The Gender Game 5 (The Gender Fall)(109)

“Sixty seconds,” Thomas barked at me.

I moved closer to her, and she flinched back a bit, but managed to keep her feet planted on the ground.

“The case, please, miss,” I said, holding out my hand.

Eying my hand nervously, she seemed to struggle with her indecision, when Amber’s voice piped up from behind the guards.

“Jacob doesn’t kill women,” she said. “And he’s not good at threatening them, either. But as a woman myself, I don’t have his moral inhibitions.”

The tech stiffened, and I frowned at Amber over her shoulder, but then the blond girl held out the case to me. I passed it over to Cad just as Thomas announced there were thirty seconds left to go. I heard Cad kneel down, but my eyes were focused on the three women in front of me.

“Over there,” I said, pointing with the gun.

The women filed over and sat down next to Cruz and the other two guards. Ms. Dale stepped farther into the room, her gun trained on them all while I pulled out the zip ties.

“Fifteen seconds.”

I glanced over to where Cad was quickly connecting leads into the box, Jeff watching him closely. “Jeff!” I breathed. I yanked the box containing our video clip from my pants pocket and held it out to him. He grabbed it and moved over to Cad.

“Five, four, three, two… one.”

The stadium went dark, and in the dim red light of the control room, I froze, wondering if, after everything, we had screwed it all up.





36





Violet





“So, Violet, not to be rude, but the whole boy look you have going on is a bit much.”

I heard Dr. Tierney’s appalled gasp, but I couldn’t help but crack a smile at Henrik’s quip. Turning from my work, I made my mouth into an ‘o’ of surprise.

“Oh, darn—here I was hoping it would help me blend in with the locals.”

“Well, now that you mention it, you do make a very fetching boy,” said Henrik, a merry twinkle in his eye.

“Well, at least that makes one of us,” I shot back with a wink.

Henrik chuckled, and then began to cough, a wet, racking thing, and I immediately took a step closer. Dr. Tierney was already there, the scanner in her hand, her eyes on the screen. “Fluid is still building up in your lungs,” she tsked at him. “I’m going to have to up that medication after all.”

Wheezing, Henrik fell back on his pillow and nodded weakly, his energy seeming to desert him. “You said if you did, I would also have to start using a blood thinner,” he replied in a hoarse voice after catching his breath. Dr. Tierney frowned, looking at him.

“You will,” she said. “But it’s a risk we have to take. It’s been some time since the surgery, plenty of time for the holes Dr. Arlan patched to start to heal up. We’ll keep monitoring it.”

Henrik nodded, and Dr. Tierney reached out to touch his shoulder. He smiled at her, his white-speckled beard breaking apart like the clouds after a storm. I watched the exchange, worry gnawing a hole in my stomach. Even though Henrik was doing better—sitting up, eating, making jokes—it was clear he was still struggling on his road to recovery.

One lousy bullet. One lousy bullet that had somehow ricocheted in him, causing severe organ damage. Not to mention his age was working against him. Still, I had hope the man would pull through. Not just because he was a good strategic thinker and a gentle, wise leader, but because I liked him. He was a good man who followed his heart rather than the social norms that dominated our two societies.

Sighing, I turned back to Quinn and stepped back up to the bed. I felt a slight twinge in my ribs, but they still felt okay; they had been getting better every day. I was so glad I hadn’t broken any of them on top of all the other injuries.

Reaching out with my left hand, I worked my thumb under the bandage covering the remains of Quinn’s ear, slowly peeling the cotton back. I winced as some of it caught on the stitches there, but, with a degree of patience that surprised even me, I carefully untangled it and pulled it back.

“When will his stitches come out?” I asked as I tossed the cotton into a bucket next to the bed.

“Soon,” replied Dr. Tierney from behind me. “Probably today or tomorrow.”

I reached up and smoothed some hair from the young man’s forehead. The people assisting Dr. Tierney, including me, had tried to keep his hair tidy over the days of his convalescence.

“Why is he still asleep?”

“Well, he originally must have gone into shock from the blood loss, but to be honest, it’s probably a mental response to the trauma he experienced. It’s not that surprising. Sometimes people just… break.”