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She closed her eyes.
“We can ask Oberon to stop the program,” Gage murmured. “I’m sure it happens all the time.”
“No,” she said. “No, we can’t fail on our first mission. I’ve got this.”
She opened her eyes and took another step forward, and then another.
Gage began to move too, and the bridge swayed with his weight.
Her stomach lurched and she clung to the rails along the side, fighting the urge to retch.
“What’s happening, Naomi? Talk to me,” Gage said sternly.
“When it moves, I…” she struggled to find the words. “It feels like we’re falling.”
“Okay,” he said. “Okay, so we have to move together, then you won’t notice it. If I step when you step, but on the opposite side, it won’t sway.”
“That’s a good idea,” she said, surprised. “Do we count, or what?”
“Yes,” he said. “Let’s count. Ready?”
She was not ready. She would never be ready. All she wanted was to turn around, push him out of the way, and run back to solid ground.
But more than she wanted that, she wanted a baby.
“Okay, on three,” she said. “One, two, three.”
She stepped forward on her right foot on three and Gage must have timed his left step perfectly, because she felt nothing.
But they were off rhythm for the next step, and when the bridge lurched, she felt the twist of her stomach almost up to her chest.
“How about a song?” Gage suggested. “To keep us in step? Name a song you like.”
“Heated Dreams,” she said automatically, without thinking about how embarrassing it was that she still listened to girl bands.
“Heated Dreams by the Feral Kittens?” Gage asked, sounding amazed.
“It’s catchy,” Naomi said weakly.
“No, no, it’s fantastic,” Gage said. “But you might have to remind me of the words.”
Naomi closed her eyes and started singing, stepping on every down beat.
Gage chuckled behind her as they went, marching along with her.
The song was a real banger, about a woman who was in love with her best friend but afraid to tell him. She kept trying to get up her nerve to talk to him, but every time she did, she woke up afterward, having only made her move in her dreams.
As the song went on, the woman grew more and more wanton in her attempts to win over the guy, until at last she was practically making love to him in her dreams, and then waking up to nothing.
By the time they were halfway across the bridge, Gage was singing along with the chorus.
“Heated, heated, heated, heated dreeeeeeams, babyyyyyy,” he sang out in his booming voice.
The sound echoed off the cliffside Naomi was actively trying to forget was beneath them, and she shivered with fear, even as her cheeks ached from smiling at the way the big man threw himself into the song.
They were nearly across when Athena spotted something in the trees.
The massive canine let out a bark as loud as a gunshot and took off, her leaps causing the bridge to swing wildly.
