, air in and out, in an effort to help her. As he slid into the water of the channel, he kept his rifle above water, using his legs to keep him up. He turned back to wait for her. It was going to be impossible to keep his weapon dry, but until they were away safely, his rifle might be the difference between life and death.

Dahlia slipped into the water. There was a measure of comfort in seeing him waiting. In the dark, his striped face should have appeared frightening, yet she only felt relief looking at him. She touched his arm, needing the contact, trying to breathe down the rising bile. “There’s a small island no one uses, if we swim in that direction.” She pointed the way. “It isn’t far and there’s a boat we can use. I know of a trapper’s cabin that’s usable a few miles from there.”

Nicolas nodded and laid out across the water on his back, low so that most of his body was submerged. He propelled himself using his legs beneath the water in a strong frog kick so that no sound could be carried in the night. Dahlia followed his lead, turning over, looking up at the smoke-filled sky and then over to the burning island. Everything seemed on fire. Her vision blurred and she blinked rapidly to clear it.

Nicolas didn’t make a sound as he moved through the water. It should have been awkward as he kept his rifle out of harm’s way, but he moved efficiently as if he’d done the maneuver a hundred times. Dahlia did her best to swim in silence and look like a log. She splashed a few times but was too sick to care.

“Just a little longer,” he encouraged. “You’re doing great.”

“You do know there are snakes in this water.”

“Better than bullets. We’ll make it, Dahlia.”

They were out in the middle of the channel now, and Nicolas wanted to put some distance between them and the island in case the moon came out from under the clouds. Exhaustion lined Dahlia’s face. Her breathing was ragged. He noted her swimming was becoming clumsy as they made their way through the open water. “Don’t quit on me,” he said, a deliberate goad. He couldn’t imagine Dahlia quitting anything.