Renegade Runner Nicole Conway (christmas read aloud txt) 📖

he was—but before I could get a word out, the man paused before one of the doors and quickly swiped his fingers across the glass control panel mounted beside it. The door slid open soundlessly, leaving me standing with my heart in my throat, staring into another hospital room like the one I’d been in.

Only … the big guy lying motionless on the bed was one I knew.

“Phox.” I croaked his name through shaking breaths as I scrambled to the bedside. I couldn’t stop shaking as my eyes darted over every inch of him. I dared to inch a trembling hand out and touch his.

He’d been bandaged up, too, and portions of his body were speckled with tiny white stickers that must have been monitors of some kind. With his torso bare and the rest of him covered by a thin white blanket, Phox lay propped up on a few pillows with his eyes closed and his expression serene. His broad chest moved slowly, taking in steady breaths, and his heavy, rough hand felt warm against mine.

I couldn’t stop the tears or the desperate sob that broke past my lips. Alive—he was alive.

Then I noticed they hadn’t tied Phox down like they had me. Why? Because they didn’t expect him to ever wake up? Or because there wasn’t much point in trying to tie up an Unciathris?

“I-Is he going to be okay?” I turned to look back at the strange man still idling in the doorway.

He gave a slight shrug. “You both sustained serious internal injuries, although his were far more critical and required immediate intensive treatment. It will take another day or two, but he should make a full recovery.”

Relief nearly made my knees buckle. I swallowed hard, gulping back sobs as I squeezed his hand. The big idiot. I thought … God, I thought I’d lost him.

“You should rest as well. I’ll let the facility staff know you’ve decided to cohabitate,” the mysterious man said, that strange accent twanging in stronger than ever. Maybe my ling-con was having a hard time with it?

“You mean, I can stay here? With him?”

He nodded. “Try to sleep if you can, Brinna. What comes next is going to be complicated.” He paused, his turquoise gaze darting between me and Phox for an instant. “For both of you.”

Who are you? What’s going on? I wanted to ask that and a lot more, but the man ducked out of the room quickly and shut the door.

Fine. Whatever. It could wait.

Pulling back Phox’s blanket, I was relieved to find they’d at least put some underwear on him before I climbed into the hospital bed beside him. Lifting up one of his big arms, I managed to squirm my way right alongside him with my head in the crook of his arm and my legs draped over his. Intimate? Yeah. I didn’t care, though. I wasn’t going to run the risk that they’d move him or try to separate us while our guard was down. I wouldn’t lose him again.

Wrapped up against the intense heat of his body, my mind finally went quiet, and I suddenly became aware of the fact that there wasn’t a single part of me that wasn’t incredibly sore. My neck ached. My body throbbed in all the places where those horrible bruises mottled my skin like a banana that had just been through a cement mixer.

But I was too exhausted to care.

Sleep—I needed sleep.

Letting out a deep sigh, I draped an arm across him just to be extra sure they didn’t take him anywhere without me. Every muscle relaxed, sinking into a blissful state of calm. I let my eyes roll closed. And somewhere through the haze, I could have sworn he sighed, too.

37

WELCOME TO TEAM SUCK

I had won the Renegade Run.

Not just finished. Not just survived. I had won—first place—crossing the finish line on foot only seconds before Sienne. The points and kills had all been tallied. Phox and I had taken the lead over the Faulbender Furies by six points.

Two days later, I sat on the edge of Phox’s hospital bed, my bare feet dangling over the featureless white floor, and tried to let that to sink in. To be honest, I didn’t really understand what it meant. It was good, right? I’d won. Winning was a good thing.

Usually, anyway.

But Phox’s reaction made me wonder. Even after waking up, he hadn’t said much. His demeanor, even the way he looked at me, seemed guarded and reluctant. Even now, as he sat right next to me, it felt like an invisible wall had materialized between us. He stayed more engaged with the Renegade Run Committee official who had come to speak to both of us about the specifics of our victory than he had with me. Geez. What was going on? What had changed? Why was he being so weird?

I tried to focus, forcing myself to listen to what the committee official said as she prattled on. She explained that yes, we had won, and were going to be awarded the official victory as soon as the medical facility cleared us for the ceremony. But before that happened, they were having a difficult time figuring out where, exactly, we’d both come from. Namely, how we’d gotten into the race and into the Alzumarian system in the first place. That, I could only assume, was because we’d both been harvested and sold illegally to the trasher-guy, Rout. Oops.

“We’re unable to award you any of the funds for your victory until your citizenship can be confirmed,” the official, an uncomfortably slender-looking female creature that reminded me a little of a humanoid seahorse, kept explaining in a chipper tone. Her massive black eyes blinked at us nervously, her long, slender snout tipped with a tiny mouth that somehow managed to talk incredibly fast. That and her pearlescent, pastel-blue-and-purple skin made it, um, difficult not to stare. “But don’t fret. The council is hard at work resolving this issue as we speak.”

Resolving