Read Blackout for Free Online Page B

bring him running.
    Would it?
    The door opened abruptly, sending light flooding into my absolute darkness. I recoiled, more from the expectation of pain than anything else, stumbling to a stop and catching myself against the wall.
    The light didn’t hurt my eyes the way it would have before my resurrection, but it still made them sting, blinding me for a few disorienting seconds. I raised a hand to shield them, squinting through the brightness at the man standing in the doorway. He wasn’t moving, and hadn’t moved, as far as I could tell, since he opened the door.
    I dropped my hand. “Hello?” I hated the uncertainty in my voice. I was still unsteady, and the CDC was controlling too damn much of my environment. I hate being controlled.
    Having two things to hate actually helped. I stood up straighter, frowning at the man silhouetted in the doorway. Being in pajamas should probably have made me feel vulnerable. Instead, it just made me angrier, like it was one element of control too many. Let them take away my connection to the outside world, my autonomy, and hell, even my body, but they weren’t allowed to
dress
me.
    “I said hello,” I said, more sharply. I took a step forward. “Who are you? What are you doing in here?” Belatedly, it occurred to me that maybe walking toward a man I couldn’t really see was a bad idea. Human cloning was illegal, after all, and it was entirely possible that there might be people at the CDC who didn’t want me up and walking around.
    “I saw you on the monitors,” said the man. He had a low, pleasant voice, with just a hint of a Midwestern accent. He stepped out of the doorway, moving back into the hall, and giving me my first real look at his face. His skin was a medium brown with reddish undertones, a few shades lighter than Mahir, a few shades darker than Alaric, with a bone structure I thought might be Native American. He had straight, dark hair, worn loose and almost as long as mine. It grazed his shoulders, tucked behind his ears to keep it from getting in his face. I’d have to remember that trick, at least until I could get my hands on a pair of scissors. He was smiling cautiously in my direction, like a man facing a snake that could decide to bite at any second.
    I’d never seen him before in my life. But he was wearing hospital scrubs, with a CDC nametag pinned to his chest. That made him, if not an ally, at least a vaguely known quantity.
    “Who are you?” I asked, taking another step forward. “Did Dr. Thomas send you to check up on me?”
    “No,” he said, with careful patience. “Like I said before, I saw you on the monitors. You looked unsettled. I thought I’d come down and see if you needed anything. A glass of water, another blanket…”
    “What if I wanted to go to the bathroom?”
    He didn’t miss a beat. “I’d call for guards to escort us there, so I didn’t get fired. But I’d be happy to get you some water and an extra blanket first.” He took the clipboard from under his arm, flipping back the top sheet. “Are you having trouble sleeping? This says you had some caffeine earlier. I know that when I have too much coffee, I can’t sleep for love or money.”
    “I was sleeping just fine,” I said. “Then I woke up. My internal clock is all messed up. It might help if I knew what time zone we were in.”
    “Yeah, it probably would,” he agreed. “I’m Gregory, by the way, Miss Mason. It’s a pleasure to see you up and about.” He turned his clipboard as he spoke, holding it against his chest with the paper facing me. “You had everyone concerned for a while there.”
    I’ve had a lifetime of experience in the fine art of not reacting to things. Still, I froze as my eyes found the block letters on the top sheet of Gregory’s clipboard, clearly intended for me to see.
    YOU ARE NOT SAFE HERE
.
    Gregory’s expression begged me not to react, like he knew he was taking a risk, but had gauged it a worthwhile one. I managed to school