Five
Blythe Sol and Dog
Restoration Resistance Headquarters, Mosley Hall
August 16, 4010
3:00 am
The blinding flash causes me to cover my eyes as the sounds of screeching brakes and metal slamming against metal fills my ears. The car flips as if someone has pulled the street out from under it, and the seatbelt bites into my shoulder and chest, leaving an imprint that will stay with me for weeks after this day. The windows explode and shards of glass fill the car, spinning through the air in front of my face in a haunting, macabre dance of deadly danger. My hands move to cover my face too late; a split second before I shield my eyes, a layer of blackness blocks out half of my vision. Later, surgeons will pull a three-inch shard of glass from my eye. Without my left eye, my peripheral vision is impaired, and I do not see the foreign object flying through the gaping hole where a car door used to be. Seconds later, I can no longer feel my left arm…
The screams echoing from the walls of my bedroom are deafening. The high-pitched sounds mingle with the howling of some deranged animal, to create a chorus worthy of a full moon. Sweat is dripping down my face, neck, and back as I shoot upright in the bed, realizing through the haze of still-clinging sleep that the noise is coming from me. More precisely, it is coming from both Dog and me. I clamp my mouth shut and fight to catch my breath, bringing my hand up over my closed left eye. As always, the vibration of machinery meets my fingers, and I sigh in both relief and despair. Dog goes quiet, realizing that I am now awake and calm. He licks my hand to console me and I reach down to hug him, assuring him that I’ll be okay. A few seconds later, the pounding at my door tells me Dax was awakened by my nightmare-induced screaming.
Again.
“Blythe, it’s me, Gage. Are you okay?”
I raise my eyebrows at Dog and frown. Gage? What the hell is he doing in Mosley Hall? I glance at the clock on my nightstand and see that it’s three o’clock in the morning. He knocks again, more quietly this time, propelling me into full wakefulness. I jump up and run to the door, realizing that he’ll wake up everyone in the hall if I don’t answer him soon.
I fling the door open to find him on the other side, still fully dressed with his hair standing on end like he’s been raking his fingers through it again. His eyes travel over me, and my face gets hot as I realize I’m not wearing anything but a tank top and a pair of indecently short shorts—both drenched in my sweat. Gage blinks a few times before focusing his gaze back on mine.
He swallows noisily and leans against the doorframe. “I was walking and heard screams coming through your window. By the time I figured out what room you were in and got inside, you’d stopped, but I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
“How’d you know which room is mine?”
Gage frowns at me like he can’t believe what an unbelievable moron I’m being. “Um… your name’s on the door,” he said, pointing.
Damn, I’d forgotten about Jenica and her label maker. In perfect, black letters, it says ‘Sol’ clear as day across the damn door. Still doesn’t explain why he’s out walking the grounds at three am.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he says as if he read my thoughts. “Got a lot on my mind.”
I nod and open the door a bit wider. “You can come in if you want. I doubt I’ll be getting back to sleep either.”
He enters without hesitation and I close the door behind him, leaning against the heavy wood and watching him as he moves toward the center of the room. No one else fills up quite so much of my space except for Dax. I doubt they could both fit in here; standing side by side, their shoulders could probably span the width of the cube I call home. My eyes are watching the ripple of muscles that undulate across his torso as he removes his leather jacket to reveal the same white, thermal top he’d been wearing earlier when we met. He turns, looking at me expectantly, and I shake my head to clear it of thoughts of him whipping that shirt off over his head.
“Oh, sorry. Please, sit down.”
He lowers himself onto the only available seat in the room. My bed. He’s near the foot of it, so I take a spot near the headboard, pressing my back against the rough, chipped wood in an effort at placing some distance between us. I don’t know how I feel about the fact that being so close to him makes it seem as if my skin is on fire.
“So…” He trails off and clears his throat, shifting on the bed. “Are you okay?”
I lower my eyes and try to decide what I’m going to say. The only person who knows about the night terrors is Dax… and maybe Jenica since she shares a wall with me on the other side, but I’m not sure. She at least has enough respect for me not to say anything about it if she’s heard me screaming until I’m hoarse. Dax says I only do it when I’ve had a particularly jarring day. I’m thinking that coming back from our trek in Dallas empty-handed and then seeing those poor people from Memphis—many of them elderly and children—branded as terrorists when I know in my heart that they did nothing wrong, has taken its toll on me and brought up memories of my own past. It’s always the same—screeching brakes, shattering glass, the spray of blood and gore, that blinding flash of light that started it all and changed my life forever.
“I’m worried about Agata,” he continues when I don’t respond. “I mean, I know she’s safe now. Getting her to Professor Hinkley was my first priority. When I got in touch with his contact in Washington and he told me where to go to find your team, I was happy. I just knew I had to get her here.”
“Even if it means death for you?”
His head comes up and his stare is sharp as it connects with mine. “There are some things that are worse than death.”
I wonder if he realizes he’s preaching to the choir.
“I wish I had died that day,” I admit, unable to look away from his gaze no matter how much my mind tells me that I need to. “I wish that all the time.”
He inches closer to me on the bed. “Is it really so bad? Professor Hinkley gave you all a second chance at life. It’s not fair that the government has decided you and others like you pose a threat.”
I think about a news broadcast I saw a couple of weeks ago, showing a surveillance video of a man with an arm identical to mine smashing in the window of someone’s car, beating them to a bloody pulp for no reason, before pulling a limp body from the driver’s seat and driving off in the stolen vehicle. Of course, the thief was found and immediately executed—no trial, no jury, no questions asked.
“Some of us are dangerous,” I answer, and of course, it’s the truth.
“Some people are dangerous,” he insists. “Bionics are still people… just modified.”
“Right now, your blood pressure is 124/90, and your heart rate is an elevated seventy beats per minute—not bad, but still high for a healthy male that I assume is athletic. You have a tattoo on your left arm of an eagle and a fractured rib.”
“That is amazing.”
I shrug. “It’s my eye. It is capable of reading a person’s body heat signature as well as their vital statistics. It allows me to pull away individual layers, such as clothing, skin, and muscle to expose what’s underneath. It’s how I knew about the rib.” I reach out with my bionic arm and poke his side for emphasis, raising my eyebrows as he winces in pain. “Still think I’m human?”
Gage reaches for my arm—my robotic one—and grabs it by the hand. I can’t feel it, or his hand circling the wrist above it. His eyebrows wrinkle as he turns my arm over, inside facing up. He traces the inside of my arm, his fingers sliding over the cool metal and, for the first time since I woke up with that hunk of machinery on the other end of my elbow, I am wishing that I could feel the damn thing.
“Cold,” he murmurs as he draws circles on the metal. His fingers stop on the inside of my elbow, on the line where the titanium ends and I begin. I hear his breath catch in his throat and another noisy swallow as the pad of his index finger slides over my skin. I gasp as he trails it up the inside of my arm, flesh now on flesh. The human contact
that I’ve denied myself for years has left me sensitive to every touch, and I feel as if I’m being caressed for the first time.
Of course, Dax has held my hand from time to time; he’s even held me against him until I fall asleep some nights when the nightmares get particularly bad. But he’s never touched me like this. He’s never dared to bum rush past the emotional barriers I throw up so people can’t get close to me. A thousand emotions are exploding in me at one time and just as many sensations are following the path his finger traces up to my shoulder, pausing at the strap of my tank top.
“Warm,” he says with a smile. “Only about… what… five percent of you is metal? When I got past your elbow, I felt skin, blood flowing through veins, muscle, and… goose bumps?”
He says that last bit with a smile, forcing me to look away in embarrassment. Holding his arm out toward me, he pulls up the sleeve of his shirt and reveals a tanned arm sprinkled with light blond hair, which is standing on end. He leaves the sleeve above his elbow and holds his arm out in front of me.
“See?” he says gently, his head way too close to mine, his breath brushing my cheek. “I have them too.”
I reach out with my human hand and touch his arm. His opposite hand comes up to cover mine.
“If anything,” he says, his fingers gripping mine tightly, “the additions to your body give you character. They tell a story about where you’ve been.” He pauses, leaning in so close that locks of his hair brush my forehead. “Where have you been, Blythe?”
I know he’s referring to the screams and my nightmare. I wonder if I can put him off like I do the others, but quickly realize by the glint in his eyes that he’s not letting me off that easy. When I clear my throat and open my mouth to speak, no sound comes out. Gage leans forward and presses his lips to mine, taking advantage of my open mouth to nibble on my lower lip.
With a soft sigh, he closes the distance between us and cups my face in his hands, taking my breath away with the simple act of molding his mouth to mine. I haven’t been kissed in so long that I’d forgotten what it feels like—to exchange air with another person, to lose yourself in them to the exclusion of everything else in the world. His lips were warm and soft, coaxing gently but still demanding, taking as much as giving.
My hands resting on his thick thighs, I come up on my knees on the bed, leaning into him. Now that he has given me the contact I haven’t felt in so long, but didn’t know I craved, I want more of it. He shivers as my hands come up to the sides of his face, gripping tightly, my fingers caressing the silky strands of blond hair at his temples. He responds by grabbing my waist, his thumbs caressing my ribs. I’m practically in his lap now, coming dangerously closer and closer to reaching the point of no return.
It doesn’t matter that we don’t know each other from Adam. Or that I have no reason to trust him. All I know is kissing Gage feels like walking down the street used to before the government labeled Bionics as dangerous. It feels like freedom, and I don’t want to stop.
“Hey Blythe, I couldn’t sleep and I was thinking…”
Dax’s voice trails off as the door to the bathroom we share knocks against the wall, pushed open by my boneheaded best friend who never knocks because he knows I’m never doing anything he can’t witness.
Except this time.
This time, guilt propels me away from Gage and back against the headboard, my lowered eyelids shielding me from Dax’s dark glare.
“Sorry,” he says, sounding anything but. “Didn’t realize you’d have a visitor at three o’clock in the goddamn morning.”