“She did what?” Mira was utterly beside herself that Layla had gone off on her own and once again acted recklessly, endangering others to thwart the pipeline. Carter had her by the shoulder from where she sat at Nate ’s desk, but it did little to comfort her.“She is in the county jail,” Nate explained. “I could overlook one attack that didn’t hurt anyone, but this time she used a grenade, blew out the side of our trailer, and put my father in the hospital. He’s going to presscharges, needless to say.”“Is he all right?” she asked.“He hit his head fairly hard and fractured his shoulder, but neither are life threatening.”Mira could hear his voice waver as though he was entirely beside himself.“How are you?” she asked urgently.“A bruised rib, but I will live.”Mira sensed Carter get to his feet, as his hand slipped off her shoulder.“I have to see her,” he explained. “Let’s get Harold on this if we can. Get her bail set.”“You can try,” said Nate . “I doubt she will be offered a ba
As they dove into their meal, Nate found moments to squeeze her hand. She felt a bit childlike stabbing at her pasta with little awareness when she accidentally pushed it off her plate, but Nate cleaned up afterher, making no fuss of collecting the bits and placing them into a side plate to his right.“One piece of good news about being at the hospital for an hour,”he started, but paused to drink his wine. “I was able to speak with a reputable ophthalmologist about getting you in for an appointment soon.”“To do what? Did you find an eye donor?”“Well no, not yet. They will need to run a number of tests first to see how your optic and retinal nerves are healing. I had thought we would need to wait weeks before you'd be well enough to undergo tests, but after speaking with the specialist, it looks like you can go in right away. It will give them insight as to how to proceed when we do find a donor.”“And you like this doctor?”“He is one of the best in Seattle and has had promising r
Mira woke with the morning sun on her face, but its warmth wasn’t what struck her. She could see a burst of light flickering and waning.She could see. She bolted upright in response and angled her face towardsthe window where the sun was streaming into the bedroom.Was her mind playing tricks on her? Was this merely a desperate psychological reaction to her fear of receiving a damning diagnosis later this morning? Or were her eyes miraculously coming back to life?To test her ability, she hugged both hands around her eyes until darkness fell then drew them away fast and waited for the burst of life. It was slow, but came through. Why would it be slow? Frustrated to discover a surefire cause and effect, she kept covering her eyes then removing herhands, but the light burst was unpredictable. At times, it would comeimmediately. Other times, she remained in darkness. She didn’t understand the anatomy of the eyes or the brain behind them. Were neurons firing, alluding to sight that wa
Carter approached the bars with heavy steps. The Bellevue jail smelled of bleach and mildew, and the windows, lined with bars and high on the back wall of each cell, offered virtually no natural light. Fluorescent buzzed overhead, which only added to his growing agitation.Within the cell, Layla was seated in an exhausted hunch with her back to him. The bed she sat on was sunken in and its pillow lay on the concrete floor.“Hey,” he said, keeping his booming tone low so as not to garnish the guard’s attention who was standing post near the jail’s entrance, which separated it from the front desk where a wealth of police officers were in and out, getting calls and drinking coffee.“Yeah?” she said, glancing over her shoulder before looking away, gaze falling to the pillow on the floor. “If you’re not here about my bail or to let me know when Harold’s coming or to give me a shred of good news then I would rather be alone.” “Come to the bars, Layla, I shouldn’t have to shout.”“Why? So y
Mira was seated in a chair and trying not to shift around, even though she felt uncomfortable lying back at a forty five degree angle with a metal plate pressed against her face. The plate was cold as ice, yet the light Dr. Fitzpatrick used to see through her left eye then the right caused the white starbursts to flare as they had that morning.“Right now, Mira , I’m taking images of the optic nerves,” he explained, and then she heard a series of faint clicks. “You may feel a little woozy, but that’s perfectly normal.”To say she might feel a little woozy was the understatement of the century. Prior to helping her into the chair, which she imagined looked just like one a dentist would use, Dr. Fitzpatrick’s nurse shot a numbing agent into each eye, and the second it hit her bloodstream she felt downright drunk“Okay, Mira , you are going to feel some pressure,” he said. A moment later, she felt the prick of his surgical needle easing through her right eye.Nate held her right arm, whi
Sensing him enter the room behind her, she pulled her shirt up and over her head and let it fall to the floor as she turned. She stripped her bra off next and caught the sweet sound of him faintly groaning a long exhale.“Take off your shirt,” she whispered, as he advanced on her quickly.He slowed, taking a moment to peel the layer off before wrestling his belt open.The cool AC stung her bare breasts, and she felt her nipples grow hard as she undid her jeans and pulled them down, stepping out of them once she had kicked off her shoes.Just as she hooked her thumbs under the sides of her panties, he stopped her, holding her hands then using his own to graze the skin around her backside until he was gripping her ass.His mouth, the smooth slippery curve of his tongue, played around her right nipple before he sucked the mound of her breast, simultaneously massaging her ass, making her grow wet and tingly.“I need to forget,” she said, savoring the feel of his hands as they grazed up he
With Layla out of One World, Mira couldn’t seem to get a hold of Carter other than a few briefly worded text messages. She wasn’t so naive as to think that she would retain Carter’s loyalty after having fired hisgirlfriend, but she thought he would at least resign by giving her a direct explanation as to why he couldn’t continue in his role with her organization.It had been three days of this. Nate had been in and out, working hard to get Starlight back on track but with materials that Mira would approve of. In the meantime, other members of One World had come to the. Escala to strategize with her, namely Hector and Jenny, who were certainly committed but lacked experience.If she were being honest, losing Carter and Layla was coming at a very high price.Nevertheless, they planned to meet their attorney, Harold, at the Starlight site and present their negotiation that the construction company dig a new trench eight miles out from the Bellevue town community, so any future natural g
It didn’t matter that she had dragged Carter out of the trailer. It didn’t matter that she had let him have it, utterly furious he could havebetrayed her like this after she’d begged him never to breathe a word ofwhat they’d found in Nate’s office, much less go to the press with it. And it didn’t matter that she’d scrambled to reach Nate in the trailer to try to explain. The fact of the matter was that she’d grossly violated his trust, and there would be no telling how this would impact his life.Mira sat in Nate ’s living room feeling beside herself. She kept replaying her words and his, kept reliving the anguish in his tone, and the terrible declaration he had made that he would be staying at a hotel for awhile to clear his head.He had arranged for his driver to take her back to the Escala, butnnow that she was here it felt so wrong.What the hell had Carter been thinking?Ruining Nate was no guarantee of shutting down the Starlight pipeline. It would only serve to tarnish, if not