be the best damn clinic anyone’s ever seen. For Mace.”
“For Mace,” he echoed, holding up the bottle. He took another sip before holding it out to her. “So it’s okay with you? If we stick around?”
She took a long swallow, then set the bottle aside. “It’s not up to me what you do, Knox.”
“No, I know.” He tilted his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. “But I care how it makes you feel. I don’t want to hurt you again.”
She rose and stepped away from the edge of the roof. Away from him. “Let me worry about my feelings, okay? It’s not your job.”
His gaze followed her. “What do you want?”
“What?”
“You keep telling me all the things I don’t have to do.” He rose gracefully, but didn’t step toward her. Just watched her, patient. Intense. “What do you want?”
It was a reasonable question, one she’d asked him on more than one occasion. A normal person would have been able to answer.
Nina, on the other hand, didn’t have a goddamn clue.
* * *
TECHCORPS PROPRIETARY DATA, L1 SECURITY CLEARANCE
MD–701 has reached critical implant degradation. Seizures should prove fatal in a matter of days.
66–615’s damaged hands present a unique opportunity. Tell the reconstruction lab that we should have a candidate for their new project within a week.
Internal Memo, January 2086
* * *
THIRTY-THREE
What do you want?
Nina shook the echo out of her head and tried to focus on the plate in front of her. Everyone else had already eaten and cleared the table, but she’d been running at half speed all day. Especially since she’d spent a sleepless night pondering Knox’s question.
What do you want?
“Oh, is this what we’re doing?” Dani nudged the cloth Gray had spread out over one end of the table in preparation for cleaning his rifle.
He barely glanced up. “Got something you want me to clean?”
“Me? I don’t let anyone get grabby with my equipment. I handle it myself.”
Luna squinted at them both. “I can’t decide if this sounds dirty or not.”
“Dani’s dirty isn’t really subtext. It’s usually just text.” Maya dropped into the chair across from Gray and examined the rifle. “Can I touch it?”
“Nope. Get your own.”
Nina gave up on eating and carried her plate to the makeshift kitchen in the corner. She washed up on autopilot, lulled by the growing noise of the conversation around the table and words pounding a drumbeat in her head.
What do you want?
The answer was simple—and terrifying. Since the night Knox had shown up at her door, all fake smiles and very real determination, she’d wanted him. What had started as a purely physical attraction had deepened once they hit the road, weaving through her until it felt like an intrinsic part of her existence: brown eyes, brown hair, 1.78 meters tall.
Fascinated by Captain Garrett Knox.
If it had ended there, she might have been able to walk away for good. But it didn’t matter that he’d lied to her or pushed her away. She’d seen him, his strengths as well as his weaknesses, everything. Scattered between the half-truths and the open, unguarded conversations were a thousand tiny moments—each one insignificant, perhaps, but when you put them all together …
She loved him. That hadn’t changed. She didn’t think it could. But what she hadn’t anticipated was that she would need him this much. Now that she’d crashed back into his life to defend him from the Protectorate once and for all, she could feel it so sharply, the hole he’d left in her chest. In her life.
And it hurt. Dear God, it hurt.
She made her way back to the trestle table, where Gray was shaking his head at Rafe. “That’s a terrible trade. She’s pulling one over on you.”
Dani waved a pistol at him—an M1911 that she’d bought off a traveling dealer and painstakingly refurbished. “Hey, you shut up. This isn’t a replica, okay? It’s the real deal.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah, no shit.”
Maya had abandoned Gray for Conall, who had spread an impressive array of specialty weapons out in front of him. “EMP, shock wave, Taser, flamethrower,” he listed, touching each one in sequence before picking up a shiny silver handgun so delicate it looked like a toy. “You’ll like this one. Tiny, poison-tipped darts with just enough velocity to pierce clothing. Half the time, they can’t even figure out what happened before they drop.”
“Ooooh.” Maya reached out, wiggling her fingers in excitement. “Gimme, gimme.”
“No.” Dani intercepted the dart gun. “What if you shoot yourself in the foot? What if you shoot