Girl Gone Nova (7 page)

The purple returned to her eyes, as she positioned the stethoscope on his chest and took a listen. Her voice was light, professional as she discussed his progress, but the pulse at her neck belied her outward mien. They were both waiting. They both knew it.

“I would like to show you my home,” he said, surprising himself as much as he did Delilah. Now was not a good time for a visit, as he had good cause to know.

She looked up from her notes. “That would be,” she swallowed, “nice.”

She dragged out the word, as if she also knew it would never happen. It stirred a desire to push the issue and after a very brief struggle, he gave into it.

“Then you will come.”

“No, but thank you for the invitation.”

The General would fight a visit, but Rockley would jump at the chance to get someone back on the planet.

“I will arrange it.”

“You’re very confident.” She sounded more amused than annoyed.

“I am the Leader. If I wish it, it will happen.”

She chuckled.

“What?” Had a woman ever laughed at him?

“I’ve just never met anyone quite like you before.”

“And you never will.” He spread his hands and shrugged. “I am unique.”

“I won’t argue with you about that.”

“It would be wise not to argue with me about anything.” It was a serious truth, but he kept his tone light and teasing. It wouldn’t do to spook her.

His gaze caught hers, and he could see the purple building in their depths again. Perhaps he couldn’t wait. But the move to reach out for her was halted before it began.

Simmons arrived. Her timing was impeccable—and annoying.

* * * * *

Saved by the nurse again. Did Simmons have built-in radar for when Doc was getting in over her head? Doc headed for her temporary office and sank down in the desk chair, her hands on her cheeks. That had not gone as planned. It hadn’t even gone as expected. She’d never told anyone about her family. Even the Major only knew the basic facts of their lives and deaths. He knew about her brother. It was a matter of record. He didn’t know Doc fought the same demons that had put Robert in a mental institution. If he knew—

Don’t let them get you, Del.

She could see his face the first time he said that to her. He was five years older and seemed fifty feet taller in her memory. He’d crouched to bring their faces level, horror in his eyes. Even at nine, Doc didn’t have to ask what he meant. She knew. She’d always known. The thing she didn’t know was why
they
hadn’t got her, too. Robert was older and stronger, but
they’d
taken him down like he was a straw man.

She shivered, but not with cold. Thinking about
them
brought them in close. She shifted, needing something to do, something easy, something that required her to focus, something that would distract her from the racket inside her head, help her figure out how to get answers to questions spinning inside her head.

Her gaze glanced off her Wii remote. Of course. A few games of
Mario Kart
were just what the doctor ordered, well, this doctor ordered. She booted up the game, picked her character and kart, then started a Grand Prix, losing herself in its whacky reality.
They
and the din faded into the distance as she battled her way through the various maps to victory. And while she played, other parts of her brain sifted through streams of data, analyzing and assessing, looking for patterns.

Hel had been interesting. Lots of beneath-the-surface patterns to analyze, along with her own reactions to him. The banter had appeared light, but she sensed deeper currents there. She’d suspect he’d somehow picked up on her hidden reason for being in the galaxy, her new duty, but she didn’t know what it was, so there was nothing for anyone to pick up on. Her orders had referred her to the General and
his
sealed orders. Whatever her new objective, she couldn’t do it from here, but she couldn’t think of a good reason to be sent to Kikk.

Not knowing her mission wasn’t a huge problem, because knowing what she needed to do and not being able to do it made her antsy, something that always gave
them
an in. There were plenty of non-mission related things to think about. Her brain loved patterns and it had found plenty to play with here. It was always interesting what brought
them
in close and what pushed them back. If she could find a pattern in that, she might finally defeat them, like she’d just done to her Grand Prix opponents.

“Yes!” She jumped up and did a victory dance that turned her toward the door.

And the two small people watching her.

No, not people,
children.
She didn’t do children. Their eyes were too intense, too unsettling; they saw too much. She’d faced down men twice her size and felt less nervous.

She cleared her throat. “Hello.” Okay, quit sounding scared. Children can sense fear. She’d heard that somewhere, hadn’t she? Or was that animals? “I mean, hi.”

“What is that?” the older one asked.

Even if she hadn’t known who they were through a process of elimination, his tone would have marked him as Hel’s son. He had the “I am leader of the galaxy” intonation down perfectly.

“It’s a game.”

They both stepped deeper into the room, their gazes fixed on the screen. It was a relief to have their attention off her, but it didn’t relieve her anxiety. Despite her unease, she recognized the opportunity the boys presented. She’d collected information from a variety of informants, had manipulated them without blinking, but these were
children
. Children could smell manipulation and knew how to instinctively block information-gathering attempts from people they
liked
. With strangers, kids were ruthless. Even though technically she’d never been a kid, she knew this.

Still, they did seem fascinated with
Mario Kart.
It seemed it had intergalactic kid appeal. She’d been using it to get inside her own head, so why couldn’t it help her get inside theirs? She bit her lip, hesitated for a long moment, then asked a question she’d never,
ever
asked a child.

“Would you like to play with me?”

Doc may have had a grown-up reason for the question, but she’d never felt this young as she waited for their answer.

* * * * *

Hel didn’t know what was the most startling, that he’d managed to lose his children, that his children had managed to find their way to Delilah, or the extraordinary thing the three of them were doing.

They sat on top of a desk staring with fierce concentration at a screen of some kind. What was on that screen was so far outside his realm of experience he didn’t know how to describe it to himself, let alone to anyone else. Tiny, bizarre creatures riding on or in wheeled devices appeared to be racing around a course that went in and out of peculiar structures.

Relsten held a strange white device in his small hands, and Hel could tell by his actions that he controlled the movements of one the creatures in a box at the top of the screen. Lorin sat between Delilah’s legs and her arms circled him loosely. Lorin held a similar white device and controlled the creature in the bottom square, with assistance, it seemed, from Delilah.

“That’s good, really good, Lorin. Hold your red shell…hold it…fire!” One of the wheeled vehicles spun in a circle and a puff of smoke rose above it. “Direct hit!”

Lorin shouted his delight. One of the small wheeled things crossed a line, and Relsten whooped in a way Hel hadn’t heard since the boys’ mother died.

“I won, Doc! Did you see that?”

“Way to go, Relsten! Come on, Lorin, let’s take second for the red team. That’s it, that’s it. Yes!”

“First and second. You guys rock!” She held up her fist and bumped it first against Relsten’s small fist, then against Lorin’s smaller fist. “Now we do the victory dance.”

All three of them jumped up and did a bizarre dance without music that involved hips shaking and fingers pointing up at the ceiling, then at the ground. Delilah didn’t see him until she’d done a full circle of her victory dance.

“Oh.” She stopped, color surging into her pale face. She tried to look sober, but the color in her face and the glow of her eyes gave her away.

His sons saw him, squealed in ways most unlike their usual greeting and hurled themselves at him. With a son wrapped around both legs, they both talked at once about winning and these shell things that exploded and banana peels. He should scold them for wandering away, but they were happier than he’d seen them in a long time. He would, he realized, have been disappointed if they hadn’t wandered off. He’d wandered off all the time as a boy. It was what boys did.

“That’s,” he had to swallow back something in his throat, “that’s very pleasing, my sons.” Two small fists were presented. Delilah mimed bumping for him. It felt awkward, but his sons looked pleased. Lorin wanted him to victory dance with them.

“I was not a partner in the victory,” he pointed out. “I have not earned a victory dance.” Thanks be to the gods for that.

“We can show you how to win, too, Father,” Relsten told him, his tone sympathetic and just a bit patronizing. Hel saw Delilah bite her lip to keep back a smile.

“They are very like you.”

Unsure if he were being complimented or teased, Hel looked at the screen and the bizarre creatures pictured on it and felt a fear he hadn’t felt—he tried to find a comparable moment and failed. He sent a look that might have been of entreaty to Delilah. Her gaze was kind, but her lips twitched.

“So, I’m guessing you don’t have anything like this on your planet?”

“No.” Hel knew he sounded forceful. He felt forceful. They had nothing like this in their galaxy, thank goodness. “What is the point of it?”

“It’s a game. Surely your children play games?”

“Of course they play games.”

“Nothing this fun, Father!” Lorin looked delighted.

Delilah looked guilty. “It’s the novelty factor. Our children would probably think your games are awesome.”

“It’s awesome, Father.” Their voices joined together to explain the complexities of the game. Their delight in mayhem shocked him—until he remembered how bloodthirsty he’d been at that age. It hadn’t been that long. Perhaps he was still feeling the effects of the blast. He felt a bit dizzy.

“That one looks quite pleasant,” he added, as a ribbon of many colors popped up.

“It’s brutal,” Lorin said.

Hel didn’t know he knew that word.

“It is a bit dark,” Delilah admitted, “but in a really cool way.”

“Cool,” Relsten echoed her and Lorin echoed him.

Hel could see them filing the word away for future use. This enlargement in their vocabulary was sure to displease his mother. He smiled at the thought.

“Can we stay and play, Father?”

Lorin raised a face filled with entreaty. Relsten’s matched it. What surprised him was that Delilah had the same look of anxious hope on her face.

“Doc says we may go to
Mario’s Party
.”

His sons called her Doc. He should say something, but what? His brow arched. “A party?”

“It’s a different game,” Delilah explained. “I’ve never had anyone to play it with. I’d love it if they could stay.”

“Your work—”

She looked at her watch. “I’m off for a few more hours.”

This was a new aspect of her personality and one that shaved off years. She looked…lighter, as if she’d shrugged off a weight of some kind.

“You could play, too, Father,” Relsten said. “Doc has four controllers.”

Why had none of her friends played with her? He almost asked, but he recalled the malicious tone to the voice that had called her “Morticia.” A nickname, she’d explained, but not an affectionate one, he now concluded. She lived on a ship teeming with people, but she seemed as isolated as he was as Leader. Again there was that moment of clarity, of knowing her and who she was at her very core, of feeling connected in a way that had never happened before.

“It’s very kind of you to play with my sons,” he said. Before he’d finished the sentence his sons were doing the victory dance again. They lacked Delilah’s sensual fluidity, but made up for that in enthusiasm. She didn’t look dangerous, not like she’d looked at the party, but Hel knew it was misleading. She was still dangerous, just not in the way he’d expected when he saw her across the crowded reception hall.

She had to know who he was, what he’d done two years ago, had to know why the General disliked him so fiercely, but when he looked at her he felt no judgment. Even from his mate, from his children’s mother he hadn’t felt this level of acceptance—an acceptance that seemed to be without condition.

It was as intriguing as her pink mouth and passion purple eyes.

Looking at her, he knew something else. Whatever reason brought her to the reception, it was not by the General’s design. There were many things that puzzled him about these people, but this he felt in his core.

Delilah was the last woman on this ship the General would want him to meet.

* * * * *

Doc was as sorry to see Relsten and Lorin leave as they were to go. Her office felt empty without the two boys, but their departure left some stuff for her brain to chew on. That made her brain happy. She’d been careful how she pumped them for information, not liking herself very much as she did it. They’d liked her, accepted her in ways that she’d never experienced. If she could have found another way—but there wasn’t or she’d have already found it.

Hel would talk to his sons and find out what she’d done. He wouldn’t be surprised, but would he understand? He was at least as ruthless as she was, but she’d used his boys, traded Earth slang for Gadi words. He might not forgive that. If she had children—which she never would—how would she feel about what she’d done? She hadn’t hurt them, but she had picked their brains, used their innocence against them.

She could wrap it up in all sorts of comforting rationalizations, but it still smelled. She’d never cared what anyone thought about her, well, except for her brother and her microscopic—and somewhat recently acquired—circle of friends. She’d loved her parents, but detachment pretty much defined their relationship. It didn’t help that they had no clue what forces they’d unleashed on their children with their desire to pass on their IQs and DNA. She’d learned early not to care what they thought, aware that most of their thoughts weren’t about her anyway. Robert had dominated the landscape of all their lives, even after his fall. By the time they realized they had another child, it was too late for them to be anything but acquaintances.