Chapter two, like chapter one, is slowly building up the relationship between the main characters, and while there is some erotic play, they still haven't had sex yet. Sorry, this story just asks a bit more of my characters than instant copulation.
Your comments and feedback are much appreciated, otherwise I never know what I could have done better. Chapter three will take me a few more days to edit, so there may be a bit longer break before that gets posted. Cheers, ~A
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David woke slowly, changes in his surroundings slowly making themselves known. Possibly the most important was someone lying in the cot he normally would have slept in--how long had it been since he fell asleep in a chair? The handcuffs locking the girl's wrists to the steel tubing above her head and her feet together at the foot shoved him all the way awake... at which point he recognized the girl lying there.
"Oh, Anna," he murmured quietly, rising from his chair with a stiffness he had not dealt with in a decade. On second thought he grabbed the chair and rolled it over to the bed. He went first for his stockpile of gloves, pulling two from the box marked L. "This was why I didn't want you staying," he muttered, continuing his mental diatribe aloud every so often as he checked her over.
It took him a moment to realize she was wearing one of his spare t-shirts, and from the look of the thin blanket covering her legs, not much else. "What happened to you?" he asked the unconscious woman, wishing he could make an answer materialize by will alone.
Her wrists were unmarked save for a crease where they had been pressed against the handcuffs and the steel edge had been imprinted in her skin. He was about to check the blood at her neck when she shifted. Only slightly, but her head definitely moved, and the cuffs made a quiet scraping sound against the steel bed frame. "Anna?"
The tiniest of groans parted her dry lips; her eyes flickered then slitted open. "David?" she questioned, sounding half-asleep.
"Yes, I'm here, Anna."
He was about to say more when she moved her hand, jerking when the unexpected handcuff brought her up short. Her eyes widened, the situation abruptly registering, then she closed her eyes tightly, shaking her head. She appeared to be attempting to wake up from the nightmare--he was wishing something similar--but David's brain told him it was no dream.
"I'm sorry," he added.
"Me too," was the tiny reply. Her eyes were closed tighter than necessary to block out sight, and it pained him to see her in anguish, though he only had that small sign of it. But even with her eyes shut, a tear managed to sneak out and roll down her cheek.
"I warned you," he begged, on the verge of crying himself, hand lightly on the edge of the bed, wanting to touch her, but knowing he could not.
"I know. It's not your fault." She looked wrecked, though he had trouble deciding if it were from the blood loss or the shock.
But David still felt guilty. He should have kicked her out when Chloe and Samantha arrived. Sent her someplace safe. "Has the bleeding stopped?"
"I hope so," Anna replied, turning her head so he could view the blood across her collarbone. "From what Chloe told me, I nearly bled out." There was no emotion in her voice, just quiet reflection. "Help me, David, please..." she whispered, her voice just barely reaching his ears.
He could have cost her her life. "What time was this?"
"A little after 3:30, I think. I apparently had the presence of mind to lock the computer I was working at, so there was a timestamp. The girls cleaned me up as best they could, then left me here."
David looked at his watch. "That's awfully fast to heal that much," he commented, using a gloved finger to check her collarbone for an actual wound, rather than just the dried blood.
Anna frowned, blinking, then after a moment her expression cleared. "3 AM," she whispered. "That's why they haven't administered the vaccine. Our supply was compromised." They both knew that treating someone after the first twelve hours was ninety percent useless.
"What?" burst from him. He double-checked his watch, which still read 5:37 PM, and then turned his attention back to her with another topic on his mind. "I slept fourteen hours?"
She winced slightly. "Actually I think you fell asleep closer to two." He stared at her, making her drop her eyes. He had been unable to sleep that long in years... since before he could remember. Anna squirmed in his silence, eyes not lifting from the edge of the mattress she lay on.
"What is it?" he prompted, knowing a guilty look when he saw one.
"I, ah... I drugged you."
"What?" he burst out again. "With what? How much? You don't have the training to know what it could do, Anna!"
Her wince turned into a sigh, but she did look up at this. "Ambien, five milligrams, and it was a calculated risk. You hadn't slept since you got here, David," she pleaded. "I didn't know what else to do."
He fumed silently that this girl had dared drug him during an epidemic of this nature. There was so much more at stake here than she knew. "You could've just asked," he pointed out.
A dry laugh was his immediate answer. "Yeah, we both know how that would've gone," she accused quietly, eyes falling shut wearily. "It seemed like I didn't have other options."
"Couldn't you have tried to come up with something else, then?"
Her cheeks flushed slightly, practically flaming in comparison; her eyes remained closed. "When we met you made it pretty clear I'm too young for you," she began, and would clearly have been fidgeting if she were not already restricted. "So my options were limited. I ran out of ideas."
David groaned aloud, putting his face in one hand, unable to look at her for a moment. This intelligent young woman with similar interests and such expressive brown eyes... she really thought he did not want her? Their age difference was greater than she realized, but the images pouring into his head made it obvious that at least his body couldn't care less.
