Night In A Waste Land (Hell Theory #2) - Lauren Gilley Page 0,36

all the gold out of his complexion. “I don’t think you were expecting it, either.”

“Well. I’ve never brought anyone back from hell before. I didn’t have expectations.”

His smile widened, truer now. He reached to touch her face, lightly, just the pads of his fingers. She couldn’t get over the new heat of his skin. “That’s a clever answer.”

She smiled back. “I try to be.”

“No, you are.” His hand slipped down to her neck; his claws scraped lightly over her pulse, and she shivered. “What did they send you to tell me?”

She felt her smile slip, even as she leaned into his touch. “I just came to see you.”

“With a message,” he pressed. His breath steamed in the air between them, a thicker, whiter cloud than her own. “It’s alright, sweetheart. You’re a soldier now. I understand that.”

She sighed. “They’re getting a helo ready. They want to take us up and over to survey the city before tomorrow morning’s deployment.”

“Helo,” he echoed, smiling again, with teeth this time. The fangs were still startling. “How military.”

“Beck–”

His hand withdrew. “Tell them there’s no need.” His wings stretched wide, scattering raindrops. “I can survey it myself.”

“Beck,” she tried again.

But he stepped back, still holding her gaze, still grinning. His wings stretched, lifted, dropped, cupping and catching air. And then they were flapping, and he was lifting, hovering. And then he tipped his face up to the rain, and his wings gave a great thrust, and he was off. Flying.

Flying.

Away from her, as gracefully and lithely as he did everything.

EIGHT

Before

“Will he accept a new limb?” Morgan asked. She considered the board set up on the cot between them, then carefully took her rook between two small fingers and moved it.

“I don’t know.” Rose sighed. “We all want him to. Tris has been – especially encouraging about it. The doctors and scientists here have made some major progress with the tech. But. He says he doesn’t want to have something clunky that hinders more than it helps.”

Gallo had been more stoic and gracious about his injury than any of them could have hoped. He’d tried to downplay the pain, even when he was white-faced and sweating with it. Insisted that he didn’t need help, though God knew it had been offered. He had a new stubborn set to his jaw that made him look older, harder in a way he never had before. So many would have wept and despaired, but Gallo had absorbed his trauma and it burned hot in his chest, fueling him the same way that Rose’s fueled her.

“Hm,” Morgan hummed. “Maybe I could help.”

Rose paused with her hand on her knight, and glanced up. “Help how?”

Morgan was examining her own fingers. “I’m not sure. But I could try.”

~*~

“Absolutely not,” Captain Bedlam said, shaking her head for emphasis. “Greer, are you insane?”

Rose bit back a sigh of frustration. “Ma’am, what could it hurt to try?”

“She could kill him, for one,” Bedlam snapped. “Or have you spent so much time with her that she’s turned you against us?”

“Captain,” Lance said, firmly, before Rose could respond. “That’s not fair.”

“Did you forget what she is? This is a conduit, Sergeant!”

“I’m aware.”

“Last time I checked, we kill conduits – we don’t invite them to perform medical experiments on our Knights!”

“This one’s different,” Rose said, and earned a scathing glare of challenge from her captain. “She helped us. She’s cooperated with every one of our requests. She stays locked up in that cell and never complains, even though she could burn this whole place to the ground if she wanted to.”

You could have cut glass with the clenched edge of Bedlam’s jaw. “And who says she won’t?”

“I do.”

Rose heard Bedlam and Lance inhale at the same time.

Lance said, “Captain–”

Gallo interrupted. He stepped forward and inserted himself into the conversation, where before he’d been hanging back near the door.

“Francis,” Tris hissed.

He was ignored. “I want to try it,” Gallo said, boldly, chest thrust out, cradling his stump with his good hand. “I want to stay, and I want to fight, and the current prosthetic isn’t good enough. If…” He glanced toward Rose for confirmation. “Morgan?”

Rose nodded.

He nodded in return, and looked back to the captain. “If Morgan can help make it more efficient, then I want to let her try. My choice. I’ll sign whatever waivers I need to.”

Bedlam pressed back into her chair, and stared at him. Nodded toward Rose. “Did she put you up to this?”

Rose opened her mouth – and Lance closed a hand around her