Page 83 of Star-Born Anomaly
Could he ignore it? The defender supervising the baths hadn’t been overjoyed Sawyer had skipped the line, but with the general’s insignia on the order, there was little he could do about it.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
He reached a hand to the side panel and slapped.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
He tried again and missed, was about to hit it for a third time when it halted. He exhaled long and slow, relieved to have the grating noise out of his head.
On his next inhale, the fluid around him lowered, a whirring, gurgling noise filling his head.
Motherfucker.That defender was on a power trip.
Sawyer sat up, thick fluid running off his head and shoulders. His ass settled onto the built-in seat in the center of the bath as his buoyancy disappeared. He curled his shoulders forward, stretched his neck, and opened his eyes to see the last of the pink fluid glug down the drain. It covered his feet and clung to his dick, groin, and the hairs of his legs.
Bracing his hands on the side of the tub, he stood. A pair of CORE-issue boots filled his vision, and a small towel dangled between them. He tilted his head back until he met the eyes of the defender on the other end.
“Colonel Biggs,” he said, recognizing her from the general’s communique.
She stared down at him with a narrowed, distrustful gaze. The white of her defender’s uniform contrasted with her medium-brown skin. Like most defenders, she’d cut her hair to the scalp, but had bleached it blonde. Displeased lips pressed into a hard line.
Grabbing the railing on the side, he yanked himself up onto the deck with a hop, then turned to face her with his arms loose at his sides.
Her eyes skimmed him up and down, eyebrow raised. When he didn’t grab the towel, she tossed it at his chest.
He caught it and dried his face and neck. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I was told to keep an eye on you,” she replied, tone flat.
He tipped his head when her eyes followed the path of the towel to his junk. “Taking your duties a tad literally, aren’t we?”
“I take my jobveryseriously,” she said, her unamused gaze meeting his again.
“I can see that.” He strode away from her, his damp feet slapping against the black tile between the rows of baths, all filled to the brim with pink fluid, leaving a trail of goo behind him to be swabbed by maintenance.
The space was as big as a hangar, but the overhead was a third of the height, giving it a cave-like feel, especially with the shiny deck reflecting the strips of lighting from above. Biggs’s boots smacked against the deck as she followed, disturbing the natural hush of the place. They passed the power-tripping defender at the intake desk and moved into the lockers beyond.
Sawyer finished wiping down his legs and tossed the towel into the laundry sluice. When he turned around, the colonel blocked his path.
“I don’t trust agents, and I don’t want one on my ship,” she said, eyes flinty. “You shady shits would stab your own mothers if you were ordered to.”
“Can’t.” He stepped around her to open his locker with his ID code. “She’s already dead.” He pulled out clean underwear and pulled them up his legs. “The CORE doesn’t like parents interfering with its agent-training programs.” One of the little tidbits he’d learned from snooping where he shouldn’t.
He should feelsomethingabout the fact that the CORE killed his parents before he’d really known them, but they’d trained him too well. He hadn’t known them and didn’t experience a loss.
It wasn’t a unique story. The CORE did what they wanted when they wanted. Laws were for the common folk.
He finished dressing in his off-duty defender uniform by sitting on the bench to slide on his uncomfortable-as-shit new boots. Once fastened,he stood, confronting the colonel, who hadn’t moved since entering the locker room.
“I’ll help you out,” he said, stopping in front of her, fingers twitching for the comfort of a gun. They wouldn’t give him one here. “I’m going to the galley, then to my quarters to get some much needed rest. Good work on the babysitting job. Well done.”
He gave her a hearty slap on the shoulder, then passed her to the exit. It would have been too much to ask for her to leave him alone. He heard her follow and felt suspicious eyes burrowing into the back of his head.
Even though he wasn’t hungry, he checked the location of a galley on his PALM and headed there.
He had to figure out a way to ditch the babysitter. Because the burning urge to learn what they were doing to the good doctor and why had only grown.
Chapter thirty-one
