“Not if they want to live.”
“And what about Lily?”
“What about her?” Zeph roared suddenly, dropping the vehicle down into an empty skyway. “She’s sound asleep in bed, holding her android’s hand! What did he say to you?”
Janet startled, watching as the entirety of Zeph’s body imitate the same colors as the interior of the hovercraft. Her mouth dried up. “Hysterian?”
“Is that his fucking name?”
She nodded. “He took me away from the gunfire…”
“And he had his hands all over you. What did he say?”
Her eyes widened. “You didn’t hear?”
“I was busy.” Zeph’s jaw ticked, and the exposed veins on his forearms bulged from his flesh. “What did the fucker want?”
She stared at him, trying to find the words. She didn’t want him to go into one of his episodes, especially if they were far from safety, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him about Hysterian’s offer for help.
There’d been another option. A non-EPED option. One that had been given to her freely… She hadn’t taken it, but would Zeph believe that?
“He wanted to make sure I was okay.”
“Is that all?”
Janet pursed her lips. “Yes.”
His devilish, adrenaline-crazed eyes glinted sharply, and she swallowed down the sudden lump in her throat. The vehicle came to a stop in the shadow of a skyscraper. The abrupt silence between them did little to help calm the frenzy ofDimesfrom her mind.
Or make her feel better about lying.
He stared at her, still holding a gun in his hand, making her increasingly uneasy. The black pitch in his eyes only grew darker until nearly everything about her neon-green knight had become something completely devoid of life. It was the same look he had on the bridge. The aura of his intensity menaced terrible flashbacks of the blood pouring out from his pores.
His frightening power over her threatened to smite her where she sat—to dissolve her into nothing more than the outline of ash.
“Come back to me,” she whispered, unbuckling her seatbelt. “It’s just the two of us now. Don’t go away.”
“I’m still here, Janet.”
His forearms flexed, and he turned back to the wheel. The prickling tension remained.
“Wait!”
She tempered her fear and placed her hand upon his, sidling closer to his body, her glittering dress abrading her skin. Zeph didn’t move as she climbed onto his lap and straddled him. Her knees found ample space on either side of his thighs. Janet pressed her palms into his bunched shoulders and ran the tips of her fingers over the sides of his neck where his skin was discolored the worst.
“Tonight, you became this way for me,” she said, her eyes finding his. “Why?”
His hand curled around her neck and squeezed. Her throat constricted against the slight pressure. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“I’m willing to try.”
She pulled back to examine his face. She wanted to help him, she just didn’t know how. Slowly, he raised his hands to gather up her hair and tug it back. His touch was gentle despite the violence pulsating from him.
Janet turned her head and nuzzled his hand. “Please, let me help you,” she breathed, needing more, sighing contently when his palm cupped her cheek.
“You’re not trying to get away anymore?”
“I stopped trying, I think…” She grazed her teeth across her lower lip. “I never tried to escape you. Not really. And I would’ve stayed if it weren’t for Lily.”
