Dark Demise

by Rebecca Royce

  And he’d thought of me? The faith stunned me silent. I’d worked with Ari a dozen times, and I hadn’t even been sure if he’d known I was in the room. Nurse this, and nurse that. Very clinical and done. He’d seemed distant and remote.

  Twisting, I glanced at the pair behind me. “Are you okay now, Canyon?” That seemed the most important thing to ascertain right then.

  The Super Soldier blinked rapidly, as though I’d stunned him. He nodded once. “We recover quickly. I got back in time.”

  “That’s good.” Okay, this required some kind of answer. “Yes, I’d be happy to help. This seems very important. Any way I can be of assistance, I’d like to be.”

  Keith made a whooping sound from behind me. With the four sources of my infatuation all in the room, I’d all but forgotten he was there. “I told you she’d say yes.” He patted me on the soldier. “Paloma, Diana, my brothers, Di’s guys, Melissa, her husbands, they know.”

  Judge rolled his eyes. “Thanks for summing us up like that. Di’s guys. I like it. I’ll take it.” His tablet beeped and he winced. “Gotta go. Sorry. I haven’t seen the baby in eight hours. It’s too long. I’ll be back tomorrow to see if I can get any further with the coding.”

  Keith rubbed his eyes. “I haven’t slept in two days, and my wife is three weeks from giving birth. She is okay right, Waverly?”

  “She’s okay,” Ari answered for me. “Waverly checked her this morning. Once a week from here on out. Waverly sent the info to my tablet. I wouldn’t let anything happen to her. Go. Get some sleep. Eat something. Spend time with Paloma before she’s up all night nursing. You, too, Wes—go see Melissa. We’ll get Waverly up to speed. She doesn’t need to know the technology. Just what to do medically. That’s my job.”

  He was right. It still felt like he’d sucked all of the air out of the room. Did he not think I was smart enough to understand? Or maybe he was just sick of looking at me. No, that was old thinking. Bad thinking. Somehow… I was going to beat that. Someday.

  Maybe.

  Rohan rocked back on his feet. “You’re distressed.”

  Jackson groaned. “People don’t like to have their emotions spoken aloud.” He paused a moment, then focused on me. “Why are you upset?”

  “I…” I didn’t know how to answer that. Should I explain? I didn’t think so. I hardly knew these men, despite all four of them being on my dream-about list. They didn’t need a rundown of my neuroses.

  Ari shook his head. “This way, Waverly. I’ll show you where you are going to be working. You understand this is a part-time job on top of what you’re already doing? There won’t be enough for you to do here full time.”

  That was fine. I liked what I was doing. I started to follow Ari when Wes, who was still there, stopped me. “Hold on. We have something to do first.”

  “Oh.” Ari ran a hand through his blond hair. “Okay. Meet me in there when you’re done.” He disappeared through the doors.

  Rohan was suddenly at my side. The Super Soldiers moved fast—as I’d been led to believe they would. He smelled really good—like the nutmeg we sometimes got from Earth. It was a clean, easy scent. I breathed it in.

  Wes picked up the two scanners. They were small, unassuming machines, no bigger than my tablet. Considering the important thing they were able to do, I thought they’d be big. Or at least bigger.

  “Place your hand directly on them. Hold it there for three seconds.”

  My breath caught in my throat. They wanted me to do what? “Is it going to send me through time?”

  Wes shook his head. “No. We have to set a destination for it to work. That much we can do. Comes from my original design. I just want to see if the machines react to you. If you are somehow, still unexplainably, coded into it, then we might have to talk about sending you through time. Frankly, we hope not. We’d like you to stay here.”

  I didn’t want anything to do with time travel. “Do I have to do it at all? I mean maybe I don’t have to find out.”

  Rohan put his hand on my back. “Don’t be fearful. No one will make you travel through space if you don’t want to. But we need to know who it works for and then, perhaps, figure out why you would have been chosen.”

  I could hear the doubt in his voice. He didn’t seem to think I would at all be the right person to go traveling through the chaos of time. Funny, I hadn’t had enough to do with Rohan to have earned such doubt from him. I didn’t think. He’d been there when I’d been rescued. I sighed. His statement was true, regardless of whatever his tone implied.

  “You’re upset again.” This time it was Canyon who uttered the words.

  I didn’t want any more discussions about my mood. With Rohan’s hand burning through my shirt and filling me with unaccustomed warmth, I put my hand on the machine. One-Two-Three. I let go.

  Wes’s eyes stayed on the scanner. He shook his head. “Nothing to worry about. No reaction. You’re clear. You can handle this like I do if you want. Neither one of us are moving through time.”

  Wes had inadvertently designed the machine. It didn’t turn on for him?

  “I…” I stared up at Rohan. He was really, really tall. I was six feet, and I had to tilt my head to look at him. In fact, everyone in here was taller than I was. That was really unusual. “I need to follow Dr. Bennett.”

  Rohan’s eyebrows raised ever so slightly. “By all means. Ari’s right through the door. I’ll walk you there.”

  “I’m sure Waverly can walk herself.” Why did Jackson sound annoyed?

  I didn’t stop to find out. Instead, I hurried to meet Ari, Rohan by my side. When he got me to the doorway, he nodded and stopped moving. I walked through the arch, half expecting the room to explode in colors or a song to break out. That had been a lot of to-do to get from one room to the next.

  I took a deep breath. This space was familiar. This was a Med Bay. And I always knew what to do with on one of these.

  2

  Dr. Bennett

  The medical bay was pretty much an exact replica of the one in the main medical bay inside the largest facility on The Farm. I was immediately comfortable there. Whatever I was or wasn’t in life, I could say without a doubt, I was a good nurse. My patients got better. I cared about them.

  All four medical tables hooked up to a med machine in the corner so the doctor or nurse could immediately see patient readouts. That was different. More efficient, too.

  Ari stood in the corner, watching me while I glanced around the room. His gaze was hard to ignore for its intensity. Was I doing something wrong?

  “Have you heard that I am fucked up?”

  I startled when he spoke, immediately forcing myself to tune in to him. That was possibly the strangest thing anyone had ever asked me. “No. That’s not what people say about you. Brilliant. Talented. Capable. Caring. I’ve never seen you as anything but professional and capable. You saved that boy who lacerated his liver.”

  Ari rubbed at his eyes. Did they hurt him? “I was kidnapped a while back by your father’s guys. They gave me some version of a truth serum. You know what they are?”

  My family had invented the modern version. Uncle Quinn, whom I had never met and whom my brother was also named after, was the architect of those drugs. Most people thought he was dead, but Paloma had told me recently he was not.

  “I do.” I walked toward him. “And you’re still standing, which is impressive.” Eighty percent of those given the illegal drugs didn’t live through the ordeal. The rest were left changed, and some never fully recovered. I paused in front of him. He intimidated me, as did all really good-looking men, but beyond that, his brilliance in the medical bay when he worked left me in awe.

  But this was different. I could push through discomfort when it came to healing. It didn’t matter how smart or good looking a person was if they needed care. “How are you feeling right now?”

  He wouldn’t have brought it up if he was feeling one hundred percent.

  “Are there ants on the wal
l? Big red ones?” He rubbed his eyes again.

  My heart shattered into a million pieces. The drugs he had been given destroyed the brain. Hallucinations were expected and what took down most of the people who survived the initial dosage. How awful must it be to not trust your brain? The med machines could fix the person if they got help fast enough. I’d managed to save Paloma from this fate months earlier by flushing her through with an old fashioned IV.

  They’d clearly not offered Ari help that early, which didn’t surprise me. My father killed indiscriminately. He’d only kept Paloma alive and functioning so he could torture her some more.

  “No ants. Are you seeing the ones from back home? On Sandler One? The big red one we get in the summer that somehow always managed to get in the house and climb up the walls.”

  He laughed and dropped his hands from his eyes. “Yes, those. You’re from home. That’s so strange. The only people I know from Sandler are your brothers. Okay, no red ants. I’ll just ignore the hallucination then. I can do that if I know they’re not there. Rohan says I have to just learn to ignore them altogether, but I can’t yet do it without reassurance.”

  I shrugged. “It’s a small thing to do. Ask anytime. And I assure you that if there are ever those red ants on the wall, I can kill them. I used to do it all the time.”

  He smiled, and internally, I melted into a puddle of goo. “You didn’t run from the room for help?”

  “Who would have helped me?” I took a step away from him. Now that he was fine, I needed a little space. “The servants weren’t paid to kill the ants.”

  He snorted. “Yes, actually. That would be what they were paid to do. Never mind. Long time ago, and you don’t need me arguing about what happened in your past. They got away with not doing their jobs if the Sandler daughter was killing ants.” He walked around me. “Let’s talk about this. Four beds. Four of us. There were three until it was determined I had no choice but to travel. Canyon almost dying negated my ability to decline. Because isn’t it brilliant to send a guy who sees ants on the wall traveling through time?”

  I wasn’t sure exactly what to say. “You seem to manage yourself pretty well, Dr. Bennett. I mean, I’m not an expert on time travel by any means. Is it going to make your condition worse?”

  “It seems to have no effect whatsoever on the traveler’s biological or psychological health. Not long term. Not after the initial return, which is a big problem. That’s why you’re here.” He hopped up on a table. “So they—now we—lie on our backs. The scanner is passed from one of us to the next. It’s set down.” He pointed at the table next to the last bed. “Ten seconds later, we vanish. Poof.”

  That had to be bizarre to witness. “Okay.”

  He continued. “Eight hours. To the dot. The scanner comes back first. Pop. It makes a loud noise. And about five seconds later, everyone is returned to where they were. Exactly. Usually worse than when they left. For about two minutes—not more than—there is coherence. That is when we’re going to say things you need to remember or report. It’ll be clear which. If Jackson says, ‘Tell so and so something,’ tell them”—he held up a tablet—“using this. It’s more secure than any others.”

  I had a feeling the reason they needed a nurse was coming up now. “Go on. What happens after the coherence goes?”

  “A lot.” He jumped off the table. “Most of it is just talking nonsense. Or sometimes telling you secrets. Things about their childhood. Not things they want to be saying. You obviously keep all of that to yourself.”

  I would. “Goes without saying.”

  “Not for everyone, Waverly, it doesn’t.” He touched the side of one of the beds. “Blood pressure goes up. So far it has returned to normal without help. You’ll monitor that. Rohan tried to hurt himself once. I don’t know what battle he was fighting in his own head right then. I sedated him. You’ll do the same. We’re all bigger than you. Don’t be shy with the sedation. If any of us come back hurt, you fix us. If it’s beyond your skill set, call Dane, Lewis, or Cash.”

  “I can do all of this.”

  Ari nodded. “I know. It’s why I chose you. That stage, the incoherence, it’s an hour. Then the patient returns to themselves and you help them go back to their rooms. The doors in the hallway outside lead to bedrooms. We’ll sleep. Maybe thirty hours. That’s the end of it for you. I’ll call you in when we’re leaving. You do initial readings right before we go. Then eight hours later, you’re here. Without question or delay. Dane will make sure you aren’t given a hard time about leaving the Med Bay when you need to.”

  “I’m sure I’ll have questions. I don’t right at this moment.” I needed to digest some of this before I could figure out what I didn’t know. I really didn’t know what I didn’t know…

  Ari squeezed my arm. “It’s stressful but not hard. Of course, I could be a disaster. And this might be a one-off.”

  “Dr. Bennett, I can’t imagine you ever being a disaster.”

  Even going through his ordeal, he continued to work and to take on this whole time travel thing. He wasn’t rocking in a corner somewhere. Whoever ended up with him was going to be a lucky woman.

  He let go of my arm. “Thank you, Waverly. That means a great deal. I hope I’m not an utter disappointment. I’ll ping your tablet when we need you. Sometimes it’s preplanned, sometimes something happens and we just have to go.”

  “I’ll be available. I…” I almost didn’t finish my thought. People didn’t like hearing me go on and on. But I wanted to thank him, and this was the best way I knew to express my gratitude. “I always wondered if I would ever do anything that mattered. I know that what I do as a nurse does. But it still felt like I wasn’t doing enough. Thank you for this. I think it’s just what I’ve been looking for, how I can contribute.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “I actually understand you completely.” His tablet pinged, and he looked down at it. Ari pressed a button. A second later, his face changed to an easy smile. “Diana, gorgeous, are you having a good night? Are your husbands treating you and the baby okay?”

  She laughed, and internally, I sighed even as I heard her talking to Ari about her concern the baby might have an ear infection. He spoke to her, and I backed away. I should get back to my room. Get some rest. Think.

  It was the gorgeous that had done me in, brought on the exhaustion I knew would follow me home. Diana really was gorgeous. Ten months after giving birth, she was tiny, fit, and beaming most of the time. With five husbands who thought she could do no wrong and a beautiful baby, she was a lucky woman. Not to mention, she’d never been anything but nice to me.

  Why should it bug me that Ari called her gorgeous? He flirted with everyone. Except me.

  Maybe he saw me like one of the guys. At least he didn’t ignore me entirely.

  I had to go back to my room. Breathe a little bit. Jackson met me by the door. “Go okay?”

  “Yes.” I rubbed the back of my neck. How was it possible any one of these four guys could take up all the air in the room? “Thank you for this opportunity.”

  “Oh.” He nodded. “Yeah. You’re welcome. Come on. I’ll walk you out.”

  His meaning couldn’t have been clearer. I had to go. My time here would be for helping the team and no other reason. “I remember how I came in.”

  He didn’t answer me and stayed by my side as we left the room. Rohan had walked me somewhere. Maybe that was protocol. Neither of the Super Soldiers was in the room, so they must have moved on with their night.

  “Waverly,” Ari called after us, and as I stopped to turn to him, Jackson grabbed my arm over my wrist. His gentle touch didn’t hurt. Ari’s gaze fell to it and then went back to my face. He didn’t smile. Was he upset that I’d left without saying goodbye?

  “Need something?” Jackson asked him.

  The doctor walked toward us. “Call me Ari.” He spoke directly to me. “No one who knows me calls me Dr. Bennett.”

  “Oh, okay. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfo
rtable. I didn’t mean…”

  Jackson tugged on my arm slightly. “You didn’t make him uncomfortable.”

  Ari’s face fell. “No, I’m not upset.”

  “I spent so much time alone,” I had to explain. “After my mother died, I only interacted with a few people. Then on my father’s ships… well, the less said, the better. I screw up protocol a lot. You’ll have to forgive me for a while.”

  Oh by the universe, why had I said that? They both silently stared at me. Wrong, Waverly, wrong. They were basically my bosses, and I’d just told them how badly I did things. “But not the nursing. I do that well. And I’ll call you, Ari. For sure.”

  I tried to pull out of Jackson’s hold, but he didn’t release me. Instead, he walked with me toward the door of the secret facility without a backward glance to Ari.

  They were going to ping my tablet and let me know my services weren’t going to be needed. I knew it. The whole walk back to my room, I waited for the ping. Getting ready for bed, I listened for it. Lying on my pink comforter with my head on my white pillow, I kept an eye on my tablet, waiting to hear it. Maybe if I’d been a different kind of woman, I could have managed that better.

  My mother would have known what to do. She was such a great beauty, and brilliant, too. Men had flocked to her. My father had. It was only after I was such a disappointing baby that he’d divorced her and gone to find other women to make good looking babies with. She’d died a few years later without teaching me how to talk to men. My father had made it clear I wasn’t to even try. No one he considered worthwhile would have me for a wife. Better I work, better I serve.

  Sleep threatened to pull me under, and I sighed, digging my head into the pillow. When the ping came, it would wake me.

  Disappointment could wait until then.

  I had Paloma on the table, a wand in my hand to check her baby on the screen, when Ari walked through the door. I was so startled I almost dropped the wand. He hadn’t made an appointment for Paloma in weeks, and at least I understood why now. What was more, she had known the reasons, which explained why she hadn’t been upset I’d been doing all the exams.