I had a hard time holding still.
“Damn it.”
I threw off the blankets as best I could and put my legs over the edge of the bed, running my hands over my face. The quiet in the apartment was strange to me. For once, Jack wasn’t snoring, and neither was Nanuk. Normally I could hear them both registering on the Richter scale on the other side of the door.
Everyone had insisted I take the guest bed because androids didn’t need to sleep. And everyone who wasn’t an android in our group was a man. Injured, old, both or otherwise, they were basically in constant competition to maintain an appearance of toughness.
And it was like that no matter how much I begged them to take turns with me. Even Cole, who’d been shot, would just give me his most suggestive smirk, lower his voice to an intimate level, and tell me, “Hey, I’m more than happy to get under those sheets with you, Cookie. But whether I keep you warm or not, you’re sleeping in the goddamn bed.”
So I took the bed. Sans Cole Byron.
Eventually, Jack would succumb to exhaustion and crash on the couch against the wall. It was a good couch, long and thickly cushioned, and Coach C had the best fleece blankets in the world, pretty much. So Jack was happy with the arrangement. Once he was out, Nanuk would curl up on the carpet next to him, also perfectly happy with the arrangement.
And then according to Sonia, who would observe the goings-on with an air of female amusement, it was usually a kind of contest between Nicholas and Cole to see who could stay awake longer. The loser would slip into his sleeping bag on the living room floor. The winner had to make do with just blankets, because Coach C only had one sleeping bag. We didn’t want to chance buying another since no one sane ever went camping in the winter in Ohio. The only reason someone would need one was for a sleepover – or because un-planned guests were crashing at your place. Hence, we figured a purchased sleeping bag might pop up on Zero’s radar.
But just then, although every human male in our group should have been out there asleep, I couldn’t hear any of them snoring. I shook my head and chalked it up to the odd night of decongested sinus passages.
As my eyes adjusted to the dim light in the bedroom, I sighed softly. My cast was another thing that was easy to see in the darkness. Every member of Prometheus had signed it. When it was time to have it removed, I was considering having it framed. In these times, each morning brought changes. A few of them were good, and a lot of them were not so much. Who knew what was going to happen tomorrow or the day after? At least this way, I would have some memento of my friends to remember them by.
I switched on the bedside lamp and blinked away the sudden brightness. Then I looked down at the scrawled names in their various colors, turning the cast over in the light. One day all too soon, this might be all I had left of them.
“You’ve torn through several of your stitches again, haven’t you?”
I gasped, and my head snapped up in surprise. Lucas sat in the large armchair in the corner of the room. His hands were on the armrests, and for a split second his expression was innocently neutral. But when his glittering gray eyes took in my shocked reaction, his brow furrowed. “I’m sorry,” putting his hands on the chair arms and leaning forward. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Damn, I thought. I forgot. I’d forgotten he was going to keep an eye on me while I slept. He usually did, when he wasn’t helping Jack with something or meeting with Daniel and the others to discuss plans of attack.
I shook my head. “No, it’s fine, Luke. It’s just… I forgot you were going to be there. I had a bad dream… I guess it made me a little jumpy.” I swallowed past the tightness in my throat and hated the flush of heat that came to my cheeks at the mention of my dream. It hadn’t actually been a bad dream, strictly speaking. And that was what made it ultimately bad. Because it had been about Zero, and in the dream, I hadn’t exactly hated him.
I shook my head, trying to dislodge the remnants of the bizarre reverie.
Lucas stood to his full height and approached the bed to sit down next to me. The bed dipped slightly beneath his android weight. He looked at my T-shirt. “You should probably let Byron tend to that,” he said. His gaze stayed on the red dots spreading across the shirt, and his features tightened a little. I studied his expression and realized he didn’t like talking about Nicholas. I wondered if he knew Nicholas had admitted having feelings for me.
But the last time I’d popped a stitch, Nicholas had been the one to help me sew myself back up. Because of the needle. I really hated those things. Using one on myself was just too much.
“Lucas…” I ground out wearily, “I really don’t want to do sewing needles. Not right now.” I closed my eyes and found myself laying my head against Luke’s shoulder. I felt his head turn to look down at me, and his arm slid across my back in comforting support.
“I understand, Samantha.” I marveled at his tone of voice. It was truly sympathetic, as if he really did understand. It made me think. And when I did, I realized that everyone else I knew would probably have taken this opportunity to tell me to “grow up” or “get over it” and do what needed to be done – and sew the wound back up.
But just then, in the middle of the night and in the midst of weariness and uncertainty, it took an android to fully encompass and display the empathy I so greatly desired. That I so thoroughly needed.
I drew in a deep breath, inhaling the scent of him. Androids had their own scents, built into them by FutureGen, and then Vector Fifteen. It was extremely faint and usually undetectable, but when it was it smelled a little like new rubber tires. A pleasant scent, strangely addicting.
But like Zero, Lucas of course had always been special. Zero smelled faintly of very expensive designer cologne, rather like Nicholas actually. Lucas smelled a bit like rain.
I released my breath and closed my eyes. He felt good against me, around me. He was warm and solid. I grew comfortable there in his embrace.
“How does your arm feel?” he asked softly, his lips brushing the top of my head as he spoke.
I gave my arm a tentative flex, which I’d been doing often lately out of a very real fear that when the cast came off, my arm was going to be stick-thin. I winced when pain instantly shot through it. No change there; it was still broken. Duh.
“I see,” said Lucas, who could probably hear my heart rate accelerate at the twinge. “I think I may be able to help you with that.”
I slowly straightened, coming off his shoulder. “What do you mean?”
He smiled a strange smile. “I mean I can help you, Samantha.” He gently lifted my casted arm. “I can help with this,” he said. Then he nodded to my T-shirt where it was being ruined by spreading blood stains. “And that.”
I frowned. Maybe I was still dazed from sleep and that admittedly heated dream I’d had, but I really didn’t understand what he was getting at. As I pondered his words, he tucked a strand of snow white hair behind my ear, his fingers sending electric fissures through me at their touch. Then he tenderly cupped my cheek with the same hand. His touch was warm and so, so gentle.
My eyes slipped to his lips. We’d all been so busy, he and I hadn’t kissed since Christmas Day….
But I was getting distracted.
He had something that could help me? Did he mean he could help me heal?
“Luke, I don’t understand. What do you have that can help?”
He tilted his head to the side as he studied me. Seconds passed, and his expression grew more serious. After a long, intense moment his stormy gaze dropped to my lips. With infinite tenderness, he brushed his thumb along the plumpness of my bottom lip, sending a shiver through me.
He caught the reaction of course; he saw everything. His pupils dilated slightly in response, and his eyes shot back to mine. In a tone I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard him use before, he said, “You make me feel, Samantha. When it would seem nothing else in this world can. That makes you a rarity more precious than existence itself.”
His expression darke
ned, his pupils swallowing the color of his irises. He came closer, and I felt captured by him in that moment, by his touch and his words that were setting me on a slow burn.
“You are a treasure, absolutely unique.” his eyes trailed to my pale, pale blonde hair, which due to my dream state fuss in bed, now tumbled wildly over my shoulders. It needed a trim; it was so long, it coiled on the bed beneath me. “And exquisite,” he continued while his gaze roamed bravely over me, my chest, my neck. He again captured my eyes with his. “You’re to be kept and cherished, Dandelion. At all costs.”
He seemed gravely earnest. His words rolled over me, processing too slowly in the wake of his nearness. I found myself rapt, unable to breathe. He shifted, expertly lowering me to the bed beneath him. His touch on me grew hotter – and hotter – nearly to the point of pain.
I inhaled sharply as I felt that perfect, nearly unbearable heat infiltrate my body like a coiling, swirling liquid that raced through my veins, licking at the walls of my insides as it went. I tried not to moan when the heat dipped low and all I could do was I stare up at him, lost and falling. He smiled a slow, seductive smile that was not like him at all but was still tremendously beautiful, and I watched his pupils continue to expand, swallowing up irises of the coldest, iciest blue.
Ice blue….
Blue eyes, Sam.
“This will make it all better, Dandelion.” He flashed a pure pirate grin, all perfect white teeth and devil’s desire. Then he lowered his lips to mine and whispered across them, “I’m going to take care of you. I promise.”
I closed my eyes as his lips claimed mine, softly at first, then with breathtaking brutality, pressing, opening, tasting, and laying waste to my defenses as if to make sure I never again put those defenses back up, never again raised that wall between us.
No defenses. No wall.
No wall.
Blue eyes, Sam!
I will cherish you, his deep voice echoed in my mind.
Awareness came to me slowly at first. It was in little thoughts that floated among the wreckage of my fever-racked brain. Thoughts like, He called me Dandelion.
And keep you.
He called me Dandelion twice…. And he has blue eyes.
Suddenly reality washed over me like an ice bath. And this time I did wake up screaming. I sat bolt upright in bed, my voice ripping from my throat to pierce the night in sheer terror. At once, the door to the guest bedroom crashed open and people rushed in. I experienced it all as if it were secondary, once-removed. I was still too wrapped in the static of sleep to be able to fully process reality.
“Samantha!” Familiar voices, several at once.
I felt hands on me.
“Sam, what the hell?! What’s wrong?” That one was deeper, older. It was Jack.
More hands, gently shaking, turning, testing.
“Sam! Are you okay?” That was Daniel.
“Damn girlfriend, what the fuck happened?” Sonia.
“Someone hit the light.” Jack again.
One after another, their questions attacked me. The light came on, and blindness assaulted me as pairs of hands gripped my body until one pair alone pushed the others away, and in the end, only his arms encased me. Gently. Warmly.
I realized I was crying when his voice by my ear said, “Shhhh, it’s okay. Everything is okay. You’re awake now.”
Jack swore at the foot of the bed. “That was just a goddamn dream? I fucking thought she was dying.”
Nanuk barked heartily. Apparently he agreed.
“You and me both,” Jack told the dog.
“I’ve got you,” said the one holding me. Luke’s soft voice caressed my ear.
He pulled back a little, and I recognized the movement as him putting enough space between us for him to scan me. For some reason, I didn’t care. I blinked through my tears to clear my vision. When I could finally see, I found pretty much the entirety of Prometheus, along with Coach C, standing around the bed.
Cole, Lucas, and Sonia were in fact on the bed with me. Nanuk had his two front legs up on the mattress as if he wanted to get up but knew he wasn’t allowed.
Lucas was holding me and looking down at me. But his expression looked perplexed.
“Samantha… this can’t be right,” he said, clearly confused. His EED was yellow. “Daniel.” He turned to the leader of Prometheus, and I could tell they were communicating telepathically. Then Daniel looked down at me again. Now he was scanning me.
His expression went from worried to astounded. “Sam… I don’t know how, but your injuries are fully repaired.”
“What?” Cole asked, straightening on the bed. “What the fuck are you talking about? What do you mean she’s repaired?” His choice of language was very similar to that of the other cop in the room, who simultaneously expressed bewilderment.
“Her arm is no longer broken,” said Lucas, his voice calm despite the impossibility of the situation. “It’s mended, and perfectly. Also, her appendectomy incision appears to be entirely healed.” He gave me a questioning look and eased his hand to the hem of my T-shirt. “Samantha, may I look?”
I couldn’t move or speak just yet. I was still held captive by the chains of the two piercing blue eyes from my dream.
Lucas seemed to realize this, and as my body trembled he made a command decision, easing the shirt up to expose my abdomen. I looked down. There was nothing there. No incision, no blood, no stitches, not even a scar.
My trembling became violent. I felt completely out of control in that moment. This was no dream. I was very much awake – and that incision was very much gone. I flexed the hand of my casted arm. No pain.
What in the nine hells had just happened to me?
“Samantha,” Lucas gripped my face in two gentle but firm hands and made me look at him. “What were you dreaming about?”
I tried to answer him, tried to say the name. But I couldn’t. More than shame, more than embarrassment, mayhem was claiming my consciousness and wreaking havoc with it. This didn’t make sense. It was impossible. And at the same time, I knew – somewhere in the back of my brain – I knew it wasn’t impossible. Not for him.
“B-blue eyes.” It was all I managed before I bit firmly down on my lip in an effort to keep from shaking anymore. Almost at once, I tasted blood.
“Fuck,” someone said. I couldn’t tell whether it was Jack, Cole or Nicholas. Maybe it was all three.
But this smaller pain was grounding me, taking my mind off the bigger things. Already, I felt the shaking begin to subside. Lucas pulled me against him again, allowing my trembling to radiate into his own hard body.
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” I looked up as he turned his attention to Nicholas even as Nick refused to tear his eyes off me. “None of our alarms have gone off. Vector Fifteen isn’t anywhere near us. So how does this happen, exactly? Tell me Nick, could Zero literally heal Samantha, and from distance?”
There was silence. It permeated the room as half of its occupants stared disbelievingly and the other half worked their brains around the answer. Finally Nicholas stated what I’d already figured out. “In theory, nearly anything is possible, Daniel. Zero has already proven he can gain access to Sam’s mind. We stopped using the co-crest because she developed the inner wall as a defense against him and it kept the co-crest from working too.”
He paused, then continued. “But if she didn’t have that wall up, he could have achieved entry. And as has been proven countless times in history – senior women lifting cars off their grandchildren, shamans piercing their bodies without drawing blood or walking over coals without sustaining burns – sometimes mind can literally win over matter.”
I processed that. But as I did, I delved inside myself and hurriedly tossed up that thick, metal wall. I wasn’t satisfied until I heard it clang shut and felt it vibrate throughout my soul.
Defenses. Lots and lots of defenses. Even though… despite everything he could have done with that kind of control over me, in t
he end all he’d done was heal me.
And kiss me, my inner demon thought quietly.
“In this case, the mind is Zero and the matter is Sam’s body?” Cole said coldly, posing it as more of a deadly toned statement than any kind of question. “That fucker was… inside her body? Screwing around in there?”
“Jesus, Cole!” exclaimed Sonia, shoving him hard enough that the Lieutenant slowly rose from the bed again.
Against me, Lucas actually stiffened. I looked up at his profile to find his EED was red, and his eyes were narrowed dangerously at Cole. He actually looked frightening enough that my mouth went dry.
But Cole caught the glare and glared right back. And then he pulled his gaze away from Lucas to look over at me. I stared up at him. Something in my expression must have given him pause because he straightened, blanched a little, and then ran his hand over his face. “Christ,” he muttered apologetically. “I’m sorry Cookie. That’s… fuck, I didn’t mean it that way.” He appeared helpless.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I know.”
The room fell silent again. This time, the silence was deafening.
Slowly, Lucas pulled away enough to look down at my face. His eyes slipped to my lips, and he frowned. A tissue appeared between us, and I looked to see that Charlotte was holding it. She smiled sheepishly and nodded to my lip.
“Oh,” I said, remembering that I’d tasted blood. I pressed the tissue to my lip and fought with all my might to compose my thoughts. I was bigger than this. I needed to pull myself together.
“Samantha, how do you feel right now?” Lucas asked, no doubt wanting verification that I was indeed back to one-hundred percent.
I focused on my body. Honestly, it felt good. I wasn’t sure how I mentally felt about that; ambiguous probably. But physically, I felt fine. I flexed my casted arm again. There was still no pain. I ran my other hand along my stomach, then flexed my abs just to make certain. Again there was no pain.
“Better. The injuries really are gone.”
More silence as everyone processed the confirmation and what it meant.
I blinked and took a deep breath. “Okay, so, here’s how we’re….” I broke off, swallowed hard, exhaled shakily as I weathered a wave of trepidation. I composed myself some more, and went on a little more solidly. “Here’s how we’re going to look at this. I’m healed. Zero did it.” I nodded, digesting it even as I said it. “We’ll worry about how and why later. For now, trust me. I’m keeping the wall up.” I touched my head gently, then lowered my arm and thought some more.
I, Android: A Different Model Page 25