Fourteen
Grace woke first. The first sensation she grappled with was the horrible crick in her neck. She sat up, groaning. She stretched the muscles on one side, rolled her neck, then did the other. Her cervical vertebrae cracked, easing some of the tension.
She quickly realized why she woke up feeling cramped.
Heron was still on the sofa, turned toward the cushion, his cheek pressed to the overstuffed pillow beneath his head.
She leaned forward, watching the pulse in his neck, slow and steady. His chest rising and falling.
She remembered the remnants of his story—a dramatic, highly technical tale about what it took to copy and infiltrate Tristan’s version of CyTown. Something about neuroreceptors. No, that wasn’t it. Neuronreceptors? Neural?
She checked the time in her lenscape and
