Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 109245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109245 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
The gurney rolled forward again. Gage walked beside it, one hand glued to the side rail, the other on Scar’s forearm, feeling the flex and slack of drugged muscle under his palm.
They made a sharp left, as a set of doors swished open, and frigid air wrapped around his bare ankles.
The room they entered sounded bigger, their footsteps echoing off the walls. The sharpness of antiseptic and the metallic tang of surgical tools made Gage’s stomach churn.
The gurney clanked and locked into place.
“Gage, I’m Dr. Jules, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer,” she said in a relaxed manner. “This is a pulse oximeter monitor I’m putting on his finger, so I can keep track of his heart rate and oxygen levels.”
Gage tensed.
“I’m watching, G,” Roz reported from the other side of the bed. “Did you know his hair was white?”
I remember it turning, but I never saw the final result.
Gage heard the snap of latex gloves, a tiny click of plastic, then a monitor whirring to life before it started a steady beep.
He slid his hand down, mapping skin and bone until he found the device and rested his own hand over it like a guard.
“His heart rate is steady, and his oxygen level is ninety-eight percent. The sedative will wear off over the next couple of hours. I’m going to dim the lights so there’s no ocular strain when he wakes up.”
“Here, G, you can sit down.”
Roz rolled a stool toward him until it bumped the back of his knees.
“If his vitals change, my tablet will alert me,” Dr. Jules said. “There’s a phone on the wall to your left. If you need anything, just lift the receiver, and someone will respond right away.”
Gage lowered himself into the chair. It was one of those cushioned office ones, too firm but not terrible. He stayed leaning forward with his elbows braced on the edge of the mattress, and his hand over Scar’s forearm.
The door whispered open again, and he tracked the doctor’s footsteps down the hall until he couldn’t hear them anymore.
“Zorion is in the corner and Valor is right outside,” Roz said quietly. “Jo tried to follow us in, but Valor shut the door in her face.”
Gage nodded.
The room softened to hushed beeps and the low hissing of the ventilation system.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
Scar’s chest rose and fell under his palm. The sedative had loosened and taken the edge off him. The man who always vibrated with fury and defiance lay slack and still under his touch.
Gage could literally feel the difference in Scar stripped of his armor of rage and fire.
Roz blew out a long breath.
“I don’t get you, G,” he murmured. “This dude loathed you. Any time he saw you around the hood, he gave you shit.”
Yeah, he remembered.
But Scar had been all bark and no bite. He’d get in his face but never laid a hand on him.
“And now you’re acting like his bodyguard.” Roz’s chair creaked. “It makes no sense.”
Gage understood his friend’s confusion.
“Trust me, I know.”
“Then why?” Roz pushed. “He terrorized my crew day and night…especially when you were around. And he left you freezing in a barn a few days ago. Why do you feel you owe him?”
Gage curled his fingers around Scar’s wrist.
“I can’t let him wake up alone in here,” he said. “On another hospital bed, smelling the stench of this danggone lab. Hearing strange voices. Thinking he’d ended up right back in the same hell we just escaped from.”
He shook his head, then sighed.
“I was terrified when we landed on this rooftop, and I was conscious. Scar’s about to come outta’ this deep sleep, not knowing he’s safe. So maybe if I’m the first person he sees…”
“If he touches you, I’ll—”
“Roz. Stop.”
Memories flooded back like a breached dam, roaring through him before he could brace for the impact.
“There’s stuff I didn’t tell you,” he said. “About the other facility. About Scar and how he was just as much of a lab rat as I was.”
He slid his hand up Scar’s arm, over the hard swell of his bicep, and across his shoulder. The skin there was riddled with small, jagged ridges. The same injection and IV scars as his.
“The first time I saw Scar in there”—Gage’s voice dropped—“I still had most of my sight. Things were blurry, but I could still make out some shapes and colors. I’d spent a week being dragged in and out of some testing center. Every time they finished sticking me and pumping me full of crap, the world got fuzzier.”
He could still feel it if he allowed himself to—the sharp sting of whatever they’d pushed into his veins.
“They dumped me in a different room one day,” he went on. “One side of it was a glass wall.”
Scar’s face was burned in his memory from that day. Creased forehead from the permanent scowl, cold eyes glassed over like winter ice, jaw set hard enough to crack his own teeth.