“Uh-huh.” She takes the tote and slides it over her shoulder. “And you’ll come back?” Her eyes have a glassy haze over them. Her face has narrowed, and there’s a sharpness to her since she started working for me.
“You’re my assistant technically, but if you want to work at Mastodon until I return, that’s fine.” I lift my purse and take one last glance around the room. “He was right. He pushed me away twelve years ago and it kept both of us safe. Two weeks with me and he was shot.” My annoyance grows every second. “It’s really obnoxious that he’s better at this than I am, since security is like my whole thing.”
Yeah, it’s my pride, that’s why I’m doing this, not fear. Ego, not terror.
Macie turns her back to me and looks out the hospital window. “At least say goodbye to him.”
I don’t want to, but I’m not going to leave him with the same questions and fears he left me with all those years ago. And I don’t want to deal with a disappointed Macie either. My heart stings at the thought of going into his room. My chest hurts and it’s still tight to breathe, but the little nanobots did their job. It should take about a week to feel one hundred percent again. Not too shabby for getting shot through the chest.
With my purse over my shoulder, I leave Macie and walk down the hallway toward Grae’s room. Hold it together. One deep breath. Two more for good measure. I push open his door.
Grae’s sitting up. His hair is flat against his forehead between the sweat and grime of the past few days. There’s more color in his cheeks than I expected. And while I can see the EKG leads on his open shirt, they aren’t hooked to anything.
He’s on his phone but turns off the screen when he sees me. “You live!” He means it as a joke. The nurse said the first thing he asked about was me. Of course it was.
“So do you.” I wrap my arm around my stomach.
“Yeah, about that.” He raises his eyebrow. “Care to explain?”
“You were injected with a serum containing thousands of nanobots that fix damaged cells. They take one quick tour of your body and assess the highest-needed areas. But it needs adrenaline to work for that first pass, so it hurts like hell. The second shot knocks you out and blocks your brain from remembering the pain. And since your brain is a ninja master at blocking out painful memories, you should be fine.”
“How do I get them out?”
“You don’t. They are most effective for the first five years, then their enhancement rate drops by twenty percent a year. We don’t know all the effects of it, but models indicate that they could add ten years, and an overall higher quality of life.”
“Nice.” He lifts his arms over his head and leans back. “Why doesn’t everyone have it?”
“Because it’s expensive, even by Olympian standards.” I say, and he gives me a side-eye. “I got the shot a few months ago. So did Markus.”
His features darken and he turns his head away. “That’s why you tense every time I touch your stomach?” He doesn’t want me to answer, so he sighs, “You were right.”
I can’t repress my smile. “Those are my favorite words.”
He turns back to my direction but drops his gaze to the floor. “I did something stupid.” He doesn’t fill in the second part—‘and now you’re going to run away.’
“You were trying to do the right thing.” I kiss his forehead and he holds onto my wrists. I need to leave. It’s better this way. “I’ll go get you some coffee. Ok?”
He picks at his hospital blanket and smiles at me, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He knows. “Sure.” And he lies anyway.
I push open his door, and there’s a part of me that thinks my body will magically walk down to the cafeteria and get him a cup of coffee, but in reality, I know I'm not coming back.
“So, this is how it’s going to be, right?” Amanda asks, quietly coming to my side. “You’re going to leave?”
“Yeah. I mean… we both know you took better care of him than I ever did.” My throat tightens.
“So that means we’re not hanging out anymore either.” Amanda’s voice drops, and it cracks something inside my chest. I didn’t think I meant that much to her. But she looks small right now—like a lost kid wandering around a grocery store, trying to find her mother.
“No,” I say softly. “I’ve been hanging out with you for three days and you got kidnapped. So, we’re going to call it what it is. It’s better for everyone if I step away. But you and Lena? You can stay friends. That’s fine.”
I glance to where she stands on the other side of the hall, and Lena crosses her arms and shifts into her little defensive stance. “It sucks,” she declares flatly. “It would’ve been nice to see you happy again.”
Ouch.
I swallow. “I’ll talk to you later.” I turn and walk down the hall toward the elevator.
That’s where Lance stops me. “Are you sure about this?”
“Yeah. I am.”
