shirt pocket and shook his head. “Are you square now? Not going to puke?”
She managed a weak smile. “Probably not. But I can’t go back inside. The sounds…” She flexed her fingers, which were stiff from being clenched into helpless fists. “I can’t forget things I hear. And I don’t need any more bad memories.”
“Then we’ll stay out here.” He leaned against the wall beside her.
It was almost nice. The distant rumble of thunder shivered through her, and she could feel the crackle of static in the air. It wouldn’t be long before the sky tore open and relieved this sweltering, miserable heat.
Too soon, the silence swelled into a void so empty that it begged for memories to fill it. “Can you tell me more about the hurricane?”
After a long moment, he grunted softly. “The winds get high. They look scary, but hurricanes aren’t like other storms. It’s not the wind you really have to worry about. It’s the water…”
The tension in her muscles slowly melted. She let her open hands hang limply at her sides, afraid that even pressing them against the brick would be one sensation too many. But his words rolled over her, stroking and soothing, beautiful blissful nothingness. Just the weather. He was telling her about the weather, and she wanted to drown in it.
FlowMac Pop had nothing on this.
* * *
TECHCORPS PROPRIETARY DATA, L1 SECURITY CLEARANCE
One week post 55–312’s procedure, and the unexpected results persist. As far as we can ascertain, 55–312 is either indifferent or insensitive to pain. More interestingly, she fails to exhibit the detrimental complications typically seen in congenital sufferers, such as chewing injuries and corneal infections secondary to abrasion.
The department has requisitioned regeneration equipment in order to test the nature (indifference vs. insensitivity) as well as the limits, if any, of her condition. We anticipate prompt approval.
Recruit Analysis, February 2077
* * *
THIRTEEN
Watching Rafe take hit after hit shouldn’t have reminded Knox of watching Mace die.
There were no similarities between the sterile, impersonal TechCorps cells and Boyd’s grimy dive of a bar. No one had laid a finger on the Silver Devils’ medic. No one needed to. Mace’s body had consumed itself from the inside, just like Conall’s was beginning to do.
And Mace had had no control. As bloody as this fight looked, Knox could see the strategy in Rafe’s choices. He took hard hits, vicious, bloody ones. But he always twisted to avoid any incapacitating blows. He controlled the fight so skillfully that even a trained soldier like Boyd might not see it.
In order to see what was going on, you’d have to understand how much punishment Rafe would willingly take to achieve his endgame.
Watching that punishment shouldn’t have reminded Knox of Mace. But it was one of his men, bleeding and hurting while he was helpless to stop it, and owning up to how badly the TechCorps had broken him meant owning up to this.
Knox couldn’t put the mission above his men anymore.
His gut churned. His muscles burned from the tension of holding himself still. The only part of him that didn’t ache was the hand gripping Nina’s. Sweet warmth burned where their palms met. Every brush of her fingers was the gentlest of electric shocks.
He almost talked himself into letting go when Boyd cast a look at them, his red-rimmed eyes lingering on their joined hands, but releasing her now would look like he was trying to hide something. Besides, Nina had been right. Boyd considered all the women arm candy—and reinforcing that idea would keep them safer.
It was getting too easy to rationalize touching her.
Dani returned with two drinks. She offered one to Nina, who refused. With a shrug, Dani drained them both, one right after the other, then pressed the empty glasses into the hands of a confused passerby.
Then she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the cage. “He should have ended this by now.”
“He better do it soon,” Knox rumbled. Rafe had a swollen eye, a bloody face, and so many bruises he’d be thankful to fall into a proper bed tonight. If it got much worse—
Between one heartbeat and the next, the fight shifted. A punch that should have taken out a few of Rafe’s teeth swung wide as he ducked with impossible speed and came up under his opponent’s guard. With a roar of rage, Rafe hoisted the man off his feet and flung him bodily against the side of the cage. The rattle of the impact was swiftly drowned out