Chapter Seven

Mira took Tristan to her apartment. It was in a more affluent neighborhood and screamed she didn’t need the job dancing. Tristan didn’t say a word until they were close to her door. That’s when he placed his hand on her arm and pulled her back.

“The door’s been breached.”

She had to stop and look. It was so subtle that she wouldn’t have noticed it if she had been alone. Now that she was looking, she could tell that the frame was a little off, and the door wasn’t shutting properly.

Tristan moved her further back before he opened the door (sans key) and walked in. She peeped into the living room nothing looked out of place. He walked in and began going through her apartment.

“I checked the apartment no one is here. Nothing looks disturbed.”

“I agree. The living room looks just like I left it. Why? Why would you go through the trouble to break into someone’s apartment and then not take anything?”

“Are you picking up any type of emotional disturbance?”

Mira went still opening herself up to the surrounding emotions. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

She followed Tristan into her apartment. It was calm and peaceful until she crossed the threshold. There was a sensor, or a tag buried in the space. It erupted when she crossed it. Mira fell to the floor holding her head as her heart pounded. A silent scream left her mouth before her eyes rolled back in her head.

The pounding in her head forced her to acknowledge she was still alive. “What happened?” She groaned wishing for water and pain meds.

“You’re awake,” Tristan whispered.

“For the love of God, stop screaming.” Tears poured down her face as her hands covered her ears.

“Your body is sensitive,” Tristan told her lowering his voice even further.

“What’s crawling on me?” She was scratching at her skin.

“Mira I’m going to give you one cc of a shot that I would usually give to a Kur’ik. It's used to calm nerve endings as well as slow the connections in the brain to allow you to reason out what is happening. Your body won’t be able to handle much, but I believe it will help you.” He stopped to look at her.

She nodded when she realized she was trying to tear her skin off. Tristan stepped out of the room to prepare the shot. When he came back Mira’s arms were bloody. He gathered her wrists and held them still with one hand as he used the other to administer the shot.

Her body started to convulse. She screamed at him, but he held her until she collapsed on his lap.

“What the hell?” She finally managed as she licked her lips hoping to do away with the dryness.

He got up and brought her a cup of water. “Drink slow.”

“How did we get back to your place? Isn’t this your medical facility?”

“It is. You’ve been here two days.”

She locked her eyes with his and waited.

“What do you remember?”

“Anna, we saved Anna. Then we went to my apartment.” She ran a shaky hand through her hair. “The door, you said it wasn’t shut properly. Then we went in because no one was in the place then…” Her body started shaking.

“That’s enough don’t try to remember anything else.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know all I have is working theories, two of them.”

“Alright.”

“Theory one is that your empathic abilities got away from you. They attacked you knocking you out.”

She frowned chewing on her lower lip. “Two?”

“Theory two is even more farfetched. I walked through your apartment nothing happened to me. You barely made it through the doorway before you were on the floor with your eyes rolled backward. The second theory says that someone targeted you. They left a bomb for lack of a better word that would go off when you walked into your apartment.”

She nodded her head and then stopped as pain exploded in her skull.

“I like theory one. It gives me the ability not to take responsibility for my actions in the future. I believe the fact that I am lucid now blows a hole in that theory.”

“Theory one makes the most sense but none of your actions before or since give it much credence.”

“Which leaves us with theory two. When the probable doesn’t work…” She smiled up at him. “How is it possible that I could be targeted with something that didn’t affect you and what was in that shot you gave me?”

“Your reaction triggered a long-buried memory of a passage I read in our computer. Our creators suggest we don’t keep records. The healers ignore them understanding that our lifespans are short. We keep records for those that come after us. Declyn wasn’t happy, but he let me dig through our archives.”

Mira reached out and held his hand.

He gave her a smile his green eyes cloudy. “It can’t be verified, but there was a case of a battalion of Kur’iks coming into contact with a form they couldn’t spot with their physical eyes. It attacked them until they passed out.”

“Is that what happened to me?”

“No, what happened to you was much worse. You almost died Mira. Most of the battalion had no after effects. There were a few who experienced sensitivity to sounds, they felt like they were burning up on the inside. The way you flinched with any noise while you were still unconscious led me to believe you may have those after effects.”

“Is that why you gave me the shot?”

“Yes. It needed to be administered within seventy-two hours of contact. Cait, she’s the first Kur’ik to go to your medical schools helped me synthesize a cure we could use on humans. I wouldn’t give it to you without your permission.”

She nodded they weren’t going to learn anything else, not with her memory being a black hole.

“You saved my life.”

“You can’t die before the second part of what you owe me,” Tristan laughed.

Her heart sank until she met his eyes. They were twinkling with merriment until she looked deeper. There was fear there, now that she was looking it clung to him in waves. He was trying to protect her by projecting confidence. Tristan had been scared she was going to die.

She raised her arms. Her strong, stable male did what he would never have done. He climbed in the bed with her allowing her to hold him tightly as she assured him not only was she alive, but she wasn’t going anywhere.

“Thank you,” she whispered in his ear.

“Let’s agree that you won’t do that anymore.”

If only she could give him that promise.

“You live an exciting life suga.”

“I’m pretty sure you brought the excitement with you.” He pressed a kiss to her lips. “I’m going to do an exam. If everything checks out, you can get out of bed.”

Tristan stood; he grabbed a handheld tool and began running it over her body.

“I can’t go back home. Where will I go?”

“You probably forgot there’s a big bed right next to this room. You can always go to a hotel if you feel safer there.”

“It depends on what I can find in the bed next door.”

“Soft pillows and softer sheets with thick covers. The leg room is limited though.”

“Why is that?”

“The bed comes with an occupant.”

“I think the beds in the hotel offer all the leg room I could want.”

“Probably, but that’s boring.”

“It is?” She opened when Tristan leaned over her pressing a kiss to her lips.

“It is.”

“I’m sold,” she murmured. “Legroom is overvalued.”

He thrust his tongue in, and she sucked on it. His flavor took over swamping her senses with him.

“Maybe we should try that bed.” Her stomach decided to reveal itself then. A loud noise came from her signaling the fact that she hadn’t eaten in the past two days.

“I hate my stomach,” she groused.

“I like it. You need to eat and get more liquids in you.”

“I should have enough fluids, isn’t that what this IV is for?”

“I have you on a maintenance level. Since I didn’t know what you were dealing with, I didn’t want to overdo the fluids. As you found out when you woke you're still dehydrated. I want to get water into you, but also orange juice and maybe a bottle of electrolytes.”

She grinned but kept from laughing. He must have been talking about a sports drink. So, this is what being with an alien doctor would be like. Her smile fled she wasn’t with him. It wasn’t like she could keep him. She didn’t want to give him up. What kind of life could they have together? That wasn’t happening so why think about it?

“Let’s get you fed.”

She took Tristan’s hand before she realized she hadn’t been to the bathroom or even brushed her teeth for two days.

“Did you Cath me?” She was blushing. It didn’t make any sense he had seen it all before, still…

“Cait did. I thought it would make it less awkward.”

“What happened to it?”

“She was here an hour ago. When you started coming around, we decided you didn’t need to wake up to it.”

“Thanks.”

“Your welcome. We can stop, and you can take a shower before we go to dinner.”

“Yes, that would work for me.”

He took her back to his rooms and told her he would be in the kitchen to take her time.

She was back in the place she was trying to get away from. Not because she didn’t want to be here, rather because this was where she wanted to be. Since she was a realist, it made sense that when you wanted something the further away it got.

The warm water played over her muscles helping to release the tension that built up the minute she opened her eyes. How many enemies did she have that would go out of their way to end her life? The only one that came to mind was Julie. No matter how fast she was, she didn’t have enough time to set that up. Add in the fact that Julie was more the shut you up with her fist type, then it didn’t make sense.

No one could ever be eliminated, but she didn’t think this had anything to do with Julie.

“When she got out of the shower. she found her phone sitting on the nightstand charging.

She called Eve.

“Eve, it’s Mira. How are you and Anna?” She smiled when she heard the excited squeals from them on the other end of the line.

“We’re good, but scared. Tristan called and said you were sick, but he wouldn’t let us come over. Troy told us to wait you were being taken care of.”

“Tristan’s a doctor; he took good care of me. I feel better. I don’t know when I’ll be released to come back. Don’t worry, I will see both of you soon. Has there been any contact from Julie?”

She listened as the phone changed hands.

“Mira, it’s Anna.”

“I know who you are kitten.” Her mouth curved into a smile.

“She hasn’t tried to contact me, but if she does, I’m going to get a protection from abuse order.”

“The kittens growing into her claws. I love it. Stay away from her Anna. She would have killed you and cried at your funeral.”

“I know, why…?” Her voice dropped off.

“Anna it’s not your fault. I don’t know what happened to Julie, but it was long before you met her. She has to want to change. It takes more than another person’s love.”

“I know it’s just now and then I’d see this great person, then she would disappear.”

“Listen to me. She has to want to change. It’s up to her if that great person comes out.”

“Mira, I hope she gets help, but I’m never going back.”

“I’m proud of you kitten. Hold on to that conviction when the road gets rough.”

“I will, besides, I have Eve to keep me steady.”

“I know. I have to go, a certain doctor promised me food.”

She hung up and read through her texts until she came across the first update on Diane. She walked into the kitchen smiling.