by Susan Hayes
Blade almost gave her his standard, flippant answer, the one involving bars, booze, and bad decisions, but he didn’t. Instead, he offered her the truth and hoped she didn’t laugh at him.
“Games, mostly. Not vid games. Those are fun, but I’m talking about games that require logic and strategy.”
“You mean like chess?”
There was no judgment in her tone, so he kept going. “Yeah, exactly. Did you know there are hundreds of versions of chess? And that’s not including the Pheran and Torski variants.”
This was usually when people’s eyes glazed over, but Alyson smiled broadly and nodded with obvious enthusiasm. He felt like he had won the damned lottery.
“Have you ever played Fortress chess? That’s one of my favorites, but it requires four players. I haven’t played since I left home,” she asked.
Re’veth. He had won the lottery.
“I’ve heard of it. Never tried it, though.” A thought occurred to him, and he took a chance. “You know, there are four of us living upstairs at the moment. You could teach us how to play. Maybe tonight?”
When she nodded, his heart did a triple beat of joy that was as close as he could get to a victory dance. Not only had he found something for the four of them to do together, but he’d discovered that he and the sexy doctor shared more than sizzling hot chemistry. They liked the same game. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
They spent a few idyllic moments talking strategy and their preferred variation of the game, but it wasn’t long before they were interrupted by her comm device. The fraxxing thing seemed to go off constantly. It amazed him how much she got done considering the number of times a day she was interrupted.
She read the incoming message and uttered a low groan. “We’ve got a crimson overdose victim coming in. He’s highly agitated and aggressive enough they’ve already got him in restraints.”
“That sounds dangerous. Can’t someone else deal with him?”
She got to her feet. “No. I have the most experience with these cases. I have to attend. I know you guys only want me treating familiar patients, but this is different. There’s a life at stake.”
“Yeah, yours.”
“And if this patient dies, then I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life. Not happening. My life isn’t more valuable than his.”
“You’re a doctor, and he’s an idiot who took crimson. Newsflash for you, doc. Your life is worth more than his.”
She shot him a look cold enough to frost a dozen ales. “I’m still going. If it eases your mind, you can come, too.”
“Damn right I’m going with you.” He followed her out of the office and across the med-center to an area he hadn’t been in before. Judging by the eerie quiet, they were the only ones around.
“In here.” She moved through a pair of swinging doors before he could get ahead of her.
“Next time, wait until I’ve cleared the room.” Until now, she hadn’t allowed them into the treatment rooms when patients were present, but she had agreed to let them check the area before the patient was brought in.
“Please. Lance is standing guard out front, and I don’t think he’d let a dust mote get past him without the proper ID. We’ve got about three minutes before all hell breaks loose, so here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to stand over there, out of the way. If I need you, I’ll tell you.”
“Anyone tell you you’re hot as hell when you’re barking orders?”
“No one who lived.” She shot back without even looking at him. She was busy organizing trays of equipment, and her focus was on that, not him.
“Sassy is sexy. You keep this up, I might wind up proposing.” She had no idea how much truth was in that statement. They weren’t there yet, but if the stars aligned, then one day, he believed the four of them would get there. She was like no other woman they’d ever met. His head insisted it was too early to be certain, but his heart was already convinced she was the one.
“Flirt later. Right now, I need your help.” She pushed a cart in his direction. “That goes beside the bed.”
By the time he had the cart in place, the room was starting to fill with people. Since all of them knew the procedures better than he did, he moved to the spot Alyson had pointed to and tried to stay out of the way. It was like watching a dance performance, only instead of music, the movements were accompanied by queries and commands in a language he couldn’t understand. It had a cadence and rhythm all its own, though, all of it leading up to a crescendo when the doors flew open and the medics arrived with their patient.
It was the first time Blade had seen the effects of a crimson overdose up close, and it made him question the sanity of anyone who took the drug. The victim was a human male, though he was bellowing loud enough to sound like an enraged Torski. What little hair he had was plastered to his scalp, and his lips and chin were flecked with bloody foam. Rivulets of blood flowed down his face from a head wound, soaking the thin pillow under his head.
“Don’t touch me! Fraxxing bastards. I’ll kill you. All of ya. Get away. Leave me alone.” His enraged screams rose to a deafening volume as the medical team closed in and got to work.
Alyson seemed to be everywhere at once, issuing orders in a brisk, composed tone that kept everyone focused and moving. He stood in awe as she and her team somehow managed to treat the combative and abusive victim, but despite their efforts, he could see they were losing the fight.
Crimson, taken in small doses, was a non-addictive hallucinogenic pharma that left the user feeling euphoric and mellow. But take too much, or too many doses over a lifetime, and the euphoria gave way to uncontrolled rage and violence that often left the victim comatose or dead. Judging by the man’s uneven breaths and delirium, he wasn’t going to last much longer. The drug would tear his body apart if Alyson and her team couldn’t stop the progression soon.
She was bent over her patient, trying to inject something into his neck when it happened. There was a horrific sound: a sickening tearing, popping noise that made Blade’s stomach lurch. Then the patient suddenly tried to sit up, smashing his head into Alyson’s and sending her staggering backward.
Blade launched himself across the room, knocking aside people and equipment to reach Alyson. She was still on her feet when he got to her, but it was touch and go. She swayed back and forth, too stunned by the blow to do anything.
“I’ve got you.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close before leading her away from the table. It wasn’t until he was satisfied she was out of harm’s way that he took a good look at the scene and realized what had happened. The overdose victim had torn an arm out of the restraints, but in freeing himself, he had done terrible damage to his body. His arm was broken at the elbow, the flesh torn apart as torrents of blood flowed over the damaged and dangling limb.
The rest of the medical team managed to get their patient restrained again, though the constant bellows and cursing continued.
“I have to help.” She started to pull away, but Blade locked his arm around her waist.
“You can’t help him. You need to sit down. If there was a spare doctor around this place, I’d be taking you to see them right now, but everyone’s a little busy with that guy.”
“I need to do my job…just as soon as the room stops spinning.”
Right. That’s it. We’re out of here.” He tapped the nearest staff member on the shoulder. “I’m taking Dr. Jefferies outside.”
The older man glanced over at him and nodded in approval. “Good. Alyson, you know we’re going to lose this one no matter what. You don’t need to be here to watch.”
“I like him already.” He half carried Alyson out of the room, ignoring her protests and half-hearted attempts to break out of his hold.
“You’re only saying that because Dr. Basque agreed with you. If I were in there, maybe I could do something.”
“Your team knows what they’re doing. Veth, woman. I’m no doctor, and even I could
see you were going to lose him. You can’t save them all.”
She uttered a pained sigh. “I have to try, though.”
“I know. And I admire that about you. But not when you’re putting yourself in danger to do it. Come on, we’re going back to your office to have that bump on your head looked at.”
“By who? Like you said, all my staff are back in there.”
“One second, I’m calling in the reinforcements.” He kept walking as he contacted Dirk via their private comm channel.
“Dirk, get your ass to Alyson’s office. Bring a med-kit.”
“The med-kit better be for you, or I’m going to kick your butt from here to the Hercules Cluster.”
“It’s for Alyson. A patient broke out of their restraints and head butted her. She’s fine. In fact, she’s arguing with me and trying to get back to her patient right now.”
“She’d do that even if she was bleeding out and missing a limb. I’ll see you downstairs shortly…and for the record, you suck at being a bodyguard.”
Blade couldn’t argue with Dirk’s assessment. Alyson had gotten hurt on his watch. That couldn’t happen again. It shouldn’t have happened at all. He had to do better.
* * * *
Alyson sensed Blade’s withdrawal. He was a Corp-Sec officer, so it couldn’t be the violence or the bloody scene they had left behind, but something had him subdued and quiet. They were almost to her office before he spoke again.
“Dirk’s on his way. He’s going to check that bump on your head, and then I suspect he’s going tear into me for letting you get hurt.”
Understanding dawned. He blamed himself for what had happened, which was ridiculous.
“You didn’t let me get hurt. I shouldn’t have gotten that close. It was my mistake.”
She keyed in her access code, but her hands were trembling and she had to do it again before it worked. The adrenaline rush that came with every emergency was fading, now she was out of the room. That, combined with the blow to her head, had affected her more than she had realized. Or maybe it was the fact Blade still had his arm around her, his hard body tucked behind hers.
“I don’t see it that way, and neither will my brothers.” He took her hand in his and squeezed it. “You’re shaking. Stay here while I check the room, and then I want you off your feet. Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I’m fine. I’ve got a bump on the head and a four-alarm headache, that’s all. And why is Dirk coming down here? I’m a damned doctor, I’d know if there was a problem.”
“Sit. If you try to leave that chair before Dirk gets here, he’ll blame me. Then we’ll get into a fight, I’ll have to kick his ass, and you’ll have two more patients to deal with.”
“You two would have to do some serious damage to each other before you needed my help. Your medi-bots make sure you heal amazingly fast.”
“Do you have any siblings? Brothers, specifically?” He asked.
“I have a brother, but he was older than me by enough years that we didn’t spend much time together. I have plenty of cousins though. Why?”
“Did your cousins fight a lot? I bet they did. So, you know what it’s like when brothers fight. Now, add in the fact we were designed to be the perfect soldiers, and finish it off with the fact that you’re important to all three of us…it’s going to get personal.”
“You’d beat the hell out of each other over me?”
Blade crouched at her side, so they were eye to eye. “Don’t you get it, yet? When it comes to you, there’s nothing we wouldn’t do.”
“But—“
“No buts. No arguments. That’s the way it is, Doc. There’s nothing you can say that’s going to change it.” He leaned until their mouths were nearly touching. “You’re ours to protect. One day, soon I hope, you’re going to be ours, period. That’s what we want.”
“What if I don’t want that?” She asked, but she knew it wasn’t true. It had never been true, and that terrified her.
“Then we’ll keep doing what we’ve been doing.”
“What’s that?”
His green eyes lit up with desire as he moved in closer still. “Proving that you want us as much as we want you.” He closed the last bit of space between them and kissed her.
She should have pulled away or turned her head, but her heart didn’t let her. Not this time. Instead, she buried her hands in his dark hair and held on as if her life depended on it. His lips slanted across hers, and the groan that rose from his throat was one of pure need. He cupped her cheek in one hand, stroking her skin with his thumb as he took the kiss deeper, pressing her back into the chair.
He stroked a hand up her thigh, working slowly higher, and the heat of his touch was enough to melt the last shreds of doubt. This was what she wanted. No, it was what she’d been craving since the day the brothers had crash landed into her life.
“Really? You kissed him first. He let you get hurt, and now you’re rewarding him.”
She hadn’t realized they weren’t alone anymore, but Dirk was standing in the doorway with a look of wry exasperation on his face.
“If I claim the head injury was messing with my judgment, you’re going to freak out and decide I have a concussion, aren’t you?”
“There’s nothing wrong with your judgment. Or any other part of you.” Blade stroked her cheek again before standing up and turning to face his brother. “She’s fine, but I know you’d want to check for yourself.”
Dirk walked to her desk and set down a med-kit. “How are you feeling? Headache? Any nausea or dizziness?”
“A patient suffering from a crimson overdose broke his own arm and tore his shoulder out of its socket, then head-butted me. Yes, I have a headache. I need a pain-blocker and some coffee. That’s all.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“And what qualifies you to judge anything of the sort? Last I checked, I was the only one in this room with a license to practice medicine.”
“I’ve worked as a medic on a couple of our contracts,” Dirk said.
“You’re a medic?”
“More or less.”
“So why are you in Corp-Sec and not working here?”
Silence. Followed by Blade snickering quietly before commenting. “You’ve rendered him speechless. I didn’t know that was possible.”
“It never occurred to me you’d want me here. I’m not certified. All three of us have extensive medical knowledge hardwired into our heads in case we needed it to save an asset’s life. The rest I picked up along the way.”
“You can get certified. I’m helping Lieksa do that right now.”
Dirk shook his head. “I tried that. I couldn’t find anyone interested in certifying a cyborg. We might be free, but we haven’t been welcomed with open arms. We’re too different. Too dangerous.”
She snorted. “You’re only dangerous to idiots, criminals, and household droids. If you ever decide you want to change careers, I can get you certified.”
“We’ll talk about my career plans another time. Right now, I’d like to take a look at the bump on your head. May I?” Dirk opened the kit and pulled out a bio-scanner.
“If I say no, are you going to toss me over your shoulder and make me do it anyway?”
“As tempting as that sounds, I wouldn’t. The last thing you need is to be upside down. That isn’t going to help your headache.”
“In that case, go ahead. I know you’re not going to find anything, but you’re almost as stubborn as I am.” The truth was, they were probably all more stubborn than she was, but there was no way she would ever admit it. They were cocky enough as it was.
It didn’t take long for Dirk to examine her. He was efficient, asking the right questions and handling the scanner with easy familiarity before finally admitting that her assessment was right. She was fine.
“I told you so. Having watched you work, I think you’d make a great medic,” she said as he put away the scanner and selected a basic pain-blocker from th
e kit.
He handed her the meds, still in their container so she could see what he was giving her. “Thanks. You really think you could get me certified? I like Corp-Sec, but it’s nice to know there might be another option.”
She took the medication and washed it down with a swig of cold coffee. “Out here on the Drift, the rules are different. You know that. Anywhere else in the galaxy, I’d be considered too young and inexperienced to run my own med-center.”
“Anyone who watches you work would never think of you as inexperienced. You were incredible today,” Blade said.
“I wasn’t good enough, though. He was too far gone for me to save.”
“And yet, you’re still regretting that you didn’t go back and try anyway. He made his choice when he took crimson. Everyone knows how dangerous it is, Doc.”
“I walked out on a patient.”
Dirk made a noise of strangled frustration. “If any of your staff had been the one to get hurt, would you have let them stay?”
“Of course not. They’re my responsibility. I would never…” She trailed off and narrowed her eyes at him. “I see what you’re trying to do, but it’s not the same thing.”
“They’re your responsibility, and you’re ours. Blade got you out of there because it was the right choice.” Dirk shot a dark look at his brother. “Especially considering he let you get hurt in the first place.”
“He didn’t! He was letting me do my job.”
“And you need to let us do ours,” Dirk said.
“I’ll try. Okay? Now, will you let me talk to my staff and find out what happened after I left? I can make sure they’re alright, and then I’ll come right back here.”
“You can check in with your staff, but after that, you’re going to call it a day. Deal?” Dirk said.
Alyson considered arguing, but she simply didn’t have the energy. Her head was throbbing, and she was too distracted by everything that had happened to do any real work. “Deal. But only if Blade does me a favor.”
“Anything you like, Doc. All you have to do is ask.”
