Three and a half weeks later…

Something very heavy was weighing Bianca down. Too many blankets? She couldn’t lift her arms, and her mouth was dry. She tried to lick her lips and found even that was difficult. Her head was pounding too. She’d never been drunk in her life, but she imagined this was what a hangover felt like.

Maybe she had the flu. She wracked her brain, trying to come up with the last thing she could remember.

Then her eyes flew open. Her heart was pounding as she glanced around the room. She was in a hospital. Machines were hooked up to her. One of them started beeping.

Seconds later a man rushed into the room from the hallway. His brows were furrowed as he approached, a smile forming on his lips as he leaned over her.

Wait, she knew him... She worked with him at the bunker. Grayson Maston. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been very sick. They all had been. Every member of her team had contracted a rare form of anemia. AP12. He didn’t look sick now.

He set a palm on her forehead and then released her just as quickly to grab something from the table at her side. “Welcome back,” he said. “A few ice chips will help with the dry lips.” He spooned a sliver of ice and held it to her lips.

The coolness soothed. She coughed to clear her throat, hoping she would be able to speak. “We weren’t preserved?” she asked. Obviously not. The last thing she remembered was receiving a shot that would put her to sleep so she could be preserved. Had someone miraculously found a cure instead?

No. That made no sense. She’d seen Grayson go into the cryostat days before her. He’d definitely been preserved. Which meant she had been too. Holy shit.

He smiled. “We were. It’s been ten years.”

Her eyes bugged out. “Ten years?”

He set a hand on her shoulder and slid it down to her wrist. “Yep. I know it’s shocking. I nearly choked when I woke up.”

She glanced down at where he held her wrist and shuddered. It had been a long time since anyone touched her so intimately. Far more than ten years.

It wasn’t that no one ever made contact with her. They did. She bumped into people in the lab. It was unavoidable. But not like this. Grayson was practically holding her hand.

She realized she was staring at the way he touched her when he suddenly jerked his hand free. “Sorry. You want some more ice?” he rushed to add.

She nodded, feeling a flush run up her face. He’d done nothing wrong. She hated making him feel bad about touching her. It wasn’t intentional. It was a knee-jerk reaction she’d always had.

She watched his face as he fed her a few more ice chips. His brow was furrowed and he swallowed several times. Suddenly, she froze, the last piece of ice running down her chin. He knows. Fuck. He knows. Her worst nightmare had come to life.

Of course he knows. Everyone probably knows. She glanced around in a panic, wondering how many of her team were awake and when the sympathetic stares would begin. Pity.

She’d gone to sleep that day believing in her soul she would never wake up again. It wasn’t conceivable to imagine she would ever be revived. Even if someone eventually found a cure for AP12, there had been no procedure to reanimate anyone yet. Apparently things had changed.

Shit. This was not what she’d wanted.

Something was different about this room. She didn’t recognize it. “Where are we?”

“A clinic in southern Colorado. Safe.”

Safe? What did that mean? Why wouldn’t they be safe?

“Where is everyone else?”

“Scattered. Long story.” He reached for her forehead again, set his hand gently on her skin, and then yanked it away when she winced. He straightened to his full height and wiped his palms on his thighs. “You should sleep some more. You’ll be more alert the next time you wake up.”

For a moment, she stared at him, her heart racing as she read the pity on his face. She closed her eyes to black out his expression. Sleep was a good idea. Maybe she’d never been awake in the first place. If she was lucky, this entire weird episode had been a dream. Or a nightmare. If she was lucky, she’d go back to sleep and never wake up again.

Because she’d never wanted to see that look on anyone’s face. That was why she never spoke of her childhood to a living soul. It was why she never opened herself up to relationships with men. It was why she kept to herself and didn’t even have close girlfriends.

Fear of seeing that look had propelled her to remain private for her entire adult life. And now it was here to bite her in the ass, mocking her with some insane level of scientific research that dared to bring her back from the dead to taunt her with horrifying looks of pity from her teammates.

Yeah, sleep was the best option.

Death had been her first choice to avoid confrontation, though. She’d been at peace with death when she’d contracted AP12. She’d worked hard and been happy with what she’d accomplished in life. She’d been ready for the end, knowing she’d survived trauma most people were never subjected to in her life and had still managed to make the world a better place.

She didn’t want to be reanimated if it meant having to go through the nightmare of explaining her childhood to anyone.