Reviving Bianca Read online

  The coolness soothed. She coughed to clear her throat, hoping she would be able to speak. “We weren’t preserved?” she asked. Obviously not. The last thing she remembered was receiving a shot that would put her to sleep so she could be preserved. Had someone miraculously found a cure instead?

  No. That made no sense. She’d seen Grayson go into the cryostat days before her. He’d definitely been preserved. Which meant she had been too. Holy shit.

  He smiled. “We were. It’s been ten years.”

  Her eyes bugged out. “Ten years?”

  He set a hand on her shoulder and slid it down to her wrist. “Yep. I know it’s shocking. I nearly choked when I woke up.”

  She glanced down at where he held her wrist and shuddered. It had been a long time since anyone touched her so intimately. Far more than ten years.

  It wasn’t that no one ever made contact with her. They did. She bumped into people in the lab. It was unavoidable. But not like this. Grayson was practically holding her hand.

  She realized she was staring at the way he touched her when he suddenly jerked his hand free. “Sorry. You want some more ice?” he rushed to add.

  She nodded, feeling a flush run up her face. He’d done nothing wrong. She hated making him feel bad about touching her. It wasn’t intentional. It was a knee-jerk reaction she’d always had.

  She watched his face as he fed her a few more ice chips. His brow was furrowed and he swallowed several times. Suddenly, she froze, the last piece of ice running down her chin. He knows. Fuck. He knows. Her worst nightmare had come to life.

  Of course he knows. Everyone probably knows. She glanced around in a panic, wondering how many of her team were awake and when the sympathetic stares would begin. Pity.

  She’d gone to sleep that day believing in her soul she would never wake up again. It wasn’t conceivable to imagine she would ever be revived. Even if someone eventually found a cure for AP12, there had been no procedure to reanimate anyone yet. Apparently things had changed.

  Shit. This was not what she’d wanted.

  Something was different about this room. She didn’t recognize it. “Where are we?”

  “A clinic in southern Colorado. Safe.”

  Safe? What did that mean? Why wouldn’t they be safe?

  “Where is everyone else?”

  “Scattered. Long story.” He reached for her forehead again, set his hand gently on her skin, and then yanked it away when she winced. He straightened to his full height and wiped his palms on his thighs. “You should sleep some more. You’ll be more alert the next time you wake up.”

  For a moment, she stared at him, her heart racing as she read the pity on his face. She closed her eyes to black out his expression. Sleep was a good idea. Maybe she’d never been awake in the first place. If she was lucky, this entire weird episode had been a dream. Or a nightmare. If she was lucky, she’d go back to sleep and never wake up again.

  Because she’d never wanted to see that look on anyone’s face. That was why she never spoke of her childhood to a living soul. It was why she never opened herself up to relationships with men. It was why she kept to herself and didn’t even have close girlfriends.

  Fear of seeing that look had propelled her to remain private for her entire adult life. And now it was here to bite her in the ass, mocking her with some insane level of scientific research that dared to bring her back from the dead to taunt her with horrifying looks of pity from her teammates.

  Yeah, sleep was the best option.

  Death had been her first choice to avoid confrontation, though. She’d been at peace with death when she’d contracted AP12. She’d worked hard and been happy with what she’d accomplished in life. She’d been ready for the end, knowing she’d survived trauma most people were never subjected to in her life and had still managed to make the world a better place.

  She didn’t want to be reanimated if it meant having to go through the nightmare of explaining her childhood to anyone.

  Chapter 2

  Grayson ran a hand through his hair while he watched Bianca sleep. She’d looked so peaceful at rest before today. Now, she was restless. Maybe she worried he might have seen her scars.

  He had not. And he would never violate her that way. At least one person had violated her in a horrifying fashion years ago. Grayson would not add himself to that list. From the moment they’d arrived at the clinic almost four weeks ago, Grayson had insisted that her personal care be handled by only one person. Christy. The nurse assigned to her.

  Grayson was familiar with everything Bianca needed while she was in an induced coma, so it had been simple enough to teach Christy the parts he wanted her to handle.

  Not once had Grayson seen an inch of Bianca’s skin other than her arms, neck, and face—the parts anyone would see.

  Bianca had fallen into a fitful sleep after waking up for the first time. He hated the way she mumbled and moaned, thrashing about when she shouldn’t have had the strength to do so.

  It had been six hours, and Grayson was growing anxious when she finally gasped and her eyes popped open. Sweat had built up on her brow. She blinked a few times and then met his gaze. “It’s true, then?”

  “What’s true?” he asked, leaning closer.

  “We’ve been reanimated.”

  “Yes.” He smiled.

  “And where are we?” she asked for a second time.

  “Hiding in the back of a clinic in southern Colorado.”

  “Who’s with us?”

  “No one.” He hoped she didn’t freak out when she heard that.

  Her eyes widened, and she glanced around.

  “No one you know, I mean. No one from the bunker. A really nice nurse named Christy has been taking care of you. I’ve been here the entire time to make sure the machines kept you alive.” He waved in the general direction of the various equipment surrounding her. “I disconnected the last few things while you slept today.”

  She licked her dry lips.

  He reached for the ice and spooned a few slivers into her mouth. “When you’re ready, I’ll help you sit up straighter, and you can drink some water.”

  “What happens next?”

  “Next, we get you stronger with physical therapy. It takes a few weeks. I was able to walk tentatively after a few days, but it took about two weeks before I was stable and stopped feeling disoriented.”

  “How long have you been awake?” she asked.

  “Three months. There are four chambers now, so we were brought back in groups of four after the first few people.”

  “Is everyone okay?”

  “Yes. Well, almost everyone. Everyone survived reanimation, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  She narrowed her gaze at him, and he wished he hadn’t been forced to mention the one member of their team who wasn’t going to survive.

  He sighed. “Dade Menke had a marker for another type of anemia that was triggered when he received the cure for AP12.” Grayson took a long deep breath. He wouldn’t keep information from her. “He isn’t expected to make it.”

  A tear slid from her eye. “Shit.”

  “Yeah.” He reached forward instinctively and wiped the tear off her cheek with his thumb.

  She flinched for a moment and then relaxed, her eyes sliding closed as she tipped her face into his touch. “Thank you.”

  “Of course.”

  After a moment she slowly opened her eyes again. “Did you say we’re hiding?”

  He nodded. It was like this every time another one of them regained consciousness. The explanations. “It’s complicated, but there are people who aren’t pleased with our reanimation.”

  She flinched, her brow furrowing.

  “The bunker has been hounded by religious zealots and the media from the moment the first person was reanimated. But that’s not nearly as disconcerting as the fact that someone on the inside has been selling our information to anyone willing to buy it. A month ago, there was an explosion at the main gate and a
ll of us scattered to safer locations.”

  She slowly nodded. “Who the hell would sell us out?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question.” He eased his hand from her cheek when he suddenly realized he was still touching her. Lowering it to her shoulder, he still maintained contact, needing to for some reason.

  Maybe it was because he’d been alone for so long that he craved connecting with her. Not alone in the literal sense. There were doctors and nurses he spoke with every day. But nothing would compare to interacting with someone from his team. Someone who would understand how he felt. He hadn’t realized until today how starved he was to be able to compare experiences, even with a woman he hadn’t known well ten years ago.

  She swallowed. “Who was the first person revived?”

  “Emily.” He smiled broadly, excited to fill her in on everything she’d missed in the last several months. “And man do I ever have the gossip on everyone. You’re gonna need to take notes to keep up.”

  She smiled in return. “Can’t wait.” But her eyes were heavy again. Not surprising. “Next time I wake up, you can start.” She eased her hand across her body and set it on top of his on her opposite shoulder. “You’ll stay?” she whispered.

  “Of course. Sleep. I’ll be right here.” Emotion welled up inside him as she slid into another slumber. How had he gotten emotional about Bianca? Until today, he hadn’t really known her.

  Except he had. He’d known one important thing about her. The elephant that would hang around in the room until she was ready to discuss it. Was it a coincidence that of all the people Temple could have sent to watch over Bianca, she’d chosen him? Someone who had experience with abuse victims?

  He was beginning to think fate had a hand in pairing the two of them together. He’d felt irrationally protective of Bianca from the moment he’d heard of her scars. Now that she was awake, he felt something new. Something he wasn’t familiar with.

  It wasn’t logical that he would be interested in her. He hadn’t fallen for very many women in his life. He technically didn’t know her. But she was incredibly pretty. He’d had a month to stare at her features and admire her. Her hair was long and thick and soft like silk. It hung in waves around her like a halo. Her nose was small. All of her features were dainty. Even her fingers were narrow. He’d held her hand dozens of times while she slept. Tiny in his own. Soft.

  Now that she was awake, it was odd not to pick up her hand and hold it. But that would be weird. It was odd enough that he’d touched her several times. The last few times she hadn’t flinched as badly.

  He felt protective of her. Perhaps overprotective. In his mind, she needed a savior, someone she could talk to, someone who would understand her past. But he’d made all that up in a series of daydreams. The truth might be far different from his imagination.

  Grayson was way ahead of himself if he thought she would wake up and suddenly be the sort of person he imagined, a woman who would crave the opportunity to lean on him and open up.

  Yeah, he was dreaming. Setting himself up for disappointment.

  When Bianca opened her eyes for the third time, she found Grayson sitting in a chair next to her bed, his body leaning forward so that his head rested in the crook of his arm next to her torso on the mattress. He was sound asleep.

  She didn’t move. She was glad for the opportunity to stare at him without him being aware. It had been so long since she’d let her gaze linger on a man. Actually, she had never done so in her adult life. And rarely as a child either.

  She couldn’t explain why she felt like she could trust Grayson. She knew very little about him. But he was here with her. He’d kept her safe for a month. He’d arranged for her to have a nurse. And since she’d been awake, he’d been nothing but kind and friendly.

  Bianca had no experience with kind and friendly. Not from men anyway. Maybe there were thousands of nice men in the world, but she hadn’t given any of them an opportunity to prove that to her.

  Something about Grayson. The way he smiled at her. The way he touched her. She’d never been on the receiving end of any sort of admiration from a man—if admiration was the right word for it. And she’d definitely never let anyone touch her.

  Perhaps part of her trust stemmed from the fact that he had to know about her scars and yet he met her gaze head-on and never faltered. Had he seen her back? She shuddered inside. Half of her hoped he hadn’t, but it was a futile hope. He was a doctor, after all, and he’d been with her for a month. What were the chances he hadn’t seen far more of her than what she would prefer?

  She shuddered. Never again would she allow herself to be abused by a man. Never. It was the reason she never let herself even contemplate getting close to a man.

  Sure, they smiled and wooed and made nice at first, but how long before they snapped and switched to mean and ugly and terrifying?

  It was impossible to imagine Grayson in those terms. She couldn’t picture him hitting anyone. But wasn’t that the way with abusers? They were like Jekyll and Hyde. One minute everything was roses; the next minute they had their belt in their hands, taking out their rage on someone.

  Bianca shook her mistrust from her mind. It had no place in this room. She needed Grayson’s help to get back on her feet. She would be kind and give him the benefit of the doubt and pray the other shoe didn’t drop until she was steady on her feet and could extricate herself from him.

  Her hand was resting close to his on the mattress. Inches from his face. He looked relaxed in his current state of sleep. His blond hair was tousled. A light smattering of freckles danced across his nose. His skin was so pale next to hers. The contrast was shocking but intriguing at the same time.

  When he’d held her hand earlier, she’d been inexplicably mesmerized by the connection. She’d often forgotten how petite she was until she compared her small features with someone else’s.

  She’d apparently lost a few marbles during vitrification because she’d woken up far less repulsed by contact with another human being. In fact, even though she’d been stunned and probably flinched several times, she’d also found she enjoyed the warmth of Grayson’s touch against her skin. It soothed her in a chaotic world she had never anticipated participating in again.

  It didn’t matter at the moment whether or not his attention was real or heartfelt. She would take it. Absorb it. Pretend she was the sort of person who could trust a man to have her best interests at heart.

  In the midst of the calm that washed over her in his presence, she also felt concern. Every time she woke up, she had more questions. But the most important one was pressing on her like a heavy weight. She needed to know.

  On instinct, she slid her hand over his arm and settled her smaller palm over his fingers where they were halfway tucked under his chin. She had no idea what led her to do such a thing.

  He blinked awake and then smiled as he slowly lifted his head and set his chin on his palm, propping himself up. He flipped his other hand over under her grip and held her hand in his. “You’re awake again.”

  “Sorry,” she whispered. “I should have let you sleep.” She glanced at the blinds. They were closed, but she knew it was night.

  He shook his head. “If I stayed like that any longer, I would have gotten a crick in my neck.”

  She licked her lips and met his gaze, forcing herself to ask the one question she needed an answer to. “Who knows about me?”

  He held her gaze for several seconds, searching her eyes intently before seemingly understanding her question or forcing himself to admit he knew for sure what she was talking about. “Damon, Ryan, Temple, Mina, Christy, and me.”

  She gasped. That was a lot of people. And she didn’t know who half of them were. After hiding her scars for what seemed like a lifetime, she couldn’t hold back the emotions that came to the surface upon learning her secrets would never again be secrets. Too many people knew. They would tell others. There was no way to avoid it.

  She didn’t realize tears
had slid down her face until Grayson sat up taller and lifted his free hand to wipe them from her cheeks. “Only three of those people have seen more of you than I can see right now.

  “Damon is the cryonicist who pulled each of us from the cryostat and moved us to the reanimation chamber and then to a hospital bed. He’s a discreet man. Damon spoke to Ryan and Temple. Mina was assigned to care for you in the bunker. She’s a doctor with the second DEEP team.”

  She nodded, hoping he realized she wanted him to continue.

  “If there hadn’t been an explosion that forced us to move, that would have been the end of the line. But after the move, I was informed, and Christy was hired as your nurse here.”

  It felt weird having this entire conversation about her body without ever stating the actual facts. But she preferred it this way. She was surprised to find Grayson holding her gaze without looking away. Finally, she found her voice. “Who’s Ryan?”

  The smile that spread across Grayson’s face turned into chuckles. “The man responsible for our reanimation. Well, in cahoots with Damon. Damon created the reanimation chamber. Ryan found the cure for AP12.”

  “I see. Well, at least the government created a new team and continued our research so we wouldn’t be left vitrified forever.” If that actually was a good thing…

  Grayson shook his head, still chuckling. “Hell no. Don’t give the government any credit for Ryan’s work. He did everything on his own, working his ass off around the clock for ten years from the moment we were preserved.” He leaned closer. “Ryan’s last name is Anand. He’s Tushar and Trish’s son.”

  Bianca’s breath caught. “What? But he was just a kid…”

  “He was twenty. He finished undergrad, went to med school, and saved the day. Or the decade, I suppose you could say. And you want me to really rock your world?”

  She couldn’t keep from smiling at his excitement. “Go for it.”

  “He’s with Emily. Head over heels in love with her.”