The Bionics (The Bionics Series Part 1) (8 page)

Again.

“Blythe, it’s me, Gage, are you okay?”

I raise my eyebrows at Dog and frown.
Gage?
What the hell is he doing in Mosley Hall? I glance at the clock on my nightstand and
see
that it’s three o’clock in the morning. He knocks again, more quietly this time,
propelling
me into full wakefulness. I jump up and run to the door, realizing that he’ll wake everyone in the hall if I don’t answer him soon.

I
fling
the door open to find him on the other side, still fully dressed with his hair standing on end like he’s been raking his fingers through it again. His eyes travel over me and my face gets hot as I realize I’m not wearing anything but a tank top and a pair of indecently short shorts, and both are drenched in my sweat. Gage blinks a few times before focusing his gaze back on mine again. He swallows noisily and leans against the doorframe.

“
I was walking and heard screams coming through your window. By the time I figured out what room you were in and got inside
,
you’d stopped, but I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

Makes sense.
My room faces the front of the building and my bed is close to the window. Still doesn’t explain why he’s out walking the grounds at three a.m.

“I couldn’t sleep
,” he says as if he read my
thoughts
.
“Got a lot on my
mind
.”

I nod and open the door a bit wider. “You can come in if you want. I doubt I’ll b
e getting back to sleep either.”

He enters without hesitation and I close the door behind him, leaning against the heavy wood and watching him as he moves toward the center of the room. No one else fills up quite so much of my space except for
Dax
. I doubt they could both fit in here; standing side by side, their shoulders could probably span the width of the cube I call home.
I watch
the ripple of muscles that undulate across his torso as he removes his leather jacket to reveal the same white thermal top he’
d
been wearing earlier when we met.
He turns and looks at me expectantly and I shake my head to clear it of thoughts of him whipping that shirt off over his head.

“Oh, sorry.
Please
,
sit down.”

He lowers himself
onto the only available seat in the room.
My bed.
He’s near the foot of the bed, so I take a spot near the headboard, pressing my back against the rough, chipped wood in an effort at placing some distance between us. I don’t know how I feel about the fact that being so close to
him
makes
it seem
as if my skin is on fire.

“So…” he trails off and clears his throat, shifting on the bed. “Are you okay?”

I lower my eyes and try to decide what I’m going to say.
The only person that knows about the night terrors is
Dax
…and maybe
Jenica
since she shares a wall with me on the other side, but I’m not sure. She at least has enough respect for me not to say anything about it if she’s heard me screaming until I’m hoarse.
Dax
says I only do it when I’ve had a particularly jarring day. I’m thinking that coming back from our trek in Dallas empty-handed and then seeing those poor people from Memphis—many of them elderly and children—branded as terrorists when I know in my heart that they did nothing wrong, has taken its toll on me and brought up memories of my own past. It’s always the same; screeching brakes, shattering glass, the spray of blood and gore
, that blinding flash of light that started it all and changed my life forever.

“I’m worried about
Agata
,” he continues talking when I don’t respond. “I mean, I know she’s safe now. Getting her
to Professor
Hinkley
was my first priority.
When I got in touch with his contact in Washington and he told me where to go to find your team, I was happy. I just knew I had to get her here.
”

“Even if it means death for you?”

His head comes up and his stare is sharp as it connects with mine. “There are some things that are worse than death.”

I wonder if he realizes he’s preaching to the choir.

“I wish that I had died that day,” I admit, unable to look away from his gaze no matter how much my mind tells me that I need to. “I wish that all the time.”

He inches closer to me on the bed.
“Is it really so bad?
Professor
Hinkley
gave you and the others a second chance at life. It’s not fair
that the government has decided you and others like you pose a threat.”

I think about a news broadcast I saw a couple of weeks ago, showing a surveillance video of a man with an arm identical to mine smashing in the window of someone’s car and beating them to a bloody pulp for no reason
,
before pulling a
limp body from the driver’s seat and driving off in the stolen vehicle. Of course the thief was found and immediately executed; no
trial
, no jury, no questions asked.

“Some of us are dangerous
,” I answer, and of course, it’s the truth.

“Some
people
are dangerous,” he insists. “Bionics
are
still people….just modified.”

“Right now your blood pressure is 124/90, your heart rate is an elevated 70 beats per minute; not bad, but still high for a healthy male that I assume is athletic.
You have a tattoo on your left arm of an eagle, and a fractured rib.”

“That is amazing.”

I shrug. “It’s my eye. It is capable of reading a person’s body heat signature as well as their vital statistics. It allows me to pull away individual layers, such as clothing, skin, and muscle to expose what’s underneath.
It’s
how I knew about the rib.”

I reach out with my bionic arm and poke the rib for emphasis, raising my eyebrows as he winces
in pain. “Still think I’m human
?
”

Gage reaches for my arm—my robotic arm—and grabs it by the hand. I can’t feel it, or his hand circling the wrist above it. His eyebrows wrinkle as he turns my arm over, inside
facing up. He traces the inside of my arm, his fingers sliding over the cool metal and
,
for the first time since I woke up with that hunk of machinery on the other end of my elbow, I am wishing that I could feel the damn thing.

“Cold,” he murmurs as he draws circles on the metal. His fingers stop on the inside of my elbow, on the line where the titanium ends and I begin. I hear his breath catch in his throat and another noisy swallow as the pad of his index finger slides over
my skin. I gasp as he trails it
up the inside of my arm, flesh now on flesh. The human contact that I’ve denied myself for years
has left me sensitive to every
touch
, and I feel as if I’m being
caressed
for the first time.

Of course
Dax
has held my hand from time to time; he’s even held me
against him
some nights when the nightmares get particularly bad
until I fall back asleep
. But he’s never touched
me
like this, and while I’m no virgin I certainly feel like one
right now
. A thousand emotions are exploding in me at one time and just as many sensations are following the path his finger traces up to my shoulder, pausing at the strap of my tank top.

“
Warm,” he says with a smile. “Only about….what…ten percent of you is metal. When I got past your elbow, I felt skin, blood flowing through veins, muscle, and…goose bumps?”

He says that last bit with a smile, forcing me to look away in embarrassment. He holds his arm out toward me, pulling up
the sleeve of his shirt and revealing a tanned arm sprinkled with light blond hair, which is standing on end.
He leaves the sleeve above his elbow and holds his arm out in front of me.

“See?” he says gently, his head way too close to mine
, his breath brushing my cheek. “I have them too.”

I reach out with my human h
and and touch his arm. His opposite
hand comes up to cover mine.

“If anything,” he says, his fingers gripping mine tightly, “the additions to your body give you character. They tell a story about where you’ve been
.”

He pauses, leaning in so close that locks of his hair brush my forehead. “Where
have
you been, Blythe?”

I know he’s referring to the screams and my nightmare. I wonder if I can put him off like I do the others, but quickly realize by the glint in his eyes that he’s not letting me off that easy.
I clear my throat and open my mouth, but no sound comes out. Gage leans forward and presses his lips to mine, taking advantage of my open mouth to nibble on my lower lip.

With a soft sigh, he closes the distance between us and cups my face in his hands, taking my breath away with the simple act of molding his mouth to mine. My hands resting on his thick thighs, I come up on my knees on the bed, leaning into him, trembling both inwardly and outwardly, unsure of what I’m doing or why I’m doing it, but know that I can’t stop. Kissing
Gage feels
like walking down the street
used to be
before the government labeled Bionics as dangerous. It feels like freedom.

“Hey Blythe, I couldn’t sleep and I was thinking…”

Dax’s
voice trails off as the door
to the bathroom we share
knocks against the wall, pushed open by my bone-headed best friend who never knocks because he knows I’m never doing anything
he can’t see me doing.

Except this time.

This time, guilt propels me away from Gage and back against the headboard, my lowered eyelids
shielding me from
Dax’s
dark glare.

“Sorry,” he says, sounding anything but.
“Didn’t realize you’d have a visitor at three o’clock in the goddamn morning.”

Part of me wants to rip
Dax
a new asshole for being such a jerk. What right does he have being mad at me when I know he’s screwed Olivia on several occasions, and who knows what other groupies he’s got salivating over him in both Mosley and
Hexley
Halls? Another part of me feels like I just got caught doing something unforgiveable, although I’m not sure if it was that I kissed someone, or if it’s just the fact that the someone I kissed happens to be Gage.

Gage stands slowly, his hawks
-
eye gaze swiveling from me to
Dax
and back again. He nods as if figuring something out and collects his jacket.

“It is pretty late,” he says as if he had no idea what time it was. “I’ll let you get some sleep now, Blythe. See you at the meeting tomorrow morning?”

With my nightmare and Gage’s appearance at my door, I’d forgotten all about the meeting
Professor
Neville
organized for tomorrow morning over breakfast.
Jenica
w
ill be bringing her
intel
on the Memphis Resistance group and we’ll be formulating a plan from there.
Dax
hates that Gage was even invited.

“Sure,” I say. “Good night.”

He leaves with a nod in
Dax’s
direction. The jackass who’s supposed to be my best friend just
continues staring daggers at Gage until he’s
out of sight
. He then slams the
bathroom
door and walks to the middle of the room, pauses, runs a hand over his buzz-cut head
, and paces to the door and back again, his face a mask of disbelief. When he finally speaks, his voice is a hoarse whisper.

“What the hell did I just witness?”

I rear back as if slapped and, honestly,
it
’
s
how I feel. “What I think you just witnessed,” I hiss, coming to my feet, “was a consensual act between two mature adults that had nothing to do with you.”

“Nothing to do with me?
How can you say that?”

He looks truly hurt, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why. In fact, for some reason, it downright pisses me off.

“You know what?” I challenge, stepping toward him and tilting my head back to look him in the eye. “I can say that, because it seriously has nothing to do with you! Do I come barging in your room
when you’re rattling the headboard with Olivia?”

His jaw gets so tight I’m afraid it might snap. “That’s not fair.”