Page 84 of The Hero Within
"Like hell I can't." Fear flooded through him. "Jesus, Eden. You're not walking in there alone. You need someone to watch your back. Someone to make sure—"
"Arik and Lincoln are coming with me," she said bluntly. "Arik's been inside Cortez before, he can get me inside again. He said he knows a man who might be able to help me access what's left of the Radisson-Meyers Syndicate laboratories. That's where the cure is."
What?
He knew he'd pushed her earlier, but to do this....
"No," he said sharply. "I'm not going to allow you to walk into a place like that without protection."
"I'll have protection."
"Two strange wargs who may or may not be allies?"
"Not the first time I've trusted a stranger who may or may not be an ally." She tipped her chin up stubbornly.
Johnny's eyes narrowed, his voice coming out thick and heated. "I wasn't a stranger. Our lives have been intertwined for years. Why? Is this about last night?"
This morning?
"No. It's got nothing to do with last night." She looked away, two spots of color blooming in her cheeks. "It's not safe for a warg to enter the city."
That took him aback. Not safe? Was she actually worried about him? What did that mean?
Was there a chance she felt more for him than she claimed?
"Pretty sure you're planning on entering with two of them at your sides."
And I'm calling bullshit on this having nothing to do with what happened between us.
"Arik knows the city," she replied, her voice firming. "He knows what he's walking into."
"And I don't?"
She wrapped her arms around her middle. "You've helped me more than you could possibly know. You don't owe me anything anymore. Consider your debt repaid—"
"Like fuck," Johnny snapped. She wasn't just going to pat him on the shoulder and send him on his way like a good little boy. "You don't want me there because of what happened between us? Fine. I'll keep my hands to myself. I won't push you, angel. I know you've got a lot on your mind, and you're not ready to deal with us—"
"There is no us."
He breathed out. Slowly. She was under a lot of pressure. They hadn't even come close to broaching the elephant in the room. And this was the worst possible time to deny her statement. Still.... Maybe it was finally time to fight for the one damned thing he wanted in this world? "There's something between us, Eden, whether you admit it or not, but I understand this isn't the time. I'll shelve that discussion, but you need to know it's going to be revisited. One day."
She tipped her chin up stubbornly.
"As for me accompanying you? That isn't your decision to make."
"I—"
"You can't control everything, damn it. Stripping me of the ability to make this choice? That's bullshit." He stabbed a finger in the air toward her. "And you wouldn't like it if I did it to you. Pretty sure you'd be branding it under 'male territorial bullshit' or something. Give me one damned good reason to even consider this."
"I don't want to see you get hurt! If you're captured the Confederacy will put a shock collar on you, and lock you away in one of their facilities—they call them training facilities. That's where they mold their wargs into good little soldiers, and don't pretend you don't know exactly what I'm talking about. I heard everything you said that night to CJ. They'll hurt you, and it will be my fault. I should never have asked you to come."
It all gushed forth from her lips like blood from an arterial wound, and for a second he had no idea what to do.My fault.... They'd been skirting around the Bartholomew Cane issue for days as though it didn't exist, but he'd managed to glean enough from her to realize it affected her to this day.
She blamed herself for what happened to her brother.
She worried for the people she might not be able to save from the plague.
And now she was looking at him as though she didn't want to add him to the list of people she hadn't been able to save.
