APEX - Season 2

Ch. 17: A Perfect Moment

Rhys

She was a sight for sore eyes. I mean, literally. My eyes stung like I'd gotten industrial cleaner in them. I blinked a couple of times and pulled her into my apartment.

"I was just dreaming about you," I said as I led her to the couch, where I'd fallen asleep watching a house flipping show on HGTV.

"Let me guess," Calla said, "I was naked."

"Quite the opposite." I rested my head on the back of the couch and studied her as she took off her jacket. "I kept taking clothes off you but there was always another layer underneath. No matter how many shirts and skirts I removed, there was always more. Like you were a giant onion with no middle. What a nightmare."

"I'm sorry that dream Calla gave you so much grief."

"Really? How sorry are you?" I reached over and unbuttoned the top button of her blouse. "Maybe we should recreate the dream so I can feel reassured that I can properly undress you."

"You've never had that issue before. But look, Rhys, I'm here to check up on you. I've been worried."

"I'm fine." I toyed with her next button, running my fingers over the smooth skin above her breasts. "Just needed to take it easy today. There's a lot weighing on me."

"If stress is making you worse, we have to figure this out, because the next few weeks are going to be an actual nightmare—one where we're not going to end up naked and in bed together."

I was trying to let my sex drive override the lingering effects of the poison, as well as my brain's constant replay of me walking into Dev's station and loudly declaring for all to hear that I was the murderer, the attacker, the kidnapper—the wildling who everyone should hate so that no one else needed to be. But the reminder of our living nightmare got the best of me. An image of Calla mated to someone else while I stood in front of a tribunal—or languished in a hospital bed attached to a bunch of tubes—made my stomach clench. I let my hand fall away from her chest. "I suppose you're right."

"Can you say that again while my phone is recording so I can play it over again whenever I need a pick-me-up?"

"Funny." I leaned in towards her, resting my head on her shoulder. "How did the rest of your day go? Did my father swing by the office to glare at you menacingly?"

"Not while I was there?"

"Where else were you?"

She bit her top lip. "You're going to be a bit shocked, but I took a field trip to your brother's school."

I sat up again. "You went to Eligius College? Why? Is something wrong with Liam?"

"That's a loaded question. But I didn't go there to deal with him. I went to see a history professor named Tuwile Kimani. He has extensively studied the 1953 massacre."

"And the poison?"

"He thinks it's possible a group like Humankind First could get their hands on the formula. He also says there were rumors that an antidote was created. But he has no solid proof."

I nodded. "That's not a whole lot to go on."

"I disagree. It's hopeful, Rhys. We don't need to invent an antidote. There's already one out there."

"There might be, you mean. And even if there is, we don't know what it is or who has it or where to look for it."

"That's not entirely true. I have some ideas. I told you to trust me about this."

I let out a long sigh. I did trust her, but it was still difficult to feel like she had to do all the leg work because she thought I was too compromised to do it myself. This coddling went against all my instincts as an Alpha.