So Mace had locked himself in. He’d asked Rafe to find him a giant mag bolt, the quick-deploying kind you used when you were running out of a job hot and you needed to put a few precious seconds of space between you and your pursuers. Then he’d slapped that thing on his brand-new bedroom door and disappeared behind the wood.
The metallic rasp of such a lock engaging had always been a nothing sound to Gray—muted, inoffensive, easily ignored—but now it was seared into his brain. It had haunted his dreams the previous night, displacing more welcome things, like images of flashing neon lights reflected off Maya’s full lips.
Gray shook himself. He couldn’t stand there forever, with uncertainty pinning him in the open doorway. So he took a careful step forward—slow, deliberate. Loud enough to be heard.
Mace’s fingers tightened around the earthenware mug. Then the tension spread throughout his body, as if he was poised to spring from his chair and flee.
“Stay,” Gray urged quietly. “Please. We haven’t had a chance to talk since … Since…” He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence.
So Mace did it for him, with a wry twist to his lips that almost looked like a smile. Almost. “Since I tried to stab you in the head?”
Gray managed not to flinch. He tried to think of a reply, but nothing about the subject seemed safe enough to broach with his stilted, awkward words. Mace had been tortured, for fuck’s sake, then sent out into the city to find and eliminate the Silver Devils. Discussing it in such a mundane, domestic setting—at the kitchen table over morning coffee—seemed too bizarre, almost surreal.
So he took the coward’s way out—he changed the subject. “How did you sleep?”
“Fine.”
Gray snagged a mug from the rack near the sink. “Do you like your room?”
“It’s fine.”
Fine. Suddenly, the thought of coffee made Gray’s stomach roil. He abandoned the mug on the counter, sat down across from Mace, and just looked at him.
Mostly, he looked the same—blue eyes, sharp features, dark, spiky hair. Sure, he bore a pallor over his already-light skin, and his eyes were rimmed with red, but his face was the same one Gray had always known.
There were deeper differences, though, like his voice. Gone was its steady, calm timbre and cadence, the one that would always tell them the truth, even if it hurt, but in the gentlest way possible. It was scratchy now, wavering from one note to the next. And Mace’s body language was all fucked up, tense and twitchy and—
And Mace was staring at him, too. Studying him intently—and with a tinge of decidedly professional curiosity.
Gray sighed. “Knox told you about my implant.”
“He didn’t have to. I fought you, remember? You weren’t at a hundred percent.”
How embarrassing. Gray felt his cheeks heat, and he cleared his throat. “I managed to hold you off, old man.”
“Because I—” Mace’s voice cut off abruptly. “Because I wasn’t—” It happened again. This time, his jaw clenched, and the cords of muscle in his neck strained. Then Mace relaxed, shook his head, and sipped his coffee. “I’m not at a hundred percent, either.”
“Fair enough.” Gray hesitated, but he had to ask. He had to. “Do you know anything we don’t? Has there been some sort of medical advance?”
“To treat implant rejection? No. It’s always been possible.” The more Mace spoke, the more comfortable he seemed, and the words flowed. “The surgery itself is simple, in theory.”
“In theory?”
“Sure. Remove the old implant, debride the site, install the new one. The trickiest aspect of the surgery itself is rewiring the implant interface.” He looked away. “What comes after, that’s the rough part.”
“The healing. I remember.” After the initial surgery to place and wire his implant, he’d spent two solid weeks in a veritable bubble.
“Fuck what you remember,” Mace countered.
It sounded so much like him that Gray had to dig his fingernails into his thighs to keep his expression neutral and even. Maybe this was the secret, the thing Knox had been wracking his brain trying to figure out—how to bring Mace back to them.
So he nodded and gestured for Mace to continue. “Go on.”
He hesitated, then pushed his mug aside. “The problem is that you’re not starting with a clean slate or a healthy patient. With a replacement surgery, you’re operating at a dangerous disadvantage, on someone who’s already suffering complications.”
“But it can be done,” Gray pressed. He had to find out—for Maya’s sake. Because of the way she’d looked at him the night he’d collapsed. “You know the procedure.”
“There is no procedure,” Mace told him flatly. “It’s too risky. The probable mortality rates kept the TechCorps from ever bothering to develop a protocol, much less perfect it.”
So that was it. End of the line, no more possibilities. It was strangely freeing, like he’d had the weight of uncertainty hanging over him, and now it was gone. Sure, it meant the pronouncement of his death sentence was complete and final, utterly certain … but at least something was.
Still, that look on Maya’s face haunted Gray. “Feel like giving it a shot anyway?”
Mace’s answer was immediate, blunt—and Maya would have slapped him for it. “You may as well have let me stab you in the head the other night.”
Gray couldn’t help it. He barked out a laugh, one that almost drowned out the soft click of a door opening upstairs. In moments, Knox and Nina began to descend the stairs, both obviously fresh from the shower, their hands not twined but brushing as they moved.
When Nina caught sight of them, she smiled, a brilliant, bright expression. But when she spoke, her voice was soft. Careful. “Good morning.”
Mace grunted, and Gray suppressed his flinch. Mace being okay was so goddamn important to Knox that she’d make it happen—by sheer, indomitable will, if necessary. She’d drag Mace into the warmth and cheer of the life she’d built here, and she’d sit on him to keep him from fleeing like his ass was on fire.
Mace had always been the most determined and stubborn of the Silver Devils, maybe the most obstinate person he’d ever known. But Gray wasn’t sure who would win this battle of wills, this steel-cage matchup between Mace’s trauma and Nina’s unwavering smiles.
With Knox’s heart on the line, smart money was on Nina.
“Mace.” Knox’s fingers touched Nina’s one last time before they broke apart. He circled the table and slid into the seat at the end of the table. “Sit rep?”
Mace didn’t answer. He was busy casting nervous, sidelong glances at the kitchen, where Nina was peering into the refrigerator. Knox followed his gaze, his jaw tightening, but a moment later he’d locked down the expression.
Knox was in Captain Mode.
He leaned forward slightly, bracing his elbows on the table. “James.”
Mace’s gaze snapped to his, and he frowned as he raised his mug. “You want a situation report? The coffee’s good. I made it extra strong.”
Knox smiled. “Just how we like it.”
But falling into old, familiar rhythms couldn’t be so easy, not with a stranger in their midst. The focus and ease Mace had displayed only moments earlier vanished. His mug dropped to the table with a thud, and he began to count under his breath, the rapid words barely audible.