She watched his agitated motion with a slight frown on her face. “Honey, why would you think this is any different than you or me being disgusted with an evil person doing evil things and reacting to it? You accept that a leopard retaliates against something or someone hunting it. Or that a wolf pack does. You utilize the strengths of those animals. You admire the cunning intelligence of them. Why is it so much more difficult for you to accept that Red might react to Whitney’s evil?”
Jonas had to think about that. Why was it so much more upsetting? He looked out the kitchen window at the plants that hadn’t been there before. They could effectively block his sight if an enemy was coming. Even as he thought it, the branches parted to show him a clear, unobstructed view. Just as the plant had reacted to his thoughts when he’d been in Camellia’s garden, the ones outside his kitchen reacted to his. How was that even possible?
“I can understand how Whitney managed to insert animal DNA into us, Camellia, but plant? I don’t know. I’m not a science expert like a couple of the others. Some of it, like the communications network, I can get that even on some small level. I get the healing maybe because I can visualize it. But the way the plants react when I’m thinking...” He trailed off, shaking his head.
“We’re connected to them.” She sighed and shoved both hands through her hair. “When I first escaped, I didn’t want Whitney to ever be able to take me back to his laboratories. Not ever. I wasn’t going into his breeding program. No child of mine was going to have to go through what I did. No son was going to grow up a soldier the way he wanted him to be. And no daughter of mine was going to be used for his purposes. I knew, sooner or later, he’d find me. That was inevitable. I moved often to buy myself time, but also so I could get stronger.”
There was something in her voice that warned him. Jonas stopped moving and went very still, nearly fading into the wall behind him. He kept his gaze fixed on her expressive face. There was so much passion there. So much determination. His woman. Camellia. Little did Whitney know the warrior he’d created. The man had been so certain women were inferior. All along he had evidence to the contrary, but he refused to see it because he was so certain of his preconceived beliefs.
“I always loved gardening. Always. I also loved ecology and botany. I studied mycology. I found all the subjects so fascinating.I had no idea why, and all the other girls thought I was a little crazy. They kept asking me how that was going to benefit me. It made no sense to them, because I excelled at tracking and using just about any kind of weapon. The point I’m making is this: all those studies came in handy when I found myself alone and in need of figuring out how I was going to defeat Whitney when he sent a team of his supersoldiers against me.”
“Not sure what mycology is, but how did botany, gardening and ecology studies help you plan to escape Whitney’s soldiers?”
“Mycology is the study of fungi. The various properties, genetic and biochemical, and the uses for healing or eating. Or just the opposite, the dangers for toxicity or even death. Botany is the study of plants. Ecology is pretty much what it sounds like, the relationships between living organisms.”
She was telling him something right there, and it was very important. She looked at him in a way that said his little Camellia was as lethal as they came. He loved her even more for that.
“Are you telling me that you developed your own army of plants?”
“Not exactly an army. There are plants all over the world that possess all kinds of ways of protecting themselves or striking back at their enemies, whether insect, mammal, reptile or human. But no, I didn’t utilize any of those because I didn’t have them at my disposal, nor would I have had the necessary time to mutate them. Instead, I decided to develop weapons.”
Jonas folded his arms across his chest. She was quite small in comparison to his larger frame, but she was no less dangerous. Everyone, him included, had underestimated her. “You’re really amazing, Camellia. Keep talking. What exactly did you develop, and how?”
“Some types of mushrooms are already toxic, but they take a bit of time to work and have to be ingested in most cases for thesubject to actually die. That wasn’t going to help me in a fight. I had to figure Whitney would send a five-man team after me. That’s if I was lucky. So I had to plan to face a minimum of ten of his enhanced soldiers. I would have to ensure they would go down fast and stay down. Shoving a toxic mushroom down their throats wasn’t going to work.”
Jonas found himself smiling at the image she pushed into his mind. He could see her leaping into the air, wrapping her legs around a startled soldier’s waist as she shoved a mushroom into his mouth.
“The only man whose waist you’re going to wrap your legs around is mine.”
She rolled her beautiful eyes. “I should have known that would be your reaction. You’re supposed to laugh, not growl. You sound like a bear.”
“I have bear in me,” he acknowledged.
“I did notice that.”
He grinned, then directed the conversation back on topic. “Tell me what you developed.”
“I needed a much more toxic mushroom, one that would kill them just by breathing in its spores. Only I couldn’t have spores that would wind up creating more of the mushrooms that might kill innocent people. It was quite a difficult problem to figure out. Whatever I developed couldn’t ever reproduce. Once it was used, even the tiniest pieces of it had to dissolve so there were no traces left. If, for any reason, the body of a downed supersoldier was taken back to Whitney, I couldn’t afford to have him know what killed that soldier.”
Jonas admired her even more. “You solved the problem?”
“After a lot of work. Red helped me. At least, having quite a bit of Red’s properties in me helped. That and my ability to use the communication systems from Red and the underground network.”
“You’re telling me you have lethal weapons we can use against this coming army to help even the odds.”
“Exactly. If we can lay traps for them, we can stop them before they reach the compound, Jonas. The weapons will help. I can lay them out for you, and you can decide whether you want to talk to Ryland about them or not.”
“That’s generous of you, Camellia, when you know how dangerous it could be. If word were to get out about your talents, you could be in a world of hurt.”
“I don’t think Ryland or your team wants anyone to know about me,” Camellia said.
Jonas agreed with her. He also wasn’t a man many crossed, and he’d made it known he didn’t want anyone talking about her. Kaden had made it clear as well. Team One needed a healer. Kaden hoped to convince Camellia to stay.
Camellia reached for her plate and carried it to the sink. “The omelet was delicious. You really are a good cook. I might just stick around for the food.”
“Tell the truth, you’re sticking around for the sex.”
Color rushed up under her skin, but Camellia didn’t look away from him. “Well, yes, I suppose I have to admit you’ve got some skill there as well.”
