The Recoil Trilogy 3 Book Boxed Set: Including Recoil, Refuse and Rebel

by Joanne Macgregor

  “How are Zonia and the rebels?” I ask eventually.

  “Zonia’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “Zonia’s dead. Darius, too. They were shot by guards in a raid at Hawke’s compound.”

  “That’s … Oh, Connor, that’s terrible!” My words sound inadequate. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  He makes a contemptuous sound. “Please don’t pretend like you gave a rat’s arse about either of them. If you cared about the rebels, then you should’ve stayed and helped us.”

  “Connor — let’s not fight, please. We need to decide if we’re going to take Quinn to hospital for treatment.”

  “No,” he says flatly.

  “The doctor says he should get a scan.”

  “Not. Happening.” As he gets angrier, his Irish accent gets stronger. “If he falls into their clutches, he’s dead anyway.”

  “But what if he needs —”

  “You have no say here. You’re not family.”

  I’m trying to stay civil, but his complete dismissal of me rankles.

  “I love him.”

  “Aye, so you say. But for someone who supposedly loves him, funny how you’re forever endangering him. You’re as bad as your name — a real jinx to our family.”

  A moan from the bed snaps our attention back to Quinn. His head is moving from side to side on the pillow, despite the rolled towel.

  “Look! Surely that means his neck is okay?” I ask, hope rising.

  One of Quinn’s feet jerks under the covers, and his fingers twitch.

  “Quinn. Quinn, how are ya?” Connor asks, bending over his brother.

  Quinn opens his eyes, blinks blearily and stares up at us with an unfocused gaze.

  “You’re awake!” I say, half-laughing with the relief of it.

  “Was I asleep?” Quinn asks, looking like he suspects he still is.

  “You were unconscious, for ages.” I check my watch. “For over twelve hours. I was so worried!”

  Connor snorts at this. He tells his brother, “Don’t move. I’ll go get the doctor.”

  Chapter 27

  Out of my mind

  When Connor leaves the room, I seize the opportunity to move into the spot near Quinn’s head.

  “I’m so glad you’re back,” I tell him, tears pricking my eyes.

  He yawns widely and looks around the room. “Where am I?”

  “At Tallulah’s.” At his blank look, I say, “We brought you to the Inner City Teen Shelter — we’re all here.”

  “Doctor,” he says slowly, as if Connor’s words have only just registered. “Am I in the hospital, then? Are you my nurse?” Quinn looks at me again, and this time he takes in the whole of me, including the stupid cut-off shorts and half-unbuttoned shirt I’m still wearing. A slow, sexy smile spreads across his face. “You don’t look like a nurse.”

  Uh-oh. This can’t be good.

  “Quinn?” I say, nervously.

  “That’s my name, is it?”

  “Quinn?”

  “Yeah, it feels like my name. Wasn’t there an old song about the Mighty Quinn? And what’s your name, my sweet?”

  “Quinn!”

  I stare at him in horror and then lay my hand on his forehead, as if testing for fever could tell me something about his confusion. Quinn takes my hand in one of his, rubs it against his stubbly cheek and smiles at me.

  Connor comes into the room, saying, “The doc’s on her way.”

  “Now you,” Quinn says, pointing the forefinger of one hand at Connor while still hanging onto my hand with the other, “I remember. You’re Connor, and you’re my brother, right?”

  He beams up at me, clearly proud of himself for getting this right.

  “What’s he on about?” Connor demands, glaring at me as if I did something to Quinn while he was out of the room.

  “He doesn’t remember who I am!” I say, my voice high with panic.

  Connor gives me an evil, satisfied smile and then tells Quinn, “Yes, I’m your big brother.”

  “Right,” says Quinn. He plays with my fingers while he hums a little tune, then suddenly looks up at me, a look of alarm creasing his features. “Wait, you’re not my sister, are ya?”

  “No!” Connor and I say at the same time, both horrified for different reasons.

  “Faith, that’s a relief! If we were related, it would be very wrong for me to have such thoughts as I’ve been having about you, darling,” Quinn says, giving me a rakish wink.

  At that moment, Dr. Beth comes in the room.

  “Good! You’re awake,” she says, smiling at her patient.

  “Am I though? It rather feels like I’m dreaming.”

  “There’s something wrong with him,” I tell Beth. “He doesn’t remember me.”

  “Ah, so I know you, do I? That pleases me.” Quinn seems utterly unconcerned about his patchy memory.

  “What’s your name?” Beth asks.

  “They call me Quinn,” he says, waving a hand at Connor and me.

  “And your surname?”

  He rolls his eyes up to one side, then the other, clearly thinking hard. He shakes his head, then grabs it with both hands.

  “Devil, but my head hurts! I think it might be cracking open.”

  “Can’t you give him something for the pain?” I ask Beth.

  She opens her medical bag, half fills a syringe with clear liquid from a small glass vial, and injects Quinn in his upper arm.

  “So you’re the doctor, are you?” he asks her.

  “I am. Can you tell me what day and date it is?”

  “I’m not sure. Sunday, perhaps?”

  Today is Wednesday.

  “Do you know who the current president is?”

  Quinn gives a low whistle. “Ah, now that’s a hard one.” He slides me a sideways glance. “Do you know?”

  I swallow hard and nod.

  “Would you mind telling her” — he jerks a thumb at Beth — “she wants to know. She’s full of questions. It’s making my brain ache. Also, I’m damned uncomfortable.” He wriggles and feels with his hands along his torso. “Why am I tied down?”

  “To keep you still,” Beth says, pulling aside the bedclothes.

  “I’m not a madman, am I? Is this a loony bin?”

  “What’s the last thing you recall?” Beth moves down to his feet and pulls off his socks.

  Quinn screws up his face with the effort of trying to remember.

  “It’s all mixed up. Like a dream. Just flashes and … Wait — did you leave home?” he asks Connor.

  “Yeah, a while ago now.”

  “There’s dogs. And a cat?”

  I try not to be mortally offended that Quinn remembers his pets, and not me.

  “Yes, that’s right. Surely, Goodness and Mercy,” Connor reminds him.

  “Ow!” Quinn jerks his foot away from Beth. “Did you just stick a pin in my toe?”

  “His reflexes seem okay,” Beth says and pricks a toe on his other foot.

  “Stop that, woman! Can you make her stop hurting me?” he asks me in a pitiful voice. Then, in a much happier tone, adds, “Those eyes, though — the color of sapphires — I know those eyes!”

  I smile encouragingly at him.

  “Did we kiss?” he asks me, smiling again. “We did, didn’t we?”

  “Yes.” Please let it be coming back to him.

  “Your name, I know it — almost. It’s like a whisper just too soft to hear.”

  For the first time, Quinn looks concerned.

  “Don’t strain yourself trying to remember her name. Of all the things you’ve forgotten, that’s the least important, trust me,” Connor says. “How’s the pain? Still bad?”

  “It’s a bit better.” Quinn sighs deeply and closes his eyes for a moment.

  “He’s got some post-traumatic retrograde amnesia,” Beth tells Connor and me. “Usually it clears up in a few hours or days.”

  “Usually?” I ask.

  “There may be bits he
never recollects.”

  From the nasty look Connor shoots me, I can tell he hopes I’m one of those bits.

  Quinn opens his eyes and says, “I can’t get it all straight. Where did you say I was?”

  “Don’t worry if it’s all a little confused now,” Beth says. “Falling out of a tree and landing on your head will do that to you.”

  “I fell on my head?” Quinn opens his eyes, looking more amazed than concerned.

  “Yeah, thanks to her,” Connor says bitterly, pointing at me.

  “Did you push me?” Quinn asks me.

  “No!”

  “You can count yourself lucky she didn’t shoot you again,” Connor snipes.

  “Again. You shot me before?”

  “Aye,” says Connor.

  “Define ‘shot’,” I say, looking down at my toes.

  “A beautiful lass who has both kissed and shot me — I think I should know your name,” Quinn says.

  “Jinx. You call me Jinxy.”

  “Whoa, hold the phones — something came back there. Jinxy. Jinxy. Yes … I remember that name. Are you …? Hmmm. Did you have blue stripes in your hair?”

  “Yes!”

  “And did I give you that earring?”

  “Yes.” Tears of relief well up in my eyes and spill over. “It’s the pair of the one in your eyebrow.”

  He lifts a hand to feel for the earring, and I notice that it automatically goes to the correct brow. “Ah, yes. Yes.”

  “It’ll start coming back in bits and pieces. Just relax and take it easy,” Beth tells him. “And don’t worry, most people get almost all of it back.”

  “I’d like to get all the memories of you back.” Quinn grins at me again.

  “Huh, you wouldn’t if you knew what she’d done,” says Connor.

  The thought flashes across my mind that Connor’s mad Quinn is paying more attention to me than to him.

  “What’s that then?” Quinn asks.

  “She betrayed us. She shot us both.”

  “For the hundredth time, they were tranquilizer darts!”

  “She abandoned the rebel movement when we needed her most.”

  “I haven’t abandoned the rebellion. I just don’t agree with your methods, and I won’t be your pawn.”

  “And she inveigled you away from our cause, too.”

  “I did not! Quinn’s an adult. He makes his own choices.”

  Quinn’s frown deepens as he glances from me to Connor and back again.

  Beth waves an impatient hand at us. “Will you two give it a break! This hostility is not conducive to rest and recuperation.”

  Connor can’t seem to resist getting another jab in, though. “Bottom line, brother, she’s a jinx alright. She’s not to be trusted.”

  But Quinn has taken my hand again and is smiling up at me dreamily — though that may just be the pains meds kicking in.

  “Oh, I don’t know, brother. My head might not remember her, but I feel like my heart does,” he says.

  I stare back into his gray eyes and try to put all the love I feel into my own.

  “I’ve got a good feeling about you,” Quinn says and pulls me down for a kiss. When he lets me go a moment later, he says, “Jinxy, lass, will you do me a great favor?”

  “Anything.”

  “Will you tell me why I’m stretched out like a starched shirt on an ironing board?”

  Chapter 28

  Out of luck

  October 18

  After a long, hot shower, I surrender to my bone-deep exhaustion and allow myself to sleep for a few hours. I want to lie beside Quinn, but Beth says not to in case I jostle him. So I find a bed in another room in the shelter and collapse on it, but only after Cameron swears he’ll stay with the patient. I wouldn’t put it past Connor to try to smuggle his brother out while I’m asleep.

  I wake up mid-morning, brush my hair and teeth, and go check on Quinn.

  “How are you?” I ask him, noting with pleasure that he has some color in his cheeks and his eyes are properly focused.

  “I have the mother of all migraines, but other than that I feel fine. Hungry, though. Famished!”

  “And your memory?”

  “It’s mostly all come back, though it’s pretty jumbled.” He runs a hand through his hair and winces when it touches the lump on the side. “I remembered the time when you darted Connor and me.”

  I’d been hoping that one would stay lost in the amnesic void.

  “But I also remember … did we canoodle up in a tree?”

  “Yes, we did. Do me a favor — hang onto that version of me, okay?”

  “I still don’t remember anything after we left Stapla.”

  “Well that’s a damned shame, O’Riley, because some pretty significant things happened after that.”

  “They did?”

  “Oh yeah. For one thing, you told me you loved me.”

  He smiles his slow, sexy grin. “I do indeed.”

  “And for another, you promised to give me daily back massages.”

  He takes one of my hands in his and starts playing with my fingers, sending tingles up my arm.

  “I did?”

  I nod, straight-faced. “And then you vowed to keep me in the style to which I’ve grown accustomed.”

  “Which is?” he says, looking worried.

  “Chocolate muffins.”

  “Ahh. Well, I’ll do my best, lass.”

  “And lastly …”

  “There was more?”

  “You committed to be my slave for life.”

  “You’ve already enslaved my heart, wench, what more do you want?”

  “All of you.”

  “Done!” he says, flourishing his hand like a king passing a royal decree. “Now may I have something to eat?”

  With a giggle, I plant a quick kiss on his lips and promise to return with food.

  “Bring lots, Jinxy. I could eat a horse.”

  I follow the smell of cinnamon and butter to the kitchen, where I find Robin and Sofia at the scrubbed wood table, eating freshly baked cinnamon rolls. Two teen boys, pouring themselves cups of coffee at the machine in the corner, look up when I enter. The one elbows the other, who grins at me, and then they saunter out, suppressing laughs.

  I fill Robin and Sofia in on Quinn’s much-improved condition and ask, “Where is everybody?”

  “Beth is catching some shuteye, I think,” Robin replies. “And Bruce and Cameron were in here earlier, washing dishes.”

  Ha! Wish I’d seen that.

  “Evyan helped Tallulah make breakfast and bake these beauties.” Robin sinks his teeth into a roll and closes his eyes in pleasure.

  “Here” — Sofia hands me a plate of the rolls — “I had to fight Carlos off to save these for you and Quinn. If you’re looking for Bruce, Cameron and Evyan, they’re in the games room now.”

  “They’re not playing The Game, surely?” I ask around a mouthful of sweet pastry.

  “No, I think Evyan’s teaching the boys how to pick locks,” Sofia says.

  I wonder if Connor has told her and Neil about Zonia and Darius yet.

  “She’d better not be teaching the teens in the shelter how to pick locks. Tallulah will kill her if she leads the ‘lambs’ astray,” I say.

  “Speaking of unlocking things, we need to get back to work,” Robin says.

  “Work?”

  “We’ve set up the equipment we were able to bring — Neil had a bunch already stashed in the van — and we’ve recovered what we stored in the cloud and from the storage devices I brought. Last night, Neil jumped straight back into that other layer of encrypted code. He says he’s finally getting somewhere.”

  “Are you helping him with that?” I ask, placing three rolls on a plate and adding some wedges of cheese I find in the refrigerator.

  “Nah, I’m on black hat duty. Cyberwarfare,” he adds when I give him a blank look. “With the help of my right-hand woman here,” Robin says, breaking off a frosted piece of pas
try, and feeding it to a blushing Sofia, “I’m creating some truly evil malware — malicious software — which I plan to upload into The Game to create a lethal cyber infection.”

  “Will it destroy it?”

  “Oh yeah. It’s Neil’s and my job to write the malware, but it’s your job to figure out a way to get into PlayState to upload it manually.”

  “Sure, no problem. I’ll figure out something this afternoon, shall I?” I say sarcastically.

  Robin finishes his last bite of food, then rinses off his and Sofia’s plates in the sink and stacks them on the drying rack, while she wipes the table free of crumbs, covers the remaining cinnamon rolls with a tea towel, and places them on top of the fridge. If she’s trying to hide them from Carlos, she’ll need to do better than that.

  “Before you go,” I say, when they head for the doorway, “have we picked up anything useful from the bugs at Stapla?”

  “Bad news there, I’m afraid,” Robin says, grimacing.

  “What now?”

  I’m so tired of bad news. I feel like a punching bag that’s spent the last four years being pummeled with blow after blow of bad news. When will there be good news?

  “They obviously knew pretty soon after we left that we weren’t the real cadets, and they must have called security services immediately for a sweep, because the bugs stopped transmitting about an hour after we left.”

  “We only got an hour? After all that effort and risk?”

  “’Fraid so.”

  “Was there anything on it?”

  “Not much. The doctor said something about a new protocol coming out in the Go!Game — probably new ads — and another woman with a really quiet voice may have said something about synaptic enrichment, whatever that is,” Robin says. “Oh, and she — the quiet one —”

  “Isn’t it always the quiet ones?” Sofia sniggers.

  “Is doing the dirty with some guy in a cubicle in the ladies’ restroom,” Robin says.

  “With Kenny,” Sofia adds.

  “Oh right, how could I forget? Kenny, oh Kenny, yes, Kenny, yes!” Robin mimics a high, breathy voice, and he and Sofia leave the kitchen, laughing.