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Samh 1.19.1345 09:23
Juliabella’s throbbing head caused her to force open her eyes. What she saw made her sit upright, shooting pain through her body and causing her to cry out.
“Are you okay?”
A man’s concerned voice drew her attention momentarily from her pain.
“Who are you? How did I get here? Where am I?”
“You don’t remember anything?”
Juliabella tried to think.
“My head hurts to badly to think.”
The man quickly went to a box strapped to the wall of the structure they were in and removed what looked like a syringe. Coming to her side, he kneeled and gently touched her arm—sending a jolt of electricity into her stomach and making it flipflop. She chastised herself. She had barely looked at a man since her husband died, and now she was jumping at a stranger. Suddenly, the image of the man she had cared for in the hospital popped into her head and her heart began to beat faster. Perhaps, she thought, she should stop getting out so much. Too many strange men were making her insides weak, lately.
“Your face is getting a little red. Are you hot?”
“Yeah,” Juliabella replied, even more embarrassed at being discovered.
“I will open the ultra-helio up in a few minutes. This shot is the only way to help your pain. I did not want to give it to you until you woke because I was not sure how it would interact with what the Xiepvuians gave you.
“Right now, I don’t care what you give me. If you can make this headache go away, I might just kiss you!” At that, he startled and dropped the syringe, and she was immediately ashamed of herself. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t really going to take advantage of you. I—just please give me the shot.”
The man picked up the syringe quickly, injected its contents into her left arm, and then left. Juliabella was not sure if she was relieved or disappointed.
She tried to think, but the thoughts came slowly. She was in a landcraft accident. That much was strong. She remembered fighting someone, but for some reason she knew it was not the man who was here with her. This man—she finally remembered—had saved her. After that, she must have passed out. She could remember nothing beyond collapsing in his arms after he unbound her from the solocraft.
There was something in the back of her brain. She knew she was forgetting something important. She tried again. She had been in an accident. She locked her daughters in the—her daughters! She immediately tried to stand. The throbbing had only eased slightly from the newly delivered shot, but she needed to find the man. She dragged herself to the door by grabbing onto the many protrusions and hooks on the walls of the ultra-helio.
“Have you seen my daughters? Are they okay?”
The man came to the door in front of her. He looked at her with a guilt-ridden face.
“Are they dead?” she demanded.
“You should not be up. And you ask too many questions. Give yourself some time. I am sure you will remember most of it, but no, I have not seen your daughters. When my team arrived at the scene of the accident, I came after you directly. If your daughters were there, my team would have found them, though.”
More questions flooded into her mind, and then the world swirled. He caught her. She gazed deeply into his eyes and swallowed.
“If you insist on saving me repeatedly like this, you really should tell me your name.”
“Talrederick,” he smiled. “Count of Anorraq. I was in the—”
Suddenly, the sound of approaching ultra-helios grew louder and filled the air. Talrederick looked at the sky toward the sound and set her gently down on the step of the ultra-helio that she had just fallen out of.
“I believe we are saved,” he said simply and began to clean up the camp.
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