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“Maybe,” Jax allowed. “Maybe not.”
He reached out again, and this time I didn’t flinch. Instead I let him fall into EMT mode, assessing me with practiced fingers.
“You’ve got a nasty bump,” he said, scanning me. “Better get some ice on that.”
“Fine. I will.”
“Come with us then,” Preston offered. “We only live two blocks away.”
I froze. “With Adrian?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry. It’s not like he lives in our apartment.” Preston winked. “It’s a big building.”
The wink made my stomach flutter. Preston. Here. Now. And somehow, living with Jax!?
Holy fucking shit.
“Ummm… no, but thanks. I’ve got ice at home.”
Preston looked crestfallen. “Are you sure?”
I paused for a moment. Jax grunted.
“Yeah. She’s sure.”
Our eyes locked one last time, and I saw the judgment and disdain. Those eyes were definitely sneering at me. I returned a similar look, one that was equivalent to being ocularly flipped off.
“See ya, asshole.”
Jax nodded, and chuckled gruffly.
“Later, nerd.”
~ 3 ~
HARPER
I wasn’t just flying, I was soaring. Spinning. Looping through a shining sea of spectacular, glimmering stars. The movements made me giddy, but also dizzy beyond belief. My brain was overloaded with stimulation, and body wasn’t accustomed to this much motion. No one’s body could be.
Nevertheless, I raised my arms overhead like an Olympic diver to soar even higher, then swept them simultaneously downward, to swoop in low. I swam my way through a vast, multi-colored nebula. Soared past a trio of inky black holes. A large planet approached, red and angry but still breathtakingly beautiful. And that’s where I descended downward, straight through the swirl of noxious, sulfurous eddies.
I imagined I could smell those fumes as they burned my nostrils. Feel the sharp sting of them against my eyes. Instead, all I could feel was the intensity of the heat, which by now was making me sweat. It grew stronger and more stifling throughout my descent, until finally, at long last, my feet were touching the ground.
The surface was sharp beneath me, like jagged glass. It pinched threateningly against my tender soles, but the pain was deadened by the thrilling fact that I could actually, at long last, finally feel it.
YES!
I reached down near my feet, and picked up one of the strange, pointed stones. It was warm to the touch, but not hot. I squeezed it in my palm, willing it to get hotter. It did, slowly, and I held it there until I could barely stand the pain.
The clouds above me were rolling in waves now, the skies looking more and more like an alien world. I swung my arm in their direction, and they began spinning even faster. Fascinated, I watched them churning, swirling, changing colors…
BZZZZZZT!
The haptic patches shocked me from every connection, all over my body at once! I flung off my virtual reality headset and pulled out the leads, hurling them away on instinct alone. The wires whipped painfully against my skin before skidding across the room.
“FUCK!”
The curse left my lips a full second and a half after the malfunction, the delay between pain and action a combination of muscle movements reacting to the synapses in my brain.
