CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Lara! Lara!”
Lara heard Damion call her name in some far recess of her mind. He was far away, out of reach. No… no, he was here. They were at the shelter, but it didn’t feel real.
“Lara!”
Lara’s eyes lit with the sight of Damion as he exited the shelter’s doorway, and she rushed toward him, and then… then he was gone. She was gone. Everything went black. There was so much darkness. “Damion! Damion!”
Suddenly, they were back in his apartment, and he was holding her, kissing her, telling her he loved her. And then he was gone again, as everything went black again. “Damion?” Panic rolled over her. “Damion!”
“Lara, sweetheart, please wake up.”
He yanked something sticky off her forehead. Lara sucked in air and sat up, finding Damion holding her, the hard ground beneath her, unsure where she was. “Damion?”
“Oh, thank God.” He kissed her forehead. “Please tell me you’re okay. Tell me you’re really you, not some brainwashed version of you.”
“Where are we?”
“An office inside the Serenity facility,” he told her. “Do you have any idea how scared I was for you?”
“Get up!” came a female voice. “Get up and turn around.”
Damion’s eyes met Lara’s and everything came back to her. Sabrina and Logan. The damn collar.
“She’s mine,” Lara said. “Don’t even think of taking that from me.”
A slow smile slid to his lips. “Nice to have you back, sweetheart.”
“I said, get up!” Sabrina shouted. “I have Green Hornets, and you can damn well bet I’ll use them.”
Damion moved so fast, Lara didn’t even know he’d moved until he fired on Sabrina, shooting the gun from her hand. He pushed to his feet and tugged Lara up with him. “Now she’s yours. The playing field is even.”
Sabrina screamed in agony and outrage, holding her bleeding hand, and then dropping it to her side. “You want to fight? Bring it on, bitch.”
“You bet I want to fight,” Lara agreed, taking a step forward, ready for this like she’d never been ready in her life. Sure, they’d put their stupid machine on her, but it hadn’t worked. She didn’t know why, and she didn’t care at the moment.
“Let’s go, Sabrina,” Lara said. Sabrina roared in anger and charged at Lara. Lara started toward her as well, when suddenly Sabrina dropped like a rock, flat on her face, blood pouring from her head.
Damion stepped up beside Lara. “If that’s not anticlimactic, I don’t know what is.”
A petite blonde stepped into the doorway, a gun in her hand.
“Jenna?” Lara asked, shocked that the timid lab assistant had shot Sabrina.
“I didn’t want things to be like this.” She lifted the gun, like she intended to fire again, and then bam, she dropped like a rock too, only Chale was there to catch her. He lifted her and walked into the room with her in his arms.
“Someone order takeout?” Chale asked. “It’s Becca’s treat.”
“Anticlimactic times two,” Damion said dryly.
Becca rushed forward from behind Chale. “Lara!” She wrapped Lara in a hug. “Tell me you’re okay.”
Lara hugged her. “I’m good. I’m really good. I can’t believe Sterling let you come.”
“Anything to bring you back with us where you belong,” Becca assured her, and Lara believed her. These people, who she’d once called her enemies, had become her family.
Becca grinned at Damion. “Told you it would work.”
“What would work?” Lara asked, turning to face Damion.
“Thankfully you remembered to drop your shield before you went underground,” Damion said. “Once you did, our blood bond created a link powerful enough for me to not only find you, but create a shield for you that you didn’t have to maintain. I did it for you. But once you went underground I struggled to keep it in place. Becca managed to link to you through me, and she re-enforced your shield. In other words, aren’t you glad we did the blood bond?”
Lara’s heart swelled. She walked to Damion and wrapped her arms around him. “Yes. I’m glad. I love you.”
“You can convince me later,” he promised, his eyes twinkling.
“I’m taking our package back to Sunrise with the rest of the women,” Chale said. “See you both back there.” He disappeared.
“The rest of the women?” Lara asked.
“I gave the rest of Serenity a little nap,” Becca said. “Hopefully we can gather enough medical information to restore their memories.”
“And Powell?” Lara asked.
Becca shook her head, and Lara glanced at Damion, who was still holding her. “What does that mean?”
“He’s nowhere to be found, and Michael has pretty much gutted the place. He’s still blasting walls, so there’s hope, but…”
Her chest tightened. “We aren’t going to get him.”
“We’ll get him,” Damion promised. “Maybe not now, but we’ll get him.”
He kissed her. “Let’s go home. Our home, Lara.”
“Our home,” she repeated, amazed that despite standing in the middle of the nightmare world of Serenity, this moment could be so perfect.