deliberate, and maybe he was showing off a little. Chagrined at behaving like a kid with his first crush, Kadan forced himself to focus on his mission.
“The first time you helped the police find a serial killer, you were only thirteen years old. What in the world made you do such a thing?” he asked. “Especially when the cost to you was so high.” He turned to look at her. “You do more than simply pick up an object and know what a person was thinking and feeling; you’re an empath. Why would a teenager ever put herself in a position such as tracking killers? That made no sense to me.” And how could your family allow it? The thought spilled out before he could censor it.
Her head snapped up and she glared at him, proving she could pick up his thoughts. “My family understood my reasons, and unlike you, they believe in free will.”
“So you are also telepathic. Apparently that talent didn’t get knocked out of your head in that climbing accident.”
She didn’t even blink, but flicked him a look of censure from under her long lashes. “Apparently not.”
She was cool under fire, he had to give her that. “Just how many talents do you have?”
She shrugged. “How many do you have?”
He flashed her another smile. “Good girl. Don’t give away too much to the enemy.” He heated a small amount of oil and tossed in the chopped vegetables. “I’m not, you know.”
“My enemy? Maybe not, but I’m listening to everything you say, and I think you’re prepared to use force to try to get me to track your killer.”
“You really don’t pull your punches, do you?”
“Why would I? You came up here with your own agenda. You don’t really care what my reasons are for not cooperating. My reasons don’t matter to you, and quite frankly, neither do I. As long as you get the job done, that’s what is important to you.”
Kadan sighed. “I have no more choice in this than you do. I have orders, Tansy, and people are going to die if we don’t stop this.”
“How does that make you any different from Whitney? For all you know he was following orders. He’s a scientist and he works for the government. He could have been under orders to develop psychic warfare; in fact, in order to conduct his experiments on you, he had to have convinced somebody high up he could do it. They had to have known about his earliest experiments.”
He let the first surge of anger wash over him and dissipate while he lifted the frying pan off the heat and tossed the vegetables. Setting them back on the stove and adding a little soy sauce gave him a little more time so he was able to keep his expression exactly the same. “I’ve been more than up-front with you. Insulting me is not going to help anything.”
Her eyebrow shot up. “It wasn’t meant as an insult. I think it’s a legitimate question. As I understand it, your GhostWalker program is top security clearance. You’re a government secret, so secret that if you can’t find out who is killing people, they want to eliminate all of you. Who has that kind of power, to play with people’s lives, to decide whether they live or die? I don’t see that they’re much different than your killer. And Whitney maybe just carried out his orders, like you’re doing now.”
Maybe she was hitting a little too close to home. Of course they’d all speculated that several of their bosses had a hand in creating them. Whitney couldn’t have done it alone, and he was still working for the government, sanctioned by someone, because he was escaping every effort to capture or destroy him. He had friends in high places.
“I suppose you have a point. There’s every possibility Whitney is following orders, but what he’s doing is wrong in so many ways I couldn’t even begin to tell you.”
“And if the order comes down to eliminate your fellow GhostWalkers, will you carry it out because they told you to do it?”
He removed the vegetables from the heat and turned completely
“The first time you helped the police find a serial killer, you were only thirteen years old. What in the world made you do such a thing?” he asked. “Especially when the cost to you was so high.” He turned to look at her. “You do more than simply pick up an object and know what a person was thinking and feeling; you’re an empath. Why would a teenager ever put herself in a position such as tracking killers? That made no sense to me.” And how could your family allow it? The thought spilled out before he could censor it.
Her head snapped up and she glared at him, proving she could pick up his thoughts. “My family understood my reasons, and unlike you, they believe in free will.”
“So you are also telepathic. Apparently that talent didn’t get knocked out of your head in that climbing accident.”
She didn’t even blink, but flicked him a look of censure from under her long lashes. “Apparently not.”
She was cool under fire, he had to give her that. “Just how many talents do you have?”
She shrugged. “How many do you have?”
He flashed her another smile. “Good girl. Don’t give away too much to the enemy.” He heated a small amount of oil and tossed in the chopped vegetables. “I’m not, you know.”
“My enemy? Maybe not, but I’m listening to everything you say, and I think you’re prepared to use force to try to get me to track your killer.”
“You really don’t pull your punches, do you?”
“Why would I? You came up here with your own agenda. You don’t really care what my reasons are for not cooperating. My reasons don’t matter to you, and quite frankly, neither do I. As long as you get the job done, that’s what is important to you.”
Kadan sighed. “I have no more choice in this than you do. I have orders, Tansy, and people are going to die if we don’t stop this.”
“How does that make you any different from Whitney? For all you know he was following orders. He’s a scientist and he works for the government. He could have been under orders to develop psychic warfare; in fact, in order to conduct his experiments on you, he had to have convinced somebody high up he could do it. They had to have known about his earliest experiments.”
He let the first surge of anger wash over him and dissipate while he lifted the frying pan off the heat and tossed the vegetables. Setting them back on the stove and adding a little soy sauce gave him a little more time so he was able to keep his expression exactly the same. “I’ve been more than up-front with you. Insulting me is not going to help anything.”
Her eyebrow shot up. “It wasn’t meant as an insult. I think it’s a legitimate question. As I understand it, your GhostWalker program is top security clearance. You’re a government secret, so secret that if you can’t find out who is killing people, they want to eliminate all of you. Who has that kind of power, to play with people’s lives, to decide whether they live or die? I don’t see that they’re much different than your killer. And Whitney maybe just carried out his orders, like you’re doing now.”
Maybe she was hitting a little too close to home. Of course they’d all speculated that several of their bosses had a hand in creating them. Whitney couldn’t have done it alone, and he was still working for the government, sanctioned by someone, because he was escaping every effort to capture or destroy him. He had friends in high places.
“I suppose you have a point. There’s every possibility Whitney is following orders, but what he’s doing is wrong in so many ways I couldn’t even begin to tell you.”
“And if the order comes down to eliminate your fellow GhostWalkers, will you carry it out because they told you to do it?”
He removed the vegetables from the heat and turned completely
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