by Anya Nowlan
Nia’s life had been all buttercups and daisies for the past three days, basically.
“Making any headway? I hope I’m not bothering you. I figured you could use some distraction for a moment,” Dice said, producing a tall cup of steaming hot herbal tea and a bag of food that smelled an awful lot like burgers.
“Did you just bring me burgers?” Nia asked, tearing into the bag and squealing when it turned out that it was exactly what Dice had brought.
“I did,” he said with a short nod, taking a sip of the coffee he had grabbed for himself. “I know pregnant women are supposed to eat healthy and whatever, but I figured seeing as you’re days from dying or turning into some sort of a mutant then you might as well live a little, huh.”
“Gallows humor. How fitting,” Nia snorted, already biting into the burger with her eyes rolling back a bit in pure unadulterated pleasure.
All she could do for the next few moments was make muffled sounds of ecstasy as she chowed down on the burger, completely uncaring about whether or not she was eating in a ladylike manner or just making a fool of herself. Knowing that she would probably end up throwing up the meal in a couple of hours made her all the more determined to enjoy it while she could.
“But seriously, how’s it going?” Dice asked when Nia was about halfway through the sloppy burger – where the hell Dice had found something like this in neat and pristine Singapore, Nia would never know.
She took a sip of the drink and leaned back a little on her chair, shaking her head thoughtfully.
“I’d love to say that it’s going well, but… it isn’t. I’ve been given a team of ten of the brightest minds in this company and trust me, they’re damn good, but I don’t know if we can do it in time. There are just too many anomalies and things that don’t make sense, you know? Feels like I’m trying to untie a ball of yarn and if I cut even one of the strings, I’m the one that ends up dead first.”
Nia shook her head, mild notes of disgust creeping into her tone. She couldn’t help it. To say that she was feeling a little bit bitter was an understatement of some magnitude.
Dice nodded mutely, flicking his gaze to the endless stacks of papers and test tubes that littered the white and slate-gray lab, giving the room sort of a Halloween-gone-wrong vibe.
“I probably shouldn’t keep you from your work, then,” he said, starting to rise out of his chair. “I wanted to make sure you were eating but you don’t need the distraction, I can see.”
Nia stopped Dice with a gloved hand on his arm, willing him to sit down again.
“No, please, stay a little bit longer. I’m going insane here, cooped up with my own thoughts,” she confessed, feeling a pinprick of pain in her heart as well that could have been heartburn, but was more likely to be her damn conscience again.
“Something you want to ask me?” Dice asked, raising a brow as he slumped back down, his large form filling the seat completely.
“I… well…” Nia stuttered, blushing slightly.
“Ah, of course,” Dice said with a grim nod, his steely eyes studying her face even when Nia couldn’t meet his gaze. “You want to ask about Thor.”
“Well, not so much want to ask as need to know, maybe. You know?” Nia said, shrugging her shoulders with a sigh.
Why do I even care anymore? He clearly doesn’t want any part of this.
“He’s a mess, Nia,” Dice said starkly, not bothering to sugarcoat his words. “We’ve been on downtime for the last three days and I don’t think he’s been out of the bottle once. He’s either kicking the living shit out of a boxing bag, drinking, or more often than not, doing both. Rio and Price have both tried talking to him and with Price, it turned into a fight. Rio had the good sense to back out of the room before it did with him as well. Guess finding out one’s a father does a lot to instill a sense of calm in a man,” Dice said, clearly referring to Rio, but it sent another pang of guilt barreling through Nia.
She brushed a lock of hair out of her face and nodded mutely, putting the wrapper of the burger back in the paper bag and grabbing a napkin instead. She folded and unfolded it in her hands in nervous little motions, trying to will the words out of her mouth but coming up empty time and time again.
“I don’t know what has happened to him before, Nia, but you and I both know that this isn’t the way a man reacts to finding out that he’s a father to be, no matter what the odds are about. Definitely not as a shifter. Maybe you know about his past, maybe you don’t, but whatever demons that man’s dealing with, they have to run pretty fucking deep,” Dice commented, the makings of irritation in his tone.
“It’s not his fault,” Nia said quickly, feeling the need to defend Thor even though that was probably the last thing he wanted. “I mean… Yes, I know what happened and I understand why he’s reacting that way,” she added.
“That makes one of us, then,” Dice said, shrugging his wide shoulders. “I’ve been giving him some space for now, but by the looks of you, things aren’t exactly moving in the right direction as of now. As much as all of us would like to, it doesn’t seem like we can exactly go out and slit Spade’s throat like he deserves either, not that doing that would fix anything.”
“But I think that would make everyone feel a hell of a lot better, huh,” Nia said with a feeble smile.
“Hell yes,” Dice agreed with a nod. “Look, what I’m trying to say is that he’s not a bad guy, at least I don’t think so. If you know what kind of darkness he’s facing then you have a better frame of reference to work from in sorting things out with him, if you can. Though that’s entirely up to you, because I’m sure as hell convinced that you have a lot more important things on your mind right now than a sulking werepanther with a Jack Daniels problem.”
“You’d be surprised,” Nia quipped, shaking her head with a smile.
Devoting her full attention to the research was sort of difficult when her mind kept wandering off to Thor.
“You know, Dice, I get the feeling that getting me burgers was in fact not the only reason you came here. Any chance you think of yourself as a bit of a matchmaker, hmm?” Nia teased, trying to lighten the rather heavy mood in the room now.
Dice chuckled, shaking his head as he got up. He put a hand on her shoulder gently and gave her a long look that was both soothing and motivating at the same time. There was an air about that man that exuded the kind of presence that made Nia completely understand why men would follow him into battle.
Well, most men, anyway. Shifter Squad Nine evidently was a bit more difficult of a case.
“I’ve hidden my magic wand somewhere in my gear bag. No one must know that I am actually the fairy godmother of lost relationships,” Dice said with a wink before stalking off, giving her a short wave at the door before exiting.
Left alone with her thoughts, Nia propped her head up on her hands, exhaling sharply. All she could really think about was Thor and it twisted her up inside – or at least she thought it was Thor, not the violent virus that was ravaging her body.
How the hell can I make him see that this is not his fault? Nia asked herself for the umpteenth time, only to once again find no answer for it.
It was an hour later that a light bulb went off in her head as she was flipping through the latest test reports that one of the techies had brought her.
“Get me Shifter Squad Nine,” she said, looking up at the mousy little assistant who seemed to be another one of Spade’s ‘personal’ crew. “Now.”
Seventeen
Thor
Thor was leaning against the wall, his trademark slouch looking less effortless and more drunken and disheveled at this point. He’d left the bottle in the gym on Ryker’s urging – and by urging, he of course meant because Ryker had ripped it out of his hand and shattered it against the wall while yelling expletives at him about how it was time to fucking man up.
If the lab assistant hadn’t showed up at the same time, telling them that Nia needed to see them, Thor was pretty sure that Ryke
r would have gotten his ass royally kicked. Even in his rather unfortunate state, Thor was damn sure that he could take the large mountain of a man one on one. If Rio showed up, it might turn out to be a bit more problematic, but hell, Thor always loved a challenge.
Why does she insist on seeing me again? Doesn’t she understand that nothing good can come of me being around her?
Thor bit his lower lip, keeping his gaze down on the ground. His back was healed now and overall, he was fit for function, aside from the glaring emptiness in his soul and the fact that he couldn’t get through a single conversation without picking a fight with the closest shifter. The rest of the squad seemed to go between giving him whatever space he needed and trying to talk him into behaving like a self-respecting shifter.
Neither approach had worked wonders yet and if Thor knew himself well enough, then that wouldn’t change, either.
The more time he spent alone, the deeper into his familiar hole he could crawl. The darkness was welcoming and oh so familiar. For years, he had resided in that half-lost, half-manic state of being, blaming himself for what had happened to Ashley and his child. He couldn’t feel more foolish for allowing himself to get close to someone else and seeing that happen all over again.
His train of thought was cut short by the swinging doors being pushed open, and Dice and Nia entering the room together. Thor glanced up and his heart skipped a beat, seeing her beautiful face looking tired and worn. Every fiber of his body was telling him to rush over to her, pick her up and make her go and rest until every speck of sleeplessness and stress was gone from her, but he knew that he had no right to do that, and it would probably change nothing either.
She’s fighting a virus that she has to deal with because of those fuckin’ Arctics… and me.
Thor slicked his tongue over his teeth and looked down again, tasting the griminess of his teeth, which hadn’t been brushed for at least a couple of days. He looked down again, cutting the bond between their gazes as starkly as he could.
The rest of the squad was there already, seated in the same chairs they had been a few days ago when they’d discussed the repercussions of Spade’s actions – who, by the way, had completely disappeared after his stunt. Thor had made sure that he was no longer in the building or even in Singapore, going through the whole place with a fine-toothed comb and tapping into some resources he had in The Firm to try and figure out Spade’s location.
Though the odds were against him, Thor still felt like bringing a particularly horrific death upon Spade’s unsuspecting head would have made him feel at least a little bit better.
“Thank you all for coming,” Nia said, taking a seat.
Dice sat down in the chair next to her and Thor’s panther growled deep inside of him, protesting against their closeness. It was him who was supposed to be sitting close to her, supporting her and giving her the strength she needed.
But you fuckin’ can’t.
His human and his panther weren’t exactly in agreement about that and it had been a constant struggle for the man to retain control over the beast since it had become evident that Nia was pregnant.
“Sure thing, hon. What do you need?” Ryker asked, his voice uncharacteristically soft.
The Tyren twins had certainly changed since they’d reclaimed their mate and found out that they were fathers. While they were as deadly as ever, maybe more now because of their desire to come home from every single mission, then there was also a sense of compassion and interest towards other people’s wellbeing in them that Thor had never noticed before.
And he prided himself on noticing everything.
“Well, I’ve been running myself ragged against this research for days now and as far as I can tell, there’s no easy way to make sense of it. Whoever designed this virus has either gotten very lucky or they really know what they’re doing. Though I recognize some of the mutation patterns, I can’t really pin down the source and all I can do is fight the symptoms. However, I think there’s a way for me to crack this, but I need your help for that,” she said, and Thor could feel the exact moment when she looked at him.
He wouldn’t look up. Best not to give her any fucking hope. He was as useless to her as well-wishes were in curing her illness.
“As I was saying, I think there’s a way,” she continued after a short pause, clearing her voice. “I need the original virus, a sample of it. I have no clue how you could get it, but my guess is there has to be some stashed away in Singapore somewhere, or at least in the region in general in case the first attack went wrong, you know?
“The stuff they cleaned out of the water supply won’t do because it had already reacted with the water and changed its chemical makeup. I need a sealed vial and… well, if anyone can do it, it’s you guys, right?” Nia asked, sounding so sweetly hopeful.
Thor couldn’t help but smile a little at that. Even through his sufficiently alcohol-ridden current state of being, he could feel a bit of pride blooming, followed closely by an equal dose of remorse. Here she was, fighting for her own life, that of their child’s and millions of people she didn’t even know, and he was just a moping mess that couldn’t stop drinking and taking his anger out on animate and inanimate objects, depending on which got in his way first.
I never deserved her to begin with, he thought with a mild shake of his head, looking up again.
Nia was looking straight at him while the rest of the squad was engaged in hurried conversation, Prowler being the center of attention of course. If anyone could make information appear as if out of thin air, it would be the hacker.
Time seemed to stand still for a moment as Thor looked at Nia, feeling his heart swell in his chest. He felt the almost unbeatable urge to push himself away from the wall and rush over to her, hide her in his embrace and never let her go again. But there was the past again, dragging him back and making him admit all that he already knew.
That she would be so much better without him, her and the baby both.
“We’ll do it,” he said finally, raising his voice over everyone else’s. “Don’t worry about it, we’ll find it.”
The squad fell silent for a moment and a few glances were passed between the rest of them and then with Dice, who simply nodded.
“Thor’s right. We shouldn’t keep you from your work any longer, Nia. We’ll make this happen.”
“Oh. Okay,” Nia said, frowning a little. “I’ll leave you to it, then. The sooner you can get it to me, the better,” she said, excusing herself and pushing through the doors to leave.
When the doors closed behind her, Thor felt like a damn big part of himself went with her, a piece that he would never get back unless he got her with it.
And that obviously couldn’t happen.
Eighteen
Nia
For hours after her conversation with the squad, Nia had kept hoping that someone would come and talk to her about it. Well, not just ‘someone’, but Thor, obviously. She would have even settled for Dice or Ryker, if they came bearing good news, like that Thor had suddenly found his second wind, gotten his head out of his ass and wanted to talk to her or anything along those lines.
She’d had no such luck.
Instead, she’d just focused on the work again, splitting her time between feeling queasy, taking the vitals of her patients, asking them about how they were feeling and getting a damn good precursor into how she was about to feel soon enough. It didn’t look pretty, and neither did the results of her research so far.
These Arctics are some damn psychos for creating something like this, she mused, the thought having been a constant companion of hers for a while now. And Spade’s no better than any of them.
Running her hand over her neck, she thought she could still feel the exact spot where the needle had been shoved into her and the poisonous virus injected into her bloodstream. Of the few and far between little mercies that she could find in all of this, one of the main ones that the virus did not remain active for very long and it could
not be transmitted from person to person, so at least no one else was in danger.
Considering, however, that her baby was one of the ones infected, it really didn’t offer much solace, though.
“I’m going to lie down for a few hours,” Nia said, stretching and yawning stiffly as she stood up from her seat in the lab gingerly, receiving a few nods in response.
Her team was working tirelessly and she was truly thankful for that, but she’d been running on empty for a while and without a nap, she was going to fall over soon enough and then be of no use to anyone.
She managed to exit through the guarded door to the lab, swiping her keycard, and get a few paces down the nondescript hallway before she stopped dead in her tracks. In the middle of the corridor, leaning against the wall with one foot resting against the wall as well, stood Thor Dremmons. Despite the fact that she knew she was supposed to hate the very essence of his being at the moment, Nia couldn’t help but feel a little weak at the knees.
She cleared her voice, pretending like she didn’t know that he was there to see her, and walked past him. Thor fell into step with her so easily it was as if he had practiced it. All fluid grace and lethal precision, every move he made reminded her of the way she’d seen him fight in the jungle.
No, stop that. He doesn’t want anything to do with you and you know what he told you – you’re better off without him!
Somehow, she didn’t sound too convincing to herself.
“We need to talk,” Thor said after a moment of silence, making Nia squeeze her eyes shut for a moment as she tried to instill some of that earthly calm in herself that her mother seemed to be in ample possession of.
Instead I had to inherit her crazy hair, she thought with some wry humor.
“What is it, Thor? I thought we were supposed to keep some distance from one another,” she said, biting her tongue as the snark slipped out without her really intending to make the conversation any more painful than it had to be.