I breathed and wished I could remove my helmet. It was very hot and I was feeling like I couldn’t stand another minute with it on. I glanced around the room and spotted two cameras. I immediately killed the wiring inside them with two angry blinks. That was an easier thing for me to do than search the area for organs.

I pulled my helmet off and, using my mouth, I asked, “Are there any freezers nearby? I especially want you to check those.”

“Who are you talking to, darling?” Christian asked from over my shoulder.

Whirling around, I saw he wasn’t on the bed. He was standing beside it with the blue sheet tied around his middle like a sarong. Was the Other Christian already there? 

The cuts in his chest and arms were already vanishing. The blood spilled from a particularly vicious cut in his throat was diving back into his body like a slasher scene in a movie played in reverse. And his eyes, those gray/green eyes, had that look in them like he knew exactly what he had to do. He didn’t say anything to me, just pushed the bed so it was no longer between us, and pulled me into his arms.

“Kiss me,” he said, right before he did so.

His lips were cold as they came down on mine. I loved him so completely, and yet it very much felt like I was kissing a dead person. 

I pulled off. “We have to get out of here,” I said, hefting my helmet back over my head. I grasped Christian’s hand in mine and started pulling, ever so relieved that I didn’t have to wheel him out of the prison on a gurney. 

Speaking in my helmet, I said, “Rhuk? Did you find any organs?”

“None.”

“Where’s buddy?”

“He’s outside, cowering around a corner,” Rhuk replied.

“Who are you talking to?” Christian asked as he allowed himself to be pulled around by me. 

I didn’t answer him. I just needed to get him out to the yard. Pricina could pick us up from any place that was nearby. 

“You should use the same exit the other man used,” Rhuk advised.

Immediately, I saw what Rhuk was talking about. That guy had broken off an entire door handle, security pad, and all. He could see my sword and he could move matter.

I used the door. Christian and I stepped out into the yard. 

Pricina wasn’t shining any of the helicopter’s lights, but she saw us when I waved and stopped the movement of the blades. Without them moving, she could drop the chopper down in an area as small as a parking space. The chopper didn’t fall heavily. She lowered it softly with her mind.

Moving to the back of the chopper, she helped Christian and I climb aboard and then returned to the pilot’s chair. She didn’t need to be there to move the helicopter. It was just a good seat. 

After I covered Christian with an emergency blanket, I looked around for the man I’d rescued. I spotted him across the yard. I waved to him.

He frowned and shook his head. We must have freaked him out when our chopper blades stopped moving, but still landed slowly. Shouldn’t he have known what that meant? That we were like him? That we were allies instead of enemies?

Who knew what he thought?

With mild regret, I slid the helicopter door closed and Pricina lifted it off the ground. What did that guy matter anyway?

I sat next to Christian in the back and took my helmet off.

I put my arms around him and struggled to explain my relief that he was safe. Whatever had happened, he was not dead. He had kept himself alive! I felt like I’d been given a new life too.