Page 90 (1/2)

…

Keiko was going to die

There was no getting around it The weapon that would kill her was strapped around her head, and she’d done everything within her er on the trigger

She supposed she should have spent her tis she could have done with her life or re all the people she loved and would ues… The list was endless,her realize just how blessed her short life had been But, as ihts in her mind were of Mace

Where was he? What was he doing? Was he okay? Her eyes roa relief when she found it He was alive That much was certain But what state was he in? What if he needed h

er?

She’d never felt more helpless in her life, and she hated it No, she hated Susan Neal and the Freedo her in this situation She hated theail and all the other innocent people in their quest to be heard She hated Coard for human life She hated all of it

She wanted to go home

How pathetic was that? She didn’t even knohere hoo back to her apart she didn’t knohat Co or that people would be hurt because the company was more interested in profit than lives But the truth was, she didn’t want to go back, anyway She wanted to stay with Mace

And that’s when it hit her

She’d fallen in love with him

If the gag hadn’t been in place, she would have laughed All these years of joking that a Viking was her perfect th, his courage, his honor She loved his sense of huht about things She even loved that he was fighting in the shadows, doing what he could to survive in a world that was alien to hi so very different

She loved Mace Ar

And if it had happened fast, it was because they’d lived a lifetime since they’d met She wasn’t stupid She knew if she chose Mace, she was turning her back on her life He lived on the fringes of society, and she would have to live there, too But she’d been living in the light her whole life and had discovered that there wasn’t anything of substance there Maybe it was ti with Mace

In that strange ht of a new day flooded the earth with hope, a tear slid down Keiko’s cheek She’d thought life was defined by achievements, but it wasn’t It was defined by whoail and had been blessed to call her a friend And she loved Mace A new, fresh, fragile kind of love that wouldn’t have tirow