How would Whitney have found her? He always planted tracking devices in the women, but she found the one in her hip and cut it out. It hadn’t been that deep. Had there been a second one? If so, why would he have waited so long before he sent someone after her?
Chewing at her lower lip, a nervous habit Whitney had detested in her and in all the girls, Camellia went to the bed and lay down so she could run her fingers over her skin to feel for any foreign object, no matter how small. She had very sensitive fingertips. More, the blood in her veins was connected to nature, to the plants that grew within the perimeter of her land. She tapped into that environment now, seeking an outside source to aid her in examining her body for anything that Whitney may have surgically placed in her without her knowledge. She found nothing.
No trackers, then, that she could find, yet that feeling of dread refused to go away. If anything, the awareness of a predator closing in on her increased to such an extent that she leapt to her feet and rushed to change into clothes made of soft, organic material that would blend with her garden and allow her to disappear at will.Since no warning had been triggered, she couldn’t explain why she was so certain someone was stalking her, but she was absolutely sure. She needed to be outside where she could see what was happening around her and let her plants talk to her.
If the threat was beyond her garden—could it be coming from the GhostWalkers who, as she’d recently discovered, had well-established fortresses several miles below her on the steeper side of the mountain? She would reach for the reptiles, the frogs and lizards. GhostWalkers rarely suspected them, where they often did birds and mammals. Just the idea that a GhostWalker might be stalking her was terrifying.
She had made up her mind she would never return to Whitney’s compound and his disgusting breeding program or his horrible experiments. She would rather spend the rest of her life alone with her plants. She’d built a life for herself here. Solitary, yes, but she had everything she needed. As long as she didn’t have some kind of serious accident, like break her leg, she was almost entirely self-sufficient. She had a good first aid kit, and she knew how to take care of most injuries, even severe ones. She’d set up perimeter scouts and defenses. And just to be on the safe side, she’d thoroughly explored the surrounding forest and mapped out multiple escape routes in case Whitney’s soldiers found her.
All of that had taken time, but she’d managed. She’d done everything she could think of to keep off the radar and build a comfortable, secure, solitary life in her mountaintop garden. She’d been drawn to this mountain, almost a compulsion, and it had taken months to find the perfect place out of the way, set everything up initially and be able to hike into town for supplies. It took a couple of days to backpack using the easiest trail.
Recently, she’d discovered two large compounds where quite a few families made their homes together. It looked like two fortresses developing in two separate areas fairly close together. Thecompounds had been on the steepest side of the mountain below her, and she had been cautious to go in that direction, not willing to risk an injury until the weather was the best and she was extremely fit.
Camellia had been drawn to that fortress, and yet, at the same time, when she approached, a kind of terror had gripped her and she’d fled without a closer recon. She intended to go back, but she hadn’t yet. Every day she kept putting it off. She’d reinforced her own warning systems just in case the GhostWalkers in those buildings got too close for comfort, but even hikers and hunters rarely came around.
The Lolo National Forest was spread out over two million acres and included four wilderness areas. She had deliberately chosen one of the most isolated and inaccessible areas in which to make her home. During the winter months, the roads below were impassable for cars. She guessed those living in the fortress below her had snowmobiles. She had snowshoes—ones she’d constructed herself.
Camellia stood at her door and allowed her senses to flare cautiously out along the vast connective network of all her plants. Belowground, she tapped into the mycelium connecting all the trees together through their root systems, allowing them to communicate with one another. The mycelium ensured the health of the forest and the trees in it with its underground network. She had tapped into it the moment she’d arrived, becoming a part of the system, so it recognized her as being an unthreatening part of the wilderness.
She related to plants and animals. She felt at home with them. She “read” them. “Heard” them. Related to them. Fortunately, Whitney never realized all the things she could do with plants—nor recognized the advantages having the plant DNA from the Middlemist Red Camellia in her gave her. More than anythingelse, Whitney had wanted to know if his theories regarding the Middlemist were correct. She had escaped before he could ever prove them one way or the other.
Camellia took a deep breath and eased the door of her cabin open just enough to slide her body through. She waited motionless on the first step outside the door. The mist immediately surrounded her, welcoming her as part of itself, her skin absorbing the cool vaporized droplets. She closed her eyes and tuned herself to the mist’s exact structure.
There was a reason she had the Middlemist Red Camellia surrounding her cabin. Like other plants, the veins in the leaves carried water and minerals, and also moved food energy around to whatever part of the plant needed it. But the Middlemist Red hid something else within its veins, something discovered in the early days in China, where it had grown in abundance. Strangely, mysteriously, the beautiful Red had vanished from its native country, where it had thrived for so many years. There were many theories, of course, but only Red knew the real reason. Whitney had come closest with his hypothesis. He had been determined to find the explanation.
Camellia looked at the blossoms, so abundant, healthy and vibrant, a deep pink that bordered on red, the petals tight and looking so much like a rose. The shrubs always reacted to her in kinship, feeling her presence, her connection to them. The plant knew what it was like to be hunted—to have someone want to destroy you because you were different. Or imprison you and take you apart because they were determined to find out your secrets.
In 1804, before the plants had vanished in China, John Middlemist, a nurseryman from West London, had brought back one of the camellias with him to donate to Kew Gardens. The plant was then housed in the Duke of Devonshire’s three-hundred-foot conservatory with his camellia collection to be propagated.
During World War II, when the bombardment was at its height, a bomb exploded near the conservatory, blowing out all the glass, but the building avoided complete destruction. There was a short time when the mentally ill were housed on the property. A bomb was planted in the conservatory but failed to detonate. After the war, the conservatory fell into complete disrepair. At that time, there was no sign any of the rare camellias were left alive.
It wasn’t until 1999 that the Middlemist Red Camellia was spotted and identified once again in the conservatory. Where had the flower been all that time? Why hadn’t anyone seen it or been able to identify it? Granted, it took years for volunteers to restore the conservatory to its former glory and ten years for botanists to identify flower species. It took three years just to identify the Middlemist Red Camellia using historical bibliography and paintings.
Dr.Whitney had his hypothesis as to why the plant had disappeared in China so completely. Why hadn’t the plant been destroyed when the bombing blew out the windows and exposed the conservatory to the elements? Why hadn’t the bomb detonated inside the conservatory? Why hadn’t anyone detected the Middlemist Red Camellia or any of the other rare camellias in the ten years the botanists had worked to identify the various plants? If Whitney had Camellia longer, he might have been able to prove himself right, because she knew that Middlemist Red had concealed itself in plain sight, just as Camellia was doing now.
There was far more to Middlemist Red than anyone—even Dr.Peter Whitney—could have imagined. The remarkable shrub possessed great healing properties; the oil from the plant helped to prevent cell damage and reduce inflammation due to its potent antioxidant properties. There were so many other uses, from skin care to hair strengtheners to antiaging. But that didn’t even begin to cover Middlemist Red’s secrets.
Red had the ability to form a network and use it to spread outin every direction, just as the mycelium connected underground to the trees in the forest. Camellia hadn’t fully developed that gift before she’d escaped the compound with the other women. She wished she had, and yet the fact that she hadn’t probably saved her from being shipped to one of Whitney’s other facilities. Had he known what she was capable of, she might never have managed to escape.
It was possible that being completely alone had forced her to develop her talents faster. She’d concentrated on them, practicing when she had no one to talk to but her plants.
When she fled, she’d broken into Whitney’s greenhouse and stolen some of his exotics. It had been a stupid thing to do, risking her life and freedom, but the compulsion had been too strong to resist. Camellia had waited in the greenhouse to make certain all the girls got away. The last one to make it out was Marigold. Mari’s man and his friends, all of whom were GhostWalkers, had aided the girls’ escape. While she waited, Camellia gathered up the plants that she wanted to bring with her, including Middlemist Red. She had known Middlemist Red wanted to leave with her. All along, the plant had been in on the escape plans the women had made together. Red had made it known to Camellia that it was essential the plant go with her. That was one thing that had made Camellia feel as if she wasn’t entirely alone.
Due to her ability to merge with any organic and biological network, Camellia was completely tuned to the entire area she claimed. When she couldn’t find a hidden threat, she expanded her search, using the mycelium beneath the ground to see outside her garden. She found the men camping. There were two of them. Hadn’t the owls and wolves reported three men?
Camellia puzzled over that discrepancy. She couldn’t reach out to any of her sentries because if she was right, and one of Whitney’s supersoldiers was close, he might feel the surge in energy thataccompanied her “talking” to the owls or wolves. It wasn’t really speaking, more like pushing images into their heads, but she had established herself as the nucleus in a vast network of communication in the forest, and the creatures were used to interacting with her.
She needed to get close to those two men and ascertain if they were enhanced—if they were Whitney’s supersoldiers come to take her back—or if they were innocent hikers or hunters. It was impossible to tell from this distance. Moving meant possible detection. She considered the risks. Perhaps it would be better to move the mycelium closer to the surface right beneath them. The underground network could give her a better feel of their energy. Making up her mind, she tapped into the natural grid and sent the command.
She was very aware of the two men sitting close to the fire. She knew one was feeling ill and drinking water continually. The other man was looking after him and acting as a sentry, occasionally getting up to peer over the rocks surrounding them to ensure they were safe from any wild animals. Although they were close to the fire, they weren’t facing it directly. Just that small detail made her uneasy. A trained soldier would know not to look directly into flames at night if they wanted to keep their vision.
Her uneasiness increased without warning. Why? Both men rose and moved to the rocks, sitting on them, rather than on the ground. The taller of the two wrapped a blanket of some kind around the sick one and then faced out toward the forest alertly. Was that what made her so uneasy? She took a deep breath, inhaling the scents around her. The air was free of fragrance, giving her the ability to smell an intruder if he was close.
There was nothing but the fresh scent of the forest, the soil and exotic flowers she was familiar with and could catalog. Juniper? Cedar? She inhaled again to see if she could actually isolate thosetwo scents and track them outside or inside her garden. The red cedar was common in the forest, but she’d never really isolated that scent. And juniper? Spruce? There were spruce trees. Why were the tree scents so much more prominent to her all of a sudden? Was it because she’d brought the mycelium so much closer to the surface and it was connected to the trees, trees she was unable to see?
She frowned, trying to puzzle out what she was missing. It was strange that her mind didn’t want to leave the puzzle of the tree scents. She found the faint aroma exhilarating, almost intoxicating. It was as if the scent seemed to sizzle along her nerve endings. That was weird, because it wasn’t moving along the network so much as actually affecting her body’s nerve endings. Still, she had discipline, and she forced her mind back to the puzzle of the two men camping in the circle of boulders.
They had been sitting quietly near their fire, both on the ground until she had given the command to the mycelium network to come up closer to the surface where she could read the two men. They had moved right after she gave the order. Directly after. Within moments. Almost as if they heard it. Was that even possible?
