Lightning Game (GhostWalkers #17) -Christine Feehan Page 0,38

your nurses into being sorry for you, but you can’t fool me.”

Flame’s head rolled to the side with the vicious slap, and her breath burst out in a long, ragged rush of air. Her gaze jumped to Jerry’s face as he caught her hair in his fist and dragged her head up so she was forced to look at him.

“Yeah, kid, you see me now. You’re going to cooperate and you’re going to keep your mouth shut. You keep silent or I’m going to sneak into all the rooms and slit your little friends’ throats one by one. I’ll tell them you sent me. Understand? Nod your head if we have an understanding.”

Jonquille had already loosened the grate. She allowed it to drop sideways slowly, so that the entire metal plate dangled sideways from one screw. She could pull it back easily from the little wire she had attached to it from one of the many trips she’d made earlier. The room was shadowy, not completely dark, but dim enough from the single light they’d left Flame to recover alone from her bouts of sickness from the chemo drugs. Those shadows suited Jonquille. She was able to slip out of the vent and, using the setae on her hands and feet, climb up the wall and over the ceiling until she was behind the guard.

He dropped Flame’s hair and moved to the foot of the bed, unfastening his belt as he did. “You might not like this so much, but it’s going to feel real good for me. Whitney doesn’t need sex, doesn’t even think about it, but someone like me, I gotta have it. You were running around the compound with all that hair, jumping rope right in front of us. Flirting with us.”

Flame shook her head in protest, holding up nine fingers, trying to mouth her age to the guard. He ignored her, catching at her ankles and yanking her down to the edge of the bed.

“Makes no difference to me how old you are. You’re all the same, right?” He opened his cargo pants and took out his heavy erection, one hand circling the base while the other went to grasp her panties.

Jonquille slid down the wall behind him and crept close. His energy was sizzling now with excitement, building the charges in her body. She was a mere shadow and he was so excited, his entire attention centered on what he was about to do, that he didn’t notice they weren’t alone until she deliberately reached up to the wrist where he had wrapped his fist around his eager cock.

Jonquille had only one real chance and she took it. The enemy was so wrapped up in the sensations of his body he didn’t notice her sliding into position beside him. He barely noticed when she put her hand over his wrist. Her fingers were so small that she was able to position them exactly over his pulse and that artery she needed that would take the burst of energy straight to his heart when she released it. It would really be his energy as well. In a sense he would be aiding in his own death.

Flame saw her when the guard didn’t. Her eyes went wide in shock and she even shook her head, afraid that the evil guard would hurt or kill Jonquille as well. Jonquille ignored her, took a deep breath and pressed down with all her might, pouring her strength and will into her fingertips, right into that pulse point. The moment the guard was aware of her and his adrenaline spiked, she met the charge with her own so the two merged into a blast much like a jolt of lightning—or an electrical surge. She jumped back as the guard went down hard, landing on his butt, clutching his chest.

“Jonquille.” Flame whispered her name. “What did you do?”

Jonquille knew she didn’t have much time. She skirted around the dying guard and climbed onto the bed. “I came to help you. You’re so sick and I can’t stand it.”

Flame shook her head. “You have to get out of here before someone sees you. No one can ever know that you were here tonight. Never tell anyone, not even one of the other girls. Do you understand me? I mean it. Whitney can never know you did this.”

Jonquille already knew that. She ignored Flame’s fierce protection of her. They all treated her like she was a baby or didn’t have a brain. She was