Page 47 of One Shade of Gray
I’d rather die than witness thattragedy.
She mumbled again, and I ran my hands over the top of her head, smoothing and petting her hair in gentle strokes. When she stilled, I grabbed a blanket we’d shuffled over in our haste and spread it on top ofus.
A soft knock at her apartment door dragged me from the edge of sleep. When it didn’t repeat, I forgot all about it and succumbed to slumber, still inside the woman of mydreams.
21
Izzy
Iwoketo the scent of bacon. Definitely not a bad thing, but a strange one for my apartment. My cooking skills weren’t legendary. I slipped on a T-shirt and a pair of boy-shorts beforeinvestigating.
Dorian stood at my counter, eating a slice of bacon shirtless, in his dress pants, reading the local newspaper. More food covered the countertop and the longer I stared at him the weirder the scene became. He appeared relaxed, and not in a way I’d seen him yet. A strange mix of content andleisure.
“You saved me some, right?” I asked to alert him to mypresence.
He glanced up and gave me a smile. The one I really liked. The one I was beginning to think he reserved only for me. “Good morning, how are youfeeling?”
I scoped out the spread and sat down on the stool in front of an empty plate. “You mean, if my brother hadn’t kidnapped you, this is what I had to look forward to the othernight?”
Instead of answering me, he came around the bar, slid his hands around my waist, and drew me in for a kiss. Coffee and bacon were on his lips, and I didn’t mind in the least. It was a quick kiss, one meant for good mornings before soft sweet lovemaking. But he didn’t take me back to bed, he did the next best thing and handed over a mug of freshcoffee.
He released me and went back to standing in front of the newspaper. I leaned over to scope it out, but of course, the paper had been printed in French. “How many languages do youspeak?”
He turned the page. “About ten. Most of the romantics and a little Arabic andFarsi.”
A man of many talents. I took a sip of my coffee and propped my feet up to draw my knees into my arms. “Oh just a little Arabic and Farsi,huh?”
I watched him for a while before idly spinning on the stool between sips. A brown box sitting by the door caught my attention. “What is that?” I asked as I pointed toit.
He glanced up and scratched his cheek. His five o’clock shadow was already making him look a little rugged and sexy. “I don’t know. I think it was delivered last night. I grabbed it this morning before I went to the market. It was just sitting against yourdoorframe.”
I placed the mug on the counter, grabbed the box, and returned to my stool. There was an envelope taped to the top of the brown Kraft tape securing it closed. The envelope pulled off easily, so I ripped it open and unfolded the plain white paper inside. My brother’s handwriting immediately caused me to clutch the papertighter.
Dear Iz,
There was more I didn’t tell you about that night. I spoke to his scientists, and they have a possible cure in the works, but for now they have a daily injection for their patients that works as sort of a hard drive backup, fortifying the brain’ssynapses.
I didn’t want to tell you, hoping that if you two stayed apart than it wouldn’t matter anyway. Also, I don’t want you to murder me when we go on vacation toItaly.
Be safe. I loveyou.
J
Ipointedtoward the drawer urgently, and Dorian got the hint. In two seconds, I had a knife in my hand and the box open on my counter. Inside sat rows of bottles and a package ofsyringes.
“What is it?” heasked.
Answering him would take too long. I handed him Jake’s note and pulled a small glass vial from the box. It didn’t have the usual prescription number on it, instead the vial read52.
Dorian dropped the paper to the counter and reached in to pull out an identical bottle. “He’s telling thetruth.”
“How do you know?” I asked, still studying the clearliquid.
“That’s the number on all my case files. I was the 52nd person theystudied.”
The revelation sank in. “How many of you arethere?”
He shook his head still inspecting the bottle. “I have noidea.”
