He vomited sports drink and protein bar. And then he continued to throw up absolutely nothing. Just pain, disgust, and he didn’t know what. When his stomach finally ended the purge, he was on his knees, someone was pressing a hand to his forehead, and the scents had grown immeasurably worse.
“You done?” the woman asked.
He hadn’t the strength to refuse to answer. He nodded weakly and whispered, “I think so.”
“Laddin,” she said, and the hand on his forehead disappeared.
“Yes, Captain?” he answered.
“Can you take care of that and then bring back my phone?”
Josh’s head lifted at the idea that she had a phone. And she was letting Laddin carry it.
Meanwhile, the ball of energy being addressed responded with a crisp salute. “Right away, Captain!”
The woman shot Laddin a “seriously?” look before focusing on someone standing to Josh’s right. “Wiz, you’ve got Mr. Angry Puker while Nero recovers.”
The guy in question dropped a heavy hand on Josh’s shoulder and squeezed hard. “Not a problem.”
Then she looked down at Nero. “I don’t think we should move him. Who knows what’s broken in his face.”
“It’s probably the first real sleep he’s gotten since….” Wiz let his voice trail away, but Josh had no trouble finishing the thought.
Since his entire team was burned to a crisp.
How could he be so angry at a guy and so wrapped up in sympathy for him at the same time? The riot of emotions was dizzying, and for a moment Josh really wished he was the unconscious one on the floor. Instead, he was held there to stare at the bloody mess he’d made of a guy who… who….
“You going to hurl again?” Wiz demanded as the grip on Josh’s shoulder squeezed painfully tight.
“No.” He gathered his strength and pushed to his feet. But once there, he didn’t know where to look or what to do. He swallowed and looked at the woman. “Is he going to be okay?”
She shrugged. “He wasn’t okay in the first place, but yeah, I don’t think there’s any permanent damage.”
Hard to believe, given the ground-meat look of his face.
“Experienced shifters can heal most wounds when they come back to human, and Nero’s as experienced as they come.” Her eyes hardened. “And no matter what he said to you, your situation is not his fault. I ordered it, as did everyone else up the chain of command. I’m Captain M and the head of the Wulf combat packs. Your life sucks right now because I ordered it. And because you had a Romani ancestor with special woo-woo. Deal with it. And if you ever lay a hand on any of my people again, I will personally gut you. You got me, Mr. Collier?”
Josh swallowed. “Yeah. I got you.” He resisted addingma’am. He hadn’t joined the military, and thanks to Nero’s confession, he knew he didn’t have to stick around. But he did need to get a handle on his emotions. If this was what happened when he got pissed off, then he really was a danger out in the world.
It was so hard to wrap his brain around it. He’d never been violent like that in his life. And now another question burned through his brain:What did they do to me?
He looked at the blood on his hands and fought down the need to purge again.
“I need to wash up,” he said to no one in particular. And then he realized exactly what he needed to do. “And then I need to go to your library and start researching.”
“What?” Wiz asked.
Josh trained his eyes on the captain. “I need to understand what has happened to me.” He glanced at the other people in the room—Pretty Boy and Stratos. “What has happened to all of us.” Then he swallowed as he looked down at Nero. “He said you want something to resist magical fire.”
“Can you do it?” He heard hope in her voice, and he took perverse pleasure in squashing it.
“I can’t even define magical fire yet, and it takes decades to develop good tech. You’ve just destroyed all our lives on a pipe dream.”
“Your life was going to explode anyway,” she argued. “It’s in your DNA.” Then she blew out a breath. “But whatever you can give us will help a lot of good people.” She looked at Wiz. “Take him. Bury him in everything we’ve got and don’t let him up until Nero’s whole again.”
Apparently she took perverse pleasure in squashing his dreams of escape. Little did she know that he enjoyed being buried in pages and pages of data. Or so he thought… for about four hours. By that time he was hungry and his eyes were burning.
Wiz didn’t let him stop. He brought down a sandwich and a cup of coffee—for himself. What he said to Josh was “Nero’s still unconscious,” before he tossed Josh a Gatorade.
