by Anna Hackett
He watched one girl struggling against her taller boyfriend. The young man was laughing, and clearly trying not to hurt her wrists. Roth stepped up and turned the girl’s wrist with a gentle hand. “Like that, Clare. Now push down. Fast.”
The slender girl nodded and when she got free, she did a little victory dance. “I did it!”
Her boyfriend, Leo, was grinning at her. Roth knew the pair had been found by Hell Squad, living in an underground train station in the city. Since they’d been at Blue Mountain Base, they’d both filled out and lost the gaunt, haunted look they’d had, and both smiled readily now.
“Great job, keep it up.” He wandered the groups, helping and praising each pair.
“I see this is putting you in a slightly better mood,” Mac said with an arched brow. She nudged him with a shoulder. “You were in a foul one this morning.”
He grunted.
“You want to talk about it?”
The quiet, sincere words made him relax a little. “No. Look—”
Suddenly, the training room door slammed open and Chef hurried in, alarm stamped on his face. He searched the room, his dark gaze settling on Roth.
Frowning, Roth moved to meet the man.
“Masters, you’ve got to come to the kitchen.”
“What? What’s happened?” Roth felt a strange sense of panic, his chest contracting.
“Avery…she fell off a ladder while stocking some shelves.” Chef ran a huge hand over his bald head. “Jesus, there’s blood everywhere.”
Roth grabbed the man’s shoulders, harder than he’d intended. “Is she okay?”
“Don’t know. She bumped her head badly. She won’t go to the infirmary. Keeps asking for you.”
“Dammit.” Roth turned to Mac. “Take over the class for me.” He didn’t wait to see her response, just hurried out of the room, Chef close behind him.
They didn’t speak as they jogged through the tunnels toward the kitchen. Roth slammed through the door.
Shit. His pulse tripped. Avery was sitting against the wall, with what looked like a kitchen towel pressed to her head. Blood soaked the neckline of her gray tank top.
Roth hurried over and knelt beside her. “Shit, sweetheart.”
She looked up at him, blinking slightly unfocused eyes. “Roth?”
His first name on her lips. He sucked in a deep breath. It felt like some sort of win in this battle of wills of theirs. He grabbed the cloth and eased it away, wincing at the wound on her scalp. “You’ve got a nasty gash. You need to see the doc—”
She shoved his hand away. “I remembered something.” Her gaze seemed more focused now. “God.” She closed her eyes for a second. “I remember the meetings with the raptors. The small raptor did all the translating. There were three meetings…”
“Okay.” He wanted to know, but strangely, right now all he cared about was getting her head taken care of. “Tell me later. I’ll help you to the infirmary.”
“No.” She slapped a hand on the floor, a twist of desperation on her face. “I might forget something. Or one of those godawful black holes might take over. I need to get this out.” Her hands gripped his, her nails digging into his skin. “Please.”
He pressed the cloth back to her head. She’d fight him every step of the goddamned way to the infirmary. He knew that stubborn tilt to her jaw already. “All right. Tell me.”
“There were three meetings. At the first, they were just feeling us out. They didn’t really demand or give much away.” She rubbed a finger against her cheek, smearing blood on her skin.
Roth looked over his shoulder at Chef. “Get another clean cloth.”
The big man nodded and hustled to comply, handing a freshly laundered towel to Roth.
“Go on,” he told Avery. He started wiping the blood off her face.
She stared at him for a second, then gave her head a tiny shake. “At the second meeting I felt like they were showing off. They were rubbing our faces in their superior tech, showing us how powerful they were.”
“Did they make any threats?”
She shook her head, winced. “No. Not then.” The lines in her face deepened. “But they were setting the groundwork for it.”
“What did they want?”
“They still didn’t say.” She released a long breath and looked at him. “Not until the third meeting.”
Roth got that feeling that always crept in right before a mission went fubar. Like his chest was filling with concrete. “Go on.”
“They demanded a third of the world’s population.”
Roth froze. “What?”
“That’s what they wanted.” She closed her eyes, her head falling back against the wall. “Billions of people. They wanted us to just give them billions of people.”
“God.” Roth tried to comprehend the words coming out of Avery’s mouth and failed.
Those hazel eyes opened. “They said if we handed over the people they wanted, they’d leave. No one had to die.”
Roth scraped a hand through his hair. “Hell.”
“I wouldn’t consider it. But the Coalition leaders ordered me to keep negotiating, to try and get the number down.”
“Bastards.”
“They told me they wouldn’t accept any deal…that we just had to keep them busy while we looked at other options.” She shook her head.
“You didn’t believe them.”
“No. They were hoping to get an ‘acceptable’ number of losses. Maybe offload criminals, and others they deemed not worthy.”
Roth stood, his hands on his hips.
“I…my memories are murky after that. I was pissed. I went through the motions, but I suspect the Gizzida knew we were stalling.” She sighed. “I screwed up…and billions died for it anyway.” She made a choked noise, her hand resting on her thigh curled into a hard fist. “I don’t remember anything after that third meeting.”
“Okay, okay. That’s enough. Come on, you need to see the doc.” He gripped her arm and helped her to her feet.
She muttered under her breath, sagging against the wall. “Dammit. My vision is a bit blurry.” Then she straightened. “Wait…I remember something else. Something I thought, but I couldn’t prove.”
“What?”
“The smaller raptor, the translator—” big hazel eyes met his “—I think he was a former human. I can’t say what made me think that…just a few words and phrases he used. It wasn’t precise enough for someone who’d learned English as a second language. It was just my gut instinct that made me think that.”
God. Roth let that sink in. Perhaps the Gizzida had come earlier, and “tested” their genesis procedure on humans to ensure they were compatible. He stared at the blood-soaked cloth and then back at Avery, standing there, swaying on her feet.
He slipped an arm around her back. “Enough for now. We’ll analyze it all later. Infirmary.”
She huffed out a breath, taking a few unsteady steps. “God, you are bossy.”
“Shut it, Stillman.”
They made it into the corridor. When she cursed under her breath he frowned down at her dark head.
“Uh…my vision is really blurry now…I can barely see.”
Roth cursed too. He bent and scooped her into his arms.
She made a little squeak. “I don’t like being carried.”
“I don’t care.” He stalked down the hall and moments later, slammed into the infirmary.
Doc Emerson hurried over, her white lab coat flapping around her legs and her blonde hair brushing her jaw. “Roth! What did you do to her?”
He scowled. Did people really think he’d hurt her? “Nothing—”
“Fell off a ladder,” Avery said.
“Over here.” Doc Emerson pushed back a curtain into an exam room. “Put her down here.”
He set Avery on the bed, the pale shade of her face making his gut cramp.
“Out.” The doc nudged him back, none too gently.
Roth leaned against the wall a
nd crossed his arms.
Doc rolled her eyes. “You alpha males are all the same. Fine. Just stay out of my way.”
He watched her work, hooking Avery up to a scanner, talking in a low, calm voice as she probed the head wound and asked Avery questions.
Finally, Emerson stepped back, slipping her handheld scanner into her coat pocket. “Okay. I’ll start with the good news. We can seal the external wound. It’s not bad, but head wounds always bleed like hell.” Then the doctor’s sunny face turned serious. “But the bad news is that you have some pressure building. Your brain is swelling a little. I’m going to have to give you a dose of nanomeds, but they’ll fix you up in no time.”
Avery leaned back against the pillows. “Do it.”
The doc bustled around, grabbing items off a tray. She lifted an injector filled with a glowing, silver fluid. Roth knew it was actually microscopic medical machines that would race through the body, fixing what they could. He also knew they hurt like hell going in, and if not properly monitored, could go a little crazy and kill the patient.
As the doc prepared to inject, Roth moved closer and grabbed Avery’s hand.
She turned her head, studying him for a second, then she looked back at the doc. But her fingers curled around his.
The doc depressed the injector, and Avery gritted her teeth. Roth gritted his own teeth sympathetically, and wished he could take away the pain.
“All done.” Emerson patted Avery’s leg. “Now I have to adjust the monitoring scanner. You just relax until the nanos are finished. If you feel any pain at any time, let me know.”
Avery relaxed back against the pillows. “Doc Emerson, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.” The doctor faced them with a small smile.
“What options do you have available here for memory stimulation?”
Roth’s hand flexed on hers, but she didn’t look at him.
Emerson’s smile evaporated like smoke. “Memory stimulation is dangerous…whatever the method.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Emerson shot Roth a quick glance before focusing back on Avery. “There are drugs. They have varying levels of success, and can leave you feeling like you went on a weeklong bender with a bad batch of homebrew.”
“And what about electrode stimulation? Do you have the capability to carry it out?”
Emerson’s lips firmed into a flat line. “That procedure is dangerous.”
“But if it’s necessary, the risk is worth it.” Avery shifted on her pillows. “And used in conjunction with certain drugs, it can help lower the risk of side effects.”
“Side effects?” Emerson said sharply. “It can damage your brain, Avery.”
“I need to remember, Doc. It’s important to all of us.”
“No.” The word burst out of Roth.
Avery turned her head. “You should be jumping for joy. The chance to unlock my memories, and learn more about the Gizzida. Learn something that could help us defeat them.”
“No.” He scowled.
Avery rolled her eyes. “The stoic alpha male crap doesn’t fly with me, Roth.” She turned back to the doctor. “Could you send all the details to my comp, please? I’ll look them over and consider all the options.”
The doctor looked like she wanted to argue, but gave a single nod. “I’ll be back later to check on you.”
Roth sat on a nearby stool. “You can think all you want. You won’t do it.”
“It’s my decision, Masters.” That stubborn chin lifted. “And you have no say in it.”
Chapter Five
Avery finished bagging up some food scraps to drop off to Old Man Hamish for his compost, but her thoughts were far from the kitchen or the hydroponic gardens.
Her mind kept bouncing between whether she should risk the memory stim techniques, and of course, obsessing over Roth Masters, and that wild kiss in the dining room. The man just got under her skin…like annoying splinters.
She tied a knot in the bag. Okay, she admitted it, she was insanely attracted to him. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. Why? Why did she have to be drawn to the big, annoying alpha soldier? She didn’t need him. In fact, he was the last thing she needed. She needed to focus on the raptors and finding a way—any way—she could help get rid of them.
The kitchen door opened. She half expected to see Roth’s large frame and scowling face, but the slim figure who crossed the kitchen was definitely not Roth.
“Hi, Avery,” Elle Milton said with a smile.
Avery grabbed a towel and dried her hands. “Hi, Elle. You looking an after-dinner snack? Or is Santha craving more sweet things?”
Elle shook her head. “Santha’s probably still having cravings, but Cruz has banned me from sneaking her that homemade fudge Chef’s been making.” The brunette winked. “At least he thinks he’s stopped me.”
Avery couldn’t help but smile. It seemed Hell Squad’s women had worked out their own ways around their overbearing men. “So what can I help you with?”
Elle shifted a little, her face turning serious. “Noah and I have a backup memory drive in the comp lab.”
“Uh-huh.” Avery knew Noah Kim, the tech genius who kept the lights on and the ventilation flowing, and fixed just about every other electronic item in the base, was some sort of electronics whiz. The few times she’d seen him, the part-Australian, part-Korean man was grumpy and usually preoccupied. He reminded her of the geek squad back at Coalition Central Intelligence.
“It’s a CCIA drive,” Elle said.
Avery straightened. “Really?”
The other woman nodded. “We tracked the security code etched on it. We can’t crack it. The encryption on it is rock-solid.” Elle clasped her hands. “Do you think you can get us in?”
“I can try.” Adrenaline surged through Avery’s blood. The chance to be useful again, apart from peeling vegetables, made her bounce on the balls of her feet. She arched her head back. “Chef, I need to head to the comp lab. You all right by yourself?”
“Yeah, just about finished up, Av. Catch you later.”
It was a quick walk to the comp lab. A sign hung on the door saying, Shh, genius at work.
Avery raised a brow. “What’s it like working with Noah?”
Elle wrinkled her nose. “The guy can make anything electronic sit up and do his bidding. He can solve problems before I’ve even finished figuring out the problem to begin with, and the rest of the tech team love him.”
“I hear a but in there.”
Elle grinned. “He’s super intelligent, arrogant with it, speaks his mind, and can be a bit moody.”
Avery cocked her head. “Are you telling me that Marcus is never moody?”
“Oh, no. Marcus has moody down to an art form.” She smiled a gentle smile. “Although he’s much better lately. Happier.”
And Avery could guess why. She tilted her head. “Aren’t you…?” She shook her head. “Never mind.”
“Oh, please ask. I don’t mind.”
“Aren’t you afraid…for Marcus? That you’ll lose him?”
Elle smiled. “Every day. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s worth the worry. Every second of it.”
Avery wasn’t so sure.
“Anyway, Noah can swing from ecstatic over something to angry in a flash. So watch out. Oh, and if Captain Bladon is anywhere around, just duck for cover.” The comms officer shook her head. “Those two are like repelling magnets. They do not like each other, period.”
“Right.” Avery pushed through the door.
“Dammit to hell!” a deep male voice intoned followed by some cursing in what Avery guessed was Korean.
A piece of what might have been a comp flew past and hit the wall.
Elle thrust her hands on her hips. “Noah!”
The tall man turned. His black hair was long, brushing his shoulders, and framing a face Avery couldn’t decide was handsome, interesting, hawkish, or a bit of all three. His dark eyes nar
rowed. “Didn’t know you were going to walk in at that exact moment.”
Elle stamped a foot. “Was that your half-assed attempt at an apology? I swear, you’re worse than the Hell Squad guys sometimes.”
Noah stalked around his desk and dropped into a beaten-up chair. He snatched something off the shelf behind him, turning it over in his fingers. Avery squinted slightly, and realized it was two small cubes—dice. The shelf was loaded with them—in all different shapes, sizes and colors.
“Sorry.”
Avery smothered a laugh. That was the most grudging apology she’d ever heard.
“You were fine when I left.” Elle snatched up the broken comp part and set it on a spare desk.
“I’m just peeved we can’t get into this.” He gestured at the slim black box on his cluttered desk. “And the Dragon called, said the comps in the prison cells aren’t working…again. I don’t know what the hell they do down there, but that comp was working perfectly last time I had the displeasure to be down there.”
Elle shook her head. “Noah, this is Avery Stillman.”
Dark, assessing eyes settled on her. “Hi.”
She raised a hand.
“Avery worked for the CCIA.”
Noah’s gaze sharpened. “Analyst?”
“No.”
He sank back in his chair, running the dice between his fingers. The move was practiced enough for her to realize he did it a lot.
“Agent, then. How high up?”
Old habits died hard. She’d never give away her secrets to someone she didn’t know. Even in the middle of an alien apocalypse. “High enough to get you into that.” She gestured at the drive.
“Excellent. Elle, can you set up former Agent Stillman at a desk? Get her what she needs.”
“Just Avery.” Why did everyone want to rub her face in her now long-gone job?
“Come on,” Elle gestured toward an empty desk. “Take a seat and let me know what you need.”
Soon Avery was hunched over the CCIA drive. She’d spliced it into the comp and was tapping away at the screen. She cursed loudly. The encryption was airtight. Better than almost everything she’d seen at the agency.