27. Addie #2
“When your fingers stopped twitching,” Evander added, brows creased in the middle. “Have you ever seized before?”
“What are you talking about?”
“We—I think you just experienced a seizure. You were unresponsive and your fingers were quivering against your legs without an observable pattern.”
I could have laughed. Instead, my face heated as a blush raced across my skin. No one had ever noticed before. And now I was not only noticed, but analysed, surveilled, and perceived.
“It’s not a seizure. It’s just something I do to manage the overwhelm.”
All three jerked back at least a foot.
“Oh,” he said.
That was all—just oh.
“Right, time for your shot, then back into bed, I think,” Beckett said, back to business as usual, only—
“Shot? What shot?”
Evander’s face brightened at the chance to offer information.
“It’s an injection AevumTech invented specifically for Blackwing’s use.
In the event that her daughter actually did have to go through with assignments and missions, Nadine created a nanotechnology that hastens the body’s ability to heal.
” He spoke quicker than usual, animated by the science.
“She didn’t want Fleur”—my heart panged at the casual mention of her name—“to suffer needlessly through weeks of recovery, so she switched tracks and created this serum that essentially speeds up the proliferation and remodelling phases of healing.
“In layman’s terms, it temporarily gives you Wolverine-level healing.” His excitement was catching. I found myself hooked on the gleam in his eyes, and latched onto his every word.
Grinning back at him, I asked, “Minus the adamantium claws though, right?”
Somehow, the expression on his face intensified.
He could rival the sun in terms of brightness.
“I could do without that part,” I added, earning a chuckle.
I wonder how far I can push them before they snap. We’re not teachers and students anymore—I’m sick of referring to them so formally. Let’s send it.
“So. Serum?” I asked, deciding when to play these cards to their greatest effectiveness.
“Serum,” Beck agreed, pulling the needle from his back pocket. “Lift your shirt please.”
Scowling, I reached for the syringe. “I can give myself a damn needle.”
The lines around his eyes softened. “I’m sure you can—but you shouldn’t have to. Besides, the doc warned us that whatever’s inside these aren’t going to merely tickle.”
Evander attempted a reassuring expression. “But the good news is that you only need one—”
“Great!”
“—every day for a week,” he finished, wincing.
“Great,” I repeated, though the tone was significantly less enthusiastic the second time round.
I went to lift the shirt, realising partway through that this was not my shirt and holy fuck, I’m not wearing any underwear.
“I, uhh, I’m just gonna take that to go,” I stammered, plucking the needle from Beck’s grip, startling the man into compliance.
I leaped to my feet, immediately regretting the swiftness of the action, but played it off with a smile and dashed past the dining table into the neat little bathroom I’d taken note of earlier.
Slamming and locking the door behind me, I leaned against its wooden panelling, panting as the pain ricocheted across my belly and down each of my legs. It felt exactly like the cramps I endured prior to the surgery, just with a little extra tugging of stitches and fatigue thrown in on top.
“Adelaide?” Beck asked through the door, sounding like he was right on the other side of it.
“Just a minute!”
“Addie, let me help you.”
It sounded like a plea—like a desperate bargain—and I couldn’t for the life of me work out why he was so desperate to help a street urchin like me.
“I said I can do it. And besides,” I muttered, already dreading the next series of mortifying moments. “Whomever dressed me neglected to put on literally anything other than this shirt.”
Silence was apparently my only companion in this outdated but immaculately kept bathroom. It looked like something out of a nineties décor catalogue, but either the Academy employed cleaners for all its staff apartments—or these three were the cleanliest thirty-ish-year-olds in all of Europe.
“When Dek carried you back here, you were dressed in nothing but that pitiful excuse of a hospital gown. We didn’t think you’d appreciate any of us touching you more than strictly necessary, nor did we think you’d appreciate waking up still in that paper gown.
So Dek dressed you in the comfiest thing any of us own in the hopes it would go a small way to us earning your forgiveness. ”
And now silence was his only companion.
I opted not to answer… well… any of that, and chose to stick myself with the two-inch-long needle, plunging Nadine’s nanotech into my belly.
Regret was all I knew next. Regret and fiery agony.
Blistering heat raced out from the needle point, filling every one of my internal crevices and hollows, igniting each of my nerves and veins, not stopping until every cell was ablaze.
I must have passed out on the floor at some point, because I woke up to the cold ceramic floor tile pressed against my cheek, bugs scurrying around in my belly, and the white dust of snow stuck to my lashes.
Wait—snow? That can’t be right.
I blinked, turning my head slightly, igniting the thudding crescendo of a migraine.
I think I hit my head, too.
I was right on both counts. It was not snow dusting my eyelashes, but tiny specks of plaster—thanks to the gaping hole in the wall beside the door and the ogre who stood outlined within it.
And it was not tears dripping down my face, but the crimson stain of blood, pouring from a wound in my temple. My fingers brushed the split ever so softly, but I still hissed, wondering just how much of a fool I’d made of myself.
Beck reached a bloodied hand in through the hole and unlocked the door in one smooth motion. He then barged into the tiny room in one great big furious storm.
“How could you be so stupid?” he snapped. “Why do you have to be so stubborn and pig-headed and—”
“Alone?” I asked softly.
His face twitched with multiple conflicting thoughts and emotions before finally settling on surrender. “You’re not alone, Addie. And you won’t be for a very long time.”
Deklan appeared behind him in the doorway, and Van poked his head through the hole in the wall, proving Beck’s point like it was a pre-rehearsed speech.
“Come on,” he said gently, holding out a hand. “Let’s get you patched up, cleaned up, and back into bed. You get one day of downtime before we jump right back into training and the rest of it.”
Pouting, I moaned, “Is that all? I just had major surgery.”
“Voluntary major surgery,” he pointed out with a solitary raised brow. “And yes, that’s all the nanotech will need to fix you up.”
“Huh,” I said, sounding like a broken record. “Aevum could make a fortune with this.”
“They already have,” he replied, grasping my outstretched hand and helping me to my feet with a gentleness that belied the beast.
When I exited the bathroom with the intention of returning to the bed I’d woken up in, Beck tutted and led me across the kitchen to his own room instead.
“You’re taking mine. I’ve got the couch.”
“But—”
“No buts, just do it.” He sighed, so deeply it was like it held years’ worth of exasperation. And maybe it did. Lord knows I’d been giving him shit for almost two of them. “Please,” he added softly, almost like it was a confession shared between the two of us.
I nodded dumbly—I must have hit my head harder than I’d initially thought—and perched on the edge of Beckett’s bed while he fetched a clean cloth and a bottle of water.
Instead of handing them over to me, though, Beck knelt and dabbed the damp material against my skin, methodically and systematically washing away all traces of blood, sweat, and dust.
When he was done with that, he rose to his feet, pulled a Batman bandaid from his back pocket with a muttered don’t ask, and placed it over the nick at my temple. His hand lingered on the side of my face a little longer than the task required, causing my breath to hitch and my skin to prickle.
Thankfully, he seemed equally affected. He straightened, adjusted the crotch of his trousers, and hurried over to the dresser.
Ignoring the snickers of his brothers, he returned with an expressionless face and something far more valuable to me right at this very moment—a clean shirt and a pair of my black cotton underwear.
I didn’t want to think about how he’d procured these—or if they were the pair I’d gifted him days ago. I decided in that moment that I wasn’t going to ask questions I didn’t actually want the answers to.
“Chuck the dirty shirt by the door and one of us will come grab it later when we check on you. Otherwise, get some sleep, Adelaide. You’ve got a long week ahead.”
“Can I have it back?” I blurted before he could close the door.
He frowned. “What?”
“The shirt. Can I have it back when it’s been washed?”
It was the comfiest thing I’d ever worn.
Beck glanced down at the interlinked letter logo, his brows somehow narrowing even further when a disembodied voice called from the kitchen.
“Consider it yours, Deadly! Nothing pleases me more than seeing my girl in my band’s shirt.”
I could hear the grin in his voice and only then did I realise I’d fucked up royally by showing this card so early in the piece.
I sighed. At least I was getting a comfy shirt out of it.