“You were abducted by someone,” Shock says. “We don’t know who yet, or why they did it. But the ship bringing you to Isia crashed.”
“Arc found you in the snow,” Risk adds.
“I guess I’m lucky I didn’t get eaten before you got to me.” I look down at the way he’s kneeling.Very lucky.
Jesus Christ Chrys. Get it the fuck together.
“You were drugged,” Arc says.
“That explains a few things.” Like why I’m not crawling out of my skin to be moving. Why I haven’t gotten sidetracked twenty times already…
Risk looks at me like he’s trying to read something on my face. “I would expect you to be freaking out right now.”
The way he says ‘freaking out’ makes it sound like a term he’s only heard before and doesn’t fully understand.
“If I wasn’t who I am and you three weren’t who you are, I might be.” I look at Arc and want to slip my hand out from under the blankets to touch his face.
… did he just move forward?
“I read minds.” He blurts it out, and the other two flinch.
“Oh… well then you are in for a treat when I am back to my fully malfunctioning faculties.”
He glances at the other two, but I’m left out of that conversation. “Very few people know that, but if you are going to be here, you need to. And you need to know that I will try not to invade your privacy if I can help it.”
I try to stretch, and the movement makes my already heavy limbs heavier still. “Honestly, if you can make sense of what I’m thinking half the time, more power to you.”
My next thought makes me laugh while Arc winces, and I voice it so the other two aren’t left out. “My sisters are going to implode when they find out I’m here.”
“Jess, especially,” Arc says, looking down toward his hands.
But they don’t offer to send me to her or Laurel.
And honestly… I don’t want to go.
“I take it there’s no heat in this outpost… are there bathrooms?” I really do need to pee.
Arc stands in a strangely fluid motion and asks, “Do you think you can walk?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
My whole body seizes up when I shove the blankets off of me. “Holy fuck.” It’s so much colder than I thought it was. “It must be nice not to have to worry about this.”
I rub my arms and torso, trying to get some frictional heat.
“We’ve got a fire going. How warm do you normally need? We thought seventy…”
“I’m a southern California girlie and it was summer when I was last conscious, so…” But seventy should be fine. I shouldn’t feelthiscold.
“It might be the drugs,” Arc offers as an explanation.
Whatever it is, I don’t like it.
Grabbing one of the blankets, I wrap it around myself as best I can… At least it will hide some of the goose prickles—and my nipples, too.
Arc looks down at my chest on the thought and I laugh with chattering teeth. Poor guy’s going to be subject to all my worst thoughts.
I’d been on my side, facing the door and a solid wall. Now that I’m up and out of my cocoon, the light source—the only light source—makes me flinch back.
