Dangerous Designs Read online

CHAPTER TEN

  "Are you sure you want to do this?"

  Straightening up, Storey winced at her backache. She'd collapsed to the floor an hour ago when they'd finally retreated here from the family room. Her last drawing was finished. She stared at the stack for a long moment. There were a million events she couldn't plan for. A thousand more she might not be able to handle. There was no way to plan for every contingency.

  For what had to be the twelfth time, Storey nodded at him, slouched on her bed. There was no point in trying to get Eric on board with the plan. He belonged to a society of talkers. She couldn't expect more than that from him. A teeny bit of her was disappointed. She could have used an action man right now. Sex appeal was great, but could she count on Eric when things went wrong?

  She didn't know. She could only hope so. Someone needed to watch her back.

  She wanted, no needed, to have paper and the stylus with her at all times. She wondered if there was a way to duplicate or split the stylus. To have two, a dummy one they might believe was real and confiscate so she could keep hers. In fact, she probably had something similar in her art kit. And that was something worth checking out. How would they know?

  Scrunching up her face, she considered the problem of duplicating the stylus. There was only one way to find out. She picked up the pencil and drew a picture of it on the page in front of her. Her fingers raced to keep up as the pencil took on a life of its own.

  Eric finally noticed her actions. He crouched down beside her. The bedroom had taken on a cozy feel with the two of them working so closely together for the past few hours. He was studying her sketchbook, a frown wrinkling his brow.

  He glanced up at her, his frown deepening. "You don't need to look at your creation while you're drawing anymore?"

  "What?" Storey glanced down at the page and gasped. "Oh good Lord."

  Her hand moved across the page at a mad pace, but she wasn't the one controlling it. At least she didn't think she was drawing right now. Her hand and even her forearm felt separate, unhinged at the elbow from the rest of her. Sketching so fast, she couldn't track the lines as they formed. "Wow," she whispered.

  "Double wow." They both stared in awe as the picture became a photograph of the stylus. "Have you ever done this before?"

  "Never."

  In silence, they watched and waited for her hand to stop. Her arm dropped to her side and she could now see the whole picture. Her eyes widened. "The stylus has colored ink?"

  He snorted. "The stylus doesn't contain ink."

  Storey gulped. "Holy crap." She stretched her fingers. They weren't even sore.

  "And now what?"

  She stared at him and gulped louder. "I'm not sure." Her eyes were drawn back down to the picture. She reached out with her left hand and went to touch the incredible likeness, only to back off at the last minute, laughed nervously. "I'm scared to try."

  Eric stood up and strode over to the window. "We're going to be hunted down and should be running to the other side of the planet. Instead, you are drawing pictures that scare you." He shook his head. "I don't get you."

  "But do you get this?" Jubilation shone from her voice.

  He spun around to stare at her in complete exasperation. "What? Do I get what?" His gaze landed on the object in her hand. His jaw dropped open. "What the hell?"

  Storey stared in shock then gave him a fat grin, almost bouncing on the bed in joy. "You swore. Finally. Good for you."

  He stared at her uncomprehending. "What are you talking about?"

  "You. You swore."

  "Swore?" His eyes widened as he shifted his stance and fisted his hands on his hips. "I did not. I couldn't have."

  Her grin warped into a smirk as she watched. "Oh yes, you did. You said, 'What the hell.'"

  His face froze. She laughed in delight.

  Glaring at her, he said, "That's hardly the issue right now. We do have something more important at stake here."

  Smirking, she held up the second pen. "I think this is beyond cool."

  "Do you think it works?"

  "That it comes off the paper at all is a blooming miracle. I highly doubt that it's a stylus. I wasn't even thinking of creating a usable one, only a fake one for your people to take off of me, allowing me to keep the real one."

  His gaze switched from her left hand to her right hand and back again. "They're identical."

  "In appearance," she cautioned, twisting the new pencil around and around. "This isn't even flat like the paper. It's 3D. Unbelievable."

  She reached over to hold the new pencil under the light from the lamp at her night table. Sure enough the wording lit up under the warm glow. "Wow. They're perfect copies."

  "How did you do that?"

  She shrugged. "I'm not sure. I thought about creating a copy of the stylus. The stylus took over and created it for me."

  "Can we test it?"

  "Why not?" She reached for the sketchbook and tried to draw a line. Nothing. She sat back, disappointed. Pursing her lips, she said, "I didn't expect it to work. The real stylus has a power of some kind. This is a flat carbon copy."

  "This just might work...with two styluses you have a chance." He ran his fingers through his hair. Poor Eric. For the first time, real hope glimmered in his eyes. His world had flipped these last few hours. That his father was bent on having her killed was one thing, almost understandable given his people's fears, but to have a kill order on his own head if he didn't comply...now that had to hurt. How would she feel if her father sentenced her to death?

  "And you'd care?" She couldn't help asking. What did he really feel? Guilty, because he'd taken her over there in the first place? Or did he feel that same connectedness she felt?

  "Huh?" Confused exasperation slid through his voice. "I wouldn't be here otherwise."

  She stared at the floor, a giddy ripple snaking through her body. Maybe he did care. Not that she'd let him know it mattered. "So, we're good to go?"

  He stared at her. "I still don't like it, but yes, let's get moving. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can find a solution to this mess."

  Storey couldn't stop her biggest worry from dominating. What if the solution was one that didn't allow either of them to live?