“Guys, it’s not a valid address,” Dex said over their receiver. Hunter relayed the news to Griff.

Gray relayed the news in Arabic to the man, who babbled back in Arabic.

“I heard him,” Dex said. “I’m checking it out.” Gray could hear the familiar sound of Dex slamming down on the keyboard. “Got it, he’s outside of the forty-forth sector, on the north side of third street.”

“Dalton. Aiden. Do you think you can get past all the patrols, find a vehicle and meet us at the address?” Gray asked.

“Not a problem.” Aiden’s voice was confident.

Gray didn’t want anything to go wrong. This guy needed to be caught. God knew how many different formulas he’d made.

“Riya, can you hear me?” Gray asked.

“Loud and clear,” she answered. Her voice was subdued.

“You all right?”

“Just saying plenty of prayers I can have the antitoxin done in time for the little girl.”

“What’s your ETA?” Gray asked.

“Just got everything started forty-five minutes ago.”

She sounded off, but maybe this was just how Riya sounded in scientist mode.

“Gray, Dalton and Aiden have already left,” Dex said.

“Good. That’s good,” he muttered.

“Yeah, well, here’s the not-so-good part,” Dex said. “Liam has been up my ass ever since you’ve been gone. Then Captain Hale started in an hour ago, and I just got pinged a half hour ago by the lieutenant general who has to brief the president.”

“Why, the president?”

“The president is going to be the one who has to smooth the way with the Emirate of Abu Dhabi to get the anti-toxin into the Jordanian royals, then there is the prime minister of Jordan. The president’s got to start cutting through the red tape like yesterday.”

Gray hadn’t considered that. He turned to Hunter. “Let’s go. You’re going to need to drop me off at the hotel so I can deal with the brass, while you head over to the address.”

Riya started to shiver. Even in her hot suit, she was cold. She so badly wanted to rub the back of her neck. Her head was pounding. These were all the signs of meningitis. While she waited for the thermal cycler to finish for the DNA specific toxin, she had the fluorescence reader working on the broad toxin.

She heard a commotion and turned around.

“Gray.” Her head was swimming.

She carefully walked a straight line to the plastic inner door and gave a wan smile.

“Hey, Buttercup.”

She looked behind him.

“Wyatt said you would be gone for an hour. It’s been a lot longer than that. Where’s everybody else?”

Gray grimaced. “It takes a while to get in and out of the hotel. Cops and the military are swarming around. The others are on an assignment. I’m here to talk to some people. How’s it going for you? I know you had to start over.”

He looked sad.

“I don’t know if I’m going to get the antitoxin developed in time to save the girl.” Riya was beginning to feel nauseous.

Please don’t let me be sick inside my helmet.

“Gray, I have to get back to work.”

“Understood. So do I,” he grimaced.

She gave a brief nod, and instantly regretted it. Her head hurt. She turned and walked gingerly back to the table. As she got closer, she saw the green light was on the thermal cycler. Her eyes darted to the fluorescence reader, the timer still said thirty-five minutes. She wanted to cry.

Riya pulled out the samples from the two machines, and put the DNA-specific ones into the fluorescence reader. The Jordanian family needed to live. It was the right decision to make. Maybe if she taught someone what to do after she got too sick to keep going, they could work on the broad poison?

What happened if they got infected like she did?

“Gray?” Wyatt waved his hands so he couldn’t be seen on the SKYPE call. He knew it must be important since he was now on a call with the lieutenant general and an admiral.

“Please give me a few minutes to confer with Dr. Patel, and I’ll find out the ETA on the antitoxin.”

Both men nodded. Gray turned off the microphone on the computer, and got off the couch. He saw that Dex was now standing beside the outer door of the biocontainment lab. “Does Riya know how much longer? It’s been six hours and ten minutes.” Gray strode over to stand by Dex. “Riya said five to six hours.”

It was unlike her to be wrong on something like this. He’d expected her to be closer to five hours.

He looked through the curtain. Riya was leaning on the lab table. Her hand trembled as she poured something into a beaker.

“She hasn’t answered for five minutes, Gray,” Dex said. “She went to her knees once, but got back up. She hasn’t stopped working. The last thing she said is that she almost has the antitoxin for the Princess.”

“Riya?” Gray called out.

She didn’t respond in any way.

“Riya, answer me.” Gray’s tone was sharp.

“Hold on.”

He could barely hear her, her voice was hoarse. Something was wrong.

“She’s been standing up for hours. That suit is known as a hot-suit. I googled it, they are miserable to work in. I think she’s probably suffering from heatstroke,” Wyatt said, trying to calm Gray down.

“Riya, Honey. Talk to me.”

“I can make it. I’m going to make it.”

Those ominous words sent shivers down his spine.

“Are you sick?” He asked in a choked voice.

She turned and stumbled down to one knee, but the beaker stayed clutched in her hand. Gray held his breath as she got up and continued to walk unsteadily toward the door.

“Riya, answer me, are you sick? Did you get some of the poison on you?” She ignored him, and continued to walk. With one trembling hand she managed to unzip the interior door, zip it back up and go through the disinfectant routine.

She took off her helmet in the area, and looked directly at Gray, her eyes glassy, her face red with fever.

“I put on two pairs of new gloves over my hands after I ripped the first pair. I swear you won’t be contaminated with the broad toxin. What’s more, this strain of meningitis is not communicable, I promise.”

Gray thought his knees might give out.

“Steady,” Dex said.

He and Dex both dove for the bottom of the outer door zipper. They got it unzipped. Dex got the beaker out of Riya’s hands and she fell into Gray’s arms. He could feel the heat emanating off her.

“How much?” Dex demanded.

What the fuck was he talking about?

Gray was pulling at the suit, trying to get it off her.

“So cold. I’m so cold.” Her teeth were chattering. Her hair was drenched in sweat, her face was beet red.

“Riya, how much do we need to administer?” Dex articulated clearly.

She looked at him glassy eyed. “Same dosage amount as meningococcal vaccine,” she said softly. Then she started to cough.

They heard the distinctive sound of the SKYPE call coming in. “Dex, answer it,” Gray snarled. “Give them the update.” He turned to Wyatt. “Get me every goddamn blanket in this goddamn room.”

Gray sank to the floor and started rocking Riya in his arms.

“Don’t move,” she begged in a tortured whisper. “Going to vomit.”

“Riya, Honey, do you have the anti-toxin for your poison? Is it in the lab?”

“Only anti-toxin for royal family. No time for me.”

Gray shuddered with agony. Wyatt came and started swaddling her in blankets. “I’ve called for an ambulance. Dex told the brass. They’re notifying the president.”

“Get the antitoxin to the family. Please Gray. Save them.” He could barely hear her. Her eyes were filled with hope, right before her eyelids drifted shut.

“As you wish.”

She didn’t answer.

“Riya! Wake-up!” He shook her. She convulsed.

It was amazing what could happen when the King of the Universe cut all the red tape. Members of their special operations came with a doctor to pick up the beaker with the antitoxin, and a mere minute later the EMT’s for Riya arrived. Gray wouldn’t have been surprised if they loaded Riya onto a stretcher made of gold. There were at least fifteen soldiers escorting her to the lobby.

“Gray,” a familiar voice yelled as he was hovering over Riya’s stretcher. He looked up and saw Mason coming in from one of the doors. He ran over, one of the CDC scientists in his wake. Mason glanced down at Riya and blanched.

“I’ve got Jeff here,” he said pointing to the scientist. “Wyatt has been keeping us informed. We’re here to help find the antitoxin for Riya.”

Gray nodded grimly. He couldn’t take the time to talk. “Wyatt. Keep talking to Wyatt,” he said as he went out the door with the EMT’s.

When the ambulance tech inserted an IV into Riya’s arm, he saw purplish spots forming on her arm. Gray had read up on meningitis. This was bad, it was one of the later symptoms of the disease.

The ambulance ride was long, his eyes never left Riya’s face.

Gray tried to pick up his men on his receiver. It wasn’t working. Too many machines in the ambulance.

He pulled out his cell phone. “Sir, you can’t use your cell phone in the ambulance,” the tech said.

“This is an emergency.” Gray said in his officer voice.

“You will interfere with the machines that are helping to keep this woman alive, do you want to do that?”

Gray put his cell phone back in his pocket.

He trusted his men to do what was right.

He knelt down beside the gurney where Riya rested. He picked up her hand and brought it to his lips. “Stay with me, Riya. I can’t live in this world without you.” He watched as tears washed over the soft skin of her hand.

The receiver was twisted plastic in his hand. It had been worthless before he had crushed it. He tried to make sense of what Dalton was saying to him on his cell phone.

“He must have taken some of his own stuff, his body was bloated beyond recognition. Griff brought over the guy’s brother. He and Aiden are trying to make sense of all the beakers and vials that are stored in the five different refrigerators, and strewn across his lab. Gray, it’s a pigsty. Everything’s written in Arabic, and none of us read it. We’re dependent on Hamidi.” Dalton’s anguish and frustration came through the phone in waves.

“What about the UAE people, now that we’re not running dark?”

“Dex and Wyatt are already on it. They’re expected to arrive any minute.”

Gray stared at the small figure that Riya made as she lay in the hospital bed. Her presence was normally so big, and now she seemed so diminished.

“Gray?”

“Yeah?” He could barely get the word out.

“There’s still time, right?” Dalton asked.

“They say with all of her symptoms, even if the antitoxin is administered she could come out of this deaf or brain damaged.”

There was a long silence. After all, what could Dalton say. Finally his friend said, “I’ll pray for her.”

“Thank you.” Gray hung up the phone.

Time had no meaning. He remembered the first time he saw her. Those flashing dark eyes. Her sweetness wrapped in vulnerability. He had never met anyone like her. That’s because there wasn’t anyone like Riya Patel.

The morning he went to shave in the bathroom and found that heart she’d drawn on the mirror. Suddenly he wondered who was taking care of Einstein.

“Who cares about the damn cat!”

Those white high heels.

“Please come back to me Riya. Please.”

“Let us through!”

Gray’s head popped up from where it was resting on her hand. It was Wyatt’s voice and he was angry. Gray, jumped up from the floor, his knee locking up.

More shouting, this time in Arabic. He heard the soothing sound of Mason Gault’s voice. The doctor who was in charge of Riya walked in with the CDC guy and Mason, Wyatt trailing behind.

“Where’s Dalton?”

“Jeff found what Riya had been working on. She’d been halfway through with completing the antitoxin for the broad poison,” Mason said.

Gray wasn’t getting it, and it must have shown. The doctor had a syringe and he opened up the port on Riya’s IV.

“Stop!” Grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?” He turned to Mason and Wyatt.

“Explain this to me.”

“Gray,” Wyatt said. “Trust us. It’s going to make her well. You’ve got to believe us. She needs it now.”

Mason put his hand on his shoulder. “Jeff did it. Riya had it halfway done and Jeff just finished it. Let the doctor administer the drug.”

Gray let go of the doctor, who then plunged the syringe into the port.

“Riya said it would take one to two hours to work, is that right? Will she wake up then?”

“I really don’t know,” the doctor shook his head.

“What happened to the royal family? Are they awake? What about the little girl? They got the drug hours ago.”

“The King and his son are awake and alert. The queen is sleeping, but she did wake up at one point. We’re still waiting to see what happens to with the princess. The good news is that she’s responding to stimuli and scoring well on the Glasgow scale, so we have high hopes.”

“So how soon will we know if this is working for Riya?” Gray persisted.

“We are administering her antitoxin exactly ninety minutes later than we did the one for the royal family, so I don’t know. The good news is that according to her records, she had the meningococcal vaccine, that’s to her favor.” The doctor must have seen the desperation in his face. “I heard how long she lasted after being infected. What she accomplished was a miracle. She’s going to pull through.”

Gray turned his head to his friends and saw Mason and Wyatt nodding their heads in agreement.

Riya never remembered hurting this bad. She couldn’t move her neck. Her eyes wouldn’t open. Why wouldn’t her eyes open?

“My name is Inigo…” she couldn’t hear the rest. She was so tired. The voice sounded so familiar. Was it her father?

No, that wasn’t right. But it was such a warm and comforting voice. She felt safe.

She felt sunlight on her face. She heard that voice again. This time it was hoarse, but…

It was Gray and he was talking about the Dread Pirate Roberts from the Princess Bride. She still couldn’t move her neck. But this time she could lift her eyelids. She wet her lips.

“Gray?”

Was that her voice?

“Riya?”

She was tired again. Her eyes drifted shut.

“…and that’s why I liked this movie, and the book is pretty good too, now that I’ve read it to you. Shall I start again?”

“It was the love story, wasn’t it?” she croaked out. “You’re gooey.”

Hands crashed down on either side of her pillow. Sky blue eyes blazed down at her. “Don’t you dare close your eyes again.”

“I’m here?”

“What’s two plus two?” Gray asked.

“Four.”

“What country are the great pyramids in?”

“Egypt?”

“What’s Pi?”

“3.14159-”

“Enough!”

He slammed his lips down on hers.

Eeeewww. She needed a toothbrush. She tried to turn her head, but her neck hurt too badly.

“Kiss me back,” Gray murmured.

“No. Wanna toothbrush.”

“I love you.” Slowly he brushed his nose against hers.