Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 112001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Not now, I do not need the distraction—
But instead of interrupting or causing a further disturbance—or even looking his way—the woman stayed quiet and just went to stand by Lydia. And as she put her hand on the shoulder of Daniel’s better half, Gus shook his head and wished like hell that Phalen wouldn’t keep surprising him. The calm compassion was going to be a help.
“What’s happening?” Lydia demanded. “Is he going to—what can we do?”
A mask with positive flow oxygen was strapped on Daniel’s face, and Gus stayed still as he looked at the monitor. “Come on,” he murmured. “Let’s see some better numbers.”
As he waited, he could feel the presence of everybody else in the room—where they were standing, how they were moving, whether they were talking, if they were silent—but all that was a distilled awareness. Daniel was his sole focus, everything else fading away into a buffer zone that he could call on if he needed, but that, if it wasn’t immediately relevant to the survival of the patient on the bed, he could completely disregard.
Fuck. The numbers were not improving. Oxygen stats remained in the low 80s, and heart rate continued to spin out.
Time to up the interventions or they were going to lose the man.
As Gus started barking orders, a split of consciousness happened—most of his mind remained trained on his professional duty, yet a vital part of him got sucked back to when he’d been strapped to that chair and getting tased by a man whose face he never saw and whose motivations had been evil. He just remembered that accented voice talking to him, and the pain wrecking his will to protect this site.
And the woman who owned it—
From out of nowhere, Gus’s brain coughed up a missing piece of what had happened to him: Suddenly, he remembered being carried by someone—carried… across the field outside of Phalen’s house. He must have come around for a moment or two because he’d become aware that he was being brought back to the estate.
By a man in a red priest’s robe—
“What was that, doctor?”
Forcing himself to fully engage, he communicated a second round of instructions. As medical staff followed his directives and things got really busy over Daniel’s body, Gus glanced across at C.P. Phalen. She was staring at him, and there was an accusation in those eyes.
Then again, they hadn’t left on a good note.
He’d told her no. That he wouldn’t administer the drug to her. After that, shit had gotten critical and she’d ramped it up with a shrug and a drawl that had lit his temper like a flare.
Fine, you’re ripping up the contract? I’ll just get someone else to give Vita-12b to me.
At which point he’d informed her that he was going to keep the goddamn contract intact. Like he was a twelve-year-old sassing a teacher by defiantly eating all the paste.
It had been a fantastic conversation, and after she’d marched off, he’d had the cold comfort of knowing that he’d won.
Now, as she glared at him, he thought of the red-robed stranger who had come and gotten him, who risked their own life to get him out—and bring him to where he was most likely to survive. It must have been one of her guards. Who decided to do one last mission before he took his oath to the Catholic Church and cardinal’d himself.
If that man, that savior, hadn’t come? Gus would be dead.
As he thought of Vita-12b, and all the lives it might save, he knew he had to try it on a human. That was the next step. But not on C.P.—and yes, he was letting his personal feelings get in the way of her freely given consent.
Snapping back into the present once again, his last thought on the matter was how in all cases, it was best to be objective.
Emotions were the worst kind of complication in life.
Especially when shit got critical.
* * *
Up on Deer Mountain, halfway to the summit, Xhex was certain that she hadn’t heard that right. Even though her brother had said the words twice.
Although to be fair, it wasn’t so much his syllables as the tone of voice that had shaken her. And then there was that pause, like he’d had to gather himself to continue speaking at all.
I have never… forgotten why or how you left the Colony.
Called forward by all the things she didn’t comprehend, Xhex walked over to him, the sounds of her boots over the loose gravel of the trail loud in the silence.
“I don’t understand,” she heard herself say.
As she realized what she’d spoken, she wanted to take it back. That was not what she’d intended to lead with. Blade was never someone anybody should trust… yet the way he was staring over at her made her narrow her eyes on him in a way she never had.