Chapter 9
“I dwell in possibility.” - Emily Dickinson
HATCH
Fuck, she really was a sight for sore eyes and Hatch’s eyes were fucking sore. Oz still had them on IVs, not that it had slowed Dirk down. The moment the sound of her voice reached them, he’d plucked the tubing right out and headed for the door. Not that Hatch could blame him. He did, however, marvel at how easily the man made it look after what seemed like endless days of physical abuse. Then she was there and Dirk had her in his arms, and Hatch could see her face over his shoulder.
Some dead weight in his chest lifted, like a mountain of rubble he’d been trapped under for the last half a decade tumbled away. Dirk still held on to her with such fierceness, Hatch worried it would crush her. Yet not a complaint left her as she clung to him. Then with a reluctance Hatch understood on a visceral level, he set her on her feet and backed up a step, giving them both a solid look at her.
Too skinny by half. She’d lost a good measure of her curves. There was a hollowness to her cheeks that had never been there before. The nice clothing couldn’t disguise the faint jut to her hips or how the swell of her ass had lessened. At the same time, he’d never seen anything more beautiful than the light in her eyes, even if sorrow marred the glow when she looked from Dirk to him.
“No tears, luv,” he ordered. “This is a good moment.” And fuck everything, that was exactly how he would treat it. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, fully intending to rip out his own IV. He couldn’t go another second without holding her, touching her, making sure she was real and not some bizarre hallucination his mind conjured in a moment of weakness.
The soft rush of feet pulled his head up, and then she was there. The soft feather of her hand against his face had his eyes closing as he leaned into the contact. Snaking his arms around her waist, he pulled her between his legs and then pressed his head to her chest.
Thump-thump.
Her heartbeat.
Hatch rubbed his cheek to her chest, even as he forced his fingers to not bite so hard into her sides. A profound sense of peace blanketed him, like something he’d been missing slotted back into place.
Thump-thump.
Dampness splashed against his scalp as she curled over him, and he ignored even the faintest of twinges as he lifted her off her feet. He would never let her go again. Fuck everything else. Where she went from now on, so did he. The endless pit that opened beneath him the day they discovered her unconscious in her lab had sucked the world out from beneath him. Finally, fucking finally, they’d not only crawled out of that hole, they’d pulled her up with them.
He’d begged. Borrowed. Stolen. Killed. And he’d fucking do every bit of it again, because she was right here in his arms. Pulling back a little, he slid his hand up to her face to thumb away the tears. Valda never cried. Not openly and certainly not with such raw intensity. He’d learned how to get her out of her head, used to pride himself on that.
Until she’d gotten trapped there.
“Luv…” Words failed him as he stared into her beautiful brown eyes. The earthiness there always seemed to remind him that despite the intensity of her brilliant mind, and the stunning combination of her deep, almost golden-brown skin and dark hair, she was not some ethereal being. Had a hallucination ever been so fucking accurate?
“It wasn’t a dream,” she whispered. “Seeing what they had done to you.”
Reality slammed into him as she trailed her fingers over his scalp. They’d really shaved his head, the fuckers. But he cared less about his vanity than the tragedy in her eyes as she traced these delicate touches over him. Then she was cupping his face, almost a mirror of how he held her cheek.
Thump-thump.
“Wait.” He frowned. Dirk had followed her, the silent sentinel back where he always wanted to be, firmly at her back or at her side. His troubled expression told Hatch he’d heard the same words. They’d only discussed the ‘hallucination’ an hour earlier, and his confession had been met by severe skepticism from both Dirk and Oz, but… “That really was you?” He searched Valda’s face. “Talking to me, telling me…”
“That we were coming,” she whispered, and her voice had that same husk to it that always went straight to his dick. She sniffed. “The nanites, Hatch. The reason I had to get you out of the memoriam.”
The words spilled over him, but the reminder of how she’d had Dirk force him out barely registered. He’d been furious at the time.
It seemed less than important now.
“Valda,” Dirk said, pulling her attention to him, and Hatch hated him a little bit. Not much and he’d get over it, but fuck, he wanted her eyes on him. He flexed his fingers against her hips, keeping her with him. “What about the nanites?”
Instead of moving away, she twisted then leaned into Hatch, and he took it as all the permission he needed to gather her properly in his lap. His dick stirred, but it could damn well wait a minute. Holding her close while inhaling the sweet scent of her shampoo had him edging his hand up to the scarf she still wore tied around her hair.
Itching to touch that mane of hair, he tugged it free and then unpinned the braid. The single plait wasn’t as long as he expected. Had she cut it? Had it been necessary? What the fuck happened after she woke?
Dammit, he should have been there.
“…the memoriam was mapping all of you, cerebrally, the longer you connected. That last construct, where Hatch loaded all of my earlier constructs and memories…I was able to more properly interact with it. Hatch was nearly fully mapped and connected. I think the nanites are reacting to that mapping, to the neural pathways carved and acting like a bridge. It’s a theory, probably not an elegant one, but for a few moments, I could see him wherever you were being held.”
She turned those expressive eyes on him, and Hatch smiled at her. “Best sight I’d seen in weeks, trust me. I’d been stuck staring at his ugly mug.”
Her lips twisted into a faint mockery of a smile. “You’re both beautiful, though I could gut whoever did this to you.”
The threat of violence was new.
Surprise flickered through him, hot on the heels of the possessiveness threading through his veins.
“Are you in danger?” Dirk’s question slammed him back to Earth, and Hatch dug his fingers into her hips. He told himself to ease up, he didn’t want to hurt her, but his hands spasmed with the need to pull her closer, crush her into him, so he could surround her. Was this…whatever the fuck she wanted to call the connection hurting her?
Valda let out a little sigh, the corners of her mouth dipping down, and Dirk focused on her, his eyes intense. “I don’t know,” she admitted after a brief silence, and shock rippled through Hatch. “I have no basis for what was done specifically, the programming behind the nanites, why they would still be active outside of the equipment, or even what the equipment did specifically, and I haven’t had time to read up on it.”
Not the answer he wanted to hear. “Can we sever it?” He’d rather cut off his own arm than be a threat to her.
The question pulled her gaze back to him, and he looked desperately for any sign she was hiding the answers. Valda would protect them above all else, of that he had no doubt. They’d always believed her work was her deepest passion, and that they were allowed even a piece of her had been a gift. But the memoriam had taught him more about her than he’d ever imagined and gave proof to every loving thought he’d had about their too rational for her own good scientist.