Chapter Thirty-Six

The snow where Ben and Gray had been standing a second earlier was stained with spots of green. It was android blood. I wondered which of them had been hit, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d both sustained wounds. The gunfire had been insane.

“Is Daniel really on his way?”

Jack’s voice drew my attention from the darkness at the edge of the park. Jack didn’t look so good. He was pale enough that even his gray beard looked dark and unkempt against his face. Not that it didn’t always look unkempt.

“I don’t know… I tried.” But a dozen things could have gone wrong. Daniel and the others might not yet have returned from the shipyard. The air inside the Prometheus facility might not have circulated correctly or fast enough. The gang may have had a run-in with the Easter Bunny. That long-eared hippie could be such a prick sometimes….

“Hey!”

I blinked. Jack was gently slapping my cheeks, and his face was blurry in front of me. How rude, blurring on me like that.

“I said stay with me Sam,” he said earnestly. “I’ll probably need that clever coconut of yours.”

I felt my brow furrow as I concentrated. After a few seconds I realized I was losing my ability to remain coherent. So I narrowed my gaze and focused like hell on Jack, willing my vision to de-blur. When it finally did, it was just in time to see him shiver violently.

He’d taken off his own coat…. I looked down. There it was, wrapped around me over the other layers of protective clothing I’d already been wearing.

“No,” I mumbled. “This is wrong.” I started to shrug off Jack’s coat.

“Hey kid, what the hell are you doing?” he demanded, his hands stalling mine firmly. “I’ll just get a little cold, but you might damn well die.”

“Jack, you… no. You gotta get these off me. Let me freeze.” I swallowed hard; it took a while to get past the dry part of my throat, and while I was struggling, Jack was scoffing as if I were a raving lunatic.

“Yeah, you’re definitely delirious,” he muttered, shaking his head.

“Jack,” I said as soon as I could, putting as much force as possible behind my weak words. “It… it’ll slow the bleeding.”

Jack went still. He looked from me to the coats, then to the air around us. And suddenly he was pulling his coat back off my shoulders and unzipping Ben’s jacket. “Damn it, I don’t know why I didn’t know that,” he muttered angrily.

Soon, everything warm had been removed from my body, and the effect was unfortunately immediate. The wind picked up with perfect timing and the cold proceeded to push right through my skin and muscle, down into the bone. The upside was that I was waking up again, being pulled back into consciousness by the clawed hand of winter. The downside was that I had never felt more physically wretched than I felt in that moment.

My teeth clamped hard together; I was unable to separate them. Oh God, I thought. I think I’d rather just die.

“What the – ” Jack’s dismayed whisper pulled me from my downwardly spiraling resolve. He was patting down the pocket of Ben’s black leather jacket. A smile curled his lips, and he hurriedly unzipped it as he looked up at me. “Your bounty hunter friend left us a little something.” He lifted his hand to show me the gun he’d pulled from Ben’s jacket. I could tell even at a glance that it was fully loaded, and not with tranquilizer bullets either.

“W-well at…l-least th-there’sss th-that,” I stuttered through my clenched teeth. Now I can end it quick.

Jack glanced from my eyes to my lips and back again, and his expression darkened. I could tell he was worried about the decision to cool me off, but I could also tell he knew we had no choice if this would slow the bleeding. Reluctantly, he turned his attention back to the gun in his hand and opened the chamber, checked the clip, then returned the rounds to their place.

I noticed he hadn’t yet bothered to put his own jacket back on. Idiot, I thought fondly. I knew he was doing it because he felt that if I had to suffer, he was going to suffer as well. Have I mentioned you’re an idiot?

“You think maybe he knew it would come to this?” he asked, referring to the gun and Ben. “You think he wanted to leave us with something to use against Zero?” His words fogged with condensation. He was probably starting to get as cold as I was.

“I d-don’t kn-know,” I whispered. Ffffuck, I thought. Then I felt bewildered by the fact that I’d stuttered the swear word in my head too. “F’s” were very easy to stutter, after all. My freaking mind was freezing right along with my body.

Frankly, at that moment I didn’t care about the gun. I was just too damn miserable. Just give the gun to me, Jack.

Now, Dandelion, seduced a smooth, all-too familiar voice in my head. Such unseemly thoughts. They have no place in the sanctity of your exquisite mind.

I couldn’t react on the level I normally would have, but I’d retained enough of my senses to reach out and grab at Jack’s arm. “It’s him!”

“What?”

“Z-zero!”

“Shit!” he hissed as he got his feet under him in a crouch and looked toward the gazebo’s single entrance.

I made a pathetic sound and forced myself forward onto my hands and knees. Then I growled at the further agony of my frozen hands scraping the wooden floorboards. I hurriedly scanned all around the gazebo and its single entryway, just as Jack had.

“Just stay down and stay behind the wall,” Jack ordered firmly.

I nodded and we both started toward the wall. I stopped after no more than a foot and curled inward as the pain of my wound engulfed me and stars began to dance around me.

Jack swore again and grabbed hold of me, then half-pulled and half-crawled me closer to the wall of the gazebo. By the time we got there, tears had sprung to my eyes.

I blinked them away and slapped at my face so I could see. Because of the barrier, our view of the surrounding area was greatly limited, and building snow further obscured it. I had no idea where Zero was. I only knew he was close.

Where are you, you son of a bitch? I mentally hissed.

Warmth at once infused me, hard and fast and blessedly welcome. It originated in the marrow of my bones and spread outward like foam bubbles building at the top of a well-poured beer. I closed my eyes as blatant relief and mounting dread went to war within me. No, I thought without any real vigor. I’ll bleed too much if I’m warm.

I would never allow it, Zero assured me softly. I opened my eyes to glance down at my side. Blood had initially drenched my clothing, but the bleeding had slowed to a crawl at my exposure to the cold, and it was still slow now, just as he’d intimated.

Whatever he was doing, the effect was mental rather than physical. He was making me imagine I was warm. And the pain of the wound was fading right along with the cold.

Let me in deeper, he softly commanded. Let me heal you.

The request was unambiguously sexual as well as practical. I admit it made my heart rate accelerate, flushing certain parts of my body despite the cold.

But he was asking too much. I was afraid to let him have that much control over my body, for obvious reasons. But more importantly, I honestly didn’t think I could let him in that deep again. The last time he’d healed me, I had been flat-out unconscious. Not a single barrier was up because I wasn’t awake to erect any. My utter lack of defenses had allowed him to infiltrate my body on a molecular level. It still amazed me that he’d been capable of such a thing.

Not likely, I returned half-heartedly. Where are you? I repeated. My words were not quite as sharp the second time around. The warmth shaved their edge right off.

I’m a breath away Dandelion, he whispered, his tone so intimate I could feel his words caress me. Can’t you tell?

Yes, I thought resignedly, even though I hadn’t wanted to think it.

It was next to impossible to take the pain relief for granted; I was grateful. But I also knew this wasn’t going to end well.

I’d honestly meant to work with Nicholas on creating some kind of permanent barrier against Zero’s intrusion into my thoughts, something perhaps to build upon the mental wall I sometimes used. It had been on my list of things to do. But the bounty had been announced, and this shipment had come in… and it had all taken priority. In the ensuing mess, we’d played right into Zero’s hands.

“He’s close,” I said aloud, knowing the announcement was no help whatsoever, but needing to give the warning anyway.

It’s okay Sammy, a new and equally familiar voice said in my mind. So are we.

It was Daniel. My eyes widened. “Jack! Prometheus is here!” My stutter was gone, so strong was Zero’s ability to manipulate mind over matter within my body.

Jack looked from me to the gazebo’s arched entry. “How do you know?”

I pointed at my right temple. “Daniel is talking to me!” He must have been wearing a co-crest.

Jack nodded, comprehending. “Tell him where we are.”

We’re in the gazebo, I thought hard.

Understood. Stay down. We’re in the park, Daniel told me. But I don’t see Zero.

The enemy must have been hiding, and somewhere very close by… which made me extremely nervous. I’m sorry, I don’t have a twenty, I said.

Just stay there and I’ll come into the arbor to get you, Daniel instructed. There was a pause before he added, and tell Jack not to shoot me.

“He’s coming in here to get us. Don’t shoot him.”

Jack nodded, lowering his weapon. “Is Lucas with him?”

Is Lucas with you? I asked. I’d wanted to know anyway. I’d assumed that all of Prometheus was with Daniel, but it didn’t hurt to double-check.

We’re all here, he assured me. Then I heard footfalls just beyond the walls of the gazebo. They approached cautiously. No doubt, Daniel was carefully scanning the area with his senses alert and his gun up, assuming he was carrying one. He was probably wondering where the hell Zero was hiding and whether he was going to pop out and blow a hole in someone.

Jack shoved his gun into the back of his jeans the way he’d probably grown accustomed to doing as a cop. The waistband and a good belt would do in a pinch when a small-of-back holster wasn’t available.

I got my feet back under me in a crouch, Jack steadying me. Concern etched his lined features. He was wondering how I was suddenly moving so easily when I’d been ready to shoot myself in wretched misery only moments earlier.

Oddly, despite the fact that we were openly using telepathy to discuss escape in front of IRM-1000 and he could doubtless hear every exchange between me and Daniel, the pain relief Zero was giving me remained. He didn’t pull it away, and he didn’t punish me for my thoughts.

It had been the same way at the hospital. Despite our continuous power play, he remained lodged in my senses, steadfastly alleviating my suffering.

Why?

I couldn’t understand it then, and I didn’t understand it now. But I was grateful for it.

The approaching footfalls climbed the steps to the gazebo. Jack and I got ready to move with Prometheus. But the man who appeared in the arched entryway was not Daniel Montgomery, android rebel leader extraordinaire. It was not my GhandiBuddhaJesus. Rather, it was the devil himself.

The devil smiled a rakish, stunningly beautiful smile.

Jack didn’t have time to pull the gun back out of his jeans; Zero was too fast for him. It would always astound me how androids could move so fast while remaining so outwardly calm. I watched dazed as Zero raised his arm, took aim with his own shining weapon, and tranquilly squeezed the trigger.