Page 93 of Her Captivated Hero

He knelt down beside the gurney where Riya rested. He picked up her hand and brought it to his lips. “Stay with me, Riya. I can’t live in this world without you.” He watched as tears washed over the soft skin of her hand.

* * *

The receiver was twistedplastic in his hand. It had been worthless before he had crushed it. He tried to make sense of what Dalton was saying to him on his cell phone.

“He must have taken some of his own stuff, his body was bloated beyond recognition. Griff brought over the guy’s brother. He and Aiden are trying to make sense of all the beakers and vials that are stored in the five different refrigerators, and strewn across his lab. Gray, it’s a pigsty. Everything’s written in Arabic, and none of us read it. We’re dependent on Hamidi.” Dalton’s anguish and frustration came through the phone in waves.

“What about the UAE people, now that we’re not running dark?”

“Dex and Wyatt are already on it. They’re expected to arrive any minute.”

Gray stared at the small figure that Riya made as she lay in the hospital bed. Her presence was normally so big, and now she seemed so diminished.

“Gray?”

“Yeah?” He could barely get the word out.

“There’s still time, right?” Dalton asked.

“They say with all of her symptoms, even if the antitoxin is administered she could come out of this deaf or brain damaged.”

There was a long silence. After all, what could Dalton say. Finally his friend said, “I’ll pray for her.”

“Thank you.” Gray hung up the phone.

Time had no meaning. He remembered the first time he saw her. Those flashing dark eyes. Her sweetness wrapped in vulnerability. He had never met anyone like her. That’s because there wasn’t anyone like Riya Patel.

The morning he went to shave in the bathroom and found that heart she’d drawn on the mirror. Suddenly he wondered who was taking care of Einstein.

“Who cares about the damn cat!”

Those white high heels.

“Please come back to me Riya. Please.”

* * *

“Let us through!”

Gray’s head popped up from where it was resting on her hand. It was Wyatt’s voice and he was angry. Gray, jumped up from the floor, his knee locking up.

More shouting, this time in Arabic. He heard the soothing sound of Mason Gault’s voice. The doctor who was in charge of Riya walked in with the CDC guy and Mason, Wyatt trailing behind.

“Where’s Dalton?”

“Jeff found what Riya had been working on. She’d been halfway through with completing the antitoxin for the broad poison,” Mason said.

Gray wasn’t getting it, and it must have shown. The doctor had a syringe and he opened up the port on Riya’s IV.

“Stop!” Grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?” He turned to Mason and Wyatt.

“Explain this to me.”

“Gray,” Wyatt said. “Trust us. It’s going to make her well. You’ve got to believe us. She needs it now.”

Mason put his hand on his shoulder. “Jeff did it. Riya had it halfway done and Jeff just finished it. Let the doctor administer the drug.”

Gray let go of the doctor, who then plunged the syringe into the port.