Through the Static by Jeanette Grey Read Free Book Online Page A

He folded his big frame into the seat, then pressed his palm to the control panel in the center of the console. The engine of the vehicle roared to life.
    He strapped himself in, wrapped one hand around the steering wheel at the same time he reached over with the other and grasped the back of her neck. The contact soothed all the frayed edges inside of her.
    And then they were off.
    He drove like a maniac through the brush and onto the narrow dirt path. The sight of branches whipping out at them brought a wave of nausea and flashbacks from the night before. A sensation of running through trees, wet and bleeding. As the first wave of adrenaline from their escape abated, the ache in her shoulder flared. She winced, lifting the arm gingerly, and in her periphery, Jinx frowned.
    â€œYou need a doctor.”
    She’d heard his voice so rarely, and always when he was throwing it around for his partners’ benefit. Hearing it here in this close space, as tense as it was, it sounded musical and intimate. She wanted to hear more.
    She scanned his form, grimacing at the bruise blooming across his temple before taking in the blood and scrapes on his knuckles where they gripped the steering wheel. “So do you.”
    His words were tight and clipped. “I’m fine.”
    But even as he spoke, a menacing tickle of electrical noise skimmed across the surface of their connection. Things were unstable inside him, and though he was trying to keep it from her, he couldn’t contain the aftereffects of being torn from his Three the way he had.
    He needed more than a doctor. He needed Isabel’s sure surgeon’s hands. He needed Stan.
    Aurelia bit back the dizziness swirling through her head again at the thought of her research partner, soaked in blood and laid out beside the open door of their transport. She wished so badly that he were here. While she’d led the way with the more theoretical parts of their work, Stan had always been the better clinician, steadier with his hands and more delicate with his manipulations of the connections between neurons and electrodes. He would know what to do—how to sever Jinx from his Three. And from her.
    There was a low rumble from beside her. She looked over to see Jinx staring straight ahead, jaw tense, arms locked. “Who is he?”
    She cursed. It took time to settle into a connection like this, and she wasn’t guarding her thoughts closely enough. “My research partner. Stan.”
    Jinx’s body tensed further. “Is he…”
    A rush of heat surged through her spine and lingered in her sex as flashes of how Jinx had kissed her warmed her skin. Still, it took her a second to comprehend what he was asking—if there was someone else she owed those kisses to. If Stan was that someone to her.
    â€œNo.” She turned away and gazed out the window. “And even if he was…” She ground her teeth together and said a silent, guarded prayer inside her head. “He’s dead.”
    A hush fell over them, made deeper when they drove off the dirt road and onto smooth asphalt. No longer bumping with the uneven ground, the car ceased its trembling even as it accelerated.
    Jinx finally broke the uneasy quietude. “I’m sorry.”
    â€œMe, too.”
    Stan had been one of the only people she’d ever trusted, and even that had been hard-won over a period of years and years of slow advances. The only other people were Isabel and…she shuddered. Peter.
    Unwilling to go anywhere near that, especially while her mind was not her own, she refocused on the road in front of them, physically and metaphorically. Watching the pavement disappear beneath them, she tried to sort out a plan.
    â€œHow long until your partners catch up with us?” she asked.
    â€œI can’t hear them.” The way he said it, the words sounded hollow, his disconcertedness bleeding across the wires.
    She reached out with as much comfort as