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“But this is going to be an extremely painful procedure,” Strong protested. “I’ll have to inject your hand with nanites so they can rebuild all the flesh and nerves and any tendons that got burned away by the wave.” He looked at her seriously. “I don’t want to scare you but if I was having it done, I’d want to be knocked out myself.”
She shook her head stubbornly.
“Don’t want it.”
“Can’t you use some kind of local anesthetic?” Clear asked him. “Something to numb the area while the nanites work?”
Strong raised his eyebrows at his brother.
“Local anesthetic? And here I thought you never listened when I talked about my work, Brother.”
“Just do something for her,” Clear said tightly. “Help her get through this, Strong. Please.”
“I will. Of course I will, Brother.”
Touched by his twin’s anxiety, Strong reached across the table to squeeze Clear’s shoulder briefly and sent a surge of reassurance through their bond. Then he looked at Melanie again.
“Clear is right—I can inject something into your hand to numb it to a certain extent. But I’m afraid you’ll still feel the nanites working.”
“Do it,” she said tightly. She looked at Clear. “You’ll stay with me?”
“Every minute, sweetheart.” Clear seemed unaware that he had called her the term of endearment and Melanie, for her part, didn’t protest. She only nodded and gripped his hands tighter.
“All right, then—let’s get started. Nurse,” Strong said, turning to the nurse who had been standing to one side, watching wide-eyed. “I’ll need 4 ccs of lidobexicain and a small syringe of the flesh-building nanites. Oh, and bring me something to disinfect the wound.”
Although honestly, it looked like the rays from the wave had pretty much cauterized the gaping hole in the little female’s hand. Still, Strong liked to be thorough.
“Yes, Doctor!” the nurse exclaimed and ran out of the room in a hurry.
“It’s all right,” Strong told his patient, hoping he was telling the truth. “Everything is going to be just fine—you’ll see.”
“It’s all right, sweetheart,” Clear said, echoing his words. “We’re going to take care of you, I swear it.”
5
Melanie’s first thought on waking up from the gray-out was that Clear had somehow changed his hair and eye color and gotten even bigger. Her second thought was that her hand hurt like hell.
It hadn’t before—maybe because she’d been in shock. But now it throbbed and roared at her, demanding that she do something because it hurt…it hurt!
Then, when she understood the man she was looking at wasn’t Clear, but his brother, Strong, she understood the incredible resemblance. The twins had basically the same features, though their coloring was very different. Not that she had time to compare them much—not when her hand was in so much pain.
Now she gripped Clear’s hands with her uninjured one and looked into his eyes, trying not to watch as his brother worked diligently on her right hand. First he poured some kind of pale blue liquid which foamed and hissed over it, and then there was a series of light pinpricks around the site of the injury as he injected her quickly and smoothly with a tiny needle.
“Okay,” he rumbled—somehow his voice was even deeper than Clear’s. “I’ve cleaned the wound and numbed it as much as possible, but you’re still probably going to feel the nanites as they work.”
Melanie couldn’t help looking then, and she saw that he was holding a small syringe which appeared to be filled with pinkish foam.
“Those are the nanites?” she asked breathlessly.
Strong nodded.
“They’ll capture information from your DNA and rebuild your hand exactly as it was.”
“But…I don’t see anything but foam,” Melanie protested weakly.
“That’s the medium they’re stored in,” he explained. “The nanites themselves are microscopic. They look like tiny metal spiders if you look at them under an electron microscope.”
“Tiny metal spiders?” Melanie didn’t like the sound of that.
“They’ll use the foam they’re stored in as a flesh building medium and ‘spin’ a web of flesh to fill in the hole in your hand,” Strong said, nodding. “Are you ready to begin?”
Melanie took a deep breath.
“Yes,” she said tightly and looked at Clear. “As long as you stay with me.”
“I won’t leave your side,” the Light Twin promised. His face looked anguished.
“Neither of us will,” Strong said firmly. “All right, here we go. And please remember you need to hold still while the nanites do their work.”
He pointed the syringe over the hole in her hand and depressed the plunger. Slowly and carefully, working in a circular motion, he filled the hole with the pink swirl of foam. It almost looked like he was icing a miniature cupcake, she thought faintly. Then he took a firm grip on Melanie’s forearm, pinning it to the table.
“You don’t have to do that,” Melanie told him. “I…I think the numbing medicine you injected me with is working. I really don’t feel anything at all.”
