With each stride down the concrete-walled, short-ceilinged stretch of here-to-there, the tightness in iAm’s shoulders increased, the muscles along his spine clamping up so hard that the pain reverberated all the way to his temples.
When they emerged into the office, Tohr looked up from the computer. “It’s a convention down here tonight.”
“Selena’s sick,” Qhuinn muttered.
The Brother got to his feet. “What? I just saw her like an hour ago. She was going to feed Luchas and . . .”
Which was how they ended up with five sets of shoes and shitkickers heading into the corridor.
The training center was a huge subterranean facility that included everything from an Olympic swimming pool, a target range, a weight room, a PT suite, and a full-size gym, to equipment rooms and a complement of classrooms that had been used for trainee teaching before the raids. There were also extensive medical facilities, with surgical suites and recovery rooms—and that was what they were gunning for.
The fact that people were clustered around the closed door of the examination room was not a good sign: Phury, Cormia, Rhage and Vishous were in anxious-wait mode, pacing, staring at the floor, twitching.
“Oh, thank God,” Phury said as he saw iAm. “Trez is going to be glad you’re here. We were trying to get hold of you.”
Probably why his own phone had been going off—but he’d been ignoring the thing while leaving the condo and going to try to find Trez at shAdoWs.
“They’re X-raying her,” V said. “That’s why we’re out here. Trez isn’t leaving her.”
Layla frowned. “Why are they doing that? Did she break a—”
Cormia went over to the other Chosen and took Layla’s hands. Soft words were exchanged and then Layla gasped and weaved on her feet. As Qhuinn steadied her, iAm decided that whatever it was, he needed to get in there.
“I’m not waiting,” he said, putting the cat down and pushing the door wide.
At first, he couldn’t figure out what he was looking at. As the heavy panel shut behind him soundlessly, he focused on what looked like table legs on the examination platform. Except . . . it was Selena. Her slender calves and thighs were bent, separated abnormally and held rigid at bad angles, as if she were in great pain—and it wasn’t just her lower body that was affected. Her head position was all wrong, and her arms were twisted up against her chest, even her fingers cranked into claws.
She looked as if she were in some kind of seizure.
Doc Jane was moving a large piece of machinery into position over Selena’s shoulder, and her nurse, Ehlena, was following behind so that the various cords didn’t get tangled. Trez was by Selena’s head, his trembling hands stroking that black hair.
He didn’t even look up. Didn’t seem to be aware that someone else had entered the room. Wasn’t even breathing.
“Okay, Ehlena, the plate?” The doctor accepted something that was the size of an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven piece of paper, but had the thickness of a finger. Wires connected to one end of it led to a laptop that sat on a rolling table. “I’m going to try to get the elbow here.”
The plate was slid under the joint, and then Doc Jane glanced at Trez. “Do you want to hold this one as well?”
He nodded and reached over, doing the duty. “I won’t move this time.”
“These are digital X-rays, so we can just do it over, okay?” The doctor gave Trez’s arm a quick squeeze. “We’re going to step behind the partition now.”
Doc Jane looked up and jumped a little, as if she, too, were so intent on her patient, she hadn’t known he’d come in, either. “Oh, iAm, good—but listen, you might want to leave while we—”
“I’m going nowhere.”
“I can’t . . .” Trez cursed. “I can’t keep this steady.”
Without a word, iAm went across the tiled floor and put his hand on his brother’s, stopping the vibration. “Let me help.”
Trez didn’t jump. Didn’t start. But his eyes shifted over, and oh, God, those eyes . . . they were black pits of sadness.
And that was when iAm knew that this was not bad, but BAD.
The male wasn’t terrified.
He was already in mourning.
Trez wasn’t immediately sure who his savior was. Didn’t recognize the hand that joined his own, even though it looked almost exactly like his. Didn’t track the new scent in the room. It wasn’t until he looked up that he saw . . .
iAm, of course.
As if it would be anyone else.
The image of his brother got wavy. “iAm, she’s . . .”
He couldn’t say the words. His thought processes literally flatlined sure as if he’d had a stroke or something.
“Let’s hold the plate,” iAm said. “Together.”
“You should be behind the lead thing.”
“No.”
Trez wasn’t surprised iAm hung in, and he mouthed a thank-you, because he didn’t think his voice was functioning any better than his brain or that hand of his was.
“Let’s get as still as we can,” Doc Jane said. Then there was a brief whirring sound from the machine and Doc Jane and Ehlena came back at the table.
iAm was the one who handed the plate over—and good thing, because Trez would have dropped it. Screw his hands, his whole body was shaking.
“Thank you,” Doc Jane said. “I think we have enough now. Do you want to call the others in?”
Trez shook his head. “May I have a moment with her?”
“We need to stay in to look at the X-rays.”
“Oh, yeah, I know. I just . . .” He glanced to the door, and knew those people had as much right to be in here as he did. Actually, they had more.
“Trez,” Doc Jane said gently. “However you want it, that’s how we’ll do it.”
But what did Selena want? he wondered, not for the first time.
“Look,” Doc Jane murmured, “there doesn’t seem to be an emergency issue right now. There will be time for the others to come in later—and if her condition changes? We’ll make different choices depending on where we’re at.”
“Okay.” He nodded toward his brother. “But iAm. I want him to stay.”
His brother nodded and brought over a chair—but not for himself, as it turned out. He shoved it under the backs of Trez’s knees, and functioning joints being what they were, a total collapse of the vertical happened but quick. As his ass smacked into the seat, he thought, yeah, he had been feeling a little light-headed. Probably a good idea to get off his feet.
With not a single word, iAm took a load off on the floor beside him, and it was incredible how just having the male in the room calmed him.
Trez refocused on Selena. She still had not moved from the position he’d found her in, and all those hard angles of her body were a total nightmare.
In fact, this whole thing just seemed so . . . devastating.
From what Cormia had said, the Arrest was a disease that struck a tiny minority of Chosen females. In all of history, there had been only a dozen, maybe fewer, who had suffered from it—which meant the statistical chance of getting the disorder was very small. Unfortunately, the condition had been uniformly fatal.
Goddamn it, he didn’t want any of those females to be sick, but why her?
Of all of them, in the entire history of the Race, why did Selena have to be one of the ones cut short like this?
And it was a horrible way to die. Frozen in your own body, unable to communicate, trapped in a fading prison until everything went dark and you . . .
He closed his eyes.
Shit, what if she didn’t want him here? He had bonded, yes—and everyone else was treating him with the respect that a bonded male would have in this situation, even as they wondered how it had happened without them knowing.
The problem was, he and Selena weren’t mated. In a relationship. Even dating.