We both knew something about nightmares, and I had some brand-spanking-new ones waiting for me when my eyes finally shut. Nightmares involving teenagers and their pulverized faces. “I’m going to rest,” I said.
“I said sleep, not rest. Big difference, and I know you. Dr. Kinsey can probably give you something—”
“No drugs.” I’d gotten too used to the painkillers the doctors had put me on for the burns, and detoxing from them had not been fun times. Doing all that right before the big earthquake and the clones had been extra-special, and I’d made it a rule to avoid pills of any kind whenever possible.
“Renee—”
“No. Now will you please get out of my way? Dr. Kinsey has actual sick people to worry about, including your better half’s worse third.”
“Huh?” Ethan stared blankly at me as he worked out what I’d said. “My better—you mean Noah?”
Shitsticks, I hadn’t meant to let that slip. But I wasn’t going to lie to him. I was way past grasping for tact and caring if people got pissed at me. “You and Aaron need to have a sit-down with Double Trouble and the doc. Like, right now.”
I stepped around him while he was still somewhat stupefied and shut my bedroom door with a satisfying slam, confident he wouldn’t follow me with more questions. He’d go right to the source, because that was Ethan. He didn’t like playing games, especially when people he cared about were in trouble.
Or dying from their own in-the-moment choices, as was the case with Noah and Dahlia. She was killing him, but he would apparently rather go down with the ship than let her go to save himself.
He loved her.
I yanked open the top dresser drawer and removed a digital album. I’d stored only a handful of photographs in it for safekeeping, not for display. One was of my foster parents, another of the three of us standing next to their horse pasture. The third photo was of a group of Meta children, taken a lifetime ago. I’d found a copy of the photo in storage when we were preparing to abandon our Los Angeles HQ last spring. Six kids in it, and the only two still alive were me and Teresa. Back then her brown hair was purple-streakless, her skin pale and perfect. I was only nine, so my skin hadn’t finished darkening to the dusky blue it was now.
The face I wanted to see was in the back of the photo, so shy even then, despite his physical strength. I missed William so much lately. We’d teased each other and flirted clumsily, up until the day we were sent to war. I’d opened up to him last January. I’d wanted so desperately to be accepted and loved for the person hiding behind the blue skin and big boobs, and he’d given me that—for a couple of fantastic, bittersweet days. And I didn’t have any pictures of him as an adult.
My doorknob rattled. I put the album away and shoved the drawer shut.
Knocking.
“Renee, don’t make me turn the lock into aluminum,” Thatcher said, voice muffled by the door.
I turned the dead bolt, then threw open the door. “What?”
“Ethan and Aaron just came charging into the infirmary yelling at Dr. Kinsey about telling them the truth.” He quirked a curious eyebrow. “Landon was asleep, so I thought I’d make myself scarce. Any idea what that’s about?”
“Yes.” I didn’t elaborate, even though he was clearly waiting for it.
“Okay, then. May I come in?”
“Why not?”
I stepped aside so he could enter, then locked the door just in case anyone else decided it was open season on me and my big mouth.
“I take it you didn’t come up here and sleep after you left me,” he said.
“How did you guess?”
He missed my sarcasm and tilted his head toward my perfectly made, unmussed bed—an old habit from my foster father, who’d been in the military as a young man, years before meeting his wife.
“I’d like a nap but people keep interrupting me,” I lied. In fact, I liked the constant distractions. They kept me from falling over from exhaustion. “If you thought I was sleeping, why’d you come here?”
“I was worried about you.”
“I’m still here.”
“For how long?”
I blinked. “Huh?”
He leaned against my dresser but failed at keeping the pose casual. He was tense. “In the infirmary, you sounded as though you’d made a decision to leave.”
“I had. I left the infirmary.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Do I really know that? Gee, thanks for telling me what the fuck I know, Derek.”
“Look me in the eye and tell me you haven’t seriously considered leaving the island, the team, all of this.”
“Of course I’ve considered it! I consider it all the time, but that doesn’t mean I’ll ever actually do it. Even if I never go out into the field again, my family is here.”
“You’re still an asset in the field.”
“My blue ass, I am. You’ve known me, what? A week?”
“And I’ve seen you work, Renee. You try to hide it, but you genuinely care about people, especially other Metas. Why do you hide your feelings from everyone?”
“Because having feelings means you get hurt.”
He shook his head, lips twisting in a sad smile. “Everyone gets hurt. It’s an inevitable part of life.”
“How badly you get hurt depends on how much you let yourself care.”
“And you won’t let that happen to you again.”
I took a furious step closer to him, near enough to reach out and poke him without using my powers. “You don’t know me.”
“I’m trying to.”
“Well, stop.”
“Can’t. You’re under my skin, Renee.” He moved toward me, closing the space between us to less than two feet. “Tell me I’m not under yours and I’ll leave.”
My heart pounded and my lips twitched, but I couldn’t say it. We had no future past this week, and I couldn’t say that, either. Despite the prison walls that would separate us soon, I wanted to feel something again. Feel beautiful and wanted and cared about—even if only for a little while.
I didn’t speak. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down into a hard kiss that banged our teeth together. Hands tangled in my short hair, holding me close—like I was going anywhere—while his mouth plundered mine. The tenderness of our first kiss was gone. This was fast, fierce, and then we were moving. My back hit the wall and his hips pressed into mine, and that was okay, too, because this was Derek, and deep down I knew he wouldn’t hurt me.
He was hard and I wanted him, and holy wow, this was going to happen. I worked a hand between us, down, until I cupped his erection through his pants. He shuddered, thrusted, moaned into my mouth, and I grinned at the power in such a simple thing. Then again, the man hadn’t had sex in more than fifteen years. He was so stoic, so controlled. Suddenly, more than anything, I wanted to see him fall apart.
I spun us so his back was to the wall, then broke the kiss. He watched me, wide-eyed and flushed, breathing hard through his mouth and so damn handsome. I unbuttoned his shirt with slow, deliberate fingers, never once breaking eye contact. So many things were in his eyes, including trust. Once I’d pushed his shirt off his shoulders, I admired his naked torso. The hard biceps and firm, not-quite-six-pack abs. The light smattering of dark hair on his pecs and below his navel, leading down into his slacks. There were scars, too, some as wide as a finger and others as thin as a pencil line. I touched, too, as I looked. Smoothing my fingers across his skin, sometimes soft and sometimes rough. His muscles jumped and bunched, and his breaths became shorter the longer I played.
The only real imperfection was the tracking monitor strapped to his ankle—a painful reminder of who we both were and still would be when this was over.
He made a noise that sent a bolt of arousal right through me. I dropped slowly, deliberately, to my knees,
