Rubin slid into the shadows and went still. He’d learned years earlier to disappear there. The back door opened and a slight silhouette came through. The door closed and she crouched down to unlace her hiking boots. Putting the boots neatly aside, she tossed her socks into a small basket and then hung her jacket on a hook by the door. Pulling her shirt over her head, she tossed that into the same basket along with her bra. Stripping off her jeans and panties, those went into the basket and she stepped into the shower.
Rubin was inherently a gentleman. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested enough to want to look at the female body given the opportunity, but he wouldn’t take undue advantage, especially in this circumstance. This woman was out in the middle of nowhere, alone, and would be terrified as a rule, confronted by two men—except for one thing. Most GhostWalkers recognized the energy of another GhostWalker. Rubin recognized her energy immediately.
It was impossible that it was a coincidence that a female Ghost-Walker just happened to be in his cabin in the Appalachian Mountains, camping out. Whitney had sent her. And if Whitney had sent her, she was his enemy. She was there to distract or kill him. Either way, there were more coming. It was no secret that he returned to his home to treat those refusing to trust outsiders. Both Diego and Rubin came sometimes twice a year. She was living in the cabin for a reason, and that reason was to get to them.
Rubin considered whether or not to confront her while she was shampooing her hair. She hadn’t turned on lights. Or lit candles. The night hadn’t completely fallen, so it wasn’t completely dark yet, but still, most people, when they were alone, preferred to have lights. A GhostWalker wouldn’t necessarily need lights. Whitney’s experiments often included animal DNA, so many of them could easily see in the dark.
He studied her body while she conditioned her hair. She was fit. Really fit. Feminine, but without a doubt, muscles moved beneath that flawless skin. Her hair was nearly white it was so blond, and the color was natural because the tiny curls at the junction between her legs were just as white as the wealth of hair on her head.
He found himself fascinated with the way her body moved, a display of feminine power, of beautiful lines and movement, almost like a dancer, yet clearly that of a fighter. She was deceptively delicate, so when she was wearing clothes, no one would ever see that beneath she would be deadly, a true assassin coiled to strike.
The water went off, and she stepped out of the stall and wrapped a towel around her body. He let her get into the center of the room, away from all potential weapons. She had toweled off the blond pixie cut framing her face, now a shade or two darker from the dampness of the water than it had been when she’d entered the shower.
“I think you might want to just stop right there and stay very still. My brother has you covered dead center from the window, and he doesn’t miss, which I’m certain you know.” Rubin kept his voice low. Smooth. “No, don’t turn around. Stay facing that window.”
Diego would be able to see her without a problem. Whitney had made certain of that.
“Start with your name. You must have one.”
“Of course I have a name. It’s Jonquille. Are you Rubin? Or Diego?”
“Diego is the one with the rifle pointed right between your eyes. I’m Rubin. We aren’t going to be playing any games with you. This isn’t a coincidence that you’re here. I know you’re a GhostWalker. I can feel your energy. You know I am. So let’s just cut to the chase. When is the team going to arrive and how many should we be expecting?”
“There is no team. I came here looking for you. I studied everything about you I could find. There was no way to get anywhere near you in Louisiana. Your team was always around you. In any case, it was too dangerous for me and everyone else. So I came here and just waited. I knew you’d come, although you’re early.”
He couldn’t detect a lie in her voice, but some GhostWalkers were adept at lying convincingly. “Why would you study everything about me and then stalk me?”
“I do sound like a stalker, don’t I?”
For the first time nerves crept into her voice. Before, she had just sounded excited. Not even upset that she was naked beneath the towel and he’d caught her in a vulnerable position. Just excited.
“That’s not how I meant it. I saw you speak at a conference on lightning. It was brilliant. You were brilliant. I know you’re a hotshot doctor and all, and mostly you go to medical conferences, but you have an interest in lightning and you seem to have insights most so-called qualified people don’t.”
She talked so fast, her words tumbled over one another. Again, she started to turn.
“Don’t.” He reminded her sharply. “Diego will shoot you without hesitation.”
“Can’t you just tell him to put down his rifle for a minute so we can talk? If you don’t believe me, he can pick it back up again.”
He wanted to smile at the sheer exasperation in her voice. “No, I’m afraid we can’t do that just yet. Keep talking.”
He found it interesting that she wasn’t in the least impressed with his being a “hotshot” doctor. He had a profound interest in all things lightning. He had written papers on it. Talked theories. Discussed ways to harness it. Uses for it. He had come up with ways to redirect natural lightning bolts in order to reduce damage to personal property everywhere. It could prevent loss of life. Part of coming home was to test his ability to redirect lightning strikes. Up in the mountains, away from everyone, he would ensure no one was around to get hurt. No one knew about his intentions other than a very select few.
The uses for a potential military weapon didn’t sit right with him, but the potential use for good in so many other areas was huge. Already the military was looking at harnessing lightning in different forms for weapons. He couldn’t stop that, but he could continue with his experiments with the consent of Major General Tennessee Milton, the direct commander of GhostWalker Team Four. He knew he would have to cooperate with those looking to weaponize lightning as well, but he’d looked at those experiments and realized it was too late to ever go back from them.
“What makes you so interested in lightning?”
“I’m one of Whitney’s first experiments. One of his first orphans. I escaped from his compound and managed to get away on my own and stay hidden under the radar. He had a microchip on me, but it didn’t work. I have too much electrical current building up in me at times, and it short-circuited. I know you’re on his fourth team, the one he considers perfection. You get to be perfect because he started years ago with orphan girls. Infants. He experimented on us. He has laboratories all over and female orphans to experiment on. Once he believed he knew what he was doing, he transferred those experiments onto his first team of soldiers.”
Rubin was well aware of what she was telling him. It was the truth. Whitney had more than one laboratory. He had many backers, although most didn’t know—or didn’t care—about the young girls he’d experimented on before he psychically enhanced his first team of soldiers. He had also, without their consent, physically enhanced them using animal DNA. The first team of GhostWalkers had many problems. They were good at their jobs, but they still had problems.
“I’m one of those very flawed experiments,” Jonquille confessed. A little shiver went through her body. “It isn’t safe for anyone to be around me for very long. Not ever. I’ve read everything I can about lightning. No one seems to really know how it works. I started taking chances, sneaking into the conferences on lightning and the various uses. I stayed away from everyone until I could tell I was drawing too much energy and then I’d leave. I’m a trained Ghost-Walker soldier. That was one thing Whitney did do for us. We were very well trained and we all speak multiple languages. I also went to med school. He wanted us to be productive. It wasn’t difficult to get into the conferences.”