Book I - ch 19. The Choices Within Each Consequence

* * *

Pegasus watched as the syringe filled with his blood.

Doctor Brown hadn’t stopped talking the entire time. Pegasus answered the questions when there was a pause, but otherwise couldn’t tell if the comments were directed at him or not.

“No sign of jaundice so far. That’s good. The irritation looks mildly better. Have you been using the eye drops I gave you? Any sign of blood in your urine?”

When they started filling the third tube with his blood, Pegasus checked the nearby table. “You’re not planning to take what’s left of my blood today, are you?”

“No, this will be quite enough.” The Doctor handed him a cotton ball. “Any coughing? Trouble breathing?”

Pegasus was more or less sure he was answering the questions, but everything was blurring together and he was struggling to focus. It could be because he wasn’t feeling well. Or it could be that it was late enough that his brain was shutting down. He’d rather believe the latter, but he’d been feeling pretty bad towards the end of his talk with Sarah.

“How are you feeling today?”

Pegasus shrugged. “I was feeling better, but now not so much.”

“Have you eaten anything?”

“Haven’t felt like eating.”

“Nauseous?”

“A little.”

“If it were solely up to me, I’d have you restricted to one of these beds so we can monitor you. Some symptoms may show up now or even in a couple of weeks.”

“You think it’s still going to get worse?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure what to expect. From what we know of analogous substances, I had hoped that you wouldn’t be showing any more signs.”

“He’s messing with you, Doc,” Scorpion said from the door. “Everyone knows he’s not that easy to kill.”

But even she couldn’t hide the concern in her voice.

“And how’s your leg doing today?” Doctor Brown asked her.

“Feels better. I think the meds finally kicked in.”

“Did they change your bandage yet?”

“I was thinking I could do that myself since I’m kinda tight for time…”

Doctor Brown scoffed. “Nonsense.”

She let out an irritated sigh and leaned against the doorjamb, focusing on her tablet.

“Where’s the fire?” Pegasus asked her as Doctor Brown put a stethoscope against his back.

The doctor shushed him.

Scorpion’s lips twitched. “No fire. But I want to finish some of these background checks from the surveillance Wolf sent over before going to bed.”

“Didn’t Cypher say he’d take care of that?” Pegasus asked.

Again, the doctor shushed him.

“Yeah, but I’d feel better if I went over them myself.”

Pegasus shook his head. He didn’t want to be anywhere near the place when that particular argument started up again. Cypher hated feeling like people were double-checking his work.

Doctor Brown started calmly making some notes in his chart, and Scorpion tapped her good foot loudly to show her impatience.

“Get anything else out of Gellman about why they might want Sarah dead?” Pegasus asked, trying to distract her.

“Nothing much. And we’re still checking what we got from the site.”

“I’ll see if they need an extra pair of eyes.” He might not be able to go outside, but this would be something he could help with.

“I heard they have another assignment for you.” There was a trace of mockery to her tone.

What type of assignment would amuse her? They wouldn’t have him cleaning the kitchen or anything like that…

“I don’t see why we can’t add her room to the surveillance cams and let them handle it upstairs,” she said. “Or we could put her in an induced coma again, seemed to work well last time.”

That earned her a look of reproach from the doctor.

Pegasus sighed. “This is about Sarah?”

“Griffon mentioned something about you babysitting Dragon’s sister again.”

“Why would anyone need to?” he asked.

Scorpion shrugged.

“I’m amazed we even need a com system. The grapevine is working just fine.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t do much for me, you know.”

He grinned. “Was that sarcasm?”

She ran a hand through her hair. “Anyway, you’ll be too busy making sure she doesn’t accidentally kill herself to do any real work.”

He shrugged. “I wonder if she plays backgammon.”

The contempt that had flashed in her face vanished. He could tell Scorpion had been expecting him to be angry. But there wasn’t much to be angry about. He was expendable at the moment, he knew that. Still, he couldn’t hide his disappointed about being sidelined.

“It’s your own fault you’re like this. You know they only asked you to conduct Sarah’s test because you could either calm her or charm her into behaving…” She paused, narrowing her gaze. “Or are you the one being charmed?”

“Jealous?”

“Go shoot yourself.”

“I was thinking we might as well get a sample of your bone marrow,” Doctor Brown said, probably hoping to diffuse the developing argument. “I’ll give you something for the pain.”

Scorpion crossed her arms. “Must you, Doc? You know how he gets.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The doctor stopped and gave her a serious look. “You know I abhor pain.”

Pegasus couldn’t help laugh at the seriousness with which Doctor Brown replied.

Scorpion pointed a finger at him. “You’re a chaos creator.”

“It’s fine, Doc. I can put up with the pain so it won’t annoy her.”

“Don’t make any promises you don’t intend to keep.”

Instantly seething from her words, Pegasus’ smile vanished. “No, that’s your thing.”

She gave him an icy stare. “And you’re not even dosed yet. See?”

He kept his mouth shut that time. Saying anything at this point would only make it worse. He leaned back on the bed and closed his eyes.

“I’d better get going if I still want to catch some sleep,” Scorpion said. “I’ll find someone to help me with my bandage.”

“You don’t really need to give me anything, do you?” Pegasus asked once Scorpion had left.

Doctor Brown sighed. “No, I don’t. And she’s got a point, it does make you harder to handle.”

Pegasus didn’t argue; they were right.

It took the doctor another hour to finish collecting samples and ask more questions. Pegasus did his best impersonation of tired patience and waited.

“How’s it looking, Doc?” Pegasus asked when enough time had passed that he wondered if Doctor Brown had forgotten he was still there.

“Your red blood cell count is still low. Based on what we know of similar toxic substances, another few weeks should give us a better idea of your clinical evolution. But some signs could, in theory, show up even further down the line.”

“What I’m hearing is you have no idea.”

The doctor looked down at his notes, looking very focused.

“And how long am I grounded for?”

“At least two weeks, and then we’ll see. Consider yourself lucky that you’re alive and more or less unharmed so far.”

True. It could’ve been worse. “How’s Bear? I didn’t get a chance to talk to her yet.”

“I’ve spoken with the Lair’s head physician. She’s doing better, so they’re hopeful. They estimate she’d been inhaling the toxic fumes for at least ten minutes before you found her, so that explains the differences. If she could’ve stopped breathing, she would’ve been fine.”

“Yeah, if she’d died, she wouldn’t have breathed in any harmful substances. Would’ve been perfect.”

The doctor scowled.

Pegasus raised his hands defensively.

“I hear she’s been wanting to thank you. She would’ve died if you hadn’t gone back for her.”

“I’ll call her later. Maybe we can do a video chat from our sick beds to pass the time. I hear she likes chess.”

“Well, don’t overdo it the next few days or I will have you confined to one of these beds,” the doctor warned. “Now go sleep.”

Pegasus gave the doctor a mock salute and left before they remembered any more tests they wanted to do on him.

He refused to check his watch, but he was tired enough that he probably should have been in bed a couple of hours ago. Everyone said it was easy to lose track of time when there was no sky to darken or lighten in view, but not him. His internal clock not only worked, it had a mean streak when he ignored it.

Scorpion had always teased him about it.

He sighed. It wasn’t like he was actively trying to upset her. He couldn’t help feeling angry and he couldn’t help blame her for it.

Feeling as if the exhaustion from his body was finally reaching his mind, he let out another long breath.

It was bad enough—not to mention embarrassing—that Griffon had called him out on it twice already. Thankfully, it hadn’t reached Zeus yet. And no, he didn’t want to talk to Athena about his personal life.

Even he recognized he’d been a handful lately, but Scorpion was being particularly infuriating the past few weeks. Especially about Sarah. He almost missed the silent treatment he’d been getting before all this.

True that Robyn had gotten involved in their fight, but what was her problem with Sarah? Or was he reading too much into it?

He couldn’t discard the possibility that he was worrying too much about Sarah. But both she and Robyn were already dealing with the loss of their parents. Sarah was also having to accept this entire world she didn’t know about. Not to mention she still seemed scared of losing Robyn as well. If they’d gotten there even five minutes later, it might’ve been too late and Sarah would’ve been all alone.

He leaned his head against the cold elevator wall and closed his eyes.

A lot was bothering him about that entire situation, starting with the fact that the assassination attempt had been so sloppy and public.

They were missing something. They had to be.

He only realized he’d gotten out on the wrong floor when he walked right past Cypher’s station. His friend was notably absent, probably asleep.

Pegasus glanced at the monitors displaying the security footage automatically. There was always a constant feed from all over the compound, and the time of day could be gaged by how empty the hallways were. There was virtually no one out in the halls on the lower floors right now.

After what felt like too long of an elevator ride, he finally made his way back to his room. He opened the door and stepped inside, his hand stopping short of the light switch. He felt something different before he knew what it was.

“Hey,” a voice greeted him from a dark corner.

He took a step back, ready to press the intercom.

Robyn turned on the overhead lamp, laughing at him.

“I’m starting to think no one sleeps around here.” He closed the door. “What’s with the ambush?”

“Sorry. Didn’t know you were that jumpy.”

He shrugged, taking a seat on the chair facing her. He untied his shoes, being incredibly patient about an explanation for why she was in his room. Or maybe he was confusing patience with exhaustion.

She yawned. “You sure took your time getting here.”

“Seriously? You were spying on me?”

“What else are the security cameras for?”

He rolled his eyes at her.

“I ran into Scorpion,” she said.

Pegasus stopped unbuttoning his shirt. “Just so you know, I’m not letting you punch me again. I’m pretty sure the expiration date went out on that.”

She frowned. “No, that’s not why I’m here.”

“What do you need?”

“I wanted to talk to you about Sarah.”

“Did you get the results from the test?”

“Yeah, she’s as clear as she’s gonna be.”

“What’s bothering you then?”

“There’s a meeting tomorrow. We’re gonna be going over what we have from Gellman and what Wolf sent along. I think they’re going to bring us up to speed on what they have for the bomb threats, too.”

“What’s that got to do with Sarah?”

“The tests came through, and she’s clear…” She stared down at her feet.

Pegasus nodded in understanding. “And that means she’s one step closer to being sent back.”

“Cypher has someone checking any connection to Gellman’s cell to see if there’s anyone looking for her. So far there’s been no activity around anyone in Sarah’s life.”

Pegasus nodded along, but his thoughts went in a different direction. If they had a reason for wanting Sarah dead, wouldn’t that go beyond one small terrorist cell? If the order came from up high, like Gellman said, then shouldn’t the order be given to others when the first attempt failed?

“That doesn’t really make sense,” he said.

“Which part of it does?”

Pegasus leaned back, stretching his legs. “What’s the plan?”

“Deacon’s working on a story. We’re going with the lack of identification at the hospital type thing.”

“That should work with her injuries.”

“Yeah. I’ve put in all the requests, but everyone’s busy. Since Zeus is taking you out of the game on Doc Brown’s orders… I figured you could help me with this?”

“I was hoping to get myself assigned to the fact checking.”

“I don’t think you’re going anywhere near the missions. Face it, you look like crap.”

“Gee, thanks. You look nice, too.”

“Anyway, will you help me with prepping Sarah?”

“I thought you’d want to do it.”

“Well, I’m gonna be busy with Gellman for a few more days. Until we’re sure he’s given us everything he knows. And then there’s the bomb threat.” Robyn’s gaze lowered again. “Besides, it’s gonna be painful, I think, for both of us, to have to talk about never seeing each other again.”

“She’s not going to take it well.” If the way her sister reacted when he first told her she’d be separated from Robyn was any indication, it would be anything but a smooth process. He didn’t want to be the one to tell Sarah she was being shipped off to her aunt’s never to see Robyn again. They would probably hear the yelling all the way up in comm.

* * *

Robyn looked up when Pegasus didn’t say anything else. Was he still thinking? She watched his breaths for a moment, the slow rise and fall of his chest. Was he asleep?

“Hey, you still with me?”

He lifted a hand as a sign of life, his eyes opened into slits. “Have you talked to her yet?”

Robyn shook her head. She was being a bit of a coward.

He sighed. “Dragon…”

“I know, I know.” She threw her hands up, leaning her head back to stare at the ceiling. “I keep telling myself that I should go talk to her.”

“I believe you.” His tone was gentle. “But you’re not listening to yourself. She needs to hear it from you if she’s to accept it or at least understand where you’re coming from. I don’t think she’s gonna listen to anyone else. And don’t you want to talk to her? To explain why you’re doing this?”

Was there even an explanation she could give for all this? Robyn smiled, trying to dispel her sadness. “I guess.”

Funny how she’d never thought of Pegasus as a close friend. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he’d pulled a gun on her when they first met. She always thought her opinion of him was molded by that first impression. During her time with the W.R.O., she’d been much closer to Scorpion, but this wasn’t at all an unwelcome change. If nothing else, it was coming in handy.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“Then why do you have a weird look on your face?”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re smarter than you seem?”

“Yes, you. Now get lost. I feel as bad as you say I look.”

He waved her off without moving from his seat, but he was smiling.

Yeah, she really hadn’t expected this. Just like she hadn’t expected to find it so hard to say goodbye to Sarah.