some of the things we’ve learned regarding Cyrellian activity, it looks like they’re getting bolder in their actions. Almost as if they don’t care if they’re discovered anymore.”
“That’s a good thing, right? If they get too careless, more people will realize what they’re up to.”
“Either that or they may feel they’re too powerful to be opposed.” Sydney frowned. “What about the other groups you were telling me about?”
“I’ve been in talks with some of the other leaders and they’re looking to band our forces together and invade the city soon.”
“What do you think we should do?”
“While I don’t want to lose anyone in this group, I don’t see that we have much of a choice. If we’re going to liberate our world from the Cyrellians, we may have to do it with violence.”
It had never occurred to her that it would eventually come to this, but Sydney understood it was something that had to be done. “I see. Well, I guess I should head downstairs.”
When she moved to go past him, he caught her arm. “Sydney, wait.” She tilted her head to look up at him. “What?”
“I’m sorry if I came off a little heavy-handed, but when I… never mind.”
“No. Tell me what you were going to say.”
“Forget it, okay. Just pretend I didn’t say anything.” He released her arm.
“Please tell me.”
“Fine, but you’re going to think I’m silly.”
“We all say crazy things sometimes, now spill it.”
“When I saw your closed door, it was like you were shutting me out. I don’t want any barriers between us.”
59
“Jack, don’t.” She turned her head away.
He caught her chin, forcing Sydney to meet his gaze. “You wanted to hear it so you’d better listen. Do you think I like feeling this way? Whenever you’re not around I search the house for you. I find my thoughts drifting to you even when I’m in the middle of an important discussion. It’s driving me insane and I still haven’t quite gotten a handle on these feelings yet.”
“Jack, I don’t think it’s the right time to talk about this.”
“It will never be the right time for you, Sydney, as long as you continue to dodge me on every occasion. The only time I seem to get through to you is when we’re making love. How are we supposed to figure out what this thing between us is, if you keep running away?”
She twisted her head out of his grasp and backed away. “I don’t know. But I need time. Too much is going on right now for me to deal with this too.”
“I see.”
If she didn’t know better Sydney would have thought she’d seen a brief flash of hurt in his eye, but surely she’d imagined it.
“Let’s go downstairs,” she said, turning her back to him.
“Sydney, there may come a point when I get tired of chasing you.” He spoke the words softly, but she heard him loud and clear.
Chapter Seven
“I can’t believe you’ve talked me into this,” Chase muttered under his breath.
They would have been at camp by now if it weren’t for Holly’s insistence about finding her digiamara. He should have told her to forget about it, but when she’d looked up at him with those beautiful brown eyes of hers, he found it difficult to resist her.
He was a sucker.
“I heard that,” Holly whispered behind him.
Chase grimaced, thankful she was behind him and couldn’t read the annoyance on his face. He might be crazy for this woman, but she still got on his nerves. “Yeah, I know. But I hope you realize you could have been taking a nice hot shower by now and had a nice hot meal in your belly.”
“That isn’t important. There’ll be plenty of time for that later. We need to recover my digiamara and download it to a public computer before we leave the city. I think the people need to see what the Cyrellians are up to.”
“How do you know they won’t do damage control before too many people see it? You do realize most of the computers in the city are connected to
Legs McNeil, Jennifer Osborne, Peter Pavia