Jinx was already in the medical room when Carl entered with Kayla in his arms. The moment he laid her on the examination table, activity erupted around him. Jinx bent down and cut off her jacket while Zane grabbed the I.V. and inserted the needle into Kayla’s arm. Jinx glanced at the monitor readings with a frown. “Her blood pressure is dropping.”

Carl grabbed a pouch of synthetic blood and handed it to Zane, who immediately hooked it up to the I.V. along with the saline solution. Jinx jerked open one of the drawers and pulled out a needle. She slid the needle into the I.V. and pushed a clear liquid through the line.

“What are you giving her?” Veridian leaned forward, peering over Jinx’s shoulder.

“Just something to help boost her blood pressure,” Jinx explained without looking away from the monitor. As soon as Kayla’s blood pressure stabilized and her vital signs moved into a more acceptable range, Jinx gave her another injection. “This is a metabolic booster. It’ll speed up her healing rate.”

Carl adjusted the scanner hanging on the wall. “Everyone step back for a minute.”

Zane and Jinx moved away from Kayla while Carl activated the scanner. A thin beam of light moved over her form and then beeped loudly. Carl studied the images that flashed on the screen.

“She’s got a concussion. Her left wrist is fractured, and it looks like she has two cracked ribs. With the head wound too… This was way too close.”

Carl gripped the edge of the counter and took a deep breath. It was his fault this happened. He’d known Ramiro was unbalanced since he witnessed his reaction to her in his office. He could have pushed OmniLab harder to step in immediately. Instead, he wasted time playing games trying to get her to open up to him.

Jinx put her hand on Carl’s arm. “It could have been worse. We can fix those. She’ll be okay, Carl. You got to her in time.”

A chair squeaked across the floor. Carl turned to see Veridian sit beside the medical bed. The younger man stroked Kayla’s hair and kissed her forehead, whispering reassuring words in her ear.

Carl felt a pang of jealousy at the display of tenderness. He longed to be the one next to her, but he hadn’t earned that right. He might not be able to erase what happened, but he could make sure Ramiro never hurt anyone again.

Determination in his gaze, he declared, “It shouldn’t have happened in the first place.” He pressed the button on his commlink. “Xantham, what have you learned?”

“Just a second, Boss. I’ll be right there.”

A minute later, Xantham appeared. When he saw Kayla, his eyes widened in shock. “Holy shit. What the hell did he do to her?”

“From the looks of it, he smacked her around and tried to strangle her,” Zane said in a dry voice and crossed his arms over his chest. “But it looked like Kayla was able to drop the bastard before he could finish the job.”

“Oh man.”

Carl turned to him. “What did you find out?”

Xantham tore his eyes away from Kayla. “Ramiro didn’t want to get his hands dirty, so he sent Vex. Vex had been camping right outside the range of our perimeter. They locked onto her bike signal as soon as she left. Ramiro told him to make it look like an accident.”

Carl’s eyes hardened. “Did he say anything else?”

Xantham looked uncomfortable. “Vex… uh, laughed and said the little whore was going to meet the same end as her boyfriend. Ramiro’s been freaking out for the past hour since Vex stopped transmitting.”

“Tell me you have it recorded.”

“Yeah, but Boss, I don’t think OmniLab will be real happy if they find out I hacked into Ramiro’s comms.”

“I don’t care,” Carl dismissed his concerns. Playing by the straight and narrow hadn’t prevented two people from dying and another from being seriously injured. “You acted on my orders. I’m sending the recording to OmniLab. He’s not getting away with this.”

Xantham nodded. Jinx waved her hands, motioning everyone toward the door. “Everyone out except Veridian. I need to put on the bone molds and get her cleaned up.”

“I’m staying,” Carl said firmly.

Jinx frowned. As the crew trickled out, Jinx said, “Fine. But you don’t need to watch. She deserves some privacy after what she’s been through.”

Carl obediently averted his eyes while Veridian and Jinx undressed Kayla and cleaned her wounds. After Jinx wrapped her ribs with the bone molds, Veridian pulled a blanket over Kayla. “Okay, Carl. We’re done.”

Carl turned back around. Kayla’s dark hair fell around her face and was still damp from where Jinx had washed the blood out of it. Her eyes were closed, and she looked extraordinarily pale. The bruises around her neck were darkening. Carl could see the outline of where Vex’s fingers had gripped her.

Jinx pointed to the bone mold on the counter. “Carl, would you mind putting that on her wrist?”

He nodded and gently lifted Kayla’s hand to wrap her wrist in the mold. Jinx adjusted the I.V. “It’ll take a few hours for the bone molds to finish regenerating her bones. She’ll need at least one more bag of synthetic blood, but at least her vitals are stable now. With that concussion, she’ll probably be confused when she wakes up. I don’t want to give her a painkiller until then. Right now, being unconscious is the best thing for her.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Carl offered.

“In that case, I’m going to go get rid of these clothes. We’re going to need to get her some more UV gear. These are trashed.”

“That’s fine. I’ll arrange it.” It was the least he could do. Hell, he’d buy her a new speeder if he thought it would make it up to her.

Jinx stepped out of the room, carrying the ruined clothes. Veridian held Kayla’s uninjured hand and watched her silently. Carl pulled up another chair and sat on the other side of Kayla. He put his head in his hands and sighed.

“So what happens now?”

He glanced up to see Veridian’s worried expression. “I’ll send the recording to OmniLab. They need to know what happened. They have an obligation to protect her as part of the contract.” He wished he felt as confident as he sounded. OmniLab should never have put Ramiro into a position of authority.

“She won’t get into any trouble over killing Vex, will she?”

Carl shook his head. He’d make sure of it. “No. There’s no doubt she was simply defending herself.”

“I’d love to be alone with Ramiro for five minutes right now.”

Carl nodded in agreement. “You’re not the only one.”

They both fell silent for several minutes. “She’s going to be pissed when she wakes up and sees this. She hates being sick or injured.”

Carl’s mouth twisted into a smile, remembering how she’d objected to using the medicinal cream. “I believe it.”

“Thanks for going down to get her. Most traders wouldn’t have done that.”

“I don’t think she would have been down there if it weren’t for me,” Carl admitted in frustration. “I gave her the scotch hoping to get her to open up and talk to me about Pretz. I knew there was more to the story than she originally told me. I should have waited for her to come around in her own time.”

Veridian shook his head. “I’m not sure about that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m angry this happened, but I don’t know about the rest. It’s been a year, and she hasn’t opened up about Pretz. Tonight was the first time I actually saw her cry. She’s kept all those feelings bottled up for a long time. She needed to let them out.”

“She told me she loved him.”

Veridian looked at him in surprise and then considered Kayla thoughtfully. “She never told me that. I knew she cared about him, but I didn’t realize…” His voice trailed off, indecision playing across his face. After a long moment, he said, “She can sometimes come across as being a sarcastic hard-ass, but that’s not who she is. Kayla’s got one of the biggest hearts I’ve ever seen. She’s either been hurt or has lost everyone she’s ever cared about. She doesn’t like to let people get too close.”

Carl raised an eyebrow, surprised at the volunteered information. From everything he’d seen, Veridian was a staunch defender of Kayla’s privacy. Wondering where this sudden loquaciousness was coming from, he observed, “She seems to be close to you.”

“I guess, but I’ve hurt her too. After my mother died, Kayla needed me and I wasn’t there for her. She turned to Pretz instead.”

“Kayla was close to her?”

Veridian rubbed Kayla’s hand and didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice was quiet. “Yeah. Kayla grew up in our camp. There was some sort of collapse in the ruins when she was a kid. Leo and my mother heard screams and went to investigate. Several people were down there when the beams fell. One of the women in the group was badly hurt but conscious. When she saw Leo and my mother, she pushed Kayla through a small opening and begged my mother to take her. My mother pulled Kayla out right before another beam fell. Leo and my mother were lucky to make it out of there alive.”

“What the hell were they doing taking a kid into the ruins?” Carl had difficulty imagining taking a child down into the ruins. There were far too many dangers.

Veridian shrugged. “She was a little young, but it’s not that unusual. We have to learn sometime. Leo tried to find out what camp she was from. He asked some other scavengers, but no one seemed to know anything about them. He gave up and figured they were new to the area, maybe starting a new camp.”

“I wasn’t much older than Kayla when she came to live with us.” Veridian smiled at the memory. “She was headstrong, even then. She had to know how everything worked. I think she drove people crazy with her nonstop questions, but she was absolutely brilliant. If you showed her something once, she immediately caught on. She was easily out-scavenging seasoned ruin rats by the time she was twelve.”

“How long ago did she come to live with you?”

Veridian thought carefully. “I don’t know. I’m guessing it was about sixteen years ago. That would make her around twenty or twenty-one now.”

Carl sat back, somewhat surprised. He’d known she was young, but it was strange to have it confirmed. Most people with her level of skill and experience were several years older. It seemed they both had one more thing in common: responsibility had been put on both of them at a young age.

Glancing down at her, his heart thrummed in his chest. She looked so vulnerable surrounded by the medical equipment. He ached to pull her into his arms and hold her. He swallowed and looked up to see Veridian studying him with an uncanny awareness. Carl cleared his throat. “I’m surprised you’re being this open with me.”

Veridian rubbed his thumb across the top of Kayla’s hand. “Kayla’s been living in a fog since Pretz died. She’s gone through the motions but there’s been something missing. She might kick my ass for telling you everything, but I doubt it. Scotch or not, she wouldn’t have opened up to you about Pretz if she didn’t want you to know. It’s more than that though.” He looked up to meet Carl’s eyes. “She lights up when she’s around you. I’ve missed seeing that spark in her. I know it won’t last, but I’m thankful you brought it back.”

Carl opened his mouth to object, but words failed him. Veridian was right. Anything between him and Kayla could only be temporary. He had less than three years left on his contract. After that, he had to return to the towers. No matter what was growing between them, it wasn’t fair to her to begin something he couldn’t finish.

A monitor beeped, and Carl stood to replace the pouch of synthetic blood with a new one. He adjusted her I.V. line, and she moved slightly.

“I think she’s waking up. Kayla? Can you hear me?”

Her green eyes slowly opened, and Carl sighed in relief. She squinted at the bright light and tried to look around the room. Crying out in pain from the effort, she fell back again.

Veridian stood, putting his hands on her shoulders to prevent her from trying to sit up. “You need to stay still, Kayla. You were hurt. You’ve lost a lot of blood and broken a few bones. It’ll take a few more hours for them to be repaired.”

Kayla lifted her broken wrist and stared at the bone mold.

“Shit.” Dropping her wrist back down, she winced in pain. “My head is freaking killing me. What happened?”

“What do you remember?” Veridian sat back down beside her.

She frowned. “Uh, crap. I think… I was in the ruins?”

Carl picked up the painkiller and brought it toward her I.V. line. “That’s right. You should feel better pretty soon though. You need to rest right now.”

She held up her hand when she saw the needle. “Wait. Stop. Don’t give me that yet. It makes me stupid. I need to remember. Oh shit. It even hurts to breathe.”

Carl paused, the needle hovering by the I.V. line. “Kayla, it’ll stop the pain.”

“No, dammit. Hang on. Let me think a minute,” she insisted stubbornly. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Her eyes flew open. “Where’s Vex?”

“He’s dead.” Veridian’s voice was matter-of-fact.

“He is?” She reached up with her uninjured hand to touch her throat, wincing in pain at the movement. “He was choking me. I grabbed my knife and tried to stop him. He… Did he throw me into the wall?”

Carl nodded. “Kayla, it’s going to be all right. I’m going to give you the painkiller now.”

When she didn’t offer any further objections, he pushed the medicine into the line and watched as she began to relax. “Oh, crap… that’s… that works. I guess I needed that.”

“You’re actually admitting I was right?”

“Maybe,” she murmured and looked up at him. With her uninjured hand, she reached out to grasp his hand. He pressed a kiss on the inside of her palm, careful not to hurt her further. She gave a long, drawn-out sigh. “Too damn pretty. Why did you have to be a trader?”

Carl chuckled. “So I could get stubborn ruin rats out of trouble. Now you need to close your eyes and get some rest.”

Once he’d made sure she was sleeping comfortably, Carl headed toward the common room. His crew was standing around talking but fell silent the moment he entered.

Jinx took a step toward him. “Is she awake?”

“She’s sleeping again, but she regained consciousness for a few minutes. I gave her the painkiller, and it knocked her out.” Carl turned to the rest of the crew. “I know you’re concerned, but she’s going to be fine. We’re going to need to take shifts around the clock for a while until this issue with Ramiro is settled. I’ll push on OmniLab to try to get them moving.”

Xantham scratched his head. “I’m going to need to take the first shift then. Zane, you mind joining me? I need to make sure our comms are locked up tight after they infiltrated them earlier.”

After Zane agreed, Cruncher spoke up. “Elyot and I will take the second shift.”

“Carl, I think I should stay with Kayla tonight,” Jinx suggested. “She seems to be out of danger, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

Carl threw her a grateful look. “Thanks, I was going to ask you to check in on her throughout the night. Veridian is going to stay with her, but I would feel more comfortable if you watched her too.”

She turned to Lisia. “Would you mind checking in on her tomorrow during the second shift? Or would you rather help out with the security systems?”

Lisia looked up from the ground when everyone’s gaze fell on her. “I-I’ll work security tomorrow,” she stammered before turning away and striding out of the room.

Elyot frowned at his sister’s behavior. “Jinx, I can check on her tomorrow instead.”

Carl held up his hand, waving off Elyot’s excuses. “That’s all right. Why don’t you guys get some rest? I need to go give Ramiro a call and tell him to get Vex’s body out of my district.”