The man just stares down at me. “I hear you. I hear your Storm. You are upset.”
“Storm? Look, I’ve probably screwed myself blending alcohol with sleeping meds for this transport, so I know you’re not real.”
“I’m real.” His virile body heaves a breath and starts to glow. “So are you.”
Stars, I hope so.
This is a weird dream. A haywire thruster control module makes more sense than this.
He reaches up to my face and runs a fingertip over my bottom lip. It feels so real that I close my eyes and try to memorize the gentleness of the touch.
“What do you feel?” he asks.
“Like I’m tripping balls on a bad mix of drugs.”
He chuckles. “And?”
“You.”
“You can feel this?” His eyes drift downward as his fingertip trails down my neck, along the curve of a breast, and over a nipple. An electric jolt lances through my body.
“Yes,” I rasp.This can’t be real. A hormonal nap in my weary condition is as likely as me being able to herd Talros’ RAMs, all of them, with my hands tied behind my back.
The man’s finger travels lower. “Show me your Storm.”
“I don’t have one, whatever that is.”
“Your energy.”
I’m not sure to what he’s referring. “I’m asleep. I don’t have any right now.”
“It’s in here.” He taps my sternum. The moment his finger contacts my chest this time, a hot white light blazes out of nowhere until I am forced to close my eyes. “Stars. What in the devil’s asshole is that?”
I hear a chuckle.
“What the f—”
A woman shakes my shoulder. “Jovie!”
I gasp and launch upward on a stretcher in a circular room that isn’t the ABR shuttle. Frantic beeps of heart monitors fill the busy room. Other women look at me: nurses and racers lying on other beds.
My lungs strain for air. I can’t get enough. I’m burning up, sweating, and shaking all over. “What happened? Where am I?”
A doctor rushes over with a syringe. She disconnects the nutrient tube and slides the needle in. “You’re in the ABR female medical wing. Every woman is brought in here while the sleep meds wear off. Now, are you certain you’re entirely human?”
“Yes. What in the blue blazes would make you think I wasn’t?” I demand.
The doctor gives my nurse a look and flicks her eyes at me.
Beside me, my nurse holds up a burnt harness strap.
“There has to be an explanation,” I mutter as I stare at the smoking fabric. “My gauntlets may have discharged during my sleep. I haven’t wired them to be telepathically controlled. I just worked in a shipyard. I’m not an alien.”
The doctor sighs. “Let’s take them then. Some might consider them weapons.”
While the nurse begins the process of disconnecting my gauntlets from my Faraday harness and the merge brackets in my wrists, the woman in a white coat asks me a question.
“What do you think is more important: power or opportunity?”
