“And that rules out the healing illness,” she said, making a note on her clipboard.
Lara didn’t know much about the healing illness, but if it was ruled out, she’d leave it at that. She wasn’t asking more questions that Damion might believe she should already know the answers to.
Kelly finished making her notes and set the clipboard aside again. “Before we continue, let me tell you a little about me. I can sense that trust is an issue for you, so I want to assure you that I’m your doctor, plain and simple. I make you well. The rest is between you and the others.” She didn’t wait for a reply. “I’m one of many humans who live and work with the Renegades, and I’m honored to do so. I’m as much of an expert on GTECH anatomy and health as one can be, considering the ever changing evolution of those converted. I was also one of the original doctors at Area 51.” She frowned and eyed Damion over her shoulder. “You’re hovering, Damion.” She pointed at the chair. “Sit.”
Lara drew back in shock, watching the scowl on Damion’s face, shocked when it turned to defeat, and he stalked to a chair and claimed it. Kelly, a woman—no, a human woman—had just successfully ordered Damion, a male GTECH, to sit, and he’d done it. Blown away didn’t begin to describe how the demonstration affected Lara. This display, and the trust she sensed in Emma for the Renegades, didn’t compute. Damion didn’t match the monsters she’d thought Renegades to be, the Renegades who would abuse and use women as the Zodius did.
Kelly eyed Damion. “Thank you,” she said when he was settled, and then glanced at Lara. “Unless you’d rather Mr. Mother Hen here wait outside?”
Damion flew to his feet. “I’m not leaving her alone.”
“You will if she says so,” Kelly shot back, and then arched a brow in Lara’s direction. “Lara?”
Her eyes went to Damion, who was staring at her, willing her to allow him to remain with her. Damion, Lara realized, was an anchor, the safety net her instincts were clinging to in all of this. He might be a devil in disguise, but at least, he was the one she knew.
“He’ll make a scene if I don’t let him stay,” Lara said.
His scowl deepened, and Kelly eyed him and laughed. “That he will.”
“Vitamin C has arrived,” Emma said, rushing into the room. “And I thought we should feed that GTECH metabolism.” She held up two chocolate bars. “These should hold you over until we get you some real food.”
Her stomach growling at the mention of food, Lara eagerly accepted. “Oh thank you. You’re an angel.”
Emma beamed. “I try.” She glanced at Damion and pulled out two more candy bars from her pocket. “Brought you some too.”
“She’s right,” Damion said. “You’re an angel.”
Three minutes later, Lara had inhaled the chocolate bars, and already she felt a little better. Five minutes later, she had vitamin C pumping through her. Thirty minutes later, she’d given blood, had her vitals and head injury checked, and there was an IV inserted in her arm. Forty minutes later, Damion was propped in the corner, looking as heavy-lidded as she felt, when Emma returned with her test results.
“Okay then,” Kelly said, as she read the report Emma had brought to her. “Your vitamin C levels weren’t overly low, which would have indicted the healing illness, but we pretty much knew that. Your blood levels are… a bit odd.”
“Odd?” Damion and Lara said at the same time.
“It could simply be normal for a female converted by serum,” Kelly said, dismissing concerns. “We have no one to compare to.” She sighed. “I don’t see any physical reason you should be having your symptoms. We need to do a CT scan and look at what’s really going on inside your head.”
“No,” Lara said quickly, despite the heaviness of sleep overtaking her. “I don’t want anyone poking around in my head.”
“Lara—” Damion started.
“No,” she repeated, holding a hand up to him, before he could even consider coming out of his chair. “Save your breath. I won’t do it.”
“We really need this test, Lara,” Kelly said. “What about it is worrying you?”
“How am I to know the CT scan is just a CT scan?” She sat up and glared at Damion. “Was this your plan all along? To use some machine to read my thoughts?”
He was on his feet, towering over her in a flash of a moment. “The plan is to get you healthy.”
“And you’re trying to get information from me,” she said. “You admitted that, so don’t lie now and say you aren’t, or I’ll never believe another word you speak to me.”
“I happen to believe that once you learn the truth about the Renegades and the Zodius, you’ll freely share it.”
“The truth or the truth you let me see, so I’ll talk?”
He flung his hands in the air and then ran one of them through his hair. “Doc,” he said. “Can you give us a minute?”
Lara started to get up, ready to rip out her IV to avoid whatever he had in mind.
Damion was on the bed holding her down quicker than she could move. “Oh no. You stay in the bed.”
“Because you fully intend to force me to take the CT scan, or whatever it is, right?”
“You know what?” Damion said. “If that’s what it takes to be sure you don’t go and die on me, then yes.”
“Because you can’t have your biggest source of information die, right?”
“Chale’s crashing!” Emma shouted from the door. And just like that, Lara was alone. Damion, Kelly, and Emma charged from the room, but not before Lara had seen the distress in Damion’s face. Lara yanked out her IV, and quickly grabbed paper towels from a wall dispenser and folded them in the V of her arm. She rushed to the doorway and stood there, knowing she should use this moment for escape—a moment of indecision paralyzing her. Even if she could escape, which she doubted, she didn’t know how to prevent Lucian from tracking her, or whether she was well enough to take flight without passing out again. Still… it was now or never.
Chapter 15
As Lara stood in the doorway of the hospital room, she envisioned the look on Damion’s face when he’d heard Chale was crashing, and her stomach knotted. She shouldn’t care about Chale—he was a GTECH. Damion was a GTECH. She was supposed to be their assassin, and they, as Renegades, were implicated in the murders of everyone she loved. Nothing she’d known to be the truth, up until the moment she’d met Damion, felt quite right. And she did care if Chale died.
She cared that it would be because of her, and she cared about how that would affect Damion, about how certain she was that it would hurt him deeply. It was time to face facts. She could reason away Damion’s protection of her, by way of them needing her, needing information she possessed, even if that didn’t feel quite right. Yet, a cold-hearted Renegade, a killer—as she thought all of them to be—wouldn’t be hurting like Damion was about someone close to them. Lara glanced down the sterile hospital corridor where medical personnel congregated, and without taking time to second guess herself, she rushed toward them, rather than trying to escape.
Footsteps sounded almost instantly behind her. “What happened?” Caleb asked, rushing to her side, Michael with him. “Where is everyone?”
Lara stopped walking and turned to them, surprised they didn’t grab her and haul her back to the room she’d departed. “Emma ran into the room and told us Chale was crashing, and they all took off.”
Caleb cursed softly and scrubbed a hand over his jaw. She saw the obvious angst in his face, before he and Michael exchanged a silent look. Caleb then rushed for the room where everyone had gathered, leaving her with Michael, who, she surmised, had been silently assigned the duty as her babysitter.
Michael glanced at her arm. “Aren’t you supposed to be in bed? Or making a run for it?”
Yep. Definitely her babysitter. “I’m fairly good at doing exactly the opposite of what I’m supposed to do.”
He studied her with calculating, crystal blue eyes. “Then we have more in common than I first expected. Da
mion, on the other hand, believes in doing exactly what he’s supposed to do.”
“You say that like it’s a sin,” Lara replied.
“I say that like the fact that it is,” he said. “The rules are the rules with Damion. He doesn’t break them. Not for anyone. Yet he brought you here against orders. You might not realize how significant that is, but we do. And so does Damion.”
Her nerves prickled. “What are you accusing me of?”
“Nothing yet,” he said. “I’m reserving judgment on what I think about you until I have more details. But it’s fairly clear to me that either Damion has a strong reason for trusting you, or you have a real knack for manipulating him. You need to know right now that I plan to find out which it is before you hurt him or anyone else here.”
Lara studied him, this fierce male who controlled the wind like no other GTECH. Digesting the power of his statement, and how it conflicted with everything she thought of this man, and once again, the Renegades. Despite the threat in his words, she didn’t feel intimidated or afraid for one simple reason. He was telling her he would protect those he cared about, and that was something she understood, something she related to. “Then I guess it’s my turn to say we have more in common than I first expected,” she said softly. “Because I, too, will kill to protect those I care about, and those I’ve lost.”
“And you think we killed your family.”
“I guess I’m going to have to repeat your words once again. I’m reserving judgment. But if I find out you, or anyone else here, killed my family—I promise you, Michael—I don’t care how wicked your reputation with the wind. I’ll kill you.”
Voices sounded near the room, and they both turned to find Emma, Caleb, and Kelly stepping into the hallway, along with numerous other personnel who quickly scattered. Caleb motioned to Michael to follow him and the others down a hallway, even as Damion appeared in the doorway behind them.
“Why aren’t you in bed?” he demanded.
Lara took one look at the tightness of his jaw, the tension in his body, and she moved toward him, not waiting for an invitation. “How’s Chale?”
“I’m just as fine as you are,” Chale yelled from the room. “At least that’s what Suzie told me last night.”
Lara stopped in front of Damion, who was shaking his head at Chale’s remark. “Try to ignore his misplaced, rarely funny, sense of humor.” He then called over his shoulder. “And you’re not fine, damn it. You almost died twice today.” Then to Lara, “I have to wait for Emma to sit with him. But you need to get back in bed before you fall down.”
After hours of touching him, depending on him, it was all she could do not to reach out and touch him now, to comfort him. She sidestepped him and entered the room, half expecting him to stop her, but he didn’t. Instead, she heard Caleb and Michael speaking to him, murmuring something she didn’t understand. She was by the bathroom, about to enter the main room, when black spots splattered in her vision. A sudden flash of images in her head had her swaying, and Lara grabbed the door frame, trying to force away a sudden piercing pain between her eyes. She blinked and shook her head, thankfully regaining her composure with ease, and then walked toward Chale.
The minute he saw her, he cursed. “Damn. I hate when people see me without my hair fixed.” He was pale, his body shivering like he was cold.
“Stop joking around,” Damion chided brusquely, joining them, his shoulder brushing Lara’s as they stopped at the edge of the bed. “There is nothing funny about what’s happening here.” Damion glanced at Lara. “And I told you… you should be in bed.”
“Surely you have a better pickup line than that one, man,” Chale chided, and then moaned with pain before coughing.
Lara rushed toward the water pitcher and poured some in a paper cup. Damion came up beside her, their glances momentarily meeting, before he took the cup and handed it to Chale, who gulped it down and then tossed the cup toward a trash can.
“Did they teach you bedside manners in assassin school?” Chale asked, eying Lara.
“I wasn’t aware I had one,” she said, her lips lifting slightly.
“You aren’t trying to kill me,” Chale said. “That sounds like a pretty good bedside manner to me.”
“Wait until she decides to kick you or bite you,” Damion offered with a smile. “Then you’ll change your mind.”
Suddenly, Chale’s eyes were shut, and Lara sucked in a breath. “Damion?”
“He’s asleep,” he said. “The Green Hornets shredded so much muscle and tissue that his body is working harder than usual to heal.”
She wanted to ask more about the healing sickness, but didn’t dare show her ignorance—at least not before she decided exactly how she felt about the Renegades.
“The sudden slumber is his body’s way of demanding energy to heal,” he continued, “which is exactly why you need to get some sleep.”
Lara sat down in the bluish-green, hospital-style recliner. “I’ll rest here, where I can keep an eye on you.”
He arched a brow. “You’re keeping an eye on me?”
“That’s right.” Her body relaxed into the cushions, reminding her how bone-weary she really was. “Got a deck of cards?”
“A deck of cards?”
She grimaced. “You know… cards. Kings, queens, jokers. That’s what people do to pass time. They play cards.” A sudden sense of confusion hit her. Why did she know that? Where had that statement come from when she didn’t remember ever playing cards in her life? A flash of a man she knew to be “Skywalker” rushed through her mind, of him shuffling at their kitchen table, of her sitting across from him. She sucked in a breath at the vivid image, at the emotion that welled in her chest.
“What is it?” Damion said. He was kneeling beside her, with his hand on her leg—but she didn’t remember him moving.
She blinked into his hazel eyes and wanted so desperately to tell him what she’d seen, what she felt, what she feared—that she wasn’t who she thought she was, that Powell wasn’t who she thought he was, that she wasn’t really the good guy in all this. “I want to trust you, Damion,” she admitted. “I do, but—”
“No buts,” he said. “I trusted you by bringing you here when Caleb forbade it, for fear you were trying to infiltrate our operation. I listened to my instincts and took a risk. Now it’s your turn. Take a risk, and trust me, Lara.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Who said anything about easy?”
Her gaze dropped to his hand on her leg, and she wondered at how right it felt there, how right his touch felt. Only a short while before, this man would have been her enemy. And maybe he still was, but no… he didn’t feel like her enemy. She inhaled and lifted her gaze to his. “This really isn’t even about trust, Damion. I just don’t know what’s real anymore. I have these memories surfacing, like pieces of my past that conflict with the past I know. I… can’t even remember what my parents looked like, and… I keep remembering two different names.” Was her last name Martin or Mallery?
“What names?” he prodded.
“My names.”
He grabbed the stool and sat down, before rolling close to her again. “Lara isn’t your name?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head and feeling suddenly sick. What if she found out horrible things about herself that made Damion hate her? “Yes… no. I don’t want to talk about this.”
He rested his palms on his thighs and considered her a long moment. “You’re afraid of what you’re going to find out about yourself, aren’t you?”
Her chest tightened, and for reasons she couldn’t explain, her eyes prickled. “Wouldn’t you be if you were me?”
“Of course,” he said, surprising her with his honesty, and earning more of her trust. “I’d want to know the truth before anyone else did. There’s no reason that can’t happen. But you have to let Kelly run her tests and rule out any other cause for the mixed memories. Make sure it’s not physical. Then, let her help us figure ou
t how to separate truth from fiction.”
“I already feel like someone has been in my head messing around, Damion,” she admitted. “How am I ever going to know fact from fiction, if I allow someone else to do the same? I need to think about this.” She reminded herself that his willingness to let her decide didn’t mean he was honorable. She had every reason until today to believe the Renegades had killed her parents and had lured her father into a web of trust, and then murdered him. To dismiss those concerns would be as foolish as ignoring that they might not be reality.
Damion seemed to read her expression, her caution, and he sighed heavily, then rolled to the edge of the bed and pushed an intercom button. “Anyone got a deck of cards?”
She softened inside at his actions, at his understanding—that he’d pushed her as far as he could and should back off. She didn’t want his actions to be a form of manipulation that somehow replaced torture. She wanted it to be real—she wanted this growing bond she felt with Damion, the only thing that felt certain and real, to really be sincere. Please, please, don’t be the enemy, Damion. But then, if he wasn’t the enemy, what did that make Powell, or even herself?
***
Damion laid down his cards on the rolling table that he and Lara had stolen from near the bed almost an hour before. “Straight flush,” he announced and wiggled an eyebrow. “I win again. That’s four straight hands, but who’s counting?”
“Apparently you,” Lara said, tossing down her cards. “Shuffle, and let’s go again.”
Another two hands later, she threw down her losing cards and ran her hand through her hair. He loved her hair, so soft, like silk against his skin.
“You know,” she continued with a glower. “It wouldn’t hurt you to let me win a few hands.”
“You get what you get honestly with me,” he said softly, a hidden meaning in his words. He wanted Lara—wanted her in a bad way, in a way he’d never wanted a woman before. A way that defied the possibility that she was the enemy, that she’d unlock her memories and neither of them would like what was discovered.