The words seemed to pierce right through her skull.
Something gentle touched her face, and she moaned and tried to pull away from it.
Everything hurt.
Pain like she’d never experienced before.
Cassandra had always led a fairly safe kind of life. Unwilling to put herself out there, unsure of what always held her back, but something did. Something kept her sticking to things that weren't going to hurt her.
Which made her sexual needs so incongruent with the rest of her.
But ever since she’d shared those secrets with Dragon, she didn't feel afraid anymore. Now she felt like she could conquer the world. She was stronger than she’d ever given herself credit for, and maybe now that she had acknowledged her own strength, she would stop projecting weakness to her family so they saw her as strong too.
No more hiding, no more pretending, no more underestimating herself.
“Wake up, Cassandra. Now,” an insistent voice persisted.
“No,” she muttered, waking up would make the pain worse. Somehow, she knew that even though she had no recollection of what had happened or why she was hurting so badly.
“Yes,” the voice countered. “Please.”
There was a note in that last word that stirred her further into consciousness. The note was fear, and whether she’d gained a newfound sense of confidence or not, she hated for anyone to be hurting and wanted to do whatever she could to soothe them.
Blinking open her eyes, she found nothing but darkness all around her except for the shadowy face of someone leaning over her.
Suddenly, everything came back.
They were searching a warehouse they believed had or still did belong to Dr. Gardner and his team of scientists. The place had been bleached, and someone had been using a white noise generator to make it harder for the guys to use their enhanced skills. But still, Blade had heard something, and the guys had told her and Rose to hide while they went hunting.
The two of them had been talking in hushed whispers when suddenly the world around them exploded.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice shaky and insubstantial as she tried to take stock of her body and figure out what injuriesshe’d sustained. In the fall, she must have lost her night vision goggles, because she could no longer see with that eerie green light. Still, she could make out Rose’s face, and she knew why the other woman had sounded scared. She’d heard all about how Rose had tried to escape the basement when the guys were holding her hostage and had wound up bringing the ceiling down with her.
“Yeah, hurting all over but … just brings back memories,” Rose answered, her voice soft and more uncertain than Cassandra had ever heard it before. “I've never been claustrophobic, couldn’t have because my brother would have quickly figured out any weaknesses and exploited them. But now …”
“You were buried alive,” Cassandra reminded her as she slowly pushed herself up, fighting off a wave of dizziness and nausea that made her want to curl up in a ball and forget all about what was going on around her.
But she couldn’t.
The guys were still out there somewhere, and she had no idea if they had been closer or further away from wherever the explosives had been set.
If they’d been closer …
No.
She wasn't going to allow herself to go there right now. Rose was freaked out after the explosion, they were both hurt, and they had to find a way out so they could go looking for the guys.
“Thought I was going to die,” Rose murmured. “But then Steel looked for me. Saved me.” The woman paused, dragging in a deep breath. “We have to find a way to get out of here so we can find them. What if they’re trapped and need us?”
“We’re stuck in here?” she asked. Rose had obviously regained consciousness before she had, or never passed out atall, but she had no idea how long she’d been out and if Rose had managed to gather intel while she was passed out.
“Half the ceiling and walls came down,” Rose replied. “Total flashback vibes. Although at least this time I'm not pinned down and helpless.”
“Totally not helpless,” she said, infusing as much confidence into her tone as she could manage. Just because she’d decided to stop pretending to her family that she was handling her paternity revelation just fine, didn't mean she didn't recognize this was a time when she had to fake it till she made it. Her life, Rose’s life, and the lives of Dragon and the other Delta Team guys might depend on it.
“We got this,” Rose said, sounding more like the woman she was getting to know.
“Of course we do. If we don’t, then Dragon and Steel are never going to let us do anything fun.”
