Shadow Game (11 page)

Lily shook her head. "Ryland." She whispered his name as if to protect him.

" 'I thought I'd gone wrong by choosing such young subjects. In the beginning it made sense because their brains weren't developed; I could use that, teach them to use the parts that were just dormant, waiting for someone to awaken them. But children were too young. I determined that if I chose men with superior training and discipline, I wouldn't run into the same problems. I could depend on them to do all their practices, build shields, erect the necessary barriers when they needed respite. You were able to do it, so a fully grown man would be stronger, a military man more apt to obey and make use of all the training.' "

Lily sighed softly and turned the page. " 'Everything has gone wrong again. You'll see the problems in the disks and the reports. There is no way to reverse this process, Lily. I've tried to figure a way, but once it's done, it can't be undone and these men, the women, and you all have to live with what I've done. I have no answers for Ryland Miller. I can hardly look him in the eye anymore. I think Colonel Higgens and someone at Donovans is conspiring to get the reports and sell the information to other countries. I've been followed, and my offices at home and at work have been broken into. I believe Miller and his team are in danger. You must get a message to General Ranier (he is Colonel Higgens's direct superior) and let him know what's going on. I can't get through to him. You know him well and I can't imagine him not responding to you. I've left him countless messages to call me or to come to Donovans but I've heard nothing back.' "

Lily stared at the familiar symbols, aching to hear her father's voice. She could be hurt and she could be angry, but she couldn't change anything that he had done. " 'I've set up bank accounts for Miller's team just in case. If I fail, you'll have to help them all for me. You'll have to tell them the truth. Without someone like you, with your talent to draw sound and emotion away from them, they will need to work continually to find private quiet places or they will eventually overload. Watch the tapes, read the reports, and then you must find a way to lessen the damage and teach these men and the others to live as you have lived. In a protected environment, useful to society, but living. Please think of me with all the love and compassion I know you have in your heart. I'm afraid, Lily, afraid for both of us and afraid for all of those men.' "

Lily sat for a long time with her head bowed and her shoulders shaking. Tears burned but didn't fall. She had been so unprepared for this, yet somehow she wasn't as shocked as she should have been. She knew her father, knew his belief that the laws were too stringent and only hindered medical and defense research. His name was revered in so many circles. His name had always been above reproach, yet he had conducted secret experiments on children. It was unforgivable.

Lily pushed herself up from the desk and made her way to the videos. She looked at the shelves of tape. Her life. Right there. All numbered neatly in her father's hand. It wasn't going to be of her first steps, as many parents recorded, or graduating with honors from a university, it was going to be a cold-blooded documentary of a psychic adept whose abilities were enhanced in some way by a man who claimed to love her.

She didn't think she could bear to sit through it. She couldn't even run to her father for reassurance. He was at the bottom of the cold sea. Murdered. A chill went through her. Peter Whitney had most likely been murdered in an attempt to gain the very information she possessed. Someone wanted to know how he had enhanced a psychic adept's abilities. Her father hadn't shared his actual process with anyone, not at Donovans Corporation and not with Colonel Higgens or the general above him.

Lily pulled the first video off the shelf with shaking fingers. Ryland Miller and his entire team were alive because her father
hadn't
provided the information. Why would they kill the only man who could give it to them? If they couldn't get the information one way, they would certainly go at it from another angle.

An accident would provide a dead subject, one they could dissect. One they could take apart and study in the hopes that they would gain the secret. They would have such power if they utilized the talents her father's work had unleashed. Had Morrison's death really been unintentional? Had he suffered the seizures from what Whitney had done to him or had someone given him a drug to cause seizures so they could study him?

Knowing she had a great deal of information to go through in a very short time, Lily inserted the videotape in the player and began to watch.

LILY felt absolutely numb as she watched the little girl with enormous eyes "play" games for hours. Her father's voice was without inflection as he gave data and recited her growing abilities. She tried desperately to detach herself from emotion the way her father was so obviously able to do as he watched and filmed the little girl vomiting repeatedly from the migraines. Light hurt her eyes, sound hurt her ears, she cried and rocked and pleaded, and, through it all, Peter Whitney filmed and documented and spoke in his impersonal monotone.

Lily stared at the video, sickened that the man she called her father, the man she loved as her father could do such things to a child. He stood there filming all the while the nurse worked to comfort and help her. He even ordered the nurse aside as he went in for close-ups as Lily pressed her hands to her ears. Several times when she had disconnected, withdrawing from the world, into herself, rocking back and forth, he had become annoyed and had instructed the nurse to isolate her from the others so she wouldn't "infect them with her methods of retreat."

Lily turned off the video, tears tracking down her face. She hadn't even known they were there. Her hand shook as she pushed open the door to the room where she had spent so many months being trained. Being watched and documented. Her breath caught in her throat. Like Ryland and his men. No matter what, they couldn't stay at the Donovans laboratories. She had to find a safe, protected place until she could sort out the information and find a way to help them.

Lily lay down on the third bed from the left. Her bed. She curled up in the fetal position and pressed both hands over her ears to drown out the sound of her own sobbing.

Five

RUSSELL Cowlings was still missing. Ryland counted his one-hundredth push-up and continued thinking his way step by step through the planned escape. He had managed to bring the men together telepathically, with the exception of one. Russell had not answered or been felt by any of the team for several days.

Ryland felt helpless, cursing as he raised his body up and down, working his muscles to stay fit. He had to convince Lily that every one of his men was in danger. There was no concrete evidence, but
he felt
it. In his heart and soul he
knew
it. If they remained much longer in the cages of the Donovans laboratories, they would all disappear, one by one. Like Russell.

In sheer frustration Ryland leapt to his feet and paced restlessly across the length of his prison. His head was throbbing from holding the telepathic link for so long for all the team members while they discussed how to survive on the outside if their escape succeeded. It had been a longer conversation than usual, and they had continued to test and disrupt the alarms and security system often, using even more energy. He rubbed his temples, feeling slightly sick.

Pain hit him hard. Drove him to his knees.
Lily
. It was a knife in his gut, doubling him over. A stone in his chest crushing him. Sorrow such as he had never known and never wanted to experience. At that moment nothing else mattered but to get to her. Find her and comfort her. Protect her. The need was alive and crawling through his body and mind.

He began to build the bridge between them. A bridge strong and sure so he could cross the boundaries of time and space.

Lily dreamt of a river of tears. Tears filling up the sea and splashing onto land. She dreamt of blood and pain and monstrous men lurking in shadows. She dreamt of a man kneeling beside her, gathering her into his arms and holding her tightly to him, rocking her back and forth in an attempt to comfort her. When he couldn't stop her tears, he began to kiss her face, following the wet trail from her eyes to her mouth. Kissing her over and over. Long, drugging kisses that robbed her of her ability to think or breathe or even grieve.

Ryland
. She knew him. Dream lover. He had stolen into her nightmare to carry her away. "I feel so empty and lost." Even in her dream, she sounded forlorn.

"You're not lost, Lily," he replied gently.

"I am nothing. I belong nowhere. With nobody. None of this is real, don't you see? He robbed us of our life, of our free will."

"You belong in my world where there are no boundaries. You're a GhostWalker. It doesn't matter how it came to be, Lily, it simply is. We belong together. Be with me." Ryland stood up, held out his hand to her.

"What are we doing?" she murmured, reaching to take his offered hand, shocked that they were outside a cage, outside the thick walls of her home. Away from the secrets kept beneath the earth. "Where are we going?" His fingers closed around hers, strong and reassuring. Her heart gave a peculiar lurch in recognition of him.

"Where would you like to go?"

"Anywhere, anywhere away from here." She wanted to be far from that laboratory and the truth buried beneath the stories of her house. The weight of her knowledge crushed her until she could barely breathe.

He wanted her to trust him enough to tell him what had distressed her, but he simply tucked her hand into his and took her out into the night.

"How can you be here, Ryland? How can you be here with me?"

"I can walk in dreams. Raoul, we call him Gator, can control animals. Sam can move objects. There's a lot of talent among us, but there's only a few who are dreamwalkers."

"Thank you for coming to me." Lily said it simply. She meant it. She had no idea why he made her feel whole when she had been so shattered, but walking beside him, tucked beneath the protection of his shoulder, gave her a semblance of peace.

They wandered through the darkened streets together, not really paying attention to where they were going, simply being together. "Tell me about it, Lily." Ryland walked very close to her, his larger body brushing against hers protectively.

She shook her head. "I can't think about it, not even here."

"You're safe here with me. I'll keep you safe. Tell me what he did to you."

"He didn't love me. That's what he did, Ryland. He didn't love me." She wouldn't look at him. She stared off into the night, her face averted, her expression so sad it threatened to break his heart.

Ryland gathered her into his arms protectively, holding her close, transporting them across time and space. Far away from laboratories and cages. Away from reality so that the wind blew on their faces and they could simply be together. A respite her brain grabbed at and held on to. Their bodies soared free and they could go where their minds took them, but her sorrow walked with them in their dreamworld. And so did his worries. "One of my men is missing, Lily. I can't reach him."

She knew what he wanted. "I'll find him. I'll ask to speak with all the men tomorrow. I've supposedly been given access to everyone. Which man?" She ducked her head, guilt weighing heavily.

"Russell Cowling. And I don't blame you, Lily. I know that's what you're thinking. Your father…"

"I don't want to talk about him." Her dreamworld was beginning to dissolve around the edges as the harshness of reality intruded.

Ryland framed her face with his hands. "I saw his eyes when he looked at you. He loved you very much. Whatever sins he committed, Lily, he did love you."

She looked up at him, her long lashes wet with tears. "Did he? I thought he did, but there's an entire room filled with tapes neatly labeled 'Lily' to prove otherwise."

Ryland bent his head, taking her mouth, needing to take away her sorrow. His mouth was exquisitely gentle on hers, tender and coaxing. A kiss meant to be innocent. Healing. It was his intention to comfort her. But fire raced through him. He felt it in his veins. In his belly. In the heavy fullness of his groin. It burned along his skin and took him by surprise.

Lily melted into him, pliant and yielding. Her mouth opened to his, her arms creeping around his neck so that he could feel her generous breasts pressed tightly against the wall of muscles along his chest. Energy arced between them, snapping and sizzling as if alive. His skin to hers and back again. Small bolts of lightning whipped in his bloodstream. His arms tightened possessively.

Lily lifted her head to look at him, searching his face for answers. Nothing could prepare her for the instant and overwhelming physical attraction. She didn't trust anything so strong. She shook her head silently in denial.

Ryland could see it in her face. A groan escaped. "Lily, can't you see there's more than just something physical between us? I ache for you, I won't deny it, but I feel sad when you're sad. I want more than anything to make you happy, to know you're safe. I think about you every minute of the day. You refuse to see what's between us. I look at you and see clouds in your eyes when you're looking back. Does it matter so much to you the why of it?"

"This isn't real, Ryland. You're here with me, talking to me because you felt my need, but it still isn't real. It's a dream we're both sharing."

"I felt your need, across time and space, I still felt your need of me. Doesn't that tell you something, Lily?"

"It's still a dream, Ryland."

"It's real enough that we could be caught in it. Dreamwalking isn't easy, Lily." He allowed his arms to drop to his sides, unable to bear her body touching his when she didn't want him.

Lily caught his hand, weaving her fingers through his because she couldn't stand to be without physical contact with him. "What do you mean, we could be caught in it? Caught in the dream itself?"