“Maybe the expectations were unreasonable, not your reaction to cryo.”
He leaned his head on the glass. “What is your number right now?”
I looked down at my wrist. “No change.”
Kellan put a finger to his mouth like he wanted me to be quiet before he rose and entered my enclosure. I pointed my finger at him. He wasn’t supposed to come in here. If Wade came out of the office, he was going to yell at him. But then again, Wade was probably asleep since he’d been in that other room for a long time. I hoped he was. This was a lot.
He lay down next to me on the bed. I should tell him to go. This was ridiculous. But I wanted to curl up against him. I had to control myself. If I hit ten tonight, he’d be in danger of catching something, and there was no amount of cuddling that was worth that. How could we cuddle in the future if he got sick? Of course, I might not have a future to cuddle.
Picking up my wrist, he kissed it right over the number. The gentlest of caresses. I sighed. Okay. He could stay for a minute. That was fine, just a minute. Or two. We kept having this conversation, over and over. How much of what I wanted went against their personal ability to make decisions?
No, I was right on this. I rolled over to tell him to get out of my bed, but his eyes were closed, and he looked so peaceful. Kellan never looked this relaxed. I would wake him in a second. For just now, I’d watch him sleep because he’d crawled in here even though he’d known he wasn’t supposed to in order to just sleep.
I reached out and stroked the side of his face gently. If it woke him, I’d kick him out, but he didn’t stir. He was a Super Soldier. That would wake him if he wanted to be woken. That had to be hard. They never could really deeply sleep unless they were drugged into cryo to do so. I knew their genes had been manipulated, but didn’t they need REM like the rest of us?
Dropping my hand, I snuggled back down. If he was pretending to not wake up so that I’d let him rest, I’d give him an A for performance technique. That was something I’d never seen, a theater show. Did people still do that?
He smelled fresh, like he’d just showered. The scent of a cinnamon soap on him was different than usual for Kellan. He probably had to use whatever was on this ship. I could use a shower myself. With their scent of smell so heightened, did they know when I smelled bad even before I did?
That was sort of a gross thing to think about.
I wasn’t going to go there in my head. They must think I was okay, or they wouldn’t all want to be close to me. I was going to go with that.
Closing my eyes, I made a decision. I was just going to go with it. For once in this strange, bizarre life where I was constantly between what was happening to me and what I wanted, I would take what I wanted. In this moment, even if it was insanely wrong, I wanted this.
I didn’t know how long I slept, but I woke up when Wade banged on the window. “Hey, tough guy, you know you’re not supposed to be in there. I’d really appreciate it if you guys wouldn’t get yourself sick so I have to figure out how to save you, too.”
Kellan groaned but sat up. “Looks like we got caught. We made it longer than I thought we would. Wade must have been sleeping.”
I stared at Kellan for a second while my mind cleared. “Were you awake when I thought you might be awake?”
He shrugged. “Half awake.”
“You’re always half awake, I think.”
Kellan got up and rubbed his eyes. “How would I know the difference?”
That was a perfectly legitimate question. He’d never had the difference. How would he know? I swung my legs over the side of the bed. “How long until we’re at The Farm?”
“We’re there.” Kellan knew the answer even though he’d been asleep, too. I looked down at my wrist. If I were at ten, I was never going to forgive myself for being so selfish for the hours I’d taken. My head was clearer than before. I could only hear a thousand souls yelling in pain in my head, as opposed to the ten thousand the day before. It wasn’t that many. There were only a hundred or so on the ship when I took on their pain. But it felt that way. My number was at eight. It had lowered a touch. I let out a breath and held up my arm so Wade could see it through the glass. He nodded, and the relief in his gaze must have been mirroring my own.
“That’s good that we’re there.” I really did need that shower. “Do you think they’ll let me take a bath when we’re there? Before they start poking and prodding at me, and I say nothing about what we’re doing?”
Wade snorted. He smiled as he spoke. That was a nice sight. Different from earlier. “I think they’ll let you take a shower. This isn’t going to be a prison thing.”
Blaze entered and Wade spoke to him over his shoulder. “She’s down a notch.”
“Good, maybe Kellan sneaking off to sleep with her was some magic touch.”
Kellan groaned as he exited the enclosure. “He wants you to know we didn’t get away with it, Sienna. Just in case we thought we were sneaky, Blaze already knew.”
“I know most things,” Blaze responded with a shrug. “And then sometimes I don’t know anything.”
That seemed like a pretty accurate description for my life as well. Although, lately I wasn’t sure that I knew anything at all.
The approach to The Farm was beautiful. We’d landed the whole ship where we’d been met by more people ready to come on board and help than I could have imagined. The guys were all instantly busy. Blaze had to report in to some people I recognized from the meeting on Mars Station about what had happened, and the others scattered away to go see various people who could help them in some way. Of course, they were all lying. We weren’t there because we wanted to tell our story.
With nothing to do and no direction as to where I was supposed to go, I stood and observed while some big machines pulled Artemis out of the ship and loaded her into a large hangar that I could see in the distance. Since we needed Artemis healthy to use her the way we had to, we would be here on The Farm just as long as it took for that to happen.
“Hello,” a voice called out to me, and I jumped, my hand going to my throat in reflex. It took me a second to remember Diana from the brief lunch I’d had with her. She was tiny, dark-haired, and smart. Or at least that had been my initial impressions. The women who I’d been with were all close to one another. As the outsider in a formed group, it was hard to know what was real and what I’d picked up from other people’s perceptions.
I smiled. “Hi. Am I in the way here? I suppose I should go inside and figure out where I was supposed to be.” Which was a polite way of me not saying I needed to shower. That was one of those things maybe I didn’t say aloud in front of strangers. Plus, there was the other factor. As a person who was sick enough to stay in a glass cage the night before, I should probably not have been wandering. Of course, I was at eight now. There was a huge difference in eight to nine. At least in as much as the guys had all relaxed when they’d seen or heard it. Perhaps it was just a question of my own ability to heal. If I could get back down to eight, I was maybe not as dire as they’d worried.
Maybe was the keyword.
“No, I don’t see why you would be. They’re all inside making arrangements for you. I know you didn’t like that last time. Or at least that’s what I heard. I wanted to make sure you knew.”