Instinct: A Chess Team Adventure - By Jeremy Robinson Page 0,122
to. He found it. The stun gun. She’d shocked him back to life. But the cardio . . . King remembered the last time he’d felt the sting of the stun gun and realized the same thing Sara had. His cardioverter defibrillator no longer worked.
“Thanks,” he said, and then smiled. “Rook was full of shit. . . .”
Sara wrinkled her forehead. What?
“This is way worse than heartburn.”
Sara smiled, laughed, and then caught her breath. King’s eyes went wide and he grabbed her wrist, staring at the outbreak meter’s red glow. “No,” he whispered, and then closed his eyes and lay still again. Panic began clawing at her insides. She lunged out a hand and checked for a pulse on his neck. The beat was regular and strong.
But he was unconscious, and helpless.
FIFTY-EIGHT
WHEN KING OPENED his eyes again, he was no longer staring up at the giant mountain crystals through the atrium-style ceiling of the fish pool room. The firm surface of the top stair no longer supported him.
Instead, he lay on a bed. A handmade mattress covered the surface. Its leaf-stuffed cushion crunched beneath him as he shifted his weight. Not exactly a Sealy Posturepedic, but certainly more comfortable than the stone floor. Looking to the side he found a small window—the room’s only source of light, through which the now-dull crystal light glowed. The sun must be setting, he thought, and then what? Pitch dark?
A chill swept over King’s body, not from thoughts of the dark or what might linger in it, but from his body. He looked down and found himself nearly naked, covered only by a large dry leaf, like the classic Adam.
He looked around for a clue of what was going on. As his eyes adjusted to the low light, the room around him began to take shape. There were crude shelves formed from freshly cut wood. A table. Several stools. A woodpile. An unused fire pit. A rope had been strung up across the room and on it, clothes hung. He couldn’t tell, but assumed they were his clothes, hung to dry after his dip in the ancient fishpond. Beyond the clothes, hidden in the shadows, he saw something else . . . someone else.
“It’s a bedroom.” Sara’s voice came from the dark corner.
“In the temple?” King asked. He wanted to be as far away from that hub of evil as he could get.
“In the city. Third gallery. Crowded little neighborhood . . . as weird as that sounds. Should take them forever to find us. How are you feeling?”
King smiled despite the fact that his body ached. “Exposed.”
“Sorry, there weren’t any blankets.”
“Why are you in the corner?” King asked.
“Didn’t want to freak you out.”
“Because I’m naked?”
“No . . .” Sara leaned forward, entering the stream of light coming in from the window. He could only see the top half of her torso. The rest of her sat in darkness. Her hands covered her small breasts, but her shoulders, collarbone, and smooth skin were stunning on their own. “Because I am.”
“Don’t worry. I’m used to sharing a locker room with a buxom blonde, remember? I’m good at controlling my libido.”
She smiled. “Well, I’m not.” She shifted, feeling awkward. “I mean, I’m not used to sharing a locker room. Not with a blonde. I didn’t mean controlling—”
King laughed and then winced as his chest ached. “Don’t worry. I knew what you meant.”
Sara sighed with relief, because she wasn’t sure what she’d meant.
King sat up, and made sure the leaf stayed put. Despite his locker room claims, he was starting to feel a bit underdressed. Queen might be a babe, but he’d never had feelings for her, not like he was beginning to feel for Sara. “How did you get away from Weston? That must have been—”
“Never mind that,” Sara said. “It’s what I took from him.”
King could see the excitement in her eyes. “You have the cure?”
“I am the cure.”
He stared at her for a moment. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s a virus, transferred through blood like an STD, but it cures Brugada. There are other symptoms associated with the virus, but I haven’t presented any yet. He got it from the old mothers when they . . . you know . . . and it was passed down to all their children.”
Sara looked confused by King’s angry expression. She then realized what she had implied. “Oh, he didn’t do anything. Don’t worry.” She took hold of her lower lip and bent it out, revealing her split lip.