Samurai Game (GhostWalkers #10)(28)
Author: Christine Feehan

Thorn shook her head and immediately stepped up to take the bags from Lily. Another man hurried to help Tucker lift Sam into the litter. They moved fast toward the tent, Lily running along beside them. Thorn’s sense of urgency revived with a vengeance. Lily had declared Sam safe to move, but if they were running, he wasn’t out of the woods yet.

Thorn’s mouth went dry and her heart began to pound. The scars on her chest throbbed and burned. Blood thundered in her ears. She moistened her lips. “Are you going to operate right here?”

In a tent? Outdoors? Without anesthesia? For one horrible moment she was six years old again and out of her mind with pain and fear. She ran along beside the litter, her gaze refusing to focus on the ground or anything else around her. She could hear a child screaming so loud she couldn’t focus, the sound high and animalistic. Reality retreated until she could only hear that softly pitched, modulated voice with its perfect elocution that sent chills through her at night and kept her afraid to close her eyes.

Think of the contribution you’re making to science, Thorn. Whitney spoke as if she should be grateful that he was operating on her without anesthesia, and because she was a child and one with a rather low IQ, he thought, he felt he needed to speak very distinctly and slowly for her to understand. When we’re finished here, I will be so much closer to knowing how much pain a GhostWalker can sustain without succumbing to death. You should be grateful you can help so many others.

Whitney stood above her, poised, unflappable, his expression perfectly reasonable and interested as he stood over her writhing body with a scalpel.

Please. The child’s pleading voice. Sweat beading on her forehead, dotting her body, the terrible fear permeating the room. You did this already.

Of course, Thorn. That same soft, reasonable voice. We have to repeat the experiment again and again to make certain of our facts. I’ve explained that to you. You’re old enough to understand what’s expected of you. Lie still and this time, I want you to concentrate on not allowing your heart to stop. You can do that, can’t you?

Thorn pressed her hand over her wildly pounding heart. She felt bruised, her chest so sore she couldn’t breathe, the aftermath of Whitney bringing her back to life again and again. Sometimes she woke in the middle of the night to the sound of her heart flatlining and the echo of the burst of shock pulsing through her body.

Her hand slipped to her dagger and she increased her stride to catch up with Lily, moving in behind her, close enough to kill her and slide away right under the watchful eyes of her guard—and he was watching her. Deliberately she brushed back strands of her hair, allowing concern to show on her face as she looked down at Sam. Her moment would come when she entered the tent. Her guard would be outside. She would have to slip the blade deep, twist, and teleport through the narrow opening back to the clearing she’d used before.

Thorn risked a glance into the tent. It was much larger than she’d first thought. They all stopped abruptly in the first section. Behind a net, she could see two men hastily setting up covered, sterile trays of instruments. Her stomach lurched. She couldn’t catch her breath, her lungs raw and burning for air, her vision clouding until … Eyes stared down at that small child, masks covering the lower half of their face. Him. Whitney. So perfectly calm, shaking his head at how unreasonable and stubborn she was.

Take a deep breath, Thorn. Just like the pool. It isn’t any different. You need to beat your last time. You can do so much better if you just try. That unshakable, reasonable voice, so completely unflappable, the eyes always so bright with dispassionate interest. Very slowly they lowered the transparent plastic wrap that would deprive her of all air. Her heart thundered through the cold, sterile room. She could feel her heart pounding so hard, her chest hurt from the inside out, bruised and battered. Her head had been shaved because Whitney felt it would get in the way of his experiment and he needed to stick electrodes on her scalp.

She was so close to Lily she felt the very rhythm of her breathing as they entered the first small area not netted off as an operating room. This section was all for preparation. She swallowed hard and forced sound to come out of her suddenly blocked throat. “You have anesthesia here?”

“I’m not taking chances on losing him. We’ll operate right here. If he has a nicked artery, he’s in trouble. We’ve got everything we need in the tent.” Lily sounded distracted again. “Of course we have anesthesia.”

Both men inside the netting wore scrubs and even their shoes were covered. Tucker and his companion passed the litter through the net to the other two men. Lily took the bags of fluid from Thorn and placed them on the litter at Sam’s side. Immediately he was whisked away—taken to the sterile operating table inside the larger section of the tent. Thorn allowed her fingers to slip away from her dagger, fearing, with memories so close, she might make a mistake.

Lily scrubbed her hands and arms with some kind of solution out of a bottle and held out her arms, and Tucker disinfected his own hands before helping Lily into surgical gloves and a full set of scrubs.

It was obvious the surgical field setup had been practiced often. Tucker, Lily, and the others were too efficient and fast for this to have been a one-time thing: the tent going up, everything in sterile packs ready to use, even the smooth way Tucker had gotten Lily into her scrubs. He covered her hair with a netted cap.

The ground shifted beneath Thorn’s feet, the memories pouring out so fast she couldn’t stop them. Whitney approaching the table and that small child knew—knew—what was coming next. You’re seven now. Not a baby, so stop acting like one. I’m tiring of your endless tantrums. Saber stopped your heart multiple times and you were just fine. This is the same thing.

It isn’t. It isn’t. This hurts. Electric shock. The terrible pain flashing through her body, making her teeth clamp down so that sometimes she bit herself. She tried to tell him, but nothing fazed Whitney. He never lost control. And he never stopped.

Science matters, Thorn. It is necessary to make certain every experiment is reliable.

Thorn could hear the child screaming, her mind nearly gone, her body and heart so weak now, she knew there would come that day when he couldn’t revive her—and she wanted it to come soon. This had to stop. She’d overheard him tell one of his assistants that her heart was weakening fast and the damage would be too great to continue and soon she’d be of no use to them.

“Ms. Yoshiie?” Tucker indicated outside the tent. “Please accompany me.”