“You’re alive,” she says. “The rest is between you and Zane.”
That’s all she’s going to give me? The chances of survival were minimal from the moment Stanley’s talons punctured my skin. They dropped with the second hit—that knife striking home.
It was instinct to protect Charade. There hadn’t been time to think. All I knew was that I couldn’t let him get hurt too.
“Your breathing has evened out.” George’s eyes flick to what must be a monitor flashing somewhere behind my head. “Your heartbeat is a steady ninety-seven beats per minute. It’s high, but I’ll take it.”
“Are you pre-med? My brother works in the emergency room at New Malcolm General. Maybe you’ve met him.”
Could she give him a message? Nothing that would get Cooper in trouble, butsomethingso at least he would know I was safe. I can’t imagine what he must have felt when he saw my face plastered all over the news.
“Biomedical Engineering,” she corrects. “My focus is nanobiology, but trust me when I say I’ve got you covered.”
“That’s maybe the coolest thing I have ever heard.”
“Tilt your head forward just a little bit,” she instructs. “I’ll take the mask off, but I don’t want to hear a peep if I notice you struggling to breathe or if your heart rate picks up.”
I can’t help smiling as I follow her orders. It’s been so long since someone was there to patch up my boo-boos after a fight. Having someone know who I really am… it feels good.
“Thank you.” Encompassing the swell of gratitude in those two little words will always be impossible, but I try anyway.
Fresh, unrecycled oxygen greets my lungs, and I have never been so happy for the ache of them pumping on their own.
“Good?” she checks.
I nod slowly, not willing to push anything that could spike my heart rate. “How long was I out?”
“Three days.” Her fingers stroke Apollo’s fur, navy blue painted tips disappearing beneath gray and white. “My parents were a wreck, you know. Dad helped Zane get you home, but he had to go back for the supplies.”
I close my eyes and try to pull up any recollection of those moments, anything to trigger the details George is dancing around.
“Not to mention the car.”
The car. Dents and scratches are probably the tip of that iceberg. And it’s not exactly something to be claimed on an insurance form. “Charade is going to kill me.”
A smile tugs at her lips. “You took a knife for him. Play your cards right and he just might let that one slide.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“Just bat your pretty eyelashes at him, give him one of your doe-eyed, long-suffering looks. He’ll come around, trust me.”
I choose to ignore that last remark. “What do you know about this C person hunting Charade?”
She rolls her eyes, but lets it go. The seriousness in her tone when she responds makes me sit up a little straighter.
“It’s not that he’s hunting Charade. He wantsZane. It’s personal for them. It sucks that you got thrown into the middle, but Zane thinks you’re the key to this whole thing.”
He told me as much my first day here, didn’t he? I saw what C did to Zane and Moira. He’s a psychopath, a man without a conscience. And now he’s looking for me too.
“You know who I am. What we’ve done to each other. Would you trust him, if you were me?”
She smiles, blazing and beautiful. I see in her eyes the kind of hero I want to be. Someone who doesn’t wait for dark and its sheltering shadows to help. Someone not afraid to stand in the light.
“Probably not,” she admits. “But I’d do it anyway. Failure is better than letting fear get in the way.”
And if Charade is the man he claims to be, could I live with myself for letting him face C alone?
“Where is he?”
