That kiss.

With that one kiss, he’d felt hope. Hope that he could heal the trauma of the past.

Ethan was tired of it all. Tired of the years of hurting, He’d never really gotten her out of his system. He just thought he had. Now he saw possibility. The possibility that he could finally put all this bullshit behind him and move on.

Becca wanted the same; he’d seen it in her eyes, the way her body softened and welcomed him. She’d wanted that kiss as much as he had, despite what she’d said.

But she was headstrong, and her stubborn head governed her body.

So much had passed in the intervening years, the likelihood that it was now too late was a bitter reality. His fingernails dug into his palms. It couldn’t be too late. After everything they’d endured at the beginning of their adult lives, there had to be hope for resolution between them. And more.

He’d give her time and space, he’d waited all this time already. It wouldn’t kill him to wait a little longer.

Avoiding eye contact Ethan paced into the kitchen. Preacher was already there, his nose buried in his laptop. He grunted when Ethan entered the room, and Ethan left it at that. He had no wish to engage the man. Conversation with the prickly scientist would likely end in him wanting to punch him in the face. Ethan ate silently, drinking a glass of water to wash down a sandwich. The bread and meat stuck in his throat. He wasn’t really hungry, but he forced it down anyway, he needed something in his stomach to keep his energy up.

He was nearly finished when Cade came into the small room and started banging around. “Where do they keep the damn coffee?”

Preacher pointed to a small canister marked ‘coffee’ on the counter.

“Thanks.” Cade shot Preacher a cautious look and picked up the tin. “Finn says he’s making good progress on the Lady. He’s roped Nik and Dr. Vincent into giving him a hand. I think Finn’s pretty tickled to have a lady engineer on board for a change.”

“I bet.” Ethan drank some water. “How’s it going with the hard drives?”

Cade picked a mug. “Done. It’s a ton of crap. I’ve had to take every hard drive Redd had access to. There’s no way of knowing which computer the research is locked in.”

Ethan swallowed his last bite of sandwich. “So you’re free to help me sort out restraints for Redd. Can’t have him losing it on the way home.”

Cade shoveled heaped spoonfuls of instant coffee into a mug. “Aren’t we just going to tie him up with a shitload of rope on the Lady?”

“Sadly, no.”

Ethan counted as Cade spooned in five teaspoons of sugar. “Want some coffee with that?”

“Perfect beverage. Better than Dr. Johnson makes.” Cade smirked and ripped open a fresh box of artificial creamer.

“She made you coffee?”

“Yes.” Cade pulled a face. “Damn well near killed me.”

Ethan smiled. Some things hadn’t changed. “She’ll save your life but after she’ll offer you coffee that’ll finish you off.”

Cade lowered himself into a seat next to Ethan. He inclined his head in Preacher’s direction, his voice a low grumble. “Doesn’t he have something to do? Something that would actually help?”

Ethan glanced at Preacher. Damned if he knew what the man was doing. “Apparently not,” he muttered. Ethan straightened, needing to escape Preacher’s dark gravitational pull. The man unsettled him, even though he couldn’t explain why.

Cade cracked five cream capsules into his cup and swirled the beige gloop with a teaspoon. Ethan slapped him on the back, high between the shoulder blades. “Make that to go.”

Ethan took Cade to the infirmary to collect restraints for transferring Redd to the surface. Becca was no longer on her own. She was deep in conversation with Chief and Betty Soh. A convenient excuse to avoid eye contact. Keeping one eye on her, Ethan headed over to one of the empty beds and lifted the mattress to access the leather restraints, tamping down his frustration. His fingers worked the thick leather as he freed the first of six.

Cade took the opposite side of the bed. He undid a buckle then paused. He nodded in the direction of the screened bed at the end of the room. Voices rose from behind the curtain. “Didn’t Becca sedate him?”

Ethan followed his line of sight. “Amply.” Ethan threw the restraint on the empty bed, his hand already warming the holster of his handgun.

Foreboding nipping at his mind, Ethan drew back the curtain. Redd was awake. The bed had been cranked up so he was in a sitting position, but his hands and ankles were still secured. Shaw sat at the side of the bed.

Redd was speaking to the geologist, or rather berating him in a verbal onslaught, barely pausing for breath. He tugged erratically at his wrist restraints as if he wanted to move his hands to expand on the significance of what he was saying. He was oblivious to Ethan and Cade, his gaze laser-focused on Shaw.

“I’m fine. Really I am, it’s just bad, bad, bad that I’m tied up right now I could really explain everything much better like how to slide through those walls if I wasn’t I know you must be thinking that I’ve messed things up but if you can just, just.” He paused, sucking in a breath, his eyes scanning the ceiling in uncoordinated jerks. “Untie! Yes, untie me! Then I can show you the time vessel to yesterday.”

Shaw shot them a glance, concern etched on his face.

Ethan backed up, colliding with Cade, who was right behind him.

“That’s the lead scientist?” Cade whispered, lifting a single eyebrow.

Ethan tugged the curtain back into place. Redd’s incessant rattle continued unabated on the other side. “I’m sure—”

“Sure of what?” Becca had finished talking to Chief and Betty. They’d crossed the room together. Now, Betty slipped between the curtains to speak to Shaw, leaving Ethan and Cade with Becca and Chief.

“That Dr. Redd is not feeling himself,” Ethan finished.

Becca’s forehead creased. “He woke up about twenty minutes ago, which in itself is amazing. He had enough ketamine in his veins to sedate a horse. The pressure of speech since then has been unbelievable.”

The pitch of Redd’s voice rose in volume on the other side of the curtain.

“Redd’s always been obtuse, but his symptoms are extreme, even for him. Pressure of speech, sudden changes in behavior and personality, irritability. His symptoms are all indicative of frontal brain damage, although he hasn’t suffered any brain injury.”

“It’s definitely not HPNS,” Chief said. “I was discussing with Dr. Johnson that he should be in isolation.”

Ethan frowned. “You think he’s infectious?”

Cade took an unconscious step away from the curtain.

Becca shifted her feet, her doubt evident. “There’s no evidence he’s infectious.”

A garbled noise came from behind the curtain. Ethan spun on his heel as the wet rattle increased audibly. The curtain was still drawn but now it was marred by dark splotches.

Blood.

Ethan’s pulse raced, a sudden noisy surge in his ears. He sidestepped in front of Becca as her hand flew to her mouth, eyes widening in fear. He drew his weapon and motioned for Cade to do the same.

More guttural sounds came from behind the curtain. The angle of lighting was all wrong, Ethan couldn’t see any shadows as he took the last few steps to close the gap. He was completely blind as to what was on the other side.

Chief gestured, his neck corded, waiting for Cade to get in position so the three of them formed a semi-circle around the curve of the curtain.

Chief counted down with his fingers as Ethan’s pulse soared.

Three.

Two.

One.

Chief grabbed the curtain edge and yanked it free in a screech of metal rings.

Shaw was leaning into Redd, his head shaking violently, arms twitching at his sides. Blood splattered the floor, the soft noise incongruent with the harsh gurgles coming from his torn throat. Betty was motionless at the head of the bed, her face glazed and taut.

Becca screamed, and Shaw jerked then fell. He slid to the floor, blood pulsing from his carotid artery in thick, unstoppable gouts that spattered Ethan’s armored vest. Ethan’s breath stuttered, ice flushing through his veins.

Redd lifted his head back and shrieked, remnants of Shaw’s skin stuck to his cheeks, then his eyes rolled back to white blankness and his body stiffened as if he’d been electrocuted. Tendons in his neck and arms protruded like taut cables and his hands slammed into the metal sides of the bed.

His hands were free.

Who the fuck undid the restraints?

Chief fired his handgun, the laser slugging Redd square in the chest. Redd whiplashed, his body spasming as the charge disrupted the neuronal connections in his brain. Chief lunged for the wrist closest to him, catching it and ramming it back against the leather restraint. Redd gagged, his eyes snapping back into focus.

It wasn’t possible. Chief had thrown him a full charge.

Redd snatched at Chief’s elbow with his free hand, unbalancing the larger man and Chief slipped, his skidding feet unable to find purchase on the blood slicked floor. He tumbled into Redd’s lap, grunting as Redd smashed his forehead in a head-butt. The scientist barely looked human anymore, the white of his eyes a muddy green swirl. Chief crumpled as Redd plucked the chewed pencil from his breast pocket.

No!

Roaring filled Ethan’s ears as he lunged forward, helpless to prevent Redd jamming the pencil deep into Chief’s eye socket. Redd screamed and threw Chief to the floor where his body jackknifed in a dance of agony, his jaw cracked wide, knocking his weapon under the bed.

Ethan collided with Redd and secured a lock around his throat. Redd thrashed at the unwelcome restraint, his teeth snapping loudly as he tried to plunge them into Ethan’s forearm but Ethan tightened his grip. They were so not paying him enough for this.

“Get some fucking sedative in him!” Ethan rolled onto his back, pulling the thrashing maniac with him. They hit the floor as one, and then Ethan kicked, flattening the resistant scientist under his body. The crack of bone underneath him was loud, but Ethan was beyond caring. Out the corner of his eye, a thick expanse of black blood was pooling under Chief, his face bloodless under the mess of his hair. Becca stumbled forward with Cade and dragged Chief out of Redd’s reach.

Redd flailed with a fresh surge of energy, his head pounding Ethan’s chin. Fuck this. Ethan tightened his grip, putting pressure on Redd’s windpipe, restricting his flow of oxygen, until finally Becca was at his side, hypodermic ready. She plunged the needle into the meat of Redd’s neck. “Ketamine,” she gasped.

Redd thrashed on, possessed with seemingly superhuman resistance to the drug while Ethan’s arms ached from the continued pressure, his own lungs fighting to draw in enough air while he maintained a secure grip.

“Fucking. Give. It. Up.” Ethan grunted, pulling on his last reserves of strength.

After interminable, muscle-shaking seconds, Redd finally went slack as if suddenly switched off, his weight slumping. Ethan waited, not trusting the stillness, while Becca cautiously pressed two fingers to Redd’s neck. The backs of her hands were smeared with blood triggering hot rage to flush through Ethan’s body even though it wasn’t her blood. Keeping her safe was his priority.

“His pulse is lowering,” she reassured Ethan. “It’s regulating his system now.”

She turned and hurried over to Chief, who was propped up in Cade’s arms on the floor.

Ethan rolled and shoved the sedated scientist away. He dragged himself up into a sitting position and ran a trembling hand across the top of his head. He flexed his arms several times and staggered back up on his feet, fighting the temptation to kick Redd.

He knelt and took Chief’s hand. “Chief?”

Becca shook her head and smoothed Chief’s undamaged eye closed. “I’m sorry.”

Ethan’s head slumped in exhaustion, his chin hitting his armored vest.

Betty’s voice rang across the room. “Redd didn’t make it either.”