“I want…” he said.
Then he stopped. His eyes closed, and she thought maybe he’d fallen asleep again. She knew she shouldn’t wake him up, that he needed his rest. She desperately wanted to know what he had been trying to say, though.
Fortunately for her sense of medical ethics, he opened his eyes again on his own. “Director. The director said… he said he wanted to give me a new job.”
“You’re not exactly ready to go on another mission,” Julia pointed out.
He smiled. “A desk job.”
“You know you couldn’t work at a desk again if—”
“His job. His old job,” Jim said.
“Oh,” Julia said, so surprised she had no idea how to react.
“You’d know where I was. All the time. And not as many people would… try to shoot me. Virtually none.”
She laughed.
“You should… go home,” he told her. “Get some sleep. You look tired.”
“You’re not one to judge,” she told him.
“I have an excuse. Go home.” He grasped her arm, ran his fingers up her biceps. It sent shivers down her spine, like it always had. “Go home. Get that box and bring it back here,” he told her. “I have a question I want to ask you.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DAVID WELLINGTON lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He is the author of the Monster Island trilogy of zombie novels; the Thirteen Bullets vampire series; the epic post-apocalyptic novel Positive; and the Jim Chapel missions, including the digital shorts “Minotaur” and “Myrmidon,” and the novels Chimera and The Hydra Protocol.
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CREDITS
Cover design and photo illustration by Tony Mauro.