40. CHAPTER 40 #2
“My mother shouldn't have told you.”
“Yes, your mother is the problem. Brock is the problem. I'm the problem. Everyone is the problem except for you and the fact that you got stabbed.”
“My brother is the one who injured me, and he's observant. I can't act hurt.” A pointed look at Kira. “Now, I believe I was ordered to rest. So, everyone shut up.”
“And by everyone, you mean me.”
Eyes drilled into hers. “Yes, I mean you.”
“Watch yourself,” she said. Ordinarily, Kira didn't speak so forcefully with people, but Zayne didn't take her seriously otherwise.
He didn't say anything else, but he did smirk like her threat amused him.
If he didn't heed her warning, then he'd learn the hard way. “Once you're back inside, away from me, you'll let Brock look at the wound, or I'll annoy you so bad you'll want to die. I won't let it go, and you know that.”
“Damn, fine.” Zayne closed his eyes again. “I'm fucking sleeping now.”
“I'm not that easy to escape,” Kira said.
Brock settled onto his back. “A nap sounds great to me. We had a rough few days.”
Kira kept watch for them, noticing Brock drifted off, but Zayne didn't. No one kept their shoulders that straight while sleeping.
Though Kira wanted them to rest longer, the second that thirty minutes had passed, Zayne announced it, eyes on his watch.
Once they returned to the house, she left him alone, so he'd let Brock help him, but she could do nothing except worry in her room.
Meetings that day seemed never-ending. The High General left in the evening, saying he needed to work in the office overnight, and finally, the house was empty except for Zayne, Kira, and Adelle.
“I watched your father drive away,” Kira said to Zayne in the kitchen. “He's gone.”
He rested against the island, lowering his head with a sigh. “The security team is blocking all signals to and from the house. I also used my own system to be safe. Until tomorrow when the soldiers show up, it's okay for you and mom to talk.”
“Thank you. Stay here. Let your mom help you. You have plenty of excuses with the work you're doing here.”
“I do this alone. That's how I handle things.”
“Your mom is strong enough to tend to your wounds. What she's not strong enough for is to see you suffer alone. How can you not see what that does to her?”
“She's right.” Adelle entered the kitchen, pained expression on Zayne. “I know you're going home to take PXI. I have some here. Stay.”
Frustration broke through the mask he'd worn all day. Pain and fatigue strained his expression. He looked ready to pass out. “I don't have the energy to deal with you two worrying about me.”
“I won't dote or worry,” Adelle said. “I'll just make things easier on you. It helps to have someone bring you what you need. You won't be able to move for a few hours.”
He rubbed his eyes. “If you do, I'm leaving.” A look at Kira. “And you don't come around. Got it?”
Anger flared through her. Imagine the horror of her checking on him. “What dose of Pixi Dust are you taking?”
“It's PXI,” Zayne said. “The most advanced military-grade technology in the world, not some fairytale.”
“Zayne.” Kira slammed her fist on the counter.
He groaned. “The maximum. I need to heal fast.”
“Then I'm helping,” she said. “That's insane.”
“This is what I'm talking about. I'm going home.”
“No, you aren't. You're staying. I know Pixi Dust better than any of you, and I know what it'll do to your body. Being alone for that is counterproductive. What if you have a seizure?”
“I've taken pure doses of PXI plenty of times. If I were going to seize, I would have by now.”
“I don't think it works like that.”
Zayne pushed himself up. “Why do you pretend to be sweet and mild-mannered until it's me?”
“Because you're insufferable.”
Their glares were locked on each other now.
“I'll get the PXI and start on an ice bath,” Adelle said. “You two fight for as long as you'd like.”
Kira lifted her hands. “I'll stay in my room. Go do whatever your mom says.”
Walking out of the kitchen was way harder than Zayne would ever realize. She sat in her room, knowing he injected himself with that awful serum that helped his body heal faster, but left every nerve ending sizzling. How often did he torture himself like this?
Hours passed before she heard someone walking down the stairs. She ran out, seeing Adelle looking tired.
“How is he?” Kira asked.
“You're awake.” She squeezed Kira's shoulder. “He's okay. You should get some sleep.”
“Are you okay?”
“It's not easy to see your child hurt.” She crossed her arms. “The worst with the PXI passed.”
“You need a break,” Kira said.
“I can sleep tomorrow.”
“I slept a little. I'll handle things for a few hours.”
“He'll complain.”
“What's new? Go. Seriously. I can handle him.”
Adelle studied her for several seconds. “Not many people take him on.”
“If they did, they'd realize he's not as scary as they think.”
They both smiled. Maybe because Zayne did actually scare her that much. She just refused to back down.
“I'll sleep,” Adelle said. “But don't let him chase you off. The PXI was hard on him. I need to know he's safe.”
Damn it. What did he just go through?
Kira nodded and climbed the stairs to the guest room he stayed in.
Preparing herself for his stubbornness, she held her hand over his door for several seconds before knocking.
“I told you to sleep,” he said. “Come in.”
She chewed the inside of her cheek, stomach twisting in knots at the coming wrath. “She's going to bed,” she said while opening the door.
The shock that piqued Zayne's brows and froze him at seeing her instead of his mom hit her too. He held a roll of gauze and a pair of scissors. And his shirt lay on the bed, leaving him all skin and muscle and a flimsy, bloody bandage around his midsection.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.
“Your mom,” Kira said, cheeks warming like she'd never seen a shirtless man in her life. Focusing intently on his face, she willed any redness away. “Sleeping. She's sleeping.”
“As I told her to.”
“Well, she only agreed to it because I said I wouldn't let you out of my sight.”
His hand curled around the gauze. A sheen of sweat covered him like back at Dr. Cooper's, and he looked so rigid, probably from annoyance as much as the muscle contractions from the medicinal Pixi.
“You agreed to stay away,” he said.
“Apparently, I'm a liar.”
“I don't want you here.” His lips curled, baring his teeth. “Leave.”
“I don't care. Give me those bandages, you stubborn man.”
“I've got it handled.”
Her brows twisted, and she raised a hand at the blood stain. “It's on your back.”
“I have a mirror. Bye.”
“You're being such a jerk. I care about you. Let me help.”
Zayne leaned in with a smoldering glare. “I told you not to care about me.”
“Well, sir, yes sir.” Kira pressed her fists against her hips to keep from hitting him.
Fire rushed through every vein. The fire of his stubbornness. Of her anger. Of learning how the body that plastered her against the edges of buildings looked. As hard as she tried not to notice, even looking into his eyes, she still saw the rest of him.
Kira turned away. “Stupid, stubborn, ridiculous idiot.” She muttered it to herself, but she didn't care if he heard.
Meanwhile, he cut away his own bandage. When Kira pivoted to check on him, he growled at her. Actually growled.
“Turn around,” he said. “You don't need to see the wound.”
“I'm not a child.”
“You just act like one.”
“You—” Kira let out a quiet scream and stormed up to him, snatching the gauze from his hand. “You're the child. I know your games. You won't chase me off by being rude. That doesn't work anymore. Now, hold still.”
She slipped behind him and pried the blood-soaked square from his back. Though he quickly turned around, she already saw the stitches holding together his skin. And the bruising stretching along his back.
Pain tingled down her spine.
Now that he had flipped around, she ended up staring right at the diagonal slash in his chest, the one her hands never forgot the feel of.
The twisted scar carved through his muscled chest like someone once tried to cleave him in two.
“You're making a habit of staring,” he said in an annoyed monotone.
Heat licked her cheeks. “This is the first and only time I've ever stared.”
The murmur and raised brows didn't at all amuse her.
“Don't antagonize me because you're mad I won't let you bleed to death alone,” Kira said.
“How many times must I tell you I'm fine?”
“As many times as I must say I'm not staring.”
The scar over his heart kept drawing her eye, though. It was longer than her hand. Her gaze dropped for an instant, stomach hurting.
“The north,” Zayne muttered.
Kira let him see her anguish at the thought of what they did to him. “How did you survive?”
“Interrogations are controlled and precise. I was never going to die.”
Aching pain crept into her bones. That time in Dr. Cooper's tank had only been a taste of how terrible things could get.
She glanced at the snake tattoos, seeing them climbing over his shoulders and twisting along his chest, understanding the price of those marks much better than ever. How had Zayne not broken?
Other scars caught her eye. She'd seen some of them before, but now she imagined each wound as fresh and painful.
The stitches in his back would become another scar.
Except he was taking pure Pixi, so there might not end up being a mark.
Horror hit her that there was no telling how many times he'd been hurt.
The Pixi Dust strongly minimized scarring.
And those bruises were dark. She'd glimpsed some on his back. Black and deep purple bruising climbed up his sides and littered his chest and stomach. He'd been in a bad fight.
“Don't get hurt anymore.” Her voice sounded small. “I can't stand it.”
For several seconds, they looked at one another until he passed the square bandage to her. “You can help me one time. That's it.”