At least the bad dreams had faded, coming less and less frequently. It had been over a year since the last one. Sometimes whole weeks went by where nothing reminded her of those terrible twenty-three days that had started with Birgitte’s death and ended with a shaken and traumatized Maya waking up under Nina’s protection.
But Simon had been more to her than just the terrible way he died. Maya took a steady breath and eased past the darkest memories, like walking a tightrope over a pit of spikes. Her first teenage love was on the other side, all of the nervous flutters and gentle warmth. One of the few sweet things from her life up on the Hill.
“He was part of Birgitte’s security team,” she said, holding on to Nina’s gaze like a lifeline. “Only a few years older than me. I didn’t notice him at first, but he was our bodyguard in the evenings and at night. The one who slept in our penthouse. I’d eat dinner with him, and we’d talk … I knew him for a year before I kissed him the first time.”
“Simon,” Nina murmured. “You’ve called out for him before.”
“Simon,” Maya agreed. “We didn’t have long together. Only a few months, really.” But when you were nineteen, a few months felt like half a lifetime. Simon had been so gentle with her, never pushing when she felt overwhelmed, all too aware that one wrong move would put them both in peril.
No, they’d been in peril from the beginning. But Simon had let her forget that for a few brief, stolen moments.
And then he’d died for her.
Nina’s hand was so close. Maya reached out, grasping it to ground her in the present. “He was sweet. It was nice. But he’s the only person I’ve ever kissed. He was the only person I’d ever wanted to until…”
“Until now?” Dani smiled a little, the expression half encouragement and half understanding. “Until Gray?”
Maya groaned and flung herself back on the bed, covering her face with her hands. “Remember when I had that panic attack at the underground fight?”
“Uh-huh?”
“He came outside with me. Talked me through it.” The words had been ridiculously mundane. About a hurricane he’d gotten trapped in down on the Gulf. But that voice had been like the best liquor, smooth and warm and blurring all the sharpest edges off the memories clawing her up inside. “I think I imprinted on his voice.”
“Uh, no, it’s just hot.” Dani sighed. “Not everything is some kind of mystical, cerebral experience, Maya. Some things are just … visceral, you know?”
“Yeah. Visceral is right.” Maya propped herself up on one elbow and leveled a look at Dani. “Now imagine you couldn’t forget it. That any time you thought about it, or him, you heard it again. Crystal clear, and just as … visceral.”
“Sounds like a one-way trip to hornytown,” Dani observed gravely.
Nina covered her face and groaned.
“She’s not wrong,” Maya said darkly. “What if I kiss him, and it’s good? What if I can’t forget that? Up on the Hill, we were drilled constantly—no nonessential sensory input. I was half-numb the last time I made out with someone. What if I try to kiss him, and my brain just fucking explodes?”
Nina dropped her hands and shook her head. “Your brain’s not going to explode, I promise you that.”
“Something else might, though.”
“Dani.”
“What?”
Maya dragged a pillow from behind her back and flung it directly at Dani, who snatched it effortlessly out of the air.
Nina grabbed it and set it aside. “I think what she’s trying to say is that if you take things slow, and you communicate, then whatever happens will have a much better chance of being—”
“Orgasmic?”
“—pleasant,” Nina finished, as if she hadn’t been interrupted.
Maya sat up again, her heart fluttering with nerves. They made it sound … possible. “But what if I can’t—” She swallowed and tried again. “I’m not easy. Who the hell would want to put up with kissing someone who might kiss them back or might decide she can’t be touched for the rest of the day? Sometimes I’m a fucking mess.”
“So what?” Dani demanded. “You’re also awesome, and if anyone gives you any shit, I’ll stab them.”
That simple. To Dani, it always had been. Nina’s smile of encouragement wasn’t quite as murderous, but it was no less real. Maya let their support wash away her doubts—the support that had been the only constant in Maya’s life from the day she’d crawled out of the darkest depths of the TechCorps, shattered and hopeless.
Nina had been the one to sit with her, night after endless night, when she screamed herself awake from all those vivid memories masquerading as nightmares. Nina had secured Maya’s future by faking her death, then patiently taught a sheltered girl from the Hill how to survive in the world.
Dani had crashed into their lives a year later. Impossible, outrageous Dani, who would stab anyone who looked at Maya funny and murder anyone who hurt her. It was impossible to be afraid when Dani was with her. Dani had introduced Maya to the pressure valve of a dark club with a heavy bass beat, and dancing until her body was tired enough to chase the oblivion of sleep no matter how restless her mind got.
Dani was teaching her how to live.
Maya might as well tell Dani the rest of it, then. “Something else happened while y’all were gone.”
Nina straightened in alarm.
“No, nothing bad.” Maya took a breath. Blew it out. “Gray blindfolded me and had me shoot at targets.”
Dani shook her head with a laugh. “Snipers have weird hobbies.”
“Maybe.” That tiny thrill of success shivered up Maya’s spine again, a blissful momentary distraction. “But I hit every fucking one. On my first try.”
“Sweet,” Dani proclaimed.
Nina studied her. “I didn’t know you were interested in that sort of training.”
Warmth flooded her cheeks, because she hadn’t been. If Knox or Rafe had pulled a blindfold out of their pocket, she would have politely invited them to fuck themselves and gone back to her comfortable corner to scan more books.
Gray made her judgement suspect.
But Gray wasn’t the reason she wanted to do it again. And even her out-of-control hormones couldn’t entirely drown out the remembered freedom of that moment when she’d really let her brain off the leash. The reckless joy of it. Like she’d flexed a muscle she hadn’t known was there, one that had been stiff and aching from neglect.
She’d been waiting for the crash all afternoon, but the usual ache at the base of her skull was gone. So was the restless itch under her skin, the pressure that came from everywhere and nowhere. And the jittery energy setting her leg to bouncing didn’t feel like impending sensory overload.
It felt like … anticipation. Excitement.
Like maybe she could kiss Gray, and her brain might not explode after all.
Nina was still watching her with those serious, concerned eyes. Maya forced herself to stop thinking about Gray’s lips. “I didn’t know I was interested in training like that, either,” Maya promised her. “It’s not how they taught me to think about myself. Other people have the superpowers. I’m just … trivia girl.”