by Eve Langlais
Just this once. Her last coherent thought.
“You overdosed, Jane.” His soft words matched the memories. “The doctors pumped your stomach. Gave you all kinds of counter drugs, charcoal, and the works. They couldn’t save you. Your parents had you living hooked up to machines.”
Beep. Beep. Beep. The sound haunted her, and Jane slammed her hands on her ears to shut it out. “No.” It didn’t happen. Couldn’t have.
But he kept insisting. “I can show you. I have proof. Pictures.”
“No.” She shoved at his chest. “No. No. No.” She denied even as she remembered that horrible feeling of being trapped. Sightless. Soundless. Senseless. Going slowly mad, listening to music for the first half of her imprisonment, her mother visiting daily, bringing sound and life with her. Yet Mommy never heard me screaming for help. Daddy didn’t hear her either. And then, one day, they stopped coming.
“I’m sorry. Jane. So very, very sorry.” There was true apology in his words.
“Shut up. You’re lying.” The words welled up from her, demanding his silence.
He just wouldn’t stop. “I know this is hard, Jane. But you can overcome this. Look at you. You’re awake. Talking.”
“Shut up.” She closed her eyes and put her hands to her ears, trying to block him out. Trying to not dwell on the fact she’d lost twenty years of her life. “Not real. Not happening.”
“Don’t put your head in the sand. You have to face reality.”
“No, I don’t.” If she ignored him, then she’d wake up and go back to being that girl who was about to graduate and start her life.
As if he read her mind, he said, “You can’t go back. You’re thirty-nine years old, Jane. Not that you look it.”
Thirty-nine? The very idea boggled.
“You look amazing. Let me show you.” He moved out of reach. A good thing since she was tempted to throttle him. Anything to stop the flow of words she didn’t want to hear.
He returned with a mirror, which he held up, showing her a woman, her features familiar, the tilt of her nose, the fullness of her lips, but her eyes. They were all wrong. As was the vivid red hair. She’d been a ginger at best.
“Not me.”
“Touch your face.”
The suggestion was a good one. The mirror had to be false.
Raising a hand, she bit her lip as she saw the mirror reflect her actions.
Reflecting her.
“No.” She grabbed hold of the mirror and stared, noticing the differences. No lines and yet the rounded cheeks she recalled, the freshness of her youth, had fled. “I’m old.”
“You’re beautiful.” Said softly and yet she reacted as if he’d shouted. She flung the mirror. The crash as it broke not satisfying. She grabbed him by the shirt and once more manhandled him, drawing him close.
“You lie.”
“You know I’m not.”
But if he spoke the truth…
Her mind shut down rather than listen any more, unable to handle what it meant.
Adrian wouldn’t leave it alone. “There’s more to the story. When the hospital was going to yank the plug, I saved you and—”
Rather than listen, she did the only thing she could think of to quiet him—that didn’t involve wringing his neck or roasting him over a fire. She pressed her mouth to his, meaning to suck the life from him. Pull the oxygen from his very lungs to feed the fire within. Except, the moment their lips touched her intent changed.
For one, kissing him ignited her in a strange way that had nothing to do with her internal fire. She craved the taste of his mouth. The flavor of his tongue.
She kissed him, and he kissed her back, the embrace starting out cautious then turning fierce. Hunger heated her. The kind that brought moisture between her legs and demanded satisfaction.
She thrust a hand between their bodies and cupped him. Found him hard and ready.
“Jane,” he managed to mutter in between kisses. “We have to stop this, Jane.”
“No.” She’d stop when she was done. When he’d given her what she needed to extinguish the heat inside her.
She gripped his shirt and tore it, rending it in two then yanking it from his upper body. His skin bared to her, she explored him with her lips, feeling his surprise, his arousal, his regret.
Regret for what?
The pinch at her back had her pulling away. “Why…” she whispered before lethargy tugged at her eyelids.
The next time they opened, she stared at a ceiling as she lay in a bed.
Again!
“Bastard.” The word growled from her as she rolled from the bed and hit the floor with a thump, noticing she still wore the robe and it remained dark outside. So not out for as long as the first betrayal.
A steady rhythm of thumps as he pounded down stairs. He appeared, hair tousled, his upper body shirtless while his pants hung low off lean hips. It was almost enough to switch her anger to arousal.
Then he opened his mouth.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“You drugged me,” she accused. Drugged her because he didn’t want to kiss her!
“I did. Sorry. But things were getting out of hand.”
Not the answer she expected. She frowned. “The kiss was bad?”
“No, the kiss was amazing, which was the problem.”
Amazing. Yet he stopped. “Good kiss.”
“A very good kiss.”
“I want more.”
“So I gathered, but we can’t.”
Her nostrils flared as jealousy consumed her. “You have a woman already.”
“No. I’m single. Have been for a long time actually.”
Which made it even harder to understand. “Why?”
“Because I’m your doctor.”
“I’m not sick.” She felt fine. Better than fine. If confused. Finding out she’d lost twenty years of her life remained a shock she’d have to deal with. But at least her mind was coming back to her. Enough that she could cringe at the things she’d done since waking.
Oh my God what did I do to that vagrant under the bridge? Before she could run to a bathroom and throw up, he was talking again.
“You’re not sick, but you are recovering. Your body has been asleep for twenty years.”
He kept saying that, yet she knew enough to point out a few wrong facts. “Why can I walk?” Her muscles should have atrophied.
“You were never paralyzed.”
At her pointed look, he expanded. “The drug you overdosed on shut down your heart. A few other organs, too, but that was the main one. The doctors kept you on a feeding tube and respirator for a long time. Without those things you would have died. Even once I got a hold of you and began my own special treatment, you needed those things to survive. You showed no sign of brain activity.”
“I was awake.” Caught inside a shell. Pounding to get out, and not being heard.
“You were?” His brows lifted. Excitement hued his next rapid-fire questions. “Do you remember your time in the coma? Could you hear? Feel?”
“Yes.” Her lips turned down, and he caught the despair.
“I’m sorry, Jane. That was insensitive of me. It’s just, the other coma patients I’ve dealt with all wake up as if they’d just gone to sleep.”
“Others?”
“Yes, there are more of you. You might say I specialize in lost causes. Those that are abandoned to live out their life in a bodily prison.”
“Like you,” she stated, eyeing his legs then his face.
“Especially like me. I was the first to get the treatment. And as you can see…” He did a pirouette. “It is quite effective. It helped you recover.”
“You gave me the same?” She frowned. “Not same problem.” The sentences were flowing easier, if still a bit choppy.
“No, we suffered two different medical fates, but it turns out the cure for so many things is similar. In your case, I fine-tuned it to your needs. Thought for the longest time I’d failed, but
you woke.”
She’d woken in a panic, her lungs seizing with smoke, the heat around her almost unbearable. Frozen in a bed that smoldered. Things were hazy after that. A brief impression of intense warmth, an explosion, then running, always running and hiding.
“You fixed me?” More question than statement.
“I did.”
“You did this.” She held up her hand and lit the tip.
That brought a frown. “I don’t know why you can do that. Which is why we need to run tests.” His expression turned earnest. “You’re special, Jane.”
The words brought warmth and annoyance because he wasn’t talking about her as a woman but a thing of interest. “I don’t want to be different,” she huffed.
“Because being different makes you an outcast. Believe me I understand.” His lips turned down.
Her thoughts clearer now than ever, she understood the inadvertent insult she’d inflicted. But before she could apologize, a thump drew their attention.
“Looks like me might have company.” Adrian turned from her. “Hold on a second while I deal with it.”
Deal with what?
He headed for a cabinet on the wall, but she paid him no attention as the banging came again, followed by knocking as something pressed against the glass.
The misshapen face peered inside, making her gasp. “What is that?”
“An unfortunate side effect.”
“Excuse me?” She whirled on him. “A side effect of what?”
“The treatment.”
“He’s a patient?”
“Was. Bryant chose to leave before we were done.”
“He’s a monster.”
Slamming a cartridge into the hilt of the handgun, Adrian offered a rueful smile. “Aren’t we all?”
“What does he want?”
“How would I know? If this were a horror flick, I’d say blood or brains.” Adrian shrugged even as the thing in the window pounded the glass, leaving wet, slobbery streaks on it.
“He wants to kill you.”
“Don’t sound so surprised. You wanted to do the same, as I recall.”
But she had a reason. She thought he’d hurt her. Instead, it turned out he was trying to help, and it was working. She was feeling almost back to normal, if in a new body that fascinated, the shape more defined, brimming with energy. “What are we going to do?”
“We,” he emphasized, “are doing nothing. You’re going to get something to eat while I handle Bryant.”
“You can’t go out there.” Did he not sense the danger lurking in that thing licking the window?
“I’ve got this, Jane. Bryant and those broken like him are my cross to bear.” That said, he closed the cabinet and strode to the sliding glass door, gun in hand.
The sight caused a moment of disconnect. What’s Adrian going to do with that gun? The Adrian she knew fought back with words.
As Adrian approached the back wall, the thing at the window cackled loud enough to be heard and jumped excitedly. She could only watch as Adrian entered a sequence of key presses on the pad beside the door. Beep. The door slid open as Adrian took a few paces back.
She waited for him to talk the thing down, just like he had with her.
But he said not a word as the monster dove in—bang—and hit the floor as Adrian shot it in the head.
Chapter Twelve
There was a moment of silence after Bryant hit the floor before Jane screeched, “You killed him!”
“Yes.” Adrian kept the word low as he glanced outside. He checked for more trouble before closing the door and locking it.
“You didn’t even try to talk to him.”
“Do you really think he would have answered?” Adrian asked, tucking the gun in the waistband of his pants.
She eyed him. Not his face. But his body. Her gaze tracking over his skin and lower, bringing an arousal that his tight underwear hopefully hid. As a teenager, she had fueled more than one erotic fantasy, and now as an adult, she was more alluring than ever.
She frowned. “I was out of it when I attacked you, but you didn’t shoot me.”
“I knew you weren’t a lost cause.” More like hoped, because he had a feeling she was his only hope.
“How could you know that? I came here to kill you,” she insisted.
He sighed and raked fingers through his hair. “What would you like me to tell you, Jane? Did I hesitate with you? Yes, I fucking did, which was dumb. Trust me, Jett has told me a couple of times now that I should have either locked you up or shot you by now.”
“Who’s Jett?” she growled.
“My right-hand man. One of the few left. And not the subject at hand. I am not the boy you remember. You’ve yet to truly meet the man. I will, however, say this; I won’t hesitate to do what has to be done.”
“Killing patients?” Her gaze flicked to the one on the floor. “Hiding evidence of what you did.”
“The world isn’t ready for what I can offer yet.” They might never be ready. Or even understand. He’d crossed so many lines in his pursuit of a cure. Trampled on people’s rights and feelings. Destroyed those who didn’t follow his vision.
Only now did he feel some remorse. But at the same time, he’d do it all again—especially if it meant saving Jane.
“What went wrong with his treatment?” she asked, the curiosity in her query a surprise.
“Bryant was a different case than both of us. He was in a bad helicopter crash. Lost both legs and an arm. Suffered a severe brain injury and burns over sixty percent of his body.”
Her nose wrinkled, possibly due to the potent stench filling the basement. “He doesn’t look burned. He has a lot of hair.”
His lips twitched. “Because, in order to regenerate surface skin, we had to blend his DNA with one that would reconstitute it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s complicated, and I want to tell you all about it, but I really need to get rid of this.” He waved a hand at the cooling corpse.
“You going to eat it?”
For a moment his hunger flared and demanded meat. His lip curled back over his teeth before he managed a barked, “Of course not!” The very fact she asked, though, made him wonder…had she eaten human flesh? And of even more interest, how did it taste?
Before he could ask her to spark the barbecue and pull out some spices, he came to his senses. “We don’t eat people, Jane.” Said in his sternest voice.
It didn’t stop the curve of her lips. “Now that’s a right shame. I would have taken you for a man who liked to give and receive.”
The flirting threw him off balance. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes. It appears you still lack a sense of humor.”
He pointed to the body. “This isn’t exactly funny.”
“No. It’s not. It’s very odd as a matter of fact. How did he know you lived here? Did the shadow tell him, too?”
“What shadow?”
She pressed her lips tight.
“Jane…” he cajoled.
“When you left the city, someone, I never saw their face, pointed me in your direction.”
“You had help?”
“Of a sort. But then, once I got going, I just knew where to go.” She shrugged. “Maybe it’s your magnetic personality?”
“Ha. Ha. Very funny.” But possibly true. “Did you know it was me you were coming to find?”
Again, her shoulders rolled. “Not exactly. I just remember being mad. And you being the source of that anger.”
“Everyone’s mad,” he grumbled. “Some days, I really wish I’d stopped at just curing myself.”
“But then I wouldn’t be here.” The soft answer brought his gaze.
“No. You wouldn’t. So the real question is, do the ends justify my actions?”
“Who says justification is needed? We are all thinking creatures capable of choice. Who’s to say your choice is wrong, or someone else’s right?” Her lips curved. “Do rules created b
y others really apply to an individual?”
“That’s some deep thinking, Jane. And probably not the right time for it. I’ve got to get this out of here.” He waved a hand to the body, wishing he could talk more at length with her. The very fact she could discourse and even make intellectual and moral argument was fascinating.
But if there was one rule in every mad scientist’s book, it was “get rid of the body.” The quicker, the better.
She stretched. “Party pooper.” The arch of her back thrust out her chest, and he looked away.
He needed space. Time to regroup and marshal his thoughts. “Listen, while I get this handled, why don’t you go have a hot bath. I’ve got a soaker tub with—” He never got to say jets. Jane squealed and took off.
He hoped it was a long one. Which led to him thinking of her, naked, in his bathroom, in his tub…
He stared at the dead body until the erection left.
Luckily, the cleaning crew arrived quickly to handle his newest mess. He’d thought about setting the corpse alight. However, given Jane was likely to dance on the body as it burned, and perhaps even have a nibble, he decided against it.
Best get rid of it.
While the cleaners never asked questions—just invoiced him an ungodly amount—he expected Jane would have plenty of things to say after her bath. Now that she’d become aware again, she was bright. Inquisitive. Way too fucking gorgeous.
He still remembered the feel of her mouth on his. The heat of her body. The desire that almost had him taking her, his one moral rule be damned.
But it was her heat that ultimately stopped him because the scientist in him wondered if she’d burn him alive once he sank balls deep into her.
Funny how the possibility excited, which, in turn, led to him doing the right thing and putting her to sleep.
Right? Ha. You should have fucked her.
Odd how that voice sounded like his.
He used the cleanup time to try and plan his next move. Even his next words. For the moment, Jane had stopped arguing that reality was but a dream. Which meant the truth he still had to impart would hit her hard. He’d yet to tell her about her parents. Nor had she thought to inquire about Benedict. And while she knew he’d cured her, she had yet to ask the most obvious—what did I do to her?