“I understand I haven’t seen you in two years.” He couldn’t help the accusation in his voice. She’d been the closest thing he had to a sister.
Jaimie ducked her head. “I know. I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair of me. I couldn’t have broken away from him unless I made a clean break from all of you.”
“We had to mean something to you.”
She did look up at him then. Quick. Startled. Shocked. “Of course you do. You’re my family. I know I should have kept in touch with all of you. I missed you terribly, every single day. I had no one and I guess I consoled myself with the fact that you all had each other.”
“I saw Mack after you disappeared. He was insane.”
“He didn’t come after me.”
Javier took another swallow of coffee. No, Mack hadn’t followed her and brought her back, and Javier couldn’t explain that one. No one understood Mack, except maybe Kane, and he wasn’t prone to talking much about Mack. They’d all tried to talk to him, but Jaimie became a taboo subject and they learned fast not to mention her.
“I’m not over him,” Jaimie admitted. “I saw him and I just crumbled inside. I can’t go through all that again, Javier.”
“I don’t know what’s going on, Jaimie, but I’m not leaving here until I know you’re safe. That warehouse may or may not be stocked with weapons. We’ll get inside and find out. We’re ghosts, that’s what we do. But not now, not tonight.
Tonight your safety is the priority. We’ll have to figure out what’s going on.”
“He’s going to stay, isn’t he?”
Javier cursed inwardly. “Yeah, babe, he’s going to stay. He’d never take a chance with your life either.”
She sighed and shook her head. “You hungry?” Her head came up suddenly and she half turned toward the stairway.
Javier followed her gaze, keeping his voice as casual as ever. “I’m always hungry.
You know that.”
You have a couple of rats poking around your back door, Mack’s voice whispered in Javier’s mind. I’m working my way up behind them.
Javier set down his coffee cup, caught Jaimie’s arm, and tugged even as she was moving away from the refrigerator, her eyes wide in understanding. Escape route?
She didn’t ask questions. Jaimie wouldn’t. She was a professional all the way—
there’d never been a doubt about that. And she had known about the same time as Mack had spotted them. She always knew. She led the way across to the corner on the water side. Moving a small table, he could see the door in the wall.
Down a chute. I have a boat waiting.
He gave her the signal to stay put right there and drew out a gun to hand her.
Jaimie shook her head. He gave her his sternest scowl. It did no good.
Jaimie refuses a weapon, Mack.
Damn it.
The cold, grim tone made him hesitate. Mack wasn’t going to help his cause by getting angry. The last time Jaimie had a gun in her possession, things hadn’t ended up going very well.
Jaimie, damn it, don’t give me trouble, Mack snapped, shoving the words into Jaimie’s mind. We’re in a world of hurt right now. Take the damn gun and use it if you need to. You know how to shoot.
She didn’t argue. She took the gun from Javier and laid it in her lap. She kept her face averted. Javier felt as if he’d slapped her. Tattling wasn’t fun.
Jaimie stayed very still, drawing her knees up, trying desperately not to allow images into her mind. This wasn’t her life. She had left it all behind. She’d tried to tell Mack what was happening, but the adrenaline rush was too addictive for a man like him to do without. Who could ever compete with that? He didn’t care that the experiments had altered them genetically as well as enhanced their psychic abilities.
Their GhostWalker team had brought them all back together. That was what Mack and Kane saw. A chance to be together again, to look out for one another, to use their considerable talents in a positive way and prevent the others—men like Javier who needed action—from doing anything that would land them in prison. Mack hadn’t seen how aggressive all the men were becoming. He hadn’t noticed a lot of things he should have noticed. He was swept up in the training and forgot the things Jaimie was good at.
She saw people differently. She felt things—knew things—and she knew they were being lied to. She saw through the patriotic talk and the propaganda, but Mack couldn’t hear her. He’d already been so far into the experiments and training that there was no reasoning with him. He knew she didn’t like urban warfare. She didn’t ever want to have to make a judgment call and risk killing an innocent. All Mack saw was a chance to use his incredible psychic talents to save the world.