Page 76 of Fuse

I lean forward. The action drops the blanket around my waist down to my hips, but I don’t give a shit. What Alex says is a lot more important than what he sees right now. “Weird news?”

“Because it’s not necessarily bad news.” Fershan steps forward, looking like a flight attendant having to tell the passengers the plane has “a wee bit of engine trouble.”

I sit up higher. Drop the blanket lower. And care even less. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It’s a slight blip, and we’re fixing it.” Alex is right on time as the “sensible” flight attendant.

“A slight blip.” I swing my legs over the side of the bed. Then, fighting dizziness and nausea, force myself to fully sit up. “You want to explain why every instinct in my gut is calling bullshit on that?” And continues to do so, no matter how fiercely my brain bellows that I’ve just spent half a day in a psychological no-man’s land and it might be prudent to cut my “instincts” a huge break?

Which will happen. Just as soon as I get a straight answer, with an honest gaze, from even one of these fuckers.

“Okay, okay.” Alex spreads his hands wider, as if smoothing bed wrinkles off the air. “We’re putting carts in front of horses, and the animals aren’t even saddled yet.” More calming wrinkle-smoothing as the guy turns to fully face me—and at last grows the cajones to level his gaze with mine.

I drop my brows even lower. “What?” My trepidation doesn’t budge by a single degree.

Until I’m cognizant enough to ask myself the same damn question.

And realize that my brain already has the answer.

Because of what it’s not full of.

Because of who it’s not full of.

“Holy fuck.” I release one hand from its punishing grip on the edge of the table and wham it against my temple. “Holy, glorious, fuck of all fucks.” I add a gleeful cackle that could make me the next worthy contender for the Joker. “Where’d the bitch go? Wait. Scratch that. I don’t want to know. She’s gone, and I’m close to French kissing every one of you beautiful bastards for it.”

“Easy, Romeo.” Foley joins Alex in flattening the invisible bedspread. “We’re not sure Radio Faline is totally off the air yet.”

“We had to MacGyver a fix faster than we expected.” Getting to shout-out for one of his favorite heroes has detached Fersh from the awkward flight attendant thing—though his assertion reintroduces me to the well of troubled confusion.

“Why?” I prompt. “What was your original expectation?”

“He means we had to go in cold with an untested solution,” Alex inserts. “Going on the theory that Faline is really using radio waves to patch into your head, hopping onto whatever code Kane managed to cram into you, we figured that those waves would be interrupted if we could ionize your blood.”

Unlike a lot of conversations I have had with these guys, I actually follow what they’re saying. So far. “So you thought blasting me with a concentrated version of sun radiation would cause the radio frequencies to defract from the positive ions and free electrons—and then silence them.”

“Right on the money!” Fersh pushes up a thumb as if there’s a gold star on the end and he wants to smack it to my forehead.

“So how’d you make that happen?” I ask, genuinely interested despite the bizarreness that we’re discussing my fucking brain cells here. Back at Columbia, I’d picked a radio station conglomerate to study for an Investment Strategies midterm paper. It was one of a few times I’d actually been engaged by a college project. I’d learned an understanding of radio waves and how solar radiation and sun spots affect their strength. I also learned that most of those effects were temporary and that ions and electrons eventually equalize and recombine, allowing radio waves back through.

Leading back to the caution Foley’s already tossed out.

“We rewired the lines from all the photovoltaic cells in this place.” Alex darts a smirk toward the ceiling as emphasis. There are enough panels across this complex to give full power to a dozen Inglewood bungalows, three Simi Valley McMansions, and a couple of Santa Ynez ostrich farms. “Funneled them down here, where we switched out your IV lines for electric-safe PVC conduits, then shot the charge directly into you.”

As he relays the story, Fershan jams his hands into his lab coat pockets and fiddles with his favorite stress marbles. Even Foley gives in to a smirk. I don’t blame either of them.

“And you really just went for it,” I reply. “Balls to the wall? No test punch?” After confirming that much via their collective silence, I mutter, “That’s simultaneously cool and horrifying.” They saved me—but just as easily could’ve killed me.

“We had no time!” Fersh’s outburst seems to be borrowing another MacGyver meme—obscure as hell if that’s the case—but mixing it with genuine objection.

“Fersh is right,” Foley states. “There really wasn’t any time.” But as soon as I jump my brows and cock my head, demanding an explanation without having to demand it, he swings his stare back toward Alex. “And here’s where the master of tact gets to take it away again.”

“Dickwad,” Alex flings.

“For fuck’s sake. Just go for it,” Foley rumbles.

“What he said.” My rumble tackles the thunder cloud he won’t touch. Not that it’s necessary. Alex has known Foley longer, which means he also can tell when Foley’s simply being moody as opposed to don’t-fuck-with-me-I’m-on-a-mission grim. Right now, it’s blatantly the latter.

Alex yanks his shoulders back, clearly determined to support his explanation with an all-business posture. “We rushed because we knew you’d want to be woken up as soon as possible.”