Wicked Attraction (The Protector) Read online

  The cycle had done a half turn, spraying gravel, and was heading back toward them. Ewan managed to get himself upright. He poised to pivot or run out of the way, but again, Nina shouted at him to stay still.

  He trusted her. He didn’t move. The cycle didn’t hit him.

  It hit her.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “I guess there’s no graduation ceremony or anything. Too bad. I was kinda looking forward to like, throwing my cap up in the air.” Al gives Nina a wide grin that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She shifts her NorthAm Army duffel over her shoulder and runs her hand over her freshly cropped white-blond hair. “So. This is it, Bronson. They’re kicking us out.”

  “This is it,” Nina agrees. She has a duffel bag of her own, although there isn’t much inside it. She has a couple sets of her army fatigues, along with the hospital scrubs she’s been wearing for the past few months. Her civilian clothes feel binding. Strange. She’s not sure how she’s going to adapt to the outside world after all this time, only that the idea of the freedom everyone seems so set on giving her feels more like a burden.

  Al shades her eyes, maybe looking for the transpo that was supposed to pick them up twenty minutes ago. “Any ideas where you’re going to go? I have a couple job leads. Nothing I’m supposed to talk about, obviously. Hush-hush. As if we aren’t the most visible people in about the whole world right now.”

  “I’m going home for a while. Live off the settlement money, I think. I haven’t seen my family in a long time.” Nina also looks for the absent transpo, eager to get on the road. Get home.

  “Did yours come to see you in the hospital?” Al gives Nina a curious look. “Mine did, which was harder than if they hadn’t. I’m an only child. I think it broke something in my mama to see me all bandaged up like that. They actually got a notice that I was dead, can you imagine? Whoever messed that up must’ve been fired.”

  Nina’s laugh is light and self-conscious. “My family didn’t come to see me, no. I don’t think they got a notice that I’d died, though.”

  “My parents sued. Got a big chunk of change, which is good for them. My settlement would keep me going for a while even without that, but it’s nice to know they could both retire early. I still think I want to work, though,” Al puts in. “I’m not much for staying home and being idle.”

  Nina spots the transpo heading their way, but there’s only one. “Typical. Leave it to the government to handle something as delicate and important as drilling our brains full of tech and training us to use it, but then they can’t even schedule the transpos for us to come at the right time.”

  “They didn’t handle that very well, either. They put stuff inside our heads, and it’s going to fail. It’s all going to fail.” Al turns toward Nina.

  Her eyes are full of blood.

  “We’re all going to die,” Al says, and then her entire head explodes.

  * * *

  Nina fought her way out of the dream as fiercely as if she’d used her fists and feet and teeth. She woke with a sharp gasp and strained against the blankets trapping her in the bed. Metal rails imprisoned her on either side.

  Hospital.

  “No,” she muttered.

  Was she still dreaming? Her mouth tasted sour. She stank of sweat, but the stench of antiseptic and chemicals was worse. It burned her too-sensitive nose. She’d learned to control that, she had, but now an array of stinks overwhelmed her, and Nina stifled a retch. She kept her stomach in its place only by sheer force of will—and probably because it was empty.

  The metal railing on her left gave way after two kicks. Her bare foot scraped a broken piece of metal, drawing blood and bringing a throbbing sting, but Nina didn’t care. She needed to get up, get out of this bed. She needed to wake up from this dream.

  She wasn’t dreaming. The tile floor, cold beneath her hands and on her cheek, as she fell out of the bed, was too real. Nina got to her feet, becoming aware she wore a cloth gown that opened in the back when the chilly air ran skeletal fingers up and down her spine. She put a hand to the neckline, meaning to tear it away from her body, but stopped at the ghost of her reflection in the window.

  She was in a hospital room, but not the hospital in which she’d woken after her initial surgeries. Not the research hospital, either, where she’d spent so many long months training to use the tech. This was an entirely different place.

  She was not dreaming. She hadn’t time-traveled. She’d been hit by a buzzcycle that had been trying to attack Ewan. She remembered everything now, and a grateful gasp of relief that she did remember forced its way up her throat.

  Breathing deep, calming herself, Nina braced against the sudden wave of agony in her head. With a groan, she pressed the heels of her hands to her temples and tried to squeeze away the pain. Faintly as though from far away, she became aware of a high-pitched and insistent beeping.

  The door opened. A pair of soft hands gripped her gently by the shoulders. Nina kept herself from turning and dropping the newcomer with a throat jab only because she’d have had to let go of her head to do so, and everything hurt too bad for her to do that.

  “Let’s get you back into bed,” a low masculine voice said. “C’mon, Ms. Bronson. You’re going to be shiny fine. I’m Jian, by the way. I’m your nurse.”

  Nina, shaking, allowed herself to be led back to the bed, but she didn’t get into it. She turned to face the lean man dressed in white. “I don’t want to be in bed.”

  “We need you in bed,” he told her, his voice calm but firm. “You’re still . . . well, you were attached to some IV lines for your pain meds.”

  She hadn’t noticed the blood spattered along her arm, her gown, and all over the floor from where she’d torn the needle from her vein. She’d dragged a foot through the mess, leaving a series of crimson streaks on the white tiles. The sight of blood had never bothered her, but now she felt faint. She looked at her arm, where the blood had already stopped flowing. Her body had already started clotting it. That part of the tech was working, at least.

  Nina shook her head. Her ears rung. She swallowed, hard, to fend off the dizziness. “They won’t work for me, anyway. I want to be up and about. I need to use the restroom.”

  They hadn’t cathed her, anyway, she could tell that much. The nurse frowned, glancing toward the half-open door Nina had guessed led to the bathroom. He nodded as though resigned and put a hand beneath her elbow.

  “I’ll walk you,” Jian said.

  There was no point in resisting. Nina had learned that long ago. There might be very few nurses who could beat her physical strength, but every single one she’d ever met had been more than her match in the mental determination department.

  To her surprise, she needed the assistance. She could see her legs from the knees down. Dark bruises covered them, and her knees were raw beneath thick bandages. Her ribs ached with every step, every breath. Now that she was recovering from the panic that had consumed her upon waking, Nina could notice all the places her body hurt, and it was most of them. Even her hair felt too heavy, tugging at her scalp.

  “You really took a tumble,” Jian said as Nina winced and took a few hobbling steps. “Don’t be afraid to take it easy. I’m here to help.”

  “I really need to use the bathroom,” she said, because now it was true. If she didn’t get there soon, she was going to embarrass herself. By the time they got her inside the small, sparse white bathroom, another set of chills was running up and down her spine, this time with the need to use the facilities.

  Jian helped her into the room and waited until she’d gripped the railings next to the toilet before he stepped out and let the door close partway behind him. Nina could hear his feet shifting on the tiles, but fortunately the hypersensitivity to scents had gone back under her control. She relieved herself, stunned at how weak she still felt. She had no idea how long ago she’d been in that parking lot with Ewan, but she ought to have been well on her way to recovery by now.

  At the sink