I took one look at it and passed it back. “Nope.”
That made him pause. “But . . . if you don’t . . . you might get blood on your clothes.
I hopped up onto the bed. “Don’t care.”
Xen waited for me—to change my mind?—but when I didn’t, he continued. “Safe window of operations beginning in three . . . two . . . one.”
“Zap me!” Kelly said.
I had no idea if I’d be aware of this piece or not. But I imagined I could feel Xen’s attention waning behind me as he did...something.
“Leash transferred,” he pronounced gravely, then looked down at me. “How are you?”
I knew it was all in my head—literally—but I somehow felt lighter. “Still alive,” I said, smiling up at him.
“Bark for me!” Kelly shouted out from his shelf, then laughed, cracking himself up.
“Kelly—shush!” I giggled, and then heard Xen starting up a drill. “Waiiiiit-wait-wait-wait. Why am I awake right now?”
“It’s brain surgery. It’s best done on alert subjects, so you can test parameters real time.”
It took all the strength I had in me to not sit straight up. “Have you done this before?”
“Parts of it. Yes.”
I blinked, calming a little. “Did they turn out okay?”
“I don’t really know.”
My jaw dropped, and I stared up at him. “What I like about you is that you don’t cushion anything,” I said as Kelly hooted.
“You’re welcome,” Xen said, taking my statement at face value. “I like you, too. Please—be still,” he said—and the drill began again.
“Wait!” I shouted, frowning up at him. “I thought you loved me? Only men who love me are allowed to muck around in my brain.”
“I’m not a man. I’m an android.”
“You know what I mean!”
He set the drill aside. “I am rerouting all of my processing power to affection,” he said, then let the moment hang far longer than it needed to—which is when I realized he was teasing.
“Oh my God, you are a jerk!”
“Then I am a jerk, and an android, who is in love with you,” he said, and I could’ve sworn I heard amusement in his voice. “May surgery commence?”
I settled back and closed my eyes. “Fine.”
Fifteen minutes later, I was free, and there was a metal thing that looked like a small jellyfish on a sterile tray to my right.
Xen had poked around like the dentist did, putting numbing gel everywhere before he started, so right now as he was stitching all the little holes the screws had left in my scalp up, all I could feel was a series of repetitive tugs.
It didn’t look so scary now that it was out of me—but I remembered how it’d dampened my telepathic field.
I hadn’t put a crown on since I’d been rescued from the water—and to be honest, I didn’t know when I’d be able to.
I didn’t want anyone—or anything—not even myself!—to put a barrel over my powers again.
“I am done here. How do you feel?” Xen asked, as I sat up. I could see myself in the reflection of one of the ceiling lights that wasn’t on—I looked a little haggard, and one half of my head was a little more bald, but honestly?
