The Girl Who Dared to Think 2: The Girl Who Dared to Stand (The Girl Who Dared #2)(7)

“It’s possible it was Mercury,” I finally admitted, breaking out of my tangled web of thoughts and returning to the moment. “I hope not, but it is possible.”

“Liana.” I turned and looked at Leo, and found him standing closer to me. “What happened right there? You seemed to experience several emotions at once.”

Leo’s question was based purely on curiosity, which was just like him, but I couldn’t help but flinch and then massage my temples, knowing that everyone was going to pick up on that oddity.

“Grey, why are you acting so weird? Are you okay?” Quess’s question was riddled with concern.

“Well, that’s complicated,” Leo began, and I put a hand on his arm, forestalling him. He glanced down at my hand, his face inquisitive at first, though that quickly morphed into delight, and I realized that he was still adjusting to what it was like to be inside a human body.

“Grey was injured in the altercation,” I announced.

“I’ll say. Why is he looking at you like a man who’s never been touched before?” Eric asked, sitting up. “Is he going to be okay?”

“I’m working on it,” Leo said, his hand reaching up to brush over the backs of my fingers. I snatched my hand away. It was impulsive, but the sensation of the calloused pads of Grey’s fingers tracing over mine, plus the knowledge that it wasn’t him, made the feeling distinctly uncomfortable and left me slightly nauseated, like I was somehow betraying Grey by letting someone else even touch me.

To say it was confusing was an understatement.

“What do you mean, you’re working on it?” Maddox asked.

Leo was staring deep into my eyes now, his expression a mixture of hurt, concern, and alarm, but when I didn’t explain myself, he turned to Maddox. “I’m Leo,” he said simply, as if that explained anything.

Quess took a step closer, his brows coming together. “Okay, now I’m worried. Grey, you’re not Leo, you’re Grey. Liana, did he get hit on the head?”

“No,” I said, my throat tightening around the words. “He’s Leo. Grey’s net got overloaded, and the damage was…” I swallowed, trying and failing to keep the image of Grey’s brain from my mind. I sucked in a deep breath and plowed forward, not wanting to waste time breaking down on everyone. “The damage was extensive. Leo used the net to implant himself into Grey, with the hopes that he and the healing abilities of the net can restore him.”

Silence met my statement, and I glanced at everyone to see how they were processing the news. The short version seemed to be: not well. Maddox and Eric were staring at Leo with a mixture of confusion and fear, while Zoe’s eyes were on mine, brimming with concern and horror as she tried to imagine what I was going through. Quess was downright shocked, his eyes wide with awe. But there was nothing I could do about it, except face several more questions, many of which I doubted I would have the answers to.

The wheel squeaked suddenly behind us, and I turned quickly, alarm radiating down my spine.

“Liana?” Zoe asked, her voice harsh with fear and panic.

“It’ll be okay,” I said, trying to reassure her.

The wheel continued to turn, though, and then stopped, hitting its limit with a dull clang. The door swung open, revealing first Praetor Strum, and then Lacey.

And between the two of them, hands clutched tightly in front of her, was Tian, her back hunched, her blue eyes wide and darting around.





3





The little girl shifted uncertainly as she stared at us gravely, her hands fidgeting in front of her. “There were a lot of them,” she said tentatively, twisting to see if either Strum or Lacey was going to stop her from saying anything. When they didn’t, she continued breathlessly, as if they could cut her off at any moment. “I tried to fight them off. I even managed to get one of them in the face with a lash bead, but they just kept coming. I…” She paused, her face starting to crack apart under the brunt of a great sorrow.

I was taking a step forward, ready to tug her behind me and get in Lacey and Strum’s faces about the treatment of a little girl, when she produced a satchel from behind her back and dug into it, pulling out a large stuffed bear, and his smaller, now unattached arm. “They hurt Commander Cuddles!” she wailed, tears pouring down her face.

While her distress was quite palpable, I had to fight back a laugh, especially when she reached up and used Commander Cuddles’s severed arm to wipe away her tears. I heard several other chortles from behind me, but managed not to break. Lacey couldn’t keep the amusement off her face, though, while Strum couldn’t seem to stop his eyes from rolling in their sockets.

The only one who was unaffected by our humor was Leo, who looked both concerned for Tian, and mortified that the rest of us were greeting the crying girl with smiles and laughter.

And he was right. While to us, the loss of Commander Cuddles’s arm wasn’t the end of the world, to Tian, it was. Laughing at her tears was probably the quickest way to upset her more, given her attachment to the bear, and the last thing we wanted to do was hurt her. Even if she was being unintentionally cute.

Luckily, Tian would never lack for rescuers. But the hero for today did surprise me a little.

“Hey, hey, hey, Tian Bo-bian,” Eric said loudly, his voice booming in the small space. “Guess what? I’m a super-secret bear surgeon, and my official prognosis is: we can fix him.”