Page 3 of Rebels Rising

‘I’m not going to let him go that easy, Arty,’ I vowed. ‘I’ll do everything I can to keep him here.’ It wasn’t the exact promise she wanted because I couldn’t give that. I didn’t control life or death, but I could help to prevent it.Thatwas what I could promise.

She studied me for a beat, her deep brown eyes a vast ocean of emotion that tunnelled into me so powerfully it almost eviscerated me on the spot. But then she let go, nodding her head in the direction of her lover.

I didn’t wait to be told again.

CHAPTER 1

Cadmus

The infirmary was close to the hangar bay, which helped to get Bromm there quickly. I laid him down on a soft-looking cot, the sheets folded and ready on the bedside table but the cot itself was unmade. I wasn’t a doctor, but I knew it was to avoid stains from bodily fluids. I’d landed myself in the hospital enough times during my youth, though my injuries were through pure stupidity rather than actual illness. A broken bone here and there was nothing compared to… whatever was going on with Bromm.

I didn’t bother making the bed first, unsure what Henrik was going to do. I didn’t think he would need to perform a surgery, but I didn’t want to waste time if I was wrong.

‘I need to help the other colonels with the supplies. You good here?’ Hum’Rit asked, one foot already out the door.

‘Yeah. I’ve got it from here,’ I said, awkwardly settling in on the small chair beside the cot to wait for Henrik to catch up, my body folding unnaturally to make myself fit.

I didn’t envy him staying behind to deal with Artemis. I knew she had strong feelings for Bromm, but the level of love she displayed in her distraught reaction to almost losing him, it was clearer than ever that those feelings ran deep. She loved him, and she was practically ready to tear off anyone’s head just for daring breathe wrong around him.

I was pretty sure the only thing that saved Henrik was the fact that he was the only one capable to helping Bromm. Even then, it had looked like her internal struggle to let him work on her lover was going to lose.

It was quick thinking for him to give her a job to do to help. I’d never been in love like that before, so I couldn’t imagine how she felt. I’d been infatuated or intrigued, but it never lasted. I wondered if these new feelings developing for her would last at all. Sure, she’d let me get intimate with them earlier, but I saw her anxiety over letting me in even that much. It made more sense once feelings were securely off the table, but…

Watching her react that way over Bromm, I realised no one had ever reacted that way to me before. My father was my only family, my mother’s death making him cold and detached towards everyone, including me. Every time I’d gone too far in my attempts to get his attention and landed myself in the hospital with a cut or a broken bone, he’d merely rolled his eyes, paid the bill, and told me to be more careful. He never stuck around, and I had no real friends who cared enough to either. I’d always been on my own.

But witnessing that love from the woman I’d just helped shatter into one of the most beautiful orgasms I had ever witnessed fall apart over another man, it made me want that. With her? I didn’t know. I didn’t even know if that was a possibility now that I was aware of the true depth of their feelings for one another. I may have been a homewrecker in the past, but I wasn’t about to try to wedge my way between these two. I wasn’t completely heartless.

I watched him now, the rise and fall of his chest so slow I wondered if I was just imagining it. It was alarming, and I wondered where the fuck Henrik was. Surely Artemis wouldn’t keep him from tending to him.

Where was he?

He turned the corner at that moment, assuaging some of my fears and I sagged in relief. He took one look at Bromm and rushed over, checking his pulse. He relaxed a miniscule amount when he seemed to find one, though the tension in his shoulders refused to fully abate. Bromm still wasn’t doing well, and I knew without having to ask that his condition remained critical.

‘Do you know what any of the medical equipment is for?’ Henrik asked. He wasn’t asking for himself, but to test medical knowledge.

‘Some,’ I admitted. ‘Been hospitalised enough times to figure out a few things.’

‘Ever been intubated before?’

‘Sorry, can’t say that I have.’

He hummed thoughtfully, pulling some sort of tube-like device out of a drawer. It was in a metallic wrapper, but he didn’t open it yet. Instead, he placed it down on a little table with wheels that I’d missed in my initial perusal of the room and led me towards the handwashing station.

‘Scrub thoroughly,’ he ordered, taking up a position beside me at the other sink.

I followed his command, nervous about what he was going to ask me to do but willing to do it. For Bromm. For her.

Artemis’s anguished expression flashed through my brain, lodging itself deep and refusing to budge. A part of me that I never even dared to imagine existed thawed at the memory. I never wanted her to feel like that again.

The strength of those feelings was powerful enough to freeze me in my tracks, my hands stilling beneath the stream of water that continued to wash away the grime on my hands.

But I didn’t have time to mull over the internal assault because Henrik started blowing my hands dry with a portable hand-dryer, and then he handed me a pair of rubber gloves. They were the same kind those asshole scientists from The Program wore, white and snappy, difficult to put on over damp skin, and I did my best to tune out the memory of all those kids on metal tables, wired to machines and IVs with stars only knew what being pumped inside them. Or of those four bastards cutting into the boy that Artemis cared so much about.

Or the way she practically exploded them with her kickass abilities.

It was sick, the act itself horrifying to watch, but coming from her it was one of the hottest things I’d ever seen. Not the killing or the gore, but how fucking badass she was.

Once again, Henrik jolted me out of my thoughts, though this time through the sound of tearing followed by the metal wrapper crinkling as he crumpled it to throw in the bin.

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