Right then, I didn’t care. Not at all. “You saved me.”

  “Not quite yet.” He shook his head. “Almost. And it wasn’t me. It was Kellan’s idea. I almost said I wouldn’t do it because I was too nervous about what could happen to you. I need to do some testing on you. For just a second.”

  I heard the telltale whoosh of the door opening as Blaze strode in. “Her heartbeat is the same. I can hear it. Nothing changed.”

  Wade nodded once. “Okay.”

  “Can you hear my heartbeat?” Blaze asked me, and Wade rolled his eyes. Maybe he didn’t want to do it this way?

  I listened but no, I couldn’t hear anything. “Nothing.”

  Blaze nodded once. “You did it.” He must have been speaking to Wade, because I hadn’t done anything that I could remember. I’d been a passive participant in this. I looked up and then caught my breath.

  What the heck was that? It was like balls of light were floating and banging into each other with little people singing in the center. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they were definitely singing. How did I know that?

  “Something’s wrong.” I grabbed Wade’s hand. “I’m seeing things.”

  “Oh.” He laughed. “Don’t worry on that. The little men singing are always there. Sorry you didn’t notice it before.”

  I stared at him, my mouth falling open. This wasn’t real. In a million years that would not have been the answer Wade would give to me. I backed up on the bed. “What’s going on here?”

  Blaze waved his hand. “It’s just a little singing. Why make a big deal about it?”

  I pressed my head against my knee. I wasn’t awake. This was some kind of dream. Or hallucination. Or something.

  “I’m not awake. This isn’t real.”

  “That’s a shame.” Wade sighed. “It would have been nice, wouldn’t it, to have been done so easy? All fixed. Not sick anymore. No pain. You can’t remember what happened to you. All better. Boom. Time for your happy ending.”

  I made myself stare at the not-Wade. “Neither Wade nor I are the type to particularly believe in happy endings. We’re too real for that.”

  “That’s a shame.” Blaze sighed. “Singing men in rainbows or whatever seems like a nice existence. Guess we’ll see you soon.”

  Pain assaulted my senses, and I screamed, the operating room in Artemis coming into view. Sweat was all over my body, and I flailed against the restraints that held me down.

  “She’s up. Again.” Dane shook his head, a sympathetic look in his eyes. “It’s so hard to keep them under with the nanos.”

  Wade squeezed my hand but wasn’t looking at me, his gaze upward on the machine. “Yes, but it’s working. I’m sorry. This is hard, my love.” He leaned over and kissed me. “But the machines we put in you, the nanos, they are actually making you better.”

  I screamed again. There was pain everywhere. I hadn’t known that anything could hurt this much. Every joint, every muscle, aches and waves of agony rode through me like it was going to drag me under and never let me go.

  “We have to give her something.” Ari stepped away from the table. “I can drug Super Soldiers. I can drug her. She has less of what makes them, them.”

  Wade slammed his hand on the table. “I don’t want her to hurt. I want it less than anyone alive. But it’s working. If you give that to her now and screw it up, this whole thing will have been for nothing.” He took a visible breath. “Can you hold on, my love? Can you?”

  Waverly squeezed my hand. “She can. I know you can. Because you’re strong and everyone here is doing this with you. I know only you have to endure it, but The Farm is all holding their breath and waiting for you to get through this. There are Super Soldiers pacing in the hall in terror—and they’ve taken on the universe in battle. You can do this. I know you can.”

  Her words helped. I drifted away, back to that place with the dancing unicorns. Or whatever it was. Singing something or other. And then there was just nothing.

  The next time I woke up, it was on a medical bed with machines beeping everywhere. Yep, that seemed real to me. Wade’s back was to me as he looked at a machine. The room was filled with the doctors and Waverly in the corner talking to Amber on a screen in a low voice. I couldn’t hear what they said.

  My love turned around. “Hey, how are you doing? We just gave you something for the pain. It should help.” He wasn’t doing that lovey gooey thing he did in my dream where he pushed my bangs off my forehead. I wanted that. But my throat hurt, and I wasn’t sure if it was worth it to ask for it.

  “Pain?” He winced. “I’m sorry. I was worried about the meds screwing up the nanos, but I think we have that sorted. So you should start to feel better soon.”

  Finally, I found my voice. “I had a dream about you smoothing the hair off my forehead.”

  He blinked. “Oh… I…”

  Dane strode over. “I think that sounds like a good idea, Doctor. You’re relieved of duty, so to speak. Good work. If this happens, it’s because of what you did in there. But now you need to be her guy and not her doctor. So sit down and smooth her hair off her face. Women like that.”

  Wade moved fast. He grabbed a chair and pulled it over before he sat in it and started to do just what I asked of him.

  “There were singing men in bubbles. Or something.”

  He nodded. “Very screwed up things happened in your mind, I imagine. I can’t tell you what it means to me to be here with you right now. That your eyes are open and you’re here with me.”

  I stared at his face. It was good to be here, too. I hoped. “It worked?”

  “We’ll know soon.”

  Yes, this wasn’t that fake world where everything was just fine. That had never been my reality and never would be.

  I must have slept on and off. I didn’t feel pain, it was like there was nothing at all. When I opened my eyes, Wade was there. I never saw the others. They must have been kept away because someone had convinced them it was truly a good idea. I knew for a fact they weren’t great at obeying rules when it didn’t suit them.

  The room was quiet. Only Dane stood in the corner, watching machines and tapping on his tablet. He smiled at something and tapped again. Wade snored gently, his head at a strange angle, his face not restful in sleep. I hated to think of him not being comfortable.

  Dane met my gaze and winked at me. “You okay? Thirsty?”

  I wasn’t anything. Not thirsty. Not hungry. Not… anything. “No, I’m okay.”

  He walked over. Wade stayed asleep, small sounds releasing from his open mouth. Dane checked the monitor. “That’s the meds. When we let them up, you’re going to be hungry, thirsty, and in pain. So I’ll leave it for just a few more minutes. It’s hard to knock you out. I think that’s a good sign this worked. Super Soldiers are notoriously hard to keep unconscious.”

  I lifted my wrist and looked at it. It read zero. I gasped, and Wade opened his eyes. “What’s wrong?” He grabbed my free hand. “What can I do?” He shook his head. “Someone tell me what’s going on?”

  I touched his cheek to make him look at me. “It’s zero.”

  “It better fucking be.” He shook his head. “Dane, where is the readout?” He got to his feet. “I don’t see it.”

  “On my tablet where it will remain not your business for the moment. You were out cold. I don’t trust you to take care of her right now. When was the last time you slept? Don’t tell me. I can imagine. I didn’t sleep for a decade, worrying about Melissa. And then there was the time I thought she was dead. That was about eight months. That was a special kind of hell.”

  Wade’s face fell. “I don’t ever want to know that pain.”

  “Nope, you don’t.” He patted Wade on the arm. “Sit down. And be her guy, or I’m going to let those men in here. I think they’re only obeying because it suits them to believe it’s a good thing for her. Otherwise, they’d bust down the door. I’ve seen it with Sterling. I don’t know how it is with five of them, but I can imagine. You know what?” He snapped his fingers. “That’s a good idea. You need a break. Go get a shower and some food. Then come back. Let one of them in.”

  The door flung open, and Corbin strode in fast. How had he beat the others out? I smiled. It didn’t matter. I was glad to see whichever one of them wanted to be here.

  “Son.” Dane stopped him with a word. “She is going to be in a lot of pain any second. If you’re not the guy to endure that silently while being supportive, go get another one of her loves. I’m that guy for Melissa. Cooper is not. We all have our strengths. He gives her better advice. So, are you? That guy?”

  Corbin visibly swallowed. I’d never seen him thrown like he looked in that second. Dane had thrown him off his game. He stood slightly straighter. “Sir, I can be whoever she needs me to be. You saved her life. I heard it. When things went a little bit sour, you and Wade saved her. Whatever you tell me to do, I’ll do it. I’m going to get my ass kicked when I leave her because I just strode in while they started to debate who it should be. So, yes, I’m that guy.”

  “Good.” Dane dragged Wade to the door and pushed him through it. “The painkillers are about to disappear. Then we’ll see how it went. We know it cured her, but what were the other consequences? That is about to be judged.”

  If I’d been capable of feeling anxiety in that moment, I was sure I’d be swimming in it.

  “Saved me?” I let Corbin take my hand. “Did you almost lose me?”

  “The nanos seem to have objected to you not being an infant. They had to be messed with. There were some problems. The doctors? They were great.”

  That was good to know. They’d taken great care of me. Of course, when the first round of pain hit me, I couldn’t think of that at all. I shut my eyes. It didn’t help. “Why does it hurt?”

  “We redid your system. Forced it. Made you healthy, but in the process, we may have also changed you all the way down to your cells. We’ll see.” Dane patted my shoulder. “If you start to notice anything other than the pain, please let me know.”

  I laughed. It wasn’t funny, but sometimes laughter is the only thing I could do. I discovered that fact in that second. “Like what?”

  “Like if you can suddenly hear Corbin’s heart. I want to know that.”

  I tried to see if I could. Only, I couldn’t do anything but breathe. I’d have to figure out if I could hear his heart later. It was enough that in that moment I could hold his hand. Being there for me was exactly what I needed. In the pain, I wasn’t alone. Thank goodness.

  10 Lub-Dub, Lub-Dub

  Blaze massaged the muscles in my lower back, and I moaned with relief. I was constantly tense, and it led to a forever feeling of being in pain. That would pass, we hoped. No one really knew what was going to happen with me. I wasn’t sick—the zero in my arm held steady, so much so that Wade wanted to take the device out soon—but I wasn’t right yet. The question was, would I ever be. My father had just left The Farm to go get my mother and bring her here. I’d almost gotten used to having him around, but I didn’t notice his absence either. I’d gone my whole life without him, although I appreciated he was trying now.

  “And you can’t hear it?” Kellan stood across from where I sat on the couch, mostly braced in Blaze’s lap. They’d taken to constantly rubbing my sore spots, and I was forever grateful. “My heartbeat?”

  That was another thing that they kept checking. Had I developed any particularly impressive new talents? The answer seemed to be no. Wade was hugely relieved about this because it meant he hadn’t messed up when he’d done the procedure, but even though they didn’t say it, I was pretty sure it disappointed the Super Soldiers. As for Trenton, he seemed to be mostly concerned with the fact that I was still, a week later, in pain.

  I shook my head. “Sorry, no heartbeat. Does it still beat for me, Kellan?”

  Okay, that was silly to say, but he liked it when I did that. His cheeks heated up red for brief seconds and that gave me never-ending amounts of joy. Teasing Kellan into happiness seemed to be partially my job. We still didn’t know if I could zap people or open up and take emotion yet. No one was asking me to try, but we would before Wade took out the indicator in my arm.

  For now, there was just Blaze, his strong hands, and Kellan’s questioning stare. Blaze found a particularly sore spot, and I jumped.

  “Easy.” His voice was barely a whisper in my ear. “It’s good for you.”

  I nodded. Well, we thought it was. The whole no-one-really-knew-what-they-were-doing-with-me problem continued to rage. Amber had come and checked me out a few times, as had all the other doctors regularly. They had a lot of collective confusion. I was trying not to focus on it. No one wanted their doctors to be so unknowing.

  Corbin strode into the room, setting down the equipment he carried on the table. He’d been working on Artemis, a lot. Although we had no plans to go anywhere anytime soon, it seemed like my guys had taken the attitude that they’d broken Artemis and it was, therefore, their collective responsibility to fix her.

  “How’s it going?” I smiled at him, and he grinned back at me.

  “Should be done soon. It would be fixed, but Tommy Sandler had thoughts on how to make her stronger, and so we had to undo and redo. He’s smart, good at what he does. Kind of a pain in the ass but driven. It’s complicated. Should we be upgrading her when she’s really probably going to be retired and never put out to space again?”

  My heart clenched. Was it really time to put that ship to bed? How did that even work? I was making rapid progress in how much I understood, or at least functioned with, technology, but that didn’t mean I understood the ins and outs of everything. How did they judge when her time was up?

  “Would they retire her here?” I reached forward and took a sip of the water. That was another thing. I was supposed to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. I’d drunk so much liquid at this point I was pretty sure I might float away in a river called Sienna.

  Corbin shook his head. “There’s talk about giving her back to Melissa on Mars Station. She was her ship on the other side of the galaxy. There are legends about it, or so I heard. No one ever told us those kinds of stories.”

  I had to pee. All the liquid made that happen, a lot. I turned in Blaze’s lap. “Give me a second. Bathroom break.”

  “Yep.” He let go of me. “Are you hungry? Kellan could make another grilled cheese.”

  The red rose in Kellan’s cheeks again. “That’s not funny. I didn’t mean to burn it. I will get better at it.”

  Blaze shook his head. “I just thought there was nothing you could fail at. Except, apparently, toasting cheese and butter on bread.”

  I left them to their back and forth. It had become comforting. If they were knocking at each other gently, it meant they were all okay. When one of them went quiet, that was a different deal altogether. Something was wrong.

  Using the bathroom fast, I did start to think about that grilled cheese. Maybe I would make it for them. Surely my muscles could handle that much use. I could get back and forth to the shower, back and forth to the bathroom. I could handle standing at the stove. I sighed. Being weak really made me appreciate the things I used to just do without much thought.

  Did I need a nap?

  I shuffled out of the bathroom and abruptly stopped. Standing in the room was Canyon and Ari. They stared at me. Something about them didn’t look right.

  Maybe it was the fact that Ari’s hair was short and Canyon’s longer. I’d just seen both of them in the last week. How was that possible?

  Time travel. Yes, they were somehow involved in that. The secret that somehow everyone knew about because you couldn’t keep secrets around Super Soldiers.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Canyon held the door handle and turned away from me to hold the door. “I’ve got it, but they’ll be through very fast.”

  Ari strode toward me. “Sienna, all is not well. We aren’t able to keep Evander out of here very long. They figure out that black hole again and again. They have to be stopped. And I’m afraid it has to be you.”

  “Me?” They had to be kidding. “I’m not capable of stopping anyone from doing anything.” I pointed to the door. “Go talk to them.”

  “Well, obviously I am. They can hear me, and they’ve all figured out I’m not from this time and that I’m not here to hurt you. Or at least I hope they figured that out. I’d never hurt you. You’re Waverly’s best friend, and our kids are best friends.”

  Kids? My mouth fell open.

  “Ari,” Canyon huffed. “Back on track.”

  “Millions of people are going to die. Billions. It doesn’t stop. But you… you have the ability to stop all of this. Wade knows more than he’s telling you at this point. He’s known for days that you’re stronger and more powerful than you’ve ever been. And he thinks that Kellan knows it, too.”

  Canyon snorted. “Well, that got their attention off her.”

  “You said to tell you that you had this dream. That you know you have to go through the black hole and that you have to do what you set out to do. You have to do it so that no more people get hurt.”

  That sounded remarkably like me. I stepped toward him, practically creaking when I did. “How am I supposed to do any of that? And why not just tell me in whatever time you’re from?”

  “By the time we figure it out, it’s too late. I’m sorry to do this. I’d never hurt you, but we don’t have time for this to happen on its own. The first attack comes tonight. Warn Diana to put up the shields.” He pulled a needle out of his pocket, and I winced. Really? More? Needles?

  Hadn’t I had enough?

  Ari jammed it in my arm. “Just a steroid. But it’s going to wake everything up. There was a reason Evander never made female Super Soldiers. Turns out estrogen works really well to block all the devices they’ve made to control your male counterparts.” Canyon backed up from the door just as Ari finished speaking. “See you soon.”