by D. Laine
Maria glanced at him, then tucked her gun away with a shrug. “Fine. Whatever. She’s still a part of it.”
“It can’t be only the Prepper thing,” I reasoned calmly. “You disliked her before we knew about that.”
“So what? I’m not a fan of hers. Who cares?”
“I do. And when your attitude affects the group, we all care.” Leaning forward in the chair, I laid my elbows on my knees and stared up at Maria. “Either knock it off, or tell me what the fucking problem is so we can fix it.”
“Fix it?” she spat. “There’s nothing to fix, Dylan. You’ve made it clear she’s not going to go anywhere so—”
“No, she’s not.”
Maria folded her arms across her chest, displaying a look on her face I had never seen before. It looked like a pout. “She’s not one of us.”
“It’s more than that. You’re not fooling me, Maria. Not anymore. You attack her on a personal level.” She turned away with a huff, and I knew I was digging in the right spot. “It has nothing to do with who or what she is. It’s simply her presence that bothers you, and I want to know why.”
All she gave me was a muttered, “You’ve changed.”
“Is that really such a bad thing?”
“You’ve gone soft.”
At that, I bristled. I may have changed a little, but I certainly hadn’t gone soft.
“Your heart”—she spat the word like it was poison in her mouth—“is interfering with your instincts. It’s going to get you killed, and it will be all her fault.”
“So you’re worried about me? That’s what this is about?” I asked with a heavy dose of skepticism.
“Something like that.” She stuffed her hands in her pockets with a jerky nod. Knowing her for ten years gave me the advantage of recognizing that as a sign that she was hiding something.
“What else, Maria?” I demanded.
She hesitated before asking, “You really want the truth?”
“That’s all I’m asking for.”
“You’re not going to like it.”
I shrugged off her warning. “It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s the truth.”
She stared at me for several long seconds and swallowed hard in preparation of her next words. They came out one notch above a whisper. “I got pregnant.”
My throat instantly tightened and an uncomfortable heaviness developed in my chest. I sucked in what little air hadn’t been vacuumed from the room. Thank God I was already sitting down.
“And it was yours, in case you’re wondering,” she added unnecessarily.
My eyes dropped to her stomach. “You—” How long had it been since that night? Three months? Four? It felt so much longer than that. And it had been one night. How had this happened? I mean, I knew how it all worked but . . .
“You had an implant,” I pointed out lamely.
“They’re only good for three years. I was due for another one.” She shrugged like it was no big deal. Like skipping out on a visit to the agency’s medical ward hadn’t drastically changed both of our lives.
“We used a condom!”
Another shrug. “They’re not a hundred percent.”
“What do you—fuck!” I shot another glance toward her stomach area. “So you . . .”
“Not anymore, you idiot,” she snarled. “That’s why I used past tense. The agency took care of it when they found out.”
“Holy fucking shit.” I dropped my head into my hands. Of all the possibilities to explain Maria’s attitude, I had never seen this one coming. It certainly explained her dislike of Thea.
I jerked to a stand and paced to the other side of the room. Running my fingers through my hair only reminded me that I needed a buzz. It was getting too long, and I hated it long.
Fuck. I was swimming in denial.
Maria couldn’t—
I certainly wasn’t ready to be—
All at once what Maria really told me sunk in. The cold hand of awareness snaked along the length of my spine, and I turned toward her sharply. “What did you mean by ‘the agency took care of it?’”
“They gave me a shot of something.” She shrugged again—she was doing a lot of that. “Problem solved.”
“They . . .” I couldn’t believe what I heard. Not that I doubted Maria. She was a lot of things, but a liar wasn’t one of them. Not about something like this. “Did you know what they were doing?”
One look into Maria’s eyes, and I knew the answer. She quickly looked away to hide the flash of emotion spurred by the memory of what she had experienced.
Alone. Without me. Because I hadn’t even known.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over, but it made me realize . . .” She blew out a noisy breath. “Damn it. You were the first friend I made the day I showed up at the agency. I was twelve years old, scared to death about being so far from home, and you were the first face, other than my brother’s, that I saw. Do you remember that?”
A hint of a smile caught my lips as I nodded. “Yeah, I remember. You and Marcus arrived the same day I did.”
“Even before you met Jake,” she reminded me. “You were upset about your family and . . .”
It had been her and Marcus I had leaned on that first day, before Jake came along. I hadn’t necessarily forgotten about it, but I hadn’t exactly expressed my gratitude for their kindness either. God, I felt like such an ass.
“I know you bonded with him,” Maria continued, “and you guys make a hell of a team and are best friends and all that, but I’ve always considered you my friend, too.”
“We are friends, Maria.”
She nodded stiffly, eyes diverted.
“We are.” I shifted closer, and she turned the rest of the way, leaning into me. Wrapping my arms around her shoulders, I gave her a squeeze. Her head created the perfect place for me to rest my chin. “I get it now. I think I understand, but . . .”
“You love her,” Maria muttered. I could hear her eyes rolling.
“I do.” I smiled lazily. “And since we’ve just confirmed that you’re my friend, maybe you could try being happy for me.”
She pulled out of my embrace with a sigh. “Only if you promise to take the love goggles off and get your head back in the game.”
“I’m in it. I don’t know why you think I’m not.”
“Think about things. Don’t go in blind just because you love her. And if this turns bad”—she jabbed a finger toward the back of the cabin where the others still slept—“you need to be ready to make a move to spare yourself.”
I nodded my understanding, but said, “It’s not going to go bad. It’s going to be alright.”
“I hope so,” she sighed. “For your sake, I really do.”
“Aww, Maria. I think that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Don’t get used to it.” She swatted at the dampness collected on her cheeks like it personally offended her. “And don’t think you’ll ever see this side of me again.”
“I have no expectations.” My easy smile slipped as the weight of everything she had just told me settled back onto my shoulders. “And I’m sorry about . . . everything.”
“Whatever. It’s over.” She rolled her eyes in an attempt to downplay how she really felt. I knew better than to force her into discussing those buried emotions.
“Does anyone else know?” I asked.
“No.”
“Marcus?”
“I’ve blocked him from that.”
I nodded. Keeping Marcus in the dark was good. I sure didn’t need him glaring at me while I continued to absorb everything. He would not like hearing about this one bit. No one would, least of all the girl lying unconscious in the next room, unaware that my one-night stand before she came along had nearly come back to bite me in the ass.
Maria followed the direction of my gaze to the hallway. “Are you going to tell her?” The clipped tone of her voice told me that she wasn’t thrilled about letting Thea in on our secr
et.
My mouth opened with an answer, but the words evaporated at the sight of Robbie wandering down the hallway. She stopped when she saw Maria and me gaping at her.
“What happened to me?” Her voice sounded raw, like she had smoked a carton of cigarettes in her sleep.
I glanced down to find Maria’s hand curled tightly around her gun. Nudging her with my elbow, I ordered, “Go let Jake know Robbie’s up, and grab a bottle of water from supply.” When Maria didn’t move, I nodded encouragingly. “Go on. I’ve got this.”
Her eyes didn’t leave Robbie as she moved reluctantly toward the door. Not that Robbie noticed while she examined her hands like she was amazed to find two of them.
“I’m leaving this open,” Maria told me gruffly from the doorway.
I nodded, and she finally left to find Jake.
Alone with Robbie, I carefully cut the distance between us in half. I wasn’t sure what I was worried about, other than Maria’s suggestion that the half-and-half members of our group would wake up with more in common with their tag cousins than we hoped. Robbie didn’t seem to notice me, which I took as a good sign that she wouldn’t try to snack on my arm when I reached out to touch her.
She flinched from the slight contact on her shoulder, and finally looked up. “I feel funny.”
“Funny how?”
“Like . . . tingly? Like I have all this energy crawling under my skin, and nothing to expend it on.”
I didn’t know what I expected, but that wasn’t it. “No unusual food cravings? Hunger pangs?”
“No. Why?” She looked genuinely confused.
I fought a grin. “No reason.”
The door burst open behind me, and Jake walked inside. Robbie practically salivated at the sight of the bottle of water in his hand. Or it could have been Jake—alone—that caused her eyes to light up. Not because she wanted to eat him. Not in the literal sense anyway.
And that was an interesting development worth coming back to at a later time.
Jake placed his gentle hands on Robbie’s shoulders. “How are you feeling?”
“Wired up?”
Jake angled his head to glance at me, and I said, “Don’t ask me.”
“Okay, well . . .” Jake slung an arm around Robbie and steered her toward the closest seat not currently occupied by Ewing. “Why don’t you rest and drink some water? I can get you something to eat if you’re hungry.”
“She just spent the past two days resting,” I reminded him.
“I’m not tired,” she said. “In fact, I want to move. I need to move.”
“Take her outside and let her work off some of the energy,” I suggested. To Robbie, I added, “Try to figure out what’s different, because you know something has to have changed.”
“I feel it,” Robbie agreed as she moved briskly toward the door. “I don’t know what it is, but I feel it.”
Jake followed her onto the porch, but stopped short of closing the door. He turned to me, and I knew what he was going to ask.
“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “I’ll stay with them.”
If the pattern continued, Thea should be waking up within the hour, Sadie an hour after her.
Jake shut the door with a nod, leaving me alone in the living room with nothing but my thoughts and one snoring asshole.
“I’m not babysitting you,” I muttered to an unconscious Ewing.
He didn’t move. Thank God he was still out. Otherwise, he would have heard a hell of a lot of stuff I didn’t particularly want him to know about.
After everything Maria had told me, I felt . . . needy. Emotionally depleted, tired, and in need of a warm body to snuggle up with. And not just any body would do. Only one in particular.
I needed Thea.
I quickly grabbed a bottle of water and set it on the floor beside me as I crawled into bed beside her. The mattress was tiny and kind of lumpy, but perfect for what I needed right now.
I took special care in brushing aside wayward strands of hair to study her face. She reminded me of a dark haired version of the Sleeping Beauty my sister used to idolize when we were kids, with her peaceful face, smooth skin, and rosy lips.
I gave her a soft kiss, secretly hoping the magic of my touch would wake her a little sooner. I had learned some things from Sadie during her Disney princess phase. But when I didn’t find myself in the middle of one of her fairy tale stories, I chided myself for being an idiot.
Maybe Maria was right. Maybe I had gone soft.
I preferred to call it being in love.
And love could sometimes make you do stupid things, like momentarily think you were an apocalypse Prince Charming with the ability to wake your sleeping girlfriend with nothing more than a kiss. Not things like Maria worried about. She was wrong about that.
I would not screw anything up. Not when everyone’s future rode on us doing this right. Not when I had a girl I wanted to spend a future with.
Even if she turned into something that rivaled the X-Men.
While I watched Thea sleep, I listened to the voices drifting through the wall from outside. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I didn’t particularly care. Though I was mildly curious what the others were learning from Robbie, I patiently waited for Thea to wake.
My patience paid off nearly an hour later. Because I was watching her closely, I knew the instant she woke up. I had a smile ready when her gorgeous green eyes snapped open.
5
THEA
As nice as it was to be rewarded with the view of a handsome, smiling face the moment I woke, I couldn’t overlook the bizarre setting I found myself in.
“Why am I having kindergarten flashbacks?”
Dylan smiled as he leaned over me. “We broke into a cabin to find some shelter.”
Questions. I had so many questions, but he distracted me with a kiss. Not the hard, passion-filled type of kiss I was used to, but a soft, barely-there touch of his lips to mine. It was the kind of kiss that sent a bolt of lightning straight to my heart, causing it to stutter before speeding up. It was the kind of kiss that had only one purpose.
When he eased back far enough for me to speak, I responded. “I love you, too.”
He gave me an authoritative look. “You better. You’ve put me through hell these past two days.”
“Two days?” My legs twitched as I fought the urge to sit up. “What happened? What’s going on?”
“What do you remember?”
“The supermarket . . .” I shook my head to clear the haze. “Robbie . . .” The vision of her sprawled on the ground raced through my head, and I nearly rammed Dylan’s nose with my forehead in my desperation to sit up. His weight on my arms kept me pinned to the mattress.
“She’s fine. All of you have been asleep for the past two days. Robbie just woke up. Now you. Sadie and Ewing will both wake in about an hour.”
“How do you know that?”
“You’re all going through the exact same thing, in the same order, and in the same amount of time. It’s kind of weird.”
“Kind of?” Again, my body begged to move. Dylan’s position over me still wouldn’t allow it.
“You all dropped off one after another,” he continued. “We didn’t know what was happening, so we stopped at a campground. It’s about as secure as we could hope for.”
“We’re in a cabin at a campground somewhere in Utah,” I summarized, glancing around Dylan to see what I could see of the place. Not much, aside from the miniature-sized, brightly colored furniture in the corner. “And I automatically got assigned to the kiddie room?”
His chin tipped over his shoulder, directing me to where Sadie slept nearby. “Not just you. This was the only room with enough beds to hold you all.”
“You said Robbie already woke up? How is she? What—”
What exactly happened to us? And what did it mean?
I needed to know now. Putting my hands on Dylan’s shoulder’s, I pushed. While I wanted to see for myse
lf what was going on, I found that my need to simply move was even greater.
But Dylan wouldn’t let me. “Just wait a minute, will you?”
“I can’t.” I shoved again, pushing him hard enough that I managed to get into a seated position beside him. “I can’t stay still.”
He tossed me a grin. “Full of energy, huh?”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t believe how good I felt, especially after learning I had lain on this tiny bed for two days. No aches or pains, no stiff joints. Just a dry throat, but that would be easy to fix. My toes bounced on the floor as I shifted closer to Dylan.
His gaze dropped to my restless legs, and his grin widened. “You’re like a caged animal, straining to get free. It’s kind of hot.”
I rolled my eyes. “You think everything is hot.”
“No.” He lunged toward me, grabbing my shoulders to pin me to the bed as he leaned over me. Again. “I think everything you do is hot.”
Then he kissed me again. And this one was exactly the type of kiss I expected from him. He wasted no time parting my lips. His tongue tangled with mine, and I forgot all about the pulse of electricity humming under my skin. I threw all my energy into kissing him.
One small noise from the back of my throat drove the intensity through the roof. He no longer teased, or seduced, or even explored me. His thin veil of restraint shattered, and he claimed me like a drowning man starving for my last breath.
One hand pinned both of mine above my head while he tossed aside the hem of my shirt with the other. The dizzying combination of tenderness and raw power behind his touch sent a shudder through me, and I wanted more.
My leg hooked his waist to bring him closer to where I already ached for him, and his hips swiveled against me. That was all it took for this to become more than a kiss—a kiss hot enough to burn down the gates of Hell, but still just a kiss.
Until now. I lifted my hips, greedily searching for more of the friction my body needed. I found it, and a lot more, when I grinded against the front of his pants. He strained against the fabric, hard and ready.
Suddenly, Dylan’s mouth was gone, and his face buried in my hair with a tortured groan. He intercepted my hand, which was already making quick work of his zipper. His grip tight around my eager fingers, he gritted, “We can’t.”