by Tasha Black
It reminded him of the improvised medical facilities they’d set up when he was on active duty. But why?
The smell of industrial strength disinfectant, covered something deeper and musky. Various overlapping animal odors. A farm? The layers of scent seemed right for a farm.
There were no farms in Glacier City.
They must have taken him pretty far away while he was out.
How long had he been out?
It didn’t feel like more than an hour or two.
He reached up to feel his jaw. The prickle of a light five o’clock shadow told another story. He must have been out for most of the day.
He could be anywhere.
The room was simple: the cinder block walls, a metal door, a drop ceiling with fluorescent lighting, the cot he sat on, and across the room, a stainless steel counter with a large sink basin.
He took another steadying breath, then heaved himself up. The cot groaned in protest, in chorus with his aching head.
He stepped carefully toward the sink, feeling better as soon as he started moving.
As he turned on the tap, the pipes banged overhead.
So much for not announcing he was awake.
The water came out clear enough, so he bent to drink. The pipes gave the water a metallic tang that reminded him of drinking from the hose as a kid.
The cold coursed through his body, bringing him back to life.
He smelled her a second before the door swung open behind him.
All at once, the air was rich with musk and midnight jasmine.
“Ice,” she whispered.
No one had called him that in a long, long time. Once his unit had learned he was from Glacier City, a frosty nickname had been inevitable. He could have done worse.
Dalton turned to face Elizabeth Sterling. She looked the same as she always had, dark hair framing her solemn face. His breath caught at the sight of those dazzling green eyes, like two emeralds shining beneath a tropical sea.
“Lt. Sterling,” he replied, keeping his tone cool.
A flash of something crossed her face, He could have sworn it was disappointment. Had she expected him to be happy to see her?
“Sorry about the rough treatment,” she said lightly. “I told them to play nice. Gibson can come on a little strong.”
Them. That confirmed his theory about Gibson having some help.
“That’s putting it mildly,” he said.
“Why don’t you let me take a look at your head?” she offered. Her voice was the professional purr he remembered.
The memory made him hesitate, but he sat on the cot anyway.
Sterling’s smile made her green eyes sparkle. She really hadn’t changed a bit. Physically, at least. He still needed to assess her motives in all of this.
She strode over to the sink, and removed cotton and alcohol from a drawer beneath it.
Dalton found it impossible not to inhale her scent and listen to the warm thud of her heart. He remembered the feel of her smooth skin.
He remembered everything.
She pulled his head against her abdomen.
He found himself looking at her feet between his, as her fingers spanned the lump on his head.
The first kiss of the alcohol soaked cotton burned his scalp. But her hands were warm and her touch was gentle.
Dalton began to relax as she worked. The room was still, except for the sound of their breathing.
She broke the silence.
“I never got to say goodbye,” she said, her voice raw with emotion. “I just… woke up one morning, and you were gone. No one would tell me where you went. I thought you had gone dark, some kind of black ops. When I saw you in that boardroom…”
Dalton thought back to that day. He had been shocked to see her, too.
“It has been a long time,” he said.
“Too long,” she whispered.
Her hand trailed down his neck, coming to rest on his shoulder.
The beast inside him stilled, waiting for her next move.
Dalton stood quickly, before he lost himself in her touch.
“I don’t know what’s going on here,” he said firmly. “But I think you better let me talk to Andrews. I’ve got some questions for him.”
The look of disappointment flitted across her features again.
She turned crisply and headed toward the door.
“I’m sorry,” she told him, her green eyes cold.
“Sorry about what?”
In answer to his question, two massive men in gray, urban camo fatigues stepped in. One of them wielded a large hypodermic needle, the other a Military Police-style black baton.
Dalton’s blood ran cold and he looked back to Sterling.
Frozen in the doorway, she met his gaze for another moment.
She opened her mouth, like she was about to say something else.
Instead, she turned and hurried away.
6
West woke up at dawn.
Day two on his Cordelia watch, and still no dice.
West was beginning to take her cold shoulder to heart.
She had managed to come home too late for dinner last night and she’d responded to his text messages with the digital equivalent of monosyllables.
All they had been through and they were practically back to “Yes, sir,” all over again.
What had he done wrong?
The better question might be what hadn’t he done wrong. But the past was in the past.
The Cross family wouldn’t be up for hours, but his old habit of doing martial arts at dawn meant he couldn’t go back to sleep. His body was quivering like a puppy that sees a tennis ball.
He hit the bathroom, pulled on some sweats and one of Dalton’s baseball caps, and snuck out the front door. He might as well make himself useful. A hearty breakfast and a real cup of coffee might be just what he needed to bring down Cordelia’s walls.
The rising sun made the sky blush a light pink over the neighborhood. A pink that reminded him of her cheeks that night he’d given the dancers to Peter and lost himself in Cordelia.
He sucked in the cold air like a drink of water, and set off at a light jog. There was a mom & pop convenience store just a couple of blocks away where he could pick up something to cook for breakfast. The blocks in Cobble Slope were long, but his legs felt fantastic.
West had been training more often with Jason, though they hadn’t returned to their early morning routine yet. He wasn’t showing off his raw power anymore, rather he was working with Jason to adapt his fighting style to his new attributes. Most of his training these days focused on building up his reflexes, and learning to trust the new limbs.
His shoes beat a steady tattoo on the sidewalk and he decided to pick up the pace a bit. In the old days he ran to music, anything with a beat. But he found that with his new limbs, he really couldn’t focus with music playing, and he felt less… alert.
These legs had no muscles to tire, and he hardly noticed them with normal use. But pushing the prosthetics hard required more than a little concentration.
He hoped that, like most things, it would get easier with practice.
The bell on the store’s door jingled to announce his arrival. A whiff of lemon cleaning products, and the savory smell of sausages greeted him. A warming shelf near the front counter held wax paper wrapped breakfast sandwiches.
But West wanted to prepare something himself. He suspected the little neighborhood bodega would be lacking in fresh ingredients, but he would do his best.
He grabbed a basket and threw in a couple of boxes of cereal, since he and Jess finished a whole box last time. Jess wasn’t picky about what kind, as long as it had enough sugar in it to make your molars ache. He checked the milk for one far from its expiration date and grabbed a gallon, as well as two dozen eggs for omelets.
As it turned out, the store actually had a remarkably good selection of fresh foods. He guessed Cobble Slope didn’t really qualify as one of the food deserts yo
u found in the Scar. The thought of surprising everyone by cooking a really nice meal made him smile.
West had always loved to cook.
He had even studied for a few months at a culinary school in France. Mostly out of a short lived desire to open a restaurant in Glacier City. The restaurant would have been mainly to impress girls, which he quickly realized he could do without cooking. Most of his actual practice in the kitchen had been acquired when improvising breakfasts after waking up in too many strange apartments to remember.
But he figured he could pull off a really great omelet bar.
As he considered the plum tomatoes, he couldn’t help noticing the odd movements of the young man in the adjoining aisle.
As surreptitiously as he could, West eyed the guy up. He was young, wearing a too-big jacket, and looking over his shoulder constantly.
Produce forgotten, West followed the guy around the corner into the next aisle. As he suspected, the man pocketed a couple of things. He was not a very good thief.
West continued to trail the guy to the front of the store.
The man stopped near the counter, moving his weight from one foot to the other, and sweating profusely as he waited his turn behind an elderly lady with a basket full of bakery items.
West had no reason to be standing around staring at the guy. He picked up a random magazine and pretended to be interested in the article that promised “50 Ways to Keep Things Spicy in the Bedroom.”
The man continued to shift and sweat.
Suddenly, West had a bad thought about what else the man might be hiding under that jacket.
Was he going to rob the store, in broad daylight?
He remembered the news video he had watched with Jessica; the brashness of the attackers, as if they were beyond consequences.
West pictured the scene playing out in a similar shaky video on tonight’s news. The man’s jacket would open to reveal a sawed-off shotgun. The clerk, a skinny kid who reminded West of Will Smith in his Fresh Prince days, would get nervous. He’d push the alarm. West could hear the thunder of the gun, and see the spray of blood on the brightly colored cigarette display behind the counter. In his mind’s eye, it was crystal clear.
What was this world coming to?
His conversation with Jess rang in his head.
Someone should do something about it.
The old lady at the head of the line departed with a rattling of plastic bags and jingling bells.
The man stepped forward.
“American Spirits,” he muttered.
As soon as the kid at the counter turned around, the man reached inside his bulky jacket.
West didn’t stop to think.
Dropping his basket, he leapt for the man.
His legs propelled him harder than he anticipated. He made contact. Hard.
The man let out his breath in a shocked rush.
As if in slow motion, West’s momentum carried them through the glass in the front of the store and out onto the sidewalk.
They landed with a sickening crunch as several of the man’s ribs broke.
West looked down at him.
The man opened and closed his mouth, but no words came out. Gaping like a fish, he pulled his hand from the jacket. The hand was clutching a broken plastic lighter. He wrapped his other arm around his injured ribs.
West rolled off him immediately, and scrambled to his feet.
The clerk rushed out the front door, causing the bells to jangle in protest.
“What the hell, dude?” he asked incredulously.
“I thought he was—” West began.
“—I’m calling the cops,” the clerk said firmly.
“Good,” West explained. “He stole things, they’re in his jacket.”
“I’m calling them on you, psycho,” the clerk said.
“I can pay for the window,” West said, taken aback.
The clerk eyed West’s shabby clothes and scruffy look.
“Sure you can, man,” he said.
West was stunned. No one had ever looked down on him like that. It was a foreign feeling, and not a good one.
For a second, he thought about his abandoned grocery basket.
Then the clerk slipped out his phone.
West bolted, pushing his legs as fast as they would go.
So much for making breakfast, or keeping things spicy in the bedroom.
7
Dalton awoke for the second time in the cold blue room.
This time, he was lying on a metal table, his hands secured in place by leather straps.
He looked around and realized he was alone.
Saying a silent prayer, he began to work his wrists against the thick leather, patiently looking for a weak spot.
The tough grain of the strap chafed his skin, which helped him stay awake. Whatever they’d given him had made him drowsy. He twisted and pulled to the beat of Yankee Doodle, to prevent himself from slowing down even as his wrists tired.
It was odd to use their training against them, but it was the training he had. The thickness of the leather told him they knew it, too.
Just as he began to feel a fraction of play, the door burst open and the scent of midnight jasmine told him who had arrived even before he could see her.
Sterling strode over to stand at his side. Her figure towered over him, but she didn’t look down or take any notice of him.
“Wait outside,” she said simply to the guards in her musical voice.
Another set of footsteps approached and Dalton saw a kid in a lab coat behind her.
She took something from lab kid’s tray - a length of rubber tubing.
“You don’t have to do this the hard way, Edward,” she said as she tied it firmly around Dalton’s arm below the elbow.
She swabbed the inside of his forearm with a cool alcohol wipe.
“We’re just looking for some answers,” she explained, tapping on his vein with the tip of her index finger.
He felt a pinch and then the familiar pain of the needle entering. It was a low, sweet pain. He watched the scarlet trail of his own blood traveling through the tube to the collection vial. How often had he endured this during his time with Alpha Division? He couldn’t count the number of times he’d let his blood answer endless questions for them, without getting any answers for himself.
“I know you want answers, too,” she said softly, replying to his arguments as though she could hear his thoughts.
Oh, but she knew him.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to work together again?” she asked, slipping the needle out of his arm and replacing it with a gauze pad, which she pressed gently against the fading soreness.
The lab kid grabbed the vial from her, labeled it, and put it in a rack with other tubes. Whose blood was in those? Had they taken it from him when he was out?
Sterling smoothed one elegant hand across his brow.
The quasi-maternal gesture that once would have soothed him, now filled his heart with fury. He had planned to come here seeking answers on his own terms.
He would have expected this kind of treatment from Andrews, but not from her.
Never.
He closed his eyes and turned away from her.
Her hand disappeared from his forehead. Even the warm air of the room felt like ice against his skin after her touch.
“We’re doing a full workup on your blood. We will want to run some stress tests, as well as a few more…invasive procedures.” Her voice was now cold and brittle. But he thought there was more there. Something under the surface that she didn’t want him to hear.
She didn’t want to be doing this.
It was a small comfort.
There was a slight squeak as the lab tech wheeled over a cart. Dalton had practically forgotten the kid was there.
An assortment of surgical tools covered the surface of the cart, their shiny metal shimmering under the fluorescent lights like tiny windshields on a sunny highway.
Fear and adrenaline c
oursed through his body, but he willed himself to stay calm. He focused on his training, honing the edge of his fear into a tool. Something he could use to his advantage.
“Do you have anything you want to say?” Sterling asked.
Dalton closed his eyes again.
“Prep Sgt. Dalton for surgery,” she instructed the tech.
The tech got to work attaching a mask and hose to a stand that held two green metal tanks.
Sterling turned her back to him to wash up in the sink, and he saw his only chance. She had the same training he did. It wasn’t like her to be careless. He didn’t question the opportunity.
It was the last thing Dalton wanted to do.
In the beginning, after Alpha Division had cut him loose and written him off, the minutes he’d spent trying stay in control had felt like years.
Now actual years had passed, years of counted breaths and yoga, of treatments from Med Pros and fiendish discipline - all to distract his body from doing what he was about to beg it to do.
Cautiously, he called to the beast inside him, afraid of what it might do if it came, but more afraid of what would happen if it refused.
It bounded to him instantly, alternately capering and charging with delight, filling his chest with its exhilaration. Suddenly, every cell in his body was alive and crackling with power. His muscles tightened like steel bands.
Stay with me, he asked it, though he knew his control over the beast was dwindling. For now, it respected the implied boundary of his wish, and didn’t burst completely through his physical form. But it paced the edges of his control, twisting just under his skin. Dalton knew that at any moment it could sail over the picket fence of his will and destroy the neighborhood.
When the lab tech got close enough with the mask, Dalton pulled as hard as he could.
The sturdy leather straps holding his arms snapped like rubber bands.
The tech’s jaw dropped, and Dalton punched him in the mouth, hard. No point hitting the kid more than once. Already his form had hit the floor. He’d wake up with a sore jaw and a good story.
Dalton popped the straps holding down his legs in one movement and leapt off the operating table just as Sterling wheeled around to face him.
