Chapter 51
Should we stop him?No. Repair any glitches when he’s out of visual range but don’t interfere.Message stream between Haven Maintenance Team and Clara Alvarez SHOWERED AND CHANGED, they arrived at Haven two hours after the time they’d told Clara to expect them. Accepting their apologies with a quiet nod, the manager said, “Well, it appears you woke Samuel up at last.”
Ivy caught the glint in the woman’s rich brown eyes. “What did he do? Tell you all you were monkeys attempting to run an asylum?”
Ivy could’ve sworn laughter warmed Clara’s gaze, but the manager’s voice was even as she said, “No, but he rewired the entire complex in the space of eight manic hours. We had a backup team checking his work, but they said he’d done things they didn’t even know were possible, and we’re running at fifty percent increased efficiency when it comes to our power usage.”
“Is he still insisting he’s brain damaged?” Ivy asked.
A nod. “He may well be right—we can’t know if all the systems in his brain are functioning at full capacity. It’s only as he attempts to use them that that will become clear.” She looked at Ivy and Vasic both. “Please don’t get your hopes up. If he senses it, then fails in helping, it could undo all the progress he’s made.”
“We’ll be careful,” Ivy promised, her fingers locked with Vasic’s.
The first thing Samuel Rain did when they found him in the rose garden was to scowl and say, “Where’s the dog?”
Ivy felt her heart clench. Placing one arm around her shoulders, Vasic hugged her close as he answered the engineer. “He was injured and is resting in the care of friends.”
With Jaya and Abbot at the hospital, Vasic had left a peacefully sleeping Rabbit under the watchful eye of the Arrows at Central Command. Had Rabbit been healthy and happy, the idea of those deadly men and women taking care of a small, curious dog would’ve made Ivy smile, but right now, all she felt was a deep worry.
“Injured?” Samuel narrowed his eyes at Vasic. “Is he healing?”
“Yes. He’ll make a full recovery.”
Ivy knew the statement was as much for her as for Samuel. Holding the truth of it to her heart, she said, “Clara told us you’ve made some improvements to the complex.”
“Yes. Come on.” The engineer rubbed his hands.
They spent the next hour on a tour of the facility’s power system. Samuel Rain didn’t even glance at the gauntlet. Frustration gnawed at Ivy, but she held her silence. She could sense Samuel now, and below the excitement at his accomplishment was a bone-deep fear—as if the hard crust of a lake in winter had been sheared off to reveal the liquid beneath. It made her heart hurt.
The engineer, she realized, was aware enough to understand that he might not like what he found if he pushed himself. But he was far stronger than she’d guessed, because right at the end, while he was closing a maintenance panel, he said, “I need the prototype gauntlet the imbeciles who worked on you used to test the connections.”
Vasic lifted his arm as the other man turned to face them. “This is the prototype.”
Ivy thought Samuel Rain’s head was going to explode. Literally tearing at his hair, he said, “Why didn’t you just walk into a butcher’s shop and have them hack you up?”
“Stop it,” Ivy said, having had enough. “You don’t get to talk to him like that.”
Staring at her through his spectacles, the engineer said, “Are you doing something to me?”
“No.”
Suspicion writ large on his features. “I wasn’t like this before.”
Ivy had the feeling Samuel Rain had always been high-strung and outside Silence, his genius intellect such that he’d been given a pass from the authorities—until one of the Councilors had apparently decided to make an example of him. Right after Rain turned down a job offer from the Councilor in question.
Aden had unearthed that fact yesterday. It was simply more evidence of the ugly hypocrisy and self-interest hidden in Silence, Ivy thought as she folded her arms and said, “I don’t care if you dance naked at midnight, as long as you help Vasic.”
A roll of his eyes. “It’s cold at midnight,” Rain said with exaggerated patience. “If I planned to dance naked in winter, I’d do it at noon.”
Then he left, telling them not to follow.
Growling low in her throat, Ivy lifted her hands and made a squeezing motion. “I want to strangle him.”
Vasic pressed a kiss to the top of her head, the affectionate act making her toes curl. “He’s right, you know,” he said, while she fought not to make a big deal of something that was a big deal. “The implant team should’ve never grafted the only prototype. I’ll have to find the most detailed simulation files we have and send them to him.”
“I don’t care if he’s right.” She scowled. “No one is allowed to treat you that way.” Hauling him down with her hands fisted in his jacket, she kissed him with all the passion in her heart. His hand rose to cup her face, his body hardening against hers.
When their lips parted, she looked around to find he’d teleported them back to the apartment. “We should’ve told Clara we were leaving,” she whispered, far more interested in shaping Vasic’s chest with her hands.
He raised the gauntlet, tapped in a short message. “I’ve sent her a notification.”
Arousal fading, she touched her hand to the carapace, slick and hard. “You’ll miss it, won’t you?” It was a fact she hadn’t considered until now. “It’s truly become a part of you.”
He lifted both hands to her face, stroking her hair behind her ears. “I’ll adapt. No piece of technology is worth losing time with you.” Continuing to hold her face, he said, “You’re sad, Ivy.”
She went to protest, but he shook his head, said, “I’m not an empath, but I know you. You enjoyed the sex—”
“The other races call it making love.” Ivy had heard that on comm shows. “It felt like that, didn’t it?” She curled her fingers against the firm breadth of his chest.
Vasic tasted the words, nodded. “Yes.”
Her smile was luminous. “I loved making love with you. Can we do it again?”
“Ivy.” Brushing his thumbs over her cheeks, he held her gaze. “Don’t try to distract me. You were happy for a while, but there’s sadness inside you.” Tiny flickers in her eyes, her smile fading when she thought he wasn’t watching, he’d noticed it all. “Tell me why.”
“Could you get Rabbit first?” she asked, her expression holding a raw vulnerability that kicked him in the heart. “I don’t want him to wake and find himself in an unfamiliar place.”
Vasic left at once, to return less than half a minute later. Rabbit was still curled up in his basket, fast asleep. Going down into a cross-legged position on the floor, Ivy petted the dog with a gentle touch. “My brave Rabbit,” she murmured, as Vasic came down to sit with his back against the wall, one arm braced on a raised knee.
Ivy took time to speak, and when she did, it was with helpless pain in her voice. “I can’t stop thinking about the gauntlet. I try so hard not to, but it’s always there at the back of my mind.” She dashed her hand across her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Vasic didn’t know how to comfort her. All he could do was draw her close, wrap her in his arms. “Surely,” he said, “you don’t doubt Samuel Rain’s genius. Are you a monkey?”
When she spluttered wetly and slapped at his chest, he felt a staggering sense of achievement. He’d given his mate what she needed, brought her through the sadness. Nuzzling his chin into her hair, he continued to hold her as they sat on the floor beside Rabbit.
“That wasn’t funny,” she said at last.
“You laughed.”
He saw her lips tug up at the corners, only to curve downward not long afterward. “There’ll be another outbreak soon, won’t there?”