Nevertheless, I sat there slowly rolling the now-empty bottle between my hands, listening to the cheap plastic crackle and staring rather blindly at the rows of temperature-controlled shelving units holding the enhancers.
Part of me wondered if I should blow them up. I couldn’t decide.
Eventually, I felt steady enough to get up. My head spun as though it were orbiting my body instead of attached to it, but I didn’t fall down. Deep breaths helped chase away the sparks and floaters dancing across my vision. I gripped the edge of the table for balance, still dizzy as hell. I probably should have sat back down, but getting out of the stifling room was starting to feel like a priority I couldn’t ignore. I swallowed hard, gearing up to move. The moment I was able, I gathered the blood bags and stumbled out of the lab attachment, locking it again behind me.
I somehow made it to Fiona’s domain, dragging my feet and keeping a heavy hand against the corridor wall. In a small miracle that saved me from having to explain why I was barely upright, she wasn’t in her lab. Maybe she’d finally remembered to eat something. I stuck the already sufficiently cooled blood in her refrigerator and left her a note. It was hardly legible, but I didn’t have the energy to try again.
Before I left, I took a bottle of water from Fiona’s stash but didn’t open it yet. One foot in front of the other, woozy step by woozy step, I made it to my room. Thankfully, my personal sanctuary had been intact again since Shade’s first visit to the Endeavor, when he’d fixed the hole in my bedroom wall. There was still a shit-ton of construction noise coming through the hull, but I didn’t care. I curled up next to Bonk and put my arm around him.
It felt so good to lay my head on the pillow that I snuggled into it like I used to when I was a kid and my only real worries were why my father scowled at me the way he did, used me like a blood dispenser, and fought so much with my mother. I hadn’t liked it, but I also hadn’t known anything else existed until Mareeka and Surral took me in, just like they took in all the strays of the galaxy.
I smiled. Just like Susan with her cats.
It hadn’t been all bad in the Overseer’s opulent but prison-like home. Mom had loved me and done her best to protect me, and we’d had some good times with Uncle Nate before he’d become Captain Bridgebane to both of us, even in private, just like he’d already been to everyone else.
He’d eventually closed himself off to us, hardly visiting his stepsister or her apparently mutant daughter anymore. Even an ex-hooligan from 17 could finally buy into Dad’s crap. Mom had been really sad about that.
I yawned, wishing so many things had turned out differently—and not just for myself.
Bonk started purring, and sleep hovered close to my thoughts, trying to overtake them. A few fought back.
It was going to be really hard to spar with Shade tonight, but I wouldn’t miss it for all the worlds.
Also, he wanted to show me some moves? I knew at least one of us was hoping they wouldn’t be limited to self-defense.
Chapter 16
Shade was gone by the time I woke up, and Jax told me I was supposed to find him at his shop for our “workout,” which he of course said with narrowed eyes and a huge amount of disapproval in his voice.
I didn’t mind, and I didn’t try to argue Jax into changing his. I loved that he looked out for me. He wouldn’t get all growly and sullen if he didn’t care, and if he had been doing something that worried me, I sure as hell wouldn’t have held back. But Jax never really did anything stupid, or at least potentially stupid, like I sometimes did. The only thing that bothered me was how he spent so much time stuck in the past and never, ever planned on leaving it behind him.
As the elevator tube sucked me down to ground level, I knew I looked okay on the outside because I’d fancied myself up a bit before leaving, but I still felt like crap on the inside. My head spun with any sudden movement, and if I hadn’t wanted to see Shade so badly, I’d