Dark Matters - Michelle Diener Page 0,24
watching her.
She tried to keep her hands from shaking. A minute ticked by and she cracked her lids a little, saw the room was empty, and stood up, ripping the patches off her wrists and throwing them on the floor.
Dr. Farnn had told her that they'd done plenty of tests on her while she was unconscious, and they'd found her reactions to their drugs very atypical.
She was lucky the patches hadn't killed her, because it could just as easily have gone that way.
She drew in a long, shaky breath, pressed her fingers to her eyes. A sound escaped her throat, and she forced it back down.
Her relationship with the Tecran was complicated.
They'd taken her, but those who had done the taking weren't the ones who interacted with her on a day to day basis at the facility, and the scientists and doctors she spoke with were . . . friendly.
But they hadn't set her free.
The guards at the facility, though . . . She had refused to let them forget they held her prisoner. She had chafed at their rules and broken them every chance she could get.
The Tecran at the apartment building on the cliff had helped her a little, but they hadn't put themselves out to give her a safe place to stay or information that she could use to save herself.
The people in the square . . . they were a mixed bag of allies and enemies.
And now Gugi--he'd done her harm.
She forced herself to shake it off.
She started for the door, and then paused.
Gugi was coming back, but once she was out the door, she'd be in the same position she'd been in before. Alone, cold. Hunted. Maybe it would be wise to see what he had that would be useful to her.
At least now she knew her priority was to contact the UC team coming in. They would hopefully protect her.
She looked around, slowly spinning in a circle.
The room she'd sat in was just one of three in the apartment. There wasn't much in it for her to use, so she stepped into the kitchen, unhooked a bag from the wall and threw in food she recognized from the facility and an insulated mug.
Aware of time slipping by, she moved through to the bedroom and began opening drawers. When she found Gugi's clothes, she quickly stepped out of the thin pajamas she'd been in since the day before and pulled on warmer pants and a shirt. They were too big, but not by much.
She decided to keep the rock climbing shoes. They fit her, and they were waterproof, but she pulled on new socks and added some clean pairs to the bag, then took an insulated jacket which she put on under the cloak.
She was about to leave when she saw the handheld on a desk.
She shoved it into the pack and jogged to the front door, then listened carefully before she cracked it open.
There was no one in the corridor, but she heard voices up ahead and quickly stepped out and moved silently, retracing her steps to the back door.
It opened easily from the inside. She braved the biting wind again, looking in both directions. There was no one around. The afternoon light was almost gone and shadows enveloped the alleyway.
She hunched a little against the cold, turned her face away from it, and disappeared into the darkness.
Chapter 12
They stood on the knife-edge of war.
Dray took a few steps closer to Filivantri Dimitara, as did a number of others from the UC leadership team, as she faced off against the Tecran Defense Leader.
Suu Ulima had puffed himself up, chest almost bumping into the much smaller Bukarian, but Dimitara held herself with a cool disdain.
“You knew we were coming, your own people agreed to this solution instead of war, so your hostile attitude has no place here.” She spoke without giving him the respect of his title, which, by virtue of the UC takeover, had ceased to exist.
“How do you plan to run something you don't understand?” Ulima hissed at her.
“I understand you broke the law. Flagrantly. Again and again. And endangered the whole UC by playing with banned thinking systems. So if I decide to dismantle your military down to the ground, and build it up again from scratch, then I will. I don't have to understand how it works now. You will be the one who needs to understand how it works in the future.”
Dimitara's words caused a hush over the crowd. Dray