That label couldn’t possibly look familiar. Could it?
Swallowing, I held out my hand. “May I?”
He handed over the vial, and I turned it so that I could read the label. The bold-print Q.N. lunged out at me like a punch to the solar plexus.
“This was part of the lab?” My breathing shortened as I tore my eyes away from my own initials and Sector 12 citizen matriculation number.
The man crossed his arms over his massive chest. “An important part, considering how well it was hidden. Not many samples left.”
“You just said there was a whole tray.” I felt light-headed. My heart hammered.
“Ten vials, all labeled the same way. I didn’t find more of that same thing anywhere else.”
From his tone, I knew he’d looked hard—and maybe not just here in this lab.
Horror scraped through me as the word component stumbled out from somewhere deep in my memories of blurry-headed days in the Overseer’s lab—along with whispers of an enhancer. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I let my thoughts dive right into my childhood nightmare.
My blood. Component. Enhancer.
Terrible understanding clicked into place. They’d used one abomination to create another.
I couldn’t stop the slight tremor in my fingers as I set the stolen piece of myself down on the table next to me, my pulse booming like the noises echoing around the cargo areas as Bridgebane’s lackeys worked on breaking into the Endeavor.
“Is that something to worry about?” the big guy asked casually. If he hadn’t glanced in the direction of the central cargo bay right then, I would have thought he meant the blood, not the relentless hammering.
A high-pitched sawing started up, and a second set of alarms squawked out of the central computer. My insides pitched sideways. We needed to hurry.
“And that?” he added, his eyebrows lifting.
“Yeah. Those…and a hell of a lot of other things.” In fact, I couldn’t think of one thing that wasn’t a problem right now. “Head to the bridge if you want to live.”
I’d told Fiona I’d get some samples. It made me queasy to carry through on my promise now that I knew the serum was probably based on my blood, but I grabbed an insulated medical satchel stamped with the galactic government’s seal anyway and started filling it with false cure-alls from the nearest temperature-controlled unit. I didn’t take the sample of my blood or try to find the other vials. Drawing attention to them somehow seemed worse than leaving without them.
While I gathered syringes, the man watched me, his gaze so heavy and intense that I was pretty sure he’d memorized the placement of every freckle on the bridge of my nose by the time I finished filling the bag and zipping it closed.
I mentally gave him ten seconds before I turned on my heel and left. He could stay or go, but I hoped he’d come. Like Jax and Fiona, the somewhat prominent vowels and lightly rounded tones of his speech practically screamed Outer Zones, and he had the same slightly weathered look they did, as if once upon a time, he’d spent a lot of his life outdoors.
Those weren’t the only things about him that appealed to me. His nonthreatening calm had just prevented me from completely losing it. It wasn’t every day you realized your mortal enemy had most likely made a weapon from your own blood. And with Bridgebane doing everything he could to get it back, my freak-out time was limited.
I beckoned with my free hand. “Move it, Big Guy. We don’t have long.” His ten seconds were up, and it was time for him to squeeze his big, bearded, and possibly genetically modified self into an escape pod.
Hesitating, he studied me with uncertain eyes. They shifted to the bag I was holding.
I tightened my grip on the strap. “Look, I don’t care if you’re military or civilian or a scientist or a victim or whatever,” I said. “You came with the lab by accident. The Dark Watch is about to board my ship, so unless you’re one of them, you’d better get off it if you want to live.”
“Are you offering me a pod?” he asked.
I nodded, wincing as what sounded like a different saw scraped its serrated teeth right over my frayed nerves. “Let’s go.”
“You take a pod,” he said, not moving. “I can’t let those Dark Watch goons get the lab back.”
Not only did he sound like a rebel from one of the trampled Sectors, but he acted