I chuckled at the blood and vomit part, but then my eyes fell to his insanely soft-looking lips. Ever since Maxine had told me one of her favorite things about life was first kisses, I couldn’t get that out of my head. When was my last first kiss? Six months? Kenny at the pool hall? Yes, that was it. A drunken, sloppy kiss that I’d forgotten in the morning. Zero romance. My last romantic kiss had been Brisk, but that fizzled quickly and now the thought of kissing him revolted me. He was Ronnie’s; she might as well pee on him already and get it over with. Mark herterritory.
I must’ve been staring at his lips like an idiot for too long because he changed the subject. “Everything is going to change now. With these new arm cuffs, we’re going to starve these bastards rightout.”
Starve them. Nothing would bring me greater pleasure in life. If they couldn’t feed off us, they would die, right? I sat up a little, but nausea rolled into me so I lay back down. “That’s genius. How much will you sell themfor?”
The dream bands were pricey at a grand a pop. I knew he needed to make a profit and keep his business alive, but I hoped he would make it affordable toall.
He looked back at me. “Oh, Jeremy and I have decided to take a loss on the product and give the plans and schematic makeup out for free. Once it’s perfect, we’ll upload it to the internet. People can make their own with a few days’ hard work, and some supplies they can order from Striker Industrieswebsite.”
I just gaped at him like a fish out of water. “Free?” That was extremely generous of them, I wasn’t expecting that atall.
He nodded, looking back out to the lake. “We’ll make some top-of-the-line ones and sell them at cost, but everyone has a right to live no matter how rich or poor theyare.”
Oh my God. There was a weird fluttering in my stomach. Butterflies. I was totally falling for him. It should’ve excited me—Maxine would mount him right there and live in the moment—but I was completely freaked out. Caring for someone meant you could lose them, it meant you could get hurt. I’d already had so much loss; I didn’t need anyone else to grieve or worryabout.
“I’m tired. I’m going to rest my eyes,” I told him abruptly, and closed myeyelids.
I couldn’t fall for Damien Striker, now more than ever. We were at war, and there was no time for love while you were fighting for yourlife.
Chapter Eleven
After about anotherhour of lying there, we heard a loud splash come from the lake, then a hissing noise. My eyelids snapped open just as Damien grabbed a sticky bomb with one hand and his gun with the other. Peering out across the lake, I saw bright crimson fluid bubble up and mix with the green there. A shark’s head popped briefly out of the water, before the psychotic octopus-like water ghoul broke the surface and reached out for it with its serrated teeth tentacles. It wrapped the tentacle around the shark’s head and shredded into its skin. Sharks, like all other animals, were an endangered species. The more peaceful animals, like dolphins, were extinct last I’dheard.
“Skids are the scariest in my opinion,” I toldDamien.
He nodded. “Handsdown.”
Their twenty-foot-long tentacles could come out of the water and snatch a human off the shore in seconds if you got too close to the water. The only reassuring thing was that there weren’t many of them, and they couldn’t survive onland.
Damien’s watch beeped, low and barely audible. He looked at me. “It’s been threehours.”
I nodded. We were officially on borrowed time. If Ronnie didn’t get my surgery done soon, we risked running into theghouls.
Damien bounced his leg up and down in an agitated fashion. “Look, I’ve got an idea. The ghouls are attracted to me, not you. As long as you hide out here, you’ll be safe. I can hike across the lake to lure them thatwa—”
“No!” I stated firmly. That was one of my hardline rules: never split up unless absolutely necessary. Two was always better than one. Yes, the ghouls weren’t attracted to me, but they still had an uncanny sense of where we hid out. A smell or a consciousness beacon, I didn’t know. They could find me on their own, and I would be helpless without him. I was pretty shocked that we hadn’t seen at least one this entire span of time. It was a miracle. A miracle Ineeded.
Damien rubbed his chiseled jaw. “Okay, next plan. We call Dawn and fly around on her back until Ronnie wakes usup.”
That was a good plan. A damn good one, but if there were any ghouls within one mile of here, they would see her glowing form land and that could bring them to us. All Galadrias were a threat now. They would know that and try to take herout.
“Maybe. I wish I knew if there were any ghouls in thearea.”
Damien’s eyes lit up and he smacked himself on the forehead. “I’m so stupid. I forgot in all the drama lastnight.”
Reaching into his cargo pocket, he pulled out a crudely made device the size of a phone. It had two big antennas on it and a glowing red light on theend.
“Please tell me it’s not another one of Jeremy’sprototypes.”
He smirked. “No, this one is myinvention.”
I raised an eyebrow,impressed.
He chuckled. “Didn’t think I was smart, didya?”
“I thought you were smart. I just thought you were more good-looking than smart,” I admitted. Lord knows I wasn’t that smart. I mean I knew enough to get by but my brain wasn’t going to be taking me anywhere far in life. Maybe in another lifetime, when I’d have had the time to study and go to college and all of those things people did before the ghouls showedup.
He mashed a few buttons on the machine and shook his head. “Just a piece of eye candy,eh?”
