Christine Feehan - Deadly Game

He steadied her by taking her arm. "I drugged you. It probably reacted with whatever was already in your system."

"Well, that's all right then." She gave him her best sarcastic tone, wishing she had a knife to slit him from throat to belly.

"I'm still really angry with you. You acted like a jerk. I should have let Norton shoot you."

"You were really talking him out of killing me?"

"Yes. He doesn't like you, but I told him you had a good side. When he asked what it was, I couldn't remember. I need to go to my room before I go to the doc."

"I'm supposed to take you straight to the medical wing."

"Sean, don't make me kick you. I need to stop off in my room. It will take two minutes. I can't stand wearing these shoes a minute longer. In case you hadn't noticed, they aren't mine."

"We swept you for tracking devices."

"Did you sweep me for shoes hurting my feet and giving me blisters?"

"All right." Sean glanced at his watch. "But we have to hurry. You know how Whitney is; he wants every minute accounted for."

"You can tell him about the blisters on my feet. The first thing they teach a good soldier is to take care of his feet." She pulled away from him. "I'm fine now-well, except for the headache. I'm not forgiving you for a long, long time, in case you're interested."

"I don't know what got into me, Man. When you started talking about having sex with Norton, I just lost my mind. I'm sorry I hit you."

Mari kept her gaze straight ahead. Anger was alive and well and living just beneath the surface of her purposely calm expression. "You would have been a lot sorrier if I hadn't retaliated. Apparently the Nortons aren't very fond of men hitting women. He would have shot you right in the head."

"You really are pissed at me, aren't you?" Sean held the door open for her.

"You think? I was taken prisoner and they treated me better than you did. I've known you for years, Sean. I thought we were friends. You've turned into a jerk." She sat on the edge of her cot and leaned down to unlace the shoes.

"Yeah, they treated you so good you slept with one of them." The edge was back in his voice.

Mari threw the shoe with deadly aim, hitting him square in the chest. "You don't know the first thing about what happened to me, so shut up." She turned her back on him, yanked her hair in frustration, and let out a hiss of anger. She brought one hand sliding down quickly to remove the braided gold chain from around her neck. The movement was fast, the chain bunching in her hand out of sight. "Do you see my slippers anywhere? I thought they were right here."

She dropped down to look under the bed, shoving her hand beneath her mattress as she leaned her weight against the cot. "Do you see them?"

Sean yanked open the doors to her locker. Mari's room was stark, not a thing out of place. He couldn't imagine her slippers being under her bed. "I don't see any slippers anywhere. Why don't you grab a pair of socks if you don't want to wear shoes?" He tossed her a pair.

Mari caught them and sank down onto the cot again. "How did all this happen, Sean? When did it all go to hell?"

"Just put the socks on."

"If Brett comes back here, I swear one of us isn't going to walk out of this room alive." She paused, the sock hovering near her toes. Her gaze met Sean's. "I mean it. I can't let him touch me ever again. I hate it that much."

"I'll take care of it. I'll find a way."

"You've been saying that for weeks now. I'm not the only one being forced into something disgusting, Sean. We talked about this and you said you'd get Whitney to listen to you, but he didn't. Would you honestly want to live this way?" She donned her shoes and stood up, following him out the door.

"Is Brett the reason why you did it? Are you hoping Whitney will keep him away from you if you're pregnant with Norton's baby?" He led her down the hall to the elevator.

Mari shoved her fingers through her hair, betraying agitation. "I'm not accepting him. One way or the other, I'm not accepting him."

"Whitney told me he doesn't want the women to feel the same way over the men, because if the pairing doesn't work-if for some reason she doesn't get pregnant, or the baby isn't what he'd hoped-then he can send another partner."

She stiffened. "The baby isn't what he hoped? What exactly does he plan to do with a baby that isn't what he hoped?"

Sean frowned. "I hadn't thought about it. Maybe adopt it out?"

"Adopt it out?" She dragged her feet, slowing as they made their way down the corridor toward the laboratory.

"Well come on. Mari, you can't tell me you want to sit around with a crying kid hanging on you."

"If it was my kid, yes. Is that what you'd want? Your child sent away?"

"I don't know what I want. When Whitney talks about how genetic enhancement can save so many lives and if we just developed a group of soldiers with superior skills, so many young men and women would never have to lose their lives or have catastrophic injuries, it makes sense. I can go out and do what I've been trained to do and know that someone else, someone not nearly as skilled, might be killed-would probably be killed-if I wasn't doing my job. Doesn't it make sense to work toward finding a solution to war?"

"The babies are still our children, Sean," she pointed out. "They aren't robots: they deserve to have the same choice you as an adult have. They deserve the same rights other children have."

Sean pulled open the door to the medical laboratory and waited for her to enter first. "If you could just hear him, Mari."

"I have heard him. He raised me. He found me in an orphanage, and facilities and laboratories like this one have been my home since that day. I didn't play like normal children; I didn't even know there was a normal. Martial arts and shooting guns were normal to me. I've never been on a swing or gone down a slide, Sean. I was out in the field playing battle when I was six. I never had a holiday. No one tucked me in at night. Is that the kind of life you want for your son or daughter?"

Sean shook his head. "I'll talk to him again."

"It won't do any good. You know it won't. He'll just present his 'this is for the good of mankind' argument, and no one can get around that. He doesn't think with emotion, Sean. He discounts emotion altogether. When he pairs a couple, it's just physical attraction. Or that's what it seems to be. He doesn't want to run the risk of emotion, because then the parents might care about each other as well as their child. What would happen when he decides to experiment on the child-or he doesn't think the pairing was what he wanted after all and he wants to break the couple up?"

"He wouldn't do that."

"No? I think you're deluding yourself, and I don't understand why. We had hundreds of discussions about this and you always agreed with the rest of us. What Whitney is doing is wrong, Sean."

Man looked around her at the cold stainless steel counters, sinks, and gurneys. She hated this room. It was so cold, yet when they turned on the spotlights, it was glaringly hot. Surgical instruments lay like torture implements in neat little trays. She tore her gaze from the knives and forced herself to smile at the small, thin man waiting for her. "Dr. Prauder, I'm reporting for a checkup."

"So I've heard. Whitney wants a full report on you."

"I'm here to give you whatever you need," she said, forcing a cheerful tone. Her stomach knotted up at the thought of what was coming. She didn't look at Sean. He knew her well enough to know she detested the poking and prodding. Whitney even tried to extract memories. Everything, no matter how humiliating or private, was recorded.

She took the gown the doctor gave her and changed in the small alcove, counting in her head to control shivering. Ken, where are you ? If she ever needed another human being to get her through something, now was the time. She didn't want them to give her a morning after pill. She didn't want them touching her body or deciding she needed more shots or another tracking device.