Outer Banks (15 page)

I took my time cleaning up the kitchen, then went back to watching TV, knowing if I went back to the lab I would do or say something to make an ass out of myself.

Eventually, I couldn't hold back any longer. I pounded myself in the head as I walked back to the lab.
What are you doing? This is a
really
bad idea.
But she only had an hour before she would need to sleep. How much could I mess things up in an hour?

I was relieved to find she had put on a white lab coat at least. It covered the dangerous part of her jeans, but did nothing for the slight cleavage exposed by her low shirt. Her hair was clipped back to keep it out of the way.

She looked up from her notes. “Come sit here, I want to check you over.” She pointed to a stool. I quickly did as she asked while she pulled a blood pressure cuff from a drawer. “I'm a doctor. If you're going to take care of me, then I need to take care of you as well.” She winked at me which did nothing to help with the growing pain in my chest. “I've already checked your cholesterol from the blood I took. Everything seems fine.”

“Well, that's good.” I nodded as she wrapped the cuff around my biceps and placed a stethoscope in the curve of my elbow before she started pumping the little bulb.

“Blood pressure is good. One eighteen over seventy.” She moved the stethoscope to my chest. She tilted her head so she could listen to my heart which was nearly crashing out of my chest by that point. “Pulse is rather high, though.”

She was so close I could smell the lip gloss she wore. Candy apple.

I asked possibly the dumbest question ever. “Have you ever wanted to do something so badly, but you were scared if you did it, it would mess everything up?”

“I feel like that every day.” She looked away to the microscope. “I mean I want to find a cure in the worst way, but what if I make things worse somehow?”

“Right.” That was not what I meant at all, but I was happy for the chance to avoid the subject. “How's it going?”

“It's not…”

“I'm sorry. Should I go?” I was probably a distraction.

“Please stay.” She put her hand on my arm and then let go immediately. She wrapped the stethoscope around the back of her neck.

“Your heart rate was a fairly elevated, but I didn't hear anything that would indicate a blockage or a valve problem. How does your chest feel right now?” She looked up at me through her lashes.

“Fine. I think I'm okay.” I nodded. I wasn't okay. My stomach was in knots. “I should go.”

I got up and left the lab. Then, almost of its own accord, my hand slapped up against the doorjamb, stopping me dead in my tracks. I turned around.

“Actually, I want to kiss you, Emery.” I could see her tense and her head snapped away from me. “But I know that's eight different kinds of complicated right now. I can wait. I can wait until you're ready. If you ever would be ready I mean,” My words were failing me. I put up my hands and turned to go. “Forget it. I'm sorry.”

I felt like I was going to explode with the pressure of cramming another emotion down. I stopped myself before I even took a step this time.

“No. You know what? I'm
not
sorry I want to kiss you. I think—”

Her eyes closed and she started to fall to the floor.

“Emery?” I caught her before she hit the ground and laid her out on the gurney in the room. “Em?” I checked the clock on the wall. “Shit!” Emery was asleep, but this was too early.

Maybe it was all the blood samples she'd taken that weakened her. Stamina played a part in how long it took to wind down. I'd have to remember to warn her earlier.

“Of all the luck,” I whispered and looked her over. I couldn't very well let her sleep there all day.

The first thing I did was pull the clip out of her hair where it was probably digging into the back of her head. I ran my fingers through her hair to get the knot out.

I sat her up so I could get the lab coat off. She was so limp it turned out to be more difficult than I would have thought.

I picked her up and carried her into her room. After wrestling back the covers, I laid her out on her bed. Her shoes had already come off, so I pulled her blanket back over her and kissed the top of her head before I left the room.

“We're not done talking about this,” I warned her as I turned off the light.

Chapter Thirteen

That night I unlocked her door before I started my breakfast. I carried it into Emery's room and ate while I waited for her to wake up.

Her nose sniffed my eggs before her eyes opened. Like before she smiled when she saw me.

“They smell good.”

“I'd offer you some, but…”

“Did you not break the spell yet?”

“No. I told you. I'm not a prince. And besides, I didn't kiss you while you were sleeping.” Kisses on the head didn't count. She nodded and looked up at her ceiling.

“Dillon, I'm really sorry about last night.”

“You can't help it. When it's time, you fall asleep. I should have been paying more attention.”

“That's not what I meant.” She got up and looked down at the clothes she'd had on last night. “I mean this,” she gestured at herself. “I was feeling sorry for myself. I got these clothes to make myself feel attractive. I didn't feel like a woman anymore.”

“Well, they definitely did the job,” I said with a grin.

“I was flirting with you shamelessly because you make me feel better about myself.”

“I didn't mind.”

She shook her head in embarrassment. “I was using you, Dillon.”

“Emery, it's not a problem. I'm happy to help you feel like a woman again. I consider it a perk of the job,” I teased in hopes of making her laugh. It worked a little.

She took a deep breath and looked at me. “I'm sorry. I need to be able to focus on my work. I can't have any distractions right now. It was wrong of me to start flirting with you like that. It wasn't fair to you.”

“Right. I see.” I took a step toward the door.

“It's just bad timing.”

Bad timing? When would it have been better? If I had met her when she was in college, she would have been too smart for me. If I met her when she was working at the hospital, she would have been too good for me. If I had met her when she was first infected…

“I told you last night I would wait until you were ready, and I meant that. We'll see what happens, okay?” I smiled patiently, but inside my chest was hurting again.

She took a deep breath. “I'm going to get started tonight. No more fooling around. I'm going to do it.”

“Tonight?” I checked.

“Yep.” She started for her bathroom door and then turned to me with a smirk. “At the very least, I'm not going to spend the night on the sofa.”

I nodded. “Slow and steady wins the race.”

“Right.” She stood by the open window looking out at the last of the day's glow fade in the horizon. “Missed another one.”

I could see she was ready for action which meant getting dressed, so I excused myself and went back to the kitchen to get out of the way.

I made some coffee and then I had an idea. She could probably use a cup too.

“Hello?” I shouted from the hall so I could find her without having to search the entire floor.

“In here!” she yelled back.

I continued down the hall to the first room on the left. The sun room, which was more of a moon room now. We hadn't been in there since the initial tour.

Emery tilted her head as I came in with two large mugs.

Before she could say anything she saw that I wasn't offering her coffee. “I warmed up your blood and put it in a cup.”

She seemed a bit puzzled so I explained. “You're so preoccupied with feeling normal again, I figured this might help.”

“This one is yours.” I held it out to her at the same time she caught the whiff of warm food. Her face lost every shred of humanity as I tried to remember when last she'd eaten. “Shit.”

She ripped the mug from my hands, sloshing blood across the white tile. She didn't even care that I was watching as she gulped it down, groaning and moving away from me to protect her meal.

I could have planned all that better.

It took a minute for her to regain her composure. She looked around at the scene in the lab. She'd knocked over some things on the island, there was blood on the floor as well as the panic I was sure was in my eyes.

“Damn it!” she yelled and threw the cup against the wall, shattering it and staining the wall with streaks of red. Then she turned on me. “What the hell is wrong with you? Why do you insist on trying to make this seem normal? It's not normal! Why can't you get that?”

“Seriously?” I yelled back at her. “This is a normal human fit if I've ever seen one! Now go get the broom and a mop and stop feeling sorry for yourself!”

With a sigh she left the room while I picked up what I could from the floor.

“Just let me do it,” she grumbled as she came back. “I'm—”

“You know what, Em? Save the apologies. We don't have time for your little tantrums. I was trying to help. Trust me, it won't happen again.”

She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to get it out of the way while she swept up the mess she'd made.

“I was just trying to do something nice,” I said. “I didn't realize that was going to happen. I should have checked how hungry you were first. I wasn't trying to upset you.”

“You have no idea what this is like,” she said when she was done.

“I'm aware.”

“If I'm not allowed to apologize, what do I do?”

I let out a sigh while I thought over how mad I was. Not that mad.

“I get that you don't feel human, we've gone round and round about it, but I
am
human so it would be nice if you could treat me like one.”

With that she burst into tears, running like mascara. She looked up at me for the first time since she'd lost control. She looked very sorry. Once again, I gave in.

“No more. This is your final warning, I mean it. Yell at me again and I'm leaving.”

She nodded quickly. “Understood.”

“Good. Now get back to work.” I pointed to her workstation, but smiled so she knew I was okay. Pseudo-tough love at its finest.

“Yes, sir!” She saluted and pulled out a book. “But first, research.” She read for a moment, then looked up at me. “Before I lost control, I did appreciate it warmed up.”

“You're like some kind of genius, right? Do you think you could keep better track of when you need to eat and sleep so we don't have these kinds of problems again?”

“Sure.” She chuckled and snapped the large book shut before opening an equally massive volume. I picked up a car magazine I'd left there earlier as she read. About an hour later she was still just sitting there reading. It wasn't any kind of journal on HANTS, just a general book on biology with big bright pictures.

“I'm not a scientist or anything, but I don't think there's going to be anything in those books that covers your condition.”

“Yes. I know. I'm looking for inspiration.” She rested her forehead on the book for a moment. I looked around the very white room. No pictures, no color, no nothing.

“Inspiration coming right up!” I smiled and went back upstairs. I searched around until I found my flashlight, the one that mounted on my head, and went back downstairs.

In Mr. Mitchell's study I hooked my phone up to his computer. After printing out a few color pictures I went to the kitchen, hunting the cabinets for vases. I came up with two large ones, a tiny one and a giant pitcher meant for lemonade. I grabbed some kitchen shears and went outside.

The landscaping was fairly young around the new house, but up the lane there was a patch of wildflowers. How wild they were I wasn't certain, their symmetrical placement made me think they weren't wild at all.

I shook my head at humanity's need to find order in everything.

After scaring off a raccoon, I collected a number of specimens and came back in.

Balancing my load of inspiration, I made my way back to the bland sun room.

Emery was too engrossed in her book to pay attention to what I was doing. I set the vases of flowers in the deep window sills and hung up the photos of the sun I had taken for her.

She finally looked up when I opened the windows.

“You need fresh air,” I said as I threw every one of them open. She wouldn't get cold in the chilly night air, her body temperature was already low. One of those Haunt things.

“What are you doing?”

“It's daytime,” I angled a flexible floor lamp's neck towards the photographs and waved toward the setup I'd created.

“Flowers?” She looked at the vases lined up on the windows, flanked by pictures of the sun. “I've never gotten flowers before. I'm allergic.” She frowned and took in a deep breath. “I
was
allergic.”

She walked closer to them so she could get a good sniff.

“Thank you, Dillon,” she said sincerely.

I shrugged it off. Like it was no big deal. I pointed at a white board that covered one large wall. “What's with the board?”

“It's an idea board.” She looked at it sadly. It was completely blank. That had to be daunting. After seeing the walls at her place at the Outer Banks, I didn't understand why they were still blank.

I picked up one of the markers as she took the small vase of flowers over to the counter. She set them next to her book after smelling them again.

I decided on an underwater ocean scene. People found fish relaxing, so I drew a bunch of colorful fish with seaweed and coral. It took a good hour to cover most of the huge board.

Down in one corner I discreetly drew two kissing fish. Subliminal message? Maybe.

In the section I had left undisturbed, I began drawing a car. The car I had been working on before Bobby showed up in my garage.

I sketched out the chassis and was adding the wheels when Emery finally looked up.

“What's that?” she asked.

“The ocean.” I pointed toward the fish.

“No. The thing you're drawing now.”

“Oh. It's a chassis for a car.”

She squinted. I guessed she'd heard the word, but not seen one.

“You've never seen one?”

She tilted her head, admitting nothing. The brainiac had to know everything.

“It's okay. Most people don't think much about them, though without it you don't really have a car—just a bunch of floating spare parts.” I laughed, but Emery was interested. Or at least interested in a distraction. She came to stand next to me to get a better look.

“It's the part of the vehicle that gives the car its strength. You can put anything on top of this. You can have the most state of the art shell, but if the chassis is weak you're sunk.” I turned to see her studying my crude drawing.

“That's what I see in you.” I added without thinking.

Her head snapped over to look at me. Maybe she thought it was an insult. I had to explain.

“You are strong on the inside. So strong that you could be like a truck chassis.” She smirked at that. “You might not like your outer shell right now, and your fluid system definitely needs to be flushed, but underneath that you're strong and sound.”

She just stared at me. No expression.

“I'm sorry,” I backtracked and looked away bracing myself for another wave of her wrath. Why had I told her she reminded me of a car? That was a stupid thing to say.

“Do you think I can do this?” she asked quietly.

“I know it.”

“How do you know?” She watched my face.

I sighed. This might come out worse than the car analogy.

“Because you hate what you are so much. Because you want to be who you were more than anything else. If anyone has the determination or desire to fix this, it's you.”

I looked down at the floor. That wasn't it. I decided to be honest with her.

“I really hope you can. Not just for the world, but for me on a personal level. Because you won't let me be close to you while you're like this, and I—I want to be with you, Emery,” I confessed and met her eyes for a second before looking away. I should have shut up, but I didn't.

“I know what you're thinking, but I'm serious. I care about you.
Who
you are, not what.” I sighed and looked at her face. She wasn't mad.

She closed the few feet between us and latched her arms around my neck pulling me to her lips. She said nothing else.

We kissed there with the fish watching until I picked her up and carried her up to my room.

By the time I set her down she was already pulling off her shirt, throwing it to the floor next to one of my own before she reached for me.

I took a moment to look her over in the dim light from the moon shining in the skylights above.

She was so thin. I could probably count every rib, not that I was going to stop to do that. Even lacking the body mass she didn't look frail. She still had a strength about her.

I wrapped my arms around her waist and my fingertips encountered two large circular depressions in her lower back. I flinched, thinking she was hurt. She pulled my hand away. They were the scars left from where the Bugs inserted the…

I swallowed as she stood motionless, looking at me for a response.

She expected me to be repulsed. I reached for her again and picked up where we left off.

I was way beyond being repulsed. I was finally able to run my fingers through Emery's hair and kiss her without being called a freak.

As we moved to the bed, I found myself waiting for her to stop me. I never thought she would trust me enough to let me get this close. But there she was, in my bedroom half naked.

Her hands were in my hair, pulling me closer.

I backed away, just to ask whether a condom was necessary—I honestly didn't know—and in that second everything changed. She started to tremble.

“Oh, shit,” I breathed. “What is it?” I worried. There was no way she could doubt how I felt anymore.

She shook her head in irritation, but made no move to get up or cover herself.

“I don't know what's wrong,” she whispered.