CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
A week after Damion had convinced Lara to take the brain wave test, he was still trying to convince her to take another one, and she was refusing. It was late afternoon, and he sat next to her at the conference table of the Renegade’s War Room. Cassandra and Houston, who’d once been an FBI sketch artist, were present, and Houston was working on composites of the various members of Serenity, to be searched in the various government databases.
“Amazing,” Lara said, as Houston slid the picture of Opal across the wooden surface for her review, and then turned the University of Texas baseball cap he’d had on backward, forward again. Lara studied the drawing. “Yes. That’s Opal for sure.” There were five other drawings already on the table, and she added Opal’s to the mix. “Amazing. I don’t know her full name. Looking back I can’t imagine never asking, but I didn’t. We were like machines as members of Serenity, all driven by some façade of a personal agenda and purpose.” She shoved a lock of hair behind her ear. “I guess I should be glad I remember what they look like at this point.”
Damion squeezed her leg beneath the table, the pastel floral dress she wore a contrast to the soldier he’d first met—a delicate part of her that he hungered to discover, that she’d told him she wanted to discover with him. “If we can identify even one of these women, we’re that much closer to any information about you and to finding Powell.” For weeks now he’d watched her struggle to regain memories that simply weren’t returning, and in the past few days, she’d stopped having flashbacks. Which would have been comforting, if the flashbacks hadn’t become blackouts. “I’ll feed these into the database,” Cassandra said, collecting the sketches. “And wow, Houston, Lara is right. You’re amazing. I can think of several ways the Wardens could put this skill to use, if you’ll let us?”
“I aim to please, ma’am,” he assured her. “Your wish is my command, but don’t tell Michael I said that. I think he might hurt me.”
She grimaced. “I hate when you make Michael sound so scary. He’s not.” She glanced at her watch and pushed to her feet. “Oh no. We’re supposed to meet the gang at Moe’s for Sterling’s birthday in fifteen minutes, and I really want to get these composites in the database before I leave.” The rest of the gang were Michael, Chale, Jesse, Sterling, Becca, and Caleb.
Houston pushed to his feet and patted his stomach. “Oh yeah. Time to feed the beast with some birthday cake. I’ll head over and tell them you’re on the way.”
“Thank you, Houston,” Cassandra said, as he headed for the door.
“You know, Cassandra,” Lara said, as she and Damion stood up. “I’ve spent every day for a week looking through computer files for answers I never find. I was thinking maybe tomorrow I could join the Wardens and try to do something more productive.” She glanced at Damion. “And you can get back to your regular duty and stop babysitting me. You can’t stay by my side forever.”
His gaze met hers, the silent message one he knew she’d read—forever, or until she agreed to the blood bond. “You could black out.”
“Cassandra will be with me,” she said. “And Kelly will be close.”
“I’d love to have you help with the Wardens, Lara,” Cassandra offered, glancing at Damion. “And we’re not unfamiliar with hovering, overprotective Lifebonds.” She held up the sketches. “Let’s scan these into our government database, and see if we get a fast hit. Sometimes that happens when I enter a missing person’s info.” She headed for the door.
Lara glanced at Damion. “Stop acting like a papa bear. I’m fine.” She started walking and swayed. Damion cursed, catching her against his body and the wall a moment before she fell, his heart frozen until she started to move.
She sucked in a breath and grabbed his arms. “How long this time?”
His ears were ringing. “A few seconds, and that was too long. I’m getting Cassandra to run a brain wave test now. Sit down while I get her.” He didn’t want to risk her falling and hurting herself.
“No,” she said quickly, her feet planted, showing no willingness to sit. “We’ve discussed this. The test solves nothing, and besides, it’s Sterling’s birthday. A few seconds isn’t a bad blackout. It was ten minutes this morning. It’s probably because I’m hungry. I need to eat.”
He slid his hand into her hair. “Damn it, Lara.”
“Damn it, Damion.”
“You’re hiding from the test because you know you won’t like the results.”
“Because I know the results change nothing.”
“Let’s do the blood exchange.”
Her eyes clouded. “Let’s go eat hamburgers and birthday cake and drink beer. Isn’t that what Sterling wished for?”
“Lara,” he whispered.
She kissed him and then traced his lips with her finger. “I bet I can drink more beer than you without getting drunk.”
GTECHs didn’t get drunk. “I’m already drunk—on fear for you.”
“I can think of much better things for you to be drunk on,” she said, sliding her arms under his, her chest pressed to his. “I’ll show you later.”
“Maybe I should take you back to bed and tie you there,” he said. “Then call Cassandra to do the damn test.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“Yeah I would, on both counts, with varying degrees of pleasure.”
She studied him, the humor fading from her beautiful, still too-pale features. “I would really like to go have a great evening and pretend to be a normal couple out with friends. I know, like so much else, it’s a façade, but it would be a really, really wonderful way to spend the night.”
Damn, this woman twisted him in all kinds of knots he’d never wanted to be twisted in. She thought she didn’t belong here, that if she dared believe she did, it would be taken from her like everything else in her life had been. Worst of all was that she was right in some ways to feel such things. Time wasn’t on her side, or his. He had to act, and he was going to. He knew what he had to do. He could only hope a night with friends, a night out together, would help her understand when he did what he had to do.
He drew her hand in his and kissed her knuckles. “I keep telling you, we’re as real as it gets, and so are the friends we’re about to spend the evening with.”
Bittersweet. That’s what a night out with Damion and his friends was to Lara. Moe’s was hopping with Renegade standard black fatigues. It appeared Friday night in Sunrise City was like Friday night everywhere else—busy and fun-filled.
Sterling’s party was, in fact, overflowing beyond the four square tables their group had turned into one long one, with regular toasts and shouts to Sterling from various locals. The immediate party, though, was Damion and Lara, along with Michael, Cassandra, Jesse, Chale, Houston, Emma, Caleb, Kelly, and of course, Sterling and Becca. There were pitchers of beer everywhere, and a Spider-Man cake in honor of Sterling in the center.
Apparently Sterling called Caleb “Superman” and Michael “Batman.” Tonight the two had officially knighted Sterling “Spider-Man,” which, Lara decided, seemed fitting, since apparently, pre-Becca, he’d done insanely ridiculous, highly dangerous things on a regular basis. She spent most of the next half hour after the food was cleared laughing at the outrageous Sterling stories, her back to Damion’s chest, his hand resting on her stomach.
“My fondest memory,” Michael said, from down the table, across from her, and next to Chale, “was when Sterling threw Damion across the conference table.”
“Hate that I missed that,” Chale said, directly across from Lara.
“Me too,” Houston agreed from beside Chale.
Lara eyed Damion. “I guess you pissed him off?”
“He was delusional that day,” Damion said, and held up his mug of beer toward Sterling. “Right Ster?”
Sterling lifted his mug in reply. “That’s just how I say ‘I love you,’ man.”
“Right,” Damion said. “I say it right back with just as much feeling.”
Caleb, who sat directly next to Lara, looked up from the deep conversation he was having with Kelly, a frown on his face that had Lara wondering if she was imagining a few sparks between the Renegade’s leader and the doctor. “I seem to remember Michael and me having to hold you two back, you were feeling so much love.”
Glancing at Damion, Lara reached up and touched his jaw, where a light, sexy stubble had started to protest its morning clean shave. “Sounds like an interesting story.”
“He was feeling protective of Becca,” Damion said, “and he wrongfully assumed I wasn’t.” He leaned in close to her ear. “GTECHs are protective of their Lifebonds.”
Lara turned in his arms to face him, their eyes locking in the dim light, the awareness between them electric and instant. “I’m a GTECH too. Don’t forget that.”
“Houston, we have a problem!” Houston held up an empty pitcher. “We need beer, or we’re never going to get drunk. It’s your turn to buy, Damion.” Like they could get drunk even if they tried, but they all seemed to enjoy pretending otherwise.
Damion leaned in and kissed Lara. “You think you can handle another Sprite?” he asked, referring to her drink of the night.
“You’d be surprised what I can handle.” There was a hidden meaning to the words, and she saw it register hotly in Damion’s black eyes. Eyes that could no longer hide behind the human hazel color they had once been. Yet there were still so many secrets between them, so many things that could, and would, rip them apart.
“You can show me later,” he finally said, his hand still on her leg, even as he shifted to push his chair back from the table.
Lara shoved aside the worries threatening to steal the happiness of her night out and eyed Houston. “Houston, we have a problem?” she asked. “Is Houston really your name?”
“Nah,” Houston said. “Damion likes Houston, so I go by Houston, and heck, I’m from Houston. Nothing wrong with a tribute to the homeland.”
“What’s your real name?” she asked.
Damion’s hand tightened on her leg ever so slightly, but the tension that rolled off him was a sudden white water crash that had Lara turning toward him.
“Pain in my ass is what I call him,” Chale said, nudging Houston. “You think Damion might need that empty pitcher to get the beer or what?”
Damion cast Chale a tense look of what Lara would label appreciation, before he turned and headed toward the bar.
“I’m sorry, man,” Houston was mumbling to Chale when Lara turned back to the table.
“Sorry for what?” she asked Houston, who eyed Chale with an appeal. Lara’s attention rocketed to Chale. “Talk to me. What did I just miss, and why is Damion upset?”
Chale, looking uncharacteristically uncomfortable, hesitated.
“Chale, damn it,” she ground out. “Talk to me.”
“I’m not talking,” he said finally. “But you should. Talk to Damion.”
She didn’t need nudging, and these days, she didn’t have a lot of time to waste. Lara stood up and went after Damion.