Start by Odette C. Bell

sink back down into her pillow.
    She
felt sleep creep towards her again, drawing a sheet of perfect
black over her mind as it did.
    And
there, within the black, she saw a glint.
    A blue
flash.
    Light,
like water lapping and trickling over stone, washed around her,
escaping from her left hand and plunging deep, deep into her
chest.
    . . . .
     

Chapter
10
    Carson
Blake
    Without another word, she turned around and promptly fell
asleep.
    He
blinked back his surprise.
    Then
he saw it.
    Her
left hand.
    It
twitched as if it were trying to catch hold of
something.
    The
move was slight, but it was there.
    His
expression compressed with confusion and suspicion.
    Just
what was wrong with her?
    How
had her implant malfunctioned?
    And
what exactly did she keep dreaming of?
    Before
she'd woken up, he'd sat dutifully in her room. As he had, he'd
seen her dream.
    It had
been fitful. Her hand had kept clutching back and forth, catching
nothing but air.
    He'd
pointed it out to a passing doctor, but they'd dismissed it as
random nerve activity.
    Carson
couldn't dismiss it though.
    He
couldn't dismiss anything. All he could do was sit there and
remember—in perfect, agonising detail—what had happened in her
room.
    He
tried to reassure himself her implant had just malfunctioned, but
it was a small and bitter consolation.
    He
wanted a better reason.
    He
wanted this to be more than an accident.
    Yes,
that was it. That was why he couldn't ignore her twitching hand.
That's why he couldn't pull himself from her side, even though she
was asleep again.
    He
needed this not to be random.
    Though
he didn't really know why.
    . . . .
    With a
heavy blink, he realised he was very much tired, and very much
confused.
    He'd
had one hell of a night, and he couldn't realistically spend the
rest of the day sitting by a random cadet's bedside.
    Because, seriously, he hardly knew her.
    People
would start to talk.
    Reluctantly, he got to his feet.
    He
tried to make it to the door, but he couldn't.
    Instead he turned, and he sat back down again.
    Her
left hand kept twitching as she slept.
    Again,
a restless silence descended on her, and he sat there uncomfortably
on the edge of his chair as he listened to it.
    She
shifted her head to the side, sighing heavily.
    She
didn't wake up though.
    A part
of him felt wrong for watching her whilst she slumbered.
    In
fact, again he pushed to his feet.
    This
time he walked towards the door resolutely.
    He
didn't reach it.
    She
whispered something.
    “Help
me.”
    Just
two little words.
    He
could barely make them out.
    And
they locked him to the spot.
    She
shifted again, her left hand clutching harder at the
air.
    He
stood there in the doorway, staring at her, waiting to hear it once
more.
    Just
as his heart started to calm, she whispered those two little words
again, “help me.”
    She
was still unconscious; the computer panel lodged into the wall
above her bed confirmed that.
    She
was just talking in her sleep.
    She
said it one last time, then she shifted, rolling over, wrapping her
arms around herself.
    She
stilled.
    Her
left hand stopped clutching at the air, and she didn't whisper
another word.
    It
took him a long time to leave. In fact, it wasn't until a doctor
walked in beside him that he managed to shift back from
her.
    He
told the doctor she'd woken up, then he backed out of the
room.
    As he
walked through the corridors of the medical bay, he felt
numb.
    Her
whispered words kept echoing in his head.
    She'd
been asleep, and they had meant nothing, but he couldn't stop them
from reverberating through his mind.
    It
took a long time to shake off their effects, but he couldn't forget
them, no matter how hard he tried. Work, however, got in the way.
And soon enough Carson found himself pulled into one distracting
task after another.
    He
didn't get a chance to go back to see her that day. In fact, by the
time he went to check on her, she'd been discharged
again.
    This
time he didn't wait to chance upon her naturally. He