VANGUARD(71)

Sophie looked down, spotting the IV with a frown. “Take this out.”

“Sorry, that’s staying until tomorrow. So are you. As in, staying in this bed and this room until tomorrow afternoon.” She started to protest, but Anjali cut her off. “You know the rules. Quarantine continues until forty-eight hours after the symptoms dissipate. According to your chart, that will be tomorrow around 2 p.m.”

She let out an angry sigh, but let it go. “Can I have something to eat?”

“I’ve asked someone to prepare a light meal. It should be here in a moment.”

After she ate everything on her tray, Sophie sat in bed, picking at the tape around her IV placement. “I want to talk to him.”

Anjali put down her work and looked at her friend. “You don’t have to see him tonight, you know,” she said. “You don’t have to see him ever again if you don’t want to.”

“I want to talk to him,” she repeated stubbornly.

Anjali sighed and got up. “I’m giving you thirty minutes. No more. If you want him gone before that time is up, you call me and I’ll have him removed. Understand?”





-





After Anjali left the room, Sophie sat up. She wrinkled her nose in distaste at the sight of the blue hospital gown she wore. She pulled her knees up to her chest and leaned her head against them. She didn’t hear anything, but she could tell as soon as he walked into the room.

“Thirty minutes.” Anjali’s voice sounded very cold.

Michael appearance startled her. His nose was noticeably swollen, and he had the beginnings of a black eye. That was nothing, however, compared to the look on his face. He stood in the doorway for a moment, then came over to sit down on the bed beside her.

“Please,” he said in a low voice, “you should speak first.” She only had one question for him, and she felt sure she knew the answer already.

“Why did you do it?”

He opened his mouth and a flood of explanation came out. How sorry he was, how he’d made the wrong decision and took all responsibility for it. That he’d had a very small window of opportunity in which to fool the Commandant, and that if he’d lost that time arguing with her, it would been gone. That he could not bear to have Sophie in danger again.

She listened silently. She didn’t know what he had told the Commandant, but she gathered it had something to do with the phone call he’d had with Maxwell and a press conference that had been held in New York this morning. Whatever he’d said must have been highly effective since he’d managed to leave Parnaas alive.

None of that mattered. Sophie knew what his motivation had been. Eventually, he ran out of words and fell silent, looking miserable. She waited a moment, then called him on it.

“Bullshit. You did it because you were angry about this.” She stabbed her finger at the scar on her forehead. “You could have tried a dozen other options. Instead, you went to the most extreme because you felt that what I’d done made you less of a man.

“What was I supposed to do? Let him cut you, probably killing you in the process? Should I have let Will stand in for you? Or the Rev? Would it have been easier on your manhood if it had been one of them and not me?” Sophie took a shaky breath and tried to regain control.

“A scar on my forehead seemed a small price to pay for your life. But you…you drugged me, violating all the medical ethics in the world because you needed to feel stronger than me. As if fooling a sick woman into taking a pill makes you anything other than a liar and a coward, not to mention a lousy doctor. You *!”

The rage that had boiled up in his face as she blasted him was incomparable. She’d never seen Michael this angry before, but she’d also never spoken to him this harshly either. His lips formed a thin, white line, and she could hear a low sound of fury in his chest. If it had been anyone else, she would have feared for her safety by now. Instead, she waited for him to start screaming, her pointed chin held high.

But the shouting never came. The rage slipped away from his face to be replaced by introspection, then confusion. He flushed unexpectedly, then turned away, putting his hand over his face.

“Stop.” She reached for his arm, but he jerked away. “Stop right there. If there is ever to be trust between us, it starts with this. Please do not hide your feelings from me any longer. This is the twenty-first century. Men are allowed to show their emotions. Even Orlisian men.”