Hold very still and don’t try to pull away even if it hurts more, Kyle.Camellia didn’t see how it could hurt more.
Pops was easing closer. In the thick mist, there was no way for Jeff or Kyle to see him, but she made certain, through her connection with them, that she provided Pop’s exact location. He was coming up behind Kyle’s head, going in a wide circle so that he had already entered the forest and was out of the clearing. Unlike Lewis, he didn’t make a sound. He was more like a giant lizard, at home on his belly, claws gripping the soil and moving him as quickly over a surface as if he were jogging on two feet. Pops was an unknown, and that was a little terrifying. She would have to trust Jonas and Jeff to keep him off of Kyle while she tried to prevent Kyle from bleeding out.
Camellia pushed everything out of her mind but the terrible penetrating wound in Kyle’s shoulder. The blood supply to theupper extremities was carried in the subclavian artery, which began near the heart and traveled under the clavicle bone. From there, it branched off into several smaller vessels and then continued on as the axillary artery.
Gorman had either known exactly what he was doing when he brought that spear down so hard on Kyle, or he’d been incredibly lucky when Kyle had rolled. The spear had gone down through the shoulder and come out the armpit. The tip was buried at least an inch deep in the soil. The moment she saw the blade had gone through his armpit Camellia knew, just as Kyle did, that the situation was bad.
She followed the path of the blade as it went through skin and muscle, through veins and finally, the axillary artery. She bit the side of her bottom lip hard. She’d never tried such a difficult task from a distance.
Get on it,Jonas said.You can do it.He knew Camellia could.
Jonas had complete faith in Camellia. She had brought them all together with the underground network, extending the communication to Jeff and Kyle. Right now, he would have to block her out of his mind because the things he would have to do to protect his brother GhostWalkers were the things that might be abhorrent to her. He would have to call on those traits that Whitney enhanced him with in order for all of them to survive. He understood that Shaker was far more dangerous than any of them had realized.
Shaker had penetrated Team One. He had undermined their trust in one another by using the spy Abrams had instilled in their midst. It had taken time for Jonas to work out how Shaker had managed to do it, but Camellia had given him the idea. Shaker’s voice had become more beguiling over time. It was a slowinfluencer, but he’d had a couple of years to plan his revenge, and he had taken full advantage of every minute.
Shaker was using his voice now, trying to stop Jeff from rushing to Kyle’s aid. Trying to persuade Kyle to pull the spear from his body. Trying to get Camellia to stand up and walk to him. The one thing he wasn’t doing was working on getting Jonas to show himself. Shaker and his brother Tusker had something very special planned for the man they were certain had murdered their brother Oliver.
Pops had nearly reached Kyle, his head moving from side to side, held down low, eyes fixed on him. He was walking on hands and feet, body held low off the ground. He swayed from side to side as he walked. Like a lizard. A giant lizard.
He’s venomous, a Komodo dragon, Jeff,Jonas warned.He’s going for Kyle’s head. You can’t afford to let him sink his teeth into either of you. Komodos have a powerful bite, and their venom will eventually make you bleed out.
Kyle can’t move,Jeff argued.
That’s why I’m here,Jonas said.
He was risking his relationship with Camellia, but she either could accept him as he was, or she couldn’t. He would never be free of what Whitney had done to him. He would always be that man—the one needing to protect those he considered family or too weak to protect themselves. That was part of who and what he was. It was one thing to talk about it, another to witness it.
Oliver’s brothers knew him—had known him for years—and yet they hadn’t reached out to him to ask him what had happened after their brother’s death. Not once. They’d joined the GhostWalker program after Oliver and Jonas. Oliver had tried to talk them out of it, but neither of his brothers listened to him. They were intrigued with his abilities and ignored the toll it took on his sanity.
Apparently, they had both managed, through Whitney, to wash out of the program so they could be hired as private security for Abrams. The less demanding schedules of private security forces had clearly left them plenty of time to plot their revenge when they decided Jonas and Team One were guilty of murdering Oliver. They’d changed their appearance just enough that Jonas wouldn’t recognize them immediately. Every step had been planned carefully, including the plan to murder the members of Team One and their families.
The fury welled up like a volcano and, with it, strength beyond any human. Shaker and Tusker had sacrificed good men. All those enhanced soldiers they’d sent in advance to kidnap Lily and Daniel, forcing Jonas and the others to kill them. The advance scouts Team Two would have to kill. Crawley and his team, whose only sin was being loyal to the wrong men. Angel, who had believed them so absolutely. Knowing that Gorman and Lewis and Angel were dead hadn’t stopped Shaker. He still wouldn’t stand down.
Jonas was aware of Camellia instructing Jeff to come up on Kyle’s left side in order to get a better grip with both hands so, when she told him, he could draw the spear upward in increments. It would be excruciating for Kyle. Before Jeff started to extract the spear, Red dripped some other liquid into Kyle’s veins in order to counteract the pain. Kyle’s life was in their hands. Jonas was all about death.
Jonas found their ability to heal both fascinating and ironic. Camellia’s healing gift in particular. Why had that bastard Whitney decided to pair Camellia, a woman who was all about life, with Jonas, who was all about death?
Pops suddenly rushed Kyle, coming at him in an explosive attack, much like the Komodo dragon. As he drove at Kyle’s head, he opened his mouth wide, so wide his jaw appeared unhinged, exposing two rows of serrated teeth. Venom dripped between theteeth, telling Jonas the man would bite down and tear, allowing massive amounts of venom to infiltrate the wound. If Pop’s venom was similar to a Komodo dragon’s, it would contain over six hundred toxins and would prevent clotting. Pops wouldn’t need to deliver a killing bite, only drip the venom into the open wounds and sit back and wait for the toxins to take effect.
Jonas intercepted the attack, coming out of the fog, ripping a thick branch from a tree as he raced past it. The branch was green, not at all brittle. He swung it with deadly accuracy, slamming the heavy limb into Pops’s open mouth and smashing as many of the serrated teeth as possible, then using it as a battering ram, shoving the branch down his throat until a good two feet of bloody wood tore through the side of his neck. Pops died instantly, his eyes wide with shock and panic, his body toppling as far as the branch would allow.
Instantly, Jonas was gone again, disappearing into the fog, moving slowly with the droplets, circling back around Kyle to where Jeff was crouched beside him, doing his best to follow Camellia’s instructions.
Jonas was becoming adept at reading the underground network now that he knew what it was. Tusker and Shaker had changed positions, utilizing the dense, covering fog to move covertly. Shaker was no longer in the clearing. He had disappeared that quickly, with no hint of his movement telegraphed over the mycelium network, which meant he wasn’t touching the ground.
Tusker was close to Jeff and Kyle. A threat to them. Tusker should have known better.Theyshould have known better. But then, Jonas had known they would go at Kyle again. He was the bait after all. Kyle had known he would be used to bring Jeff, Jonas and possibly even Camellia straight to Shaker and his men. They wouldn’t have to cast around in the fog. They would know right where to look.
He was beginning to know Shaker now. This was all about him. His enhancements. His ego. His cunning intelligence. Shaker had been enhancedbeforehis brother had been killed. Oliver had tried to talk him out of it. Oliver had been adamant that his brothers not undergo the psychic or physical enhancements. He’d been extremely upset when he found out they’d gone ahead with their plans.
“You want me to be the one to have killed Oliver to let you off the hook, Shaker. You know you were like him. Like me. You can’t control it, can you? The testosterone raging in your body making the demands to challenge any other male who won’t do exactly what you say? You have to be alpha, and everyone had better do what you tell them.”
He whispered into the fog, dispersing the thread of sound into those droplets so they wouldn’t give away his location. He and Shaker were playing cat and mouse, and Jonas refused to be the mouse.
Shaker was about to find out what a real alpha was.
Jonas had learned over time through trial and error—so many errors—that the way of the wolf alpha was the most effective for him. He tried to follow that lead, to not beat his chest, snarling and demanding. When rage became too much, he took himself away from anyone he loved until he had himself under control.
“Did you always need to be alpha? To force everyone around you to do what you said? I know you did to your brothers. Oliver’s abilities made you jealous, didn’t they, Shaker? You wanted them for yourself. You thought he couldn’t handle them because he was weak.” He kept projecting the whisper into the fog, all the while keeping track of Tusker.
