Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 125037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“Grace sent me impressions of a man in a white lab coat taking her blood. It hurt her. I realized that when I was gone, my commander would allow the lab to study Grace. I had no way to protect her when I was gone. I didn’t want them experimenting on her. I’d heard such terrible things about Whitney and what he was doing. The other soldiers would talk sometimes. It was terrifying knowing Bridget was with Whitney.”
He couldn’t imagine how painful it must have been for her to know her sister was in the hands of a madman.
“What changed everything? How did you come to a place where you tracked Bridget down?” Even as he asked her, he listened for the great horned owl’s response.
The large bird could elongate its body when sitting motionless on the branch of a tree. The coloration allowed it to blend into the bark, a perfect camouflage. Diego and Rubin had learned to mimic the owl, often sleeping in the branches of a tree when they were children out hunting for their families. They’d learned to camouflage and be still from the fierce predatory owl. They’d taken many lessons from the great horned owl. To strike fast and decisively, not giving opponents time for resistance. Mold their bodies to their background and go completely still, holding the position for hours. The owl was intelligent and fierce, protective and territorial. Diego had those traits in abundance.
“Marcy. She didn’t allow anyone, not even the commander, to touch Grace while I was gone. She didn’t approve of a lot of the things going on at the laboratory, or how I was raised as a soldier. She slipped a note to me when she handed me Grace. Grace was bundled up and sleeping. I could see that Marcy was extremely nervous. Her eyes kept darting around the room, and when she spoke to me, she turned her face into the blankets and tote filled with Gracie’s things. I knew we were under observation, and she didn’t want anyone watching to know she was conveying anything to me but how my daughter was in my absence. I went along with it and didn’t even read the note until I was alone in the bathroom.”
“The woman was an ally?”
“Her name is Marcy Chariot. She’s a registered nurse and married to the commanding officer. She overhears quite a bit of what is going on when there are discussions about the genetic enhancements. She was appalled when she heard what Whitney was doing to some of the women. At first, she didn’t believe what she was hearing. She thought if the rumors were true, Whitney would be stopped. She asked her husband about it, and he told her many factions in the government believed he would create the soldiers of the future. Her husband told her that Whitney had a program imprisoning the women and forcing them to give birth to babies he could experiment on.”
Diego swore under his breath. He knew it was true. They’d actively hunted Whitney in the hopes of stopping him, but he had too many allies willing to shield him. They showed up at compounds known to be used by him, but he was always already gone.
“Marcy told me they were all disgusted with the way he had treated my sister and that she was in a bad way. They feared, because I had a baby, that he would force Bridget to have one and the experiments would continue on that child. Marcy had the last known location of Bridget. One of the officers had visited the compound and saw her. He said she looked as if she was very ill. Whitney was known to put cancer and bacterial and viral diseases into the women for his experiments. She worried that Bridget was being used that way.”
“Marcy has Grace now?” Suddenly, it was extremely important to Diego that the child was safe.
Leila’s nod was slow. “I had to trust her. I felt I had no choice. I had to get to Bridget if at all possible. The first place was already abandoned, but I tracked her to the next location used and was able to get her out. I needed a safe place to stash her while I went back for Gracie. Luther was the only one I could think of who might help us. Bridget needed care. She has no filters, and the assault on her brain is horrific. It feels to me as if she has a massive brain injury.”
“Whitney removing Bridget’s filters makes no sense. Whitney saw the results in his first unit of GhostWalkers. Brain bleeds. Seizures. Continuing to remove filters and experiment in that direction is an abomination. If you make a mistake, you do your best to rectify it, not double down and ruin the lives of other human beings,” Diego declared. As far as he was concerned, Whitney was a sadist, especially when it came to women. Whitney didn’t consider the things he did to them torture, but that was exactly what it was.