Storm Surge (Cyborg Shifters Book 2) Page 12

  The human heart inside of him pumped viper blood. Wheree issss sssheee?

  Stryker slithered over the walls of the ship and jerked his head in every direction, each movement poised to strike. He heard Norah just as the sky vomited up Axone’s wrath and the minor light that had been gained from being free of the forest vanished.

  He was coiled around her tense body the next moment, his and Norah’s sounds deafened by the wind. His tail swung out and cut the shrieker’s body in two. Warm water, flesh, and blood spilled out over his frame. He flicked it off and watched as the carcass slumped into a pile on the other side of the field.

  Stryker turned to check on Norah, overburdened with relief and swirled his metal shell around the dark outline of her figure.

  “Norah,” he hissed. When she didn’t respond he shifted back into the form she knew and crouched, naked, before her. “Norah, are you alright?”

  The wind lashed at them. He did his best to block her body from it.

  His hands fell upon her, searching for her wounds. Her body shook as he touched her. The black waves of her hair tumbled over her face, hiding her from his sight. Stryker hooked a finger under her chin and lifted her head.

  “Look at me.” She fought his grip and clenched her eyelids tight. “Please, babe.”

  Stryker wasn’t above begging her.

  Her teeth bit down on her lower lip, drawing out blood.

  She can’t stand me. Disgust for what he was filling his systems and it felt like a bullet straight through his heart. He wiped the blood from her mouth with his thumb and would have given his soul just then to be able to soothe her with a kiss.

  “I’m going to pick you up,” Stryker slid his hands around her. Please look at me.

  Pleassse.

  She remained silent, trembling down to the marrow of her bones, but was pliant and exhausted in his hold. He walked through the crushing veil of rain to the electrical source that called to him. Norah bent over and huddled into herself as he approached the lights.

  When he entered the passage, he pressed his hand to the interior console and overrode the security system; the door shut behind them. He remained rooted to the spot as a wondrous quiet filled his ears–hollow and heavenly and entirely artificial.

  Stryker let himself go within the electrical currents, into the white light and static that had been his home since his creation. He was momentarily overcome with it and leaned back into the perfectly smooth, perfectly cold, machine-built walls.

  His back glided down the cold barrier until his butt hit the ground and his legs stretched out before him. Norah twitched and hiccupped.

  Stryker opened his eyes to see hers looking up at him. He lost himself in the black pools of her irises, brightened by the light of the hallway to reveal an outline of reddened veins accentuating glittering amber flakes within.

  He lifted his hand to cup her face and wipe away the rain from her cheeks. “You have beautiful eyes,” he said, his words loud within the quiet.

  “You scare me.”

  Stryker leaned his head back. “I know.” Memories flooded his mind, forgotten ones that he had buried long ago, even those he had deleted rose back up to the surface. “We’re made, us Cyborgs, to look appealing from the outside, strong and intimidating, sometimes even weak to lure our prey. To lure the Trentians, even if it’s just with their eyes. And once they get close enough, if anyone gets close enough, the miscreation we actually are comes out. It’s too late by then.” He took a deep breath. “I never intended for you to see what you did.”

  “Does it hurt? The transformation?” she asked. He looked back down at her.

  “No...it doesn’t hurt.” But he did feel pain, the fire of his hardware frying from the lightning, even with the wind, rain, and water, it hadn’t cooled down his systems.

  Her hand came up and caressed the side of his scalp; Stryker leaned into her touch.

  “You’re hurt though,” Norah shuffled and moved over him to inspect his damage. “Amazing, you’re healing. I can see you healing.”

  “Nanoparticles.” He already felt the prickles of his hair regrowing.

  Norah touched him, watched him, observed him with a critical eye as his shallow wounds closed up. Time passed slowly, exhausted as they were, unable nor wanting to continue. Soon, with soft fingers roaming his muscles, the cold interior of the ship seeping over them, and the puddle under their bodies, awareness returned.

  We’re not safe yet. Stryker no longer trusted the security of their quiet moments together. He clasped her hand and moved to stand, picking her up with him. “Where’s the medbay here?”

  She twisted her head and peered down the passageway. “Down past the ramp, there’s a series of doors just before the lift. First one on your right.” He walked as she led him. “Stryker?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can we...can we just leave?” Norah buried her head into the crook of his neck. “I don’t want to be on this planet anymore.”

  “You and me both, babe. You sure?” He eyed her wounds. There were many, far too many but they were shallow. He was more concerned for her emotional health because even with the chocolate shades of her face, he could see the pallid look she was trying to hide and the deep weariness under her eyes.

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  He walked past the medbay and went straight for the bridge. She didn’t want to be here any more than he did. In that, they agreed.

  Chapter Fifteen:

  ***

  Norah slumped into the copilot’s chair where Stryker had placed her. If anyone saw them in the state they were in, they’d think the worst.

  She couldn’t take her eyes off of the Cyborg’s naked body, honed and perfect under the bright lights of the ship even with the damage his frame had sustained.

  Her gaze kept drifting to the wounds he sported, watching his skin weave itself back together. It was slight and slow but not slow enough to be imperceptible.

  He strapped her into the seat and kneeled before her. She lifted her hands and caressed the reddened skin of his scalp. It hurt her to see him damaged. He was damaged because of her. Her throat closed up with guilt.

  “Stryker,” she whispered. “I’m really, really sorry. I can’t stand seeing you hurt.” Norah bit back her tears. The emotions in her head were as frenetic as the storm right outside the bridge’s windows.

  He looked down at himself. “This? Trust me, I’ve been in far worse shape than this. Even a bolt of lightning can’t take down a Cyborg, at least not for long.” Her lips felt heavy, but she managed to smile.

  “You’ll have to tell me about it sometime. I bet you have the best stories.” Norah nearly moaned as he cupped her legs and pulled off her boots, then her socks. Wet socks are the worst.

  “Sure, but some of them are horror stories.” He stood up and walked out of her sight. She twisted to watch him as he located a suit and tugged it on. It was too small for his frame and she got to continue watching his muscles ripple. “I’ve been around a long time,” he said as he popped open a medkit from the bridge’s emergency unit.

  He handed her serum and without thought poured half the tube in her hand and slathered it over every inch of exposed skin. He’s been around since the war…

  Norah mulled over the dates. “How long?” She had been born after the war.

  “Eighty-eight years. If I were human, I’d be an old man.” She glanced at him as he sat in the pilot’s chair. The chair that used to be Dr. Ludland’s.

  Norah perused the space, suddenly overcome with melancholy. None of her friends remained. However, she hadn’t seen any other corpses but Robert’s. In fact, as she looked at all the empty seats that used to hold her comrades, she had seen no trace of them...nothing at all.

  It was like they had all vanished.

  Norah wiped her eyes.

  Body suits. The horror of it chilled her to the bone.

  Stryker continued beside her, “Kind of weird to think about but all of the first generatio
n Cyborgs are now getting up there.” Her eyes were drawn to the window and the streaks of light tearing from the clouds. And as she continued to stare out at the forest before them, her fear grew.

  Each bolt lit up the area before them for a second before it went dark again. Each flash could reveal something she might not want to see. She heard the clicks as the Cyborg tested out the controls.

  Norah looked away from the window. “You don’t look a day over thirty.”

  “And I never will.” The ship hummed to life. She wiggled her toes and closed her eyes. The lights flickered overhead.

  “That must be nice,” she murmured. “Guess that means we’re not compatible, I will continue to age.” When Stryker didn’t answer she opened her eyes to him staring at her. Her heart screamed in her chest. She gave him another smile. “I’m just trying to lighten the mood,” she amended and glanced out the window then looked away. “Can we go now?” She was beginning to feel incredibly uncomfortable.

  “There are ways, babe.”

  The exterior lights of the ship illuminated the entire airfield.

  “Expensive ways,” she mumbled.

  They both looked out the large panoramic window together. And to her relief, she didn’t see her entire team possessed by shriekers standing in a band before them. Her heart continued to drum the beat of fear in her chest.

  She jumped out of her own skin when Stryker unbuckled and stood up, moving closer to the window that glared back at him with a shield of rain.

  The blue light of his eyes flashed once before it changed to a ruby red. Blood red. Her broken nails bit into the armrests of her seat.

  “What is it?” She began to unclip herself.

  “Don’t.”

  Norah was beside him the next moment but couldn’t see what Stryker was looking at.

  “What is it? What do you see? Can someone else be alive?” It was her biggest fear. What if they were about to leave someone behind? Could she live with that doubt? She wanted to leave, to run away and never come back, but another part of her wanted to get off of the ship with a rocket launcher and kill every shrieker she came across and avenge her fellow scientist's deaths.

  So many great minds, gone. Studying planetary environmental and ecological science always had that risk. The need to beat at the glass and yell was overwhelming her.

  What can I do? What can one person do? I can kill everything. A warm hand grasped her shoulder and squeezed.

  “Calm down.” She was pulled against his side. She knew that she was no longer drenched in rain but soaked in her own sweat. “Do you see that?” Norah followed the point of his finger. She peered but was blinded to what Stryker was looking at until a laser beam shot out from his eye and led her gaze.

  “I see,” she gulped. “I see something swaying in the tree. Under the tree.” A dark shade stood out with his help. “Is it someone? Stryker, we can’t leave someone behind. I can’t leave someone behind. I can’t.”

  He didn’t answer her at first as he continued to watch the figure. “There’s no one left.” The shade dropped from the tree. And to her horror, moved and writhed on the wet ground.

  She was lifted off her feet and placed back in her chair.

  Stryker was jerking the controls and typing in code as the thing crawled closer to them. “We can’t leave them!” she screamed and moved to get up. Saroya’s very terrified face appeared within the light. “It’s Dr. Mehan...”

  But the ship jerked as she struggled with her restraints and her co-worker’s face disappeared as they shot into the air.

  “It’s not her anymore.”

  Norah continued to thrash in her seat, her nerves split and frayed, her jaw locked and for a split-second, she thought she was going to let out a shriek that rivaled the horrible water banshees of Axone.

  Stryker ignored her as her tears finally overflowed and she sobbed. She cried and fought herself and was egged on by the purple and black clouds of the giant storm that surrounded their ship and obscured their view. The shades of grey and violet melded together and blinked to a new shade with each wave of electric tears; Norah could barely focus through to see the horrific beauty of it.

  She heard Stryker curse next to her as the ship rocked and vibrated around them. Her belly filled with ravenous butterflies.

  Norah buried her head into her hands and rubbed off her tears. She peered through her fingers at the endless clouds; the worst part about it was the suffocating silence around her. She could hear neither the monstrous storm nor the beat of rain on the window; all she heard was the zip of the ventilation system and Stryker’s muttered curses as he fought through the storm.

  When they finally broke through the barrier of clouds, the ship was able to pick up speed and ascend through the sphere of the world. The shaking of the vessel stopped and everything became an easy glide. Norah felt the tell-tale changes of gravity around her as the ship automatically accommodated them.

  Stryker opened up the communications channels, a clear screen appeared before them, and sent out a missive.

  “Who are you contacting?”

  “Requesting coordinates for Ghost.”

  Ghost? “What’s Ghost?”

  “The Cyborg city that doesn’t exist,” he mumbled as he adjusted the mask over his mouth.

  Norah took a deep breath, clean, luke-warm and delicious with no amount of water in it.

  “I don’t understand?” she asked but found her focus on ventilated air system, having forgotten what it was like to not be within the humidity of Axone. The warm, wet hug of the alien planet would be in her nightmares for the rest of her life.

  “If it can’t be found, it can’t exist. Rumors and myths don’t prove existence...just like ghosts.”

  Norah glanced at him as he waved his hand over the screen, reading the diagnostics, and typing in his own overrides and controls. The universe was a big place after all; there were a lot of spots to hide a city of robots if breathing wasn’t a concern. Stryker was a Cyborg after all.

  A blast of cold air hit her from overhead. She basked in the air conditioning. I appreciate everything now. The metal cities of Earth had never been so appealing. Now they hung like jewels in her memory: so utilitarian, so bland, but most of all so very, very safe.

  The ship settled just outside Axone’s orbit and both she and Stryker got up to look back out the window.

  A storm covered half the planet and even from space, it looked nightmarish. They stood in silence, side by side, staring at the thing that they had survived.

  “She was a shrieker, Norah.” Stryker reached over and grabbed her hand. She threaded her fingers through his. “There was nothing we could do.”

  Norah shook the curls that began to coil around her face. “I wish we could have saved someone. I wish I wasn’t the only survivor,” she whispered, heartbroken. “So many minds, so many wonderful people. Robert…”

  “We can go back once the storm ends.”

  “I don’t want to go back,” Norah admitted her cowardice. “I want to see my family.” She didn’t know why, exactly, but a deep need within her wanted to embrace her parents. The mother and father she hadn’t seen in over a decade. She shook her head and gripped the Cyborg’s hand. “I never want to go back. I never want to see this planet again. I want nothing to do with it or the monsters that reside on its surface. I don’t know why that makes me feel horrible...maybe I’m a horrible, selfish person but I can’t go back...because if I do...”

  “You’ll see a goose kissing a moose?”

  Norah jerked and pulled back. “You’re horrible. I can’t believe you would say that.” Down by the bay, where the banshees roam, they killed my staff, it wasn’t slow, and when they did, no one stayed down, have you ever seen a tail, the size of a whale, attached to a snake. She shook herself out of a half-trace, immediately glad the Cyborg couldn’t read her thoughts.

  Stryker smirked down at her. “There’s nothing wrong with sharing your thoughts with me, no matter how bad they m
ake you feel. I don’t want to go back either, I only landed for you and I’m willing to admit that–I only cared about saving you.”

  She was pulled into a heated chest, hard and wonderful and strong where she felt weak.

  “We’re terrible.”

  “No, babe, we’re honest”

  Norah buried her head into the Cyborg’s chest and breathed him in. I love you. It was in her throat, on the tip of her tongue, and she didn’t trust herself to say. She smacked her tongue against the roof her mouth. “I want to go back down there and kill every shrieker on the planet.”

  “I’m sure you do. I know the feeling.” He stepped away from her, taking his heat with him. “But we’re not going to. I need to get back to my ship and report in and before that, we’re going to clean up and rest.” Stryker looked up and away from her to study the bridge. “My mission isn’t over until I know you’re safe.”

  “Are you always such a perfectionist?” She shivered under his scrutiny.

  “Always.”

  Chapter Sixteen:

  ***

  She followed Stryker back to the medbay, her arm wrapped around his waist as he kept her under the warmth of his embrace. Norah was not willing to let go of the one thing in her life that stabilized the chaos around her.

  Norah sucked up the heat he emitted as if she were starved to the very core of her soul.

  She was never one to get attached to anything but her goals, but somehow she had become attached to the Cyborg that held her like she was the most precious thing in the universe. She couldn’t imagine a life where they were apart, her need for him only grew now that they were out of danger.

  Attachment felt like weakness, a break in her career and her plans for the future, but when she looked at Stryker, all she saw was this strong man who epitomized everything she had sought in her life.

  Norah didn’t deserve the hero she clutched but she couldn’t let him go.