I wasn’t any more so than any of them, but there it was, that was how they loved me. They all put me first. I nodded. “Nothing you’ve said surprised me. I don’t agree, but I know that’s how you feel.”
“Right. Now we get on that ship and get to Evander. We’re either leaving you here on this ship alone while we travel through the galaxy or we’re taking you into danger.”
Wade cleared his throat. “Ari said she had to do this. That it had to be her. The estrogen. I know that doesn’t mean anything to you guys because you’re just seeing the battle, but I keep thinking about it. In what ways is she not the same as you are? How is it different?”
“Wade?” Trenton rocked back on his feet. “Go on.”
“I tried to keep her from getting anything but the immunity from the nanos. It didn’t work. I thought it was because I was bad at my job. But we followed the model that Ari used when he took out Canyon’s eye alterations that were screwing up his brain. He left some in there to help repair. With instructions just to repair. They did that. So why didn’t it work for you?”
I didn’t know. “I’m sure it’s not your fault.”
“You’re sweet, my love. But it’s absolutely my fault and not because I fucked up recoding nanos. I didn’t and Cash double-checked my work. He’s really good. Did both of us get it wrong?” He put his hands on his hips. “No, we didn’t. And nanos aren’t so unpredictable that they just do things like that. Unless…”
His voice trailed off, and this time I was actually able to fill in the blanks. “Unless Evander didn’t make female Super Soldiers for a reason.”
“Exactly.” He took my hand in his. “The coding of the nanos that alters the genes, enhances them, it seems to be affected by the estrogen in your system. It is simply doing what it wants to do. They wouldn’t like that. Too hard to control. And maybe that is why it had to be you. Why Ari said that it did. Because at the end of it, it’s really about you. Not us. There is something about you that will scare them enough that they will back off our quadrant.” He looked at Blaze. “I don’t love her any less than you do. I can assure you of that. I’d gladly die for her, too. But we may have to bring her. I have more trust in Ari than you do. If he said it, he meant it. And you guys know Canyon? Would he lie?”
“In a heartbeat,” Devil answered for Blaze. “If it kept Waverly and the kids alive. But I don’t think they were lying. That’s not how they’d have gone about it. If they needed Sienna dead, they’d have come back and killed her. They had ample time to do that.”
Anders groaned. He clearly still had a headache. I could see it in the way he lifted his cheekbones slightly. “Of course, then they’d have had to kill all of us because we’d have slaughtered them.”
“Then they’d have done it while we slept or knocked us all out. I assure you, Canyon and Rohan were well trained in murder.”
Blaze groaned. “Yes, I’m the one who trained them. Better yet, they’d have gotten us all on this ship and blown us up. Let’s assume they didn’t have murderous intent. Let’s assume that Wade is right. We need her. Why not tell us? Hey, we need Sienna because she’s a woman to xyz. Why the vagueness?”
“That’s not how the time travel messages work.” Trenton sighed. “From what little I know, they say just enough so that we fit into certain criteria without fucking it up. Too much information can make things go badly.” He threw his hands up in the air. “But I only know bits and pieces of this shit, so I could be totally wrong.”
I held up my hand. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t need to do something important.”
Just then the ship jolted left. We all fell toward the wall except for Blaze, who was seated. He spun in his chair, and with a total calmness I only associated with him, spoke to us. “Battle stations. The ship I found has found us.”
I didn’t have anywhere to go in a battle. This was a pretty consistent problem for me during these times, but there was nothing to do about it, so basically my job consisted of getting the heck out of everyone’s way. If I followed Wade, he’d have to concern himself with me, too. That left me basically putting myself in my room and sitting tight.
Someday there would have to be something more to do with myself than this.
I ran down the hall and abruptly stopped. In front of me were three men who had not been there before. It was like they were a blur, and then they were on the ship. The machine that Blaze spoke about. It wasn’t on our vessel, so how were they suddenly here? That was beyond my understanding. I had finally figured out the lights.
I darted left and jumped over the men just as they noticed me. They stared at each other and then back at me. Okay, they hadn’t known I had my abilities, but they did now. I ran.
“They’re on the ship,” I shouted as loud as I could, knowing that was overkill, but Wade and Trenton couldn’t hear as well as we could.
This wasn’t like when Kellan chased me. There was nothing exciting about this, it was terrifying. I was strong and capable but totally untrained, and these were men who lived their days and nights to be able to capture someone like me.
“Hey,” Corbin called out to them, and they swung around to stare at him. One of them lifted a device I’d never seen before.
In two seconds, Corbin had plowed one into another and grabbed the device. “Fuck, no. You are not taking me out with one of those things again.”
Those things? I remembered suddenly about the devices on the planet that had taken down the guys. Some sort of neurological disruption. No, we didn’t need that. I rushed over and grabbed the one on the bottom of the pile Corbin made.
“What do we do?”
“Give him to me.” Anders rushed down the hall and grabbed the one I held. “You get safe. Where you were with Kellan yesterday. Go there. Now.”
I nodded. Fine. Nothing had changed much. The best thing I could do would be to not get caught or in the way. I turned to run again, but two more men stood there. “Guys.”
“Fuck.” Corbin called out. “Devil, we need you here now.”
“Little busy.” Whack. Wherever Devil was, he was obviously in a fight.
But I was never without my own ability to save myself. I zapped the two new men, hard. They both hit their knees. A little bit of dizziness overtook me, and I held on to the wall. That wasn’t good. I’d zapped harder than I ever had before, and I hadn’t rolled with it, like I might have wished. No, it was still a bit of an ordeal.
Corbin was at my side. He gripped my arm, a warm strong presence. “You okay?”
“Give me two seconds and I will be.”
He nodded. “Take two. No one is getting near you.” Artemis jarred left, and Corbin hit the wall. “Damn it, Blaze, get them away from us.”
My dizziness stopped. “Why is Blaze flying and not Trenton?”
“He’s shooting,” Corbin supplied. “Sienna, listen. This isn’t the best time, but…”
Whatever he was going to say, I never got to hear. Two more men appeared. That was interesting. They kept coming in twos. How were they getting here? They ripped Corbin away from me before they pulled out the device. It was loud, deafening, and I no more got to hear Anders shout a warning before it happened. Corbin hit the ground in front of me, and Anders toppled over.