I longed to pull her into my arms and kiss her senseless, to remind her who she belonged to and bring her back to the here and now, to us. But I knew that would be a huge mistake. Whatever she was working on in her mind was important for us all. As much as I wanted her softness to comfort me, I needed her like this, too. Strong. Strong enough to save all of us.
She lifted a tissue slicer from the tray and pulled Ryston’s head down, twisting it so she could place the device on the contaminated tissue of his temple. With a smooth, controlled cut, she shaved a layer of the tissue from Ryston’s flesh and placed it on one of the small glass pieces before handing it to the doctor.
“Doctor. Did you watch me earlier? Do you know how to do a wet mount?”
“Yes. I was watching you.”
“I knew it.” She placed the slide next to him on the counter and turned away. “Good. Wet mount. Write an R on the side with that black marker so we don’t get them mixed up.”
Fascinated, I watched the doctor do exactly what she ordered as she brought one of the glass slides and the tissue cutter toward me. “Your turn, Maxim. I want something close to the implant.”
I pulled my tunic off over my head and dropped it onto the table beside me. Ryston cursed and Rachel paused, her eyes flaring as she took in the advancement of my condition. “Holy shit.”
“Don’t lose focus now, mate. Finish this.” I held out my arm and remained perfectly still as she took her sample. She looked up at me when it was done. “I want a couple more, one on the outer edge and one from the Hive bit. Is that okay?”
I lifted her chin and placed a soft kiss on her lips. “You, mate, can have anything you need.”
Her cheeks turned an adorable shade of pink, but she nodded and returned to her task, handing the doctor slides, instructing him to mount them and label them with M-1, M-2 and M-3.
With an absent wave, she moved to the doctor’s side. “You can put your shirt back on, baby.”
Baby?
The one word held me paralyzed until Ryston bumped my shoulder with a chuckle. “Baby, huh? Bastard. Why didn’t I get a love name?”
I did not bother to respond as we both watched the doctor surrender the slides and the odd-looking machine to our mate. She switched them multiple times, taking notes in her little book as the pain ratcheted tighter and sharper inside me until it burst.
Lifting my hand to my head with a moan, I felt myself fall. Felt Ryston’s arms catch me before I hit the floor. Heard Rachel shout, and everything went black.
* * *
Rachel
The answer was here, in these slides.
The Hive cells in Maxim’s body had been reactivated somehow. They were moving, multiplying, and, without doubt, causing a massive inflammatory response. If the same process had been going on in Captain Brooks’ body, the Hive implants would have begun releasing Quell into his system as well.
Looking at the crawling infestation of living Hive implants, I had no doubt that if we took Maxim’s blood right now, he’d look like a junkie as well.
But Ryston’s implants looked as the doctor had told me they were supposed to, as all warriors on the Colony should, this far away from the Hive collective frequencies. The Colony was deep in Coalition-controlled space, the distance meant to be a protection from reactivation of their implants.
“Maxim?” Ryston’s alarm cut through my thoughts like a hot knife through butter and I turned in my seat to see my mate topple to the floor.
“Oh, god. No.” No. No. No. I was so close. I almost had this figured out.
Ryston laid him down on the floor and I leaned over him. “Maxim? Baby? Hang on, okay? I’ve got this.” I kissed his forehead and settled him back on the flooring. “I’ve got this. I’ve got this.”
Doctor Surnen rushed to Maxim’s side with his ReGen wand, but I ignored him. I had to figure this out. Now. Right fucking now.
It felt like a dream, a nightmare in slow motion that I couldn’t wake up from. I sat on the stool and opened the notebook, staring at my drawings, my data, thinking about the dormant, unmoving condition of Ryston’s implant cells versus the active, toxic, going-to-kill-my-mate-if-I-couldn’t-figure-this-out, Hive cells.
“Doctor?”
“Yes.” He was on his knees next to Maxim, but I didn’t need his body, just his brain.
“You said the Hive implants were controlled by a specific broadcast frequency used by the Hive for all their biosynthetic soldiers?”
“Yes.”