Page 73 of Challenged

“I will do.”

Gently, I touch my fingers to her forehead, applying the lightest pressure as I begin to move them back through her hair, massaging her scalp.

“Mmm, that’s nice.”

She lowers her own hands, looking up at me and smiling before settling herself into a comfortable position, her eyes closing.

“I do not know if it will help your aches in the waking world.”

“It’s helping me right now.”

“Good.”

Her hair is so silky beneath my fingers. My headspace flashes back to gripping at it, tilting her head back to kiss her neck. The memory almost makes me groan.

“Would you like me to take us back to the tent?” I say, my cock starting to stiffen in my leathers.

She opens her eyes again, biting at her lip as she looks back up at me. But as she opens her mouth to speak, her expression changes, and she looks back up at the radio tower above us. Her brows furrow, and she bolts upright.

“Is that red light flashing on the tower in the real world?”

Before I can even answer, the dreamspace shatters around us.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Angie

Iwake up abruptly, the red lights at the top of the radio tower still flashing before my eyes.

It has power. The radio tower is working. So why not the network?

I can’t think at first why this unsettles me so much, but then the conversation with Deborah comes back to me.

Dawes. They were waking up Dawes. Dawes would know about Farrow’s computer. I’d be prepared to bet on it. Would she know enough about the network to get it running again? To send an SOS home to Mercenia?

I bolt out of bed, not bothering to change out of my nightgown, or even put on my shoes before running down the stairs as fast as my feet will safely take me. I have no idea what time it is, but there doesn’t seem to be much activity. The lights in the basement corridor only flick on when I start sprinting down it. I hope it’s early. I hope Dawes is somewhere sleeping.

But as I barge into Farrow’s office, a blonde head looks up over the top of the monitor, brow furrowing. Steely blue eyes peer at me from beneath them. The furrow in her brow only deepens as she takes me in.

“Get off the computer,” I say.

She sits back in the chair, folding her arms across her chest.

“And who are you, exactly? One of the crash survivors, or one of the specimens?”

If I wasn’t already convinced this must be Katherine Dawes, the haughty, superior tone would have done it. Fucking science tier. So busy playing god, they forget they’re only human like the rest of us.

“I’m Angie,” I say. “Specimen.”

I swallow down the bile that rises in my throat at the word.

“Well, Angie, I’m busy.”

She dismisses me with a flick of her eyes, then looks down at the machine again, typing into it.

“Sorry, sweetie,” I say, making my voice every bit as thickly patronising as Baxter and his ilk used to speak to me. “But you’re going to have to move. I’ve got things to do.”

“What could a bottom tier girl possibly have to do on a computer she doesn’t know how to switch on, never mind use?”

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