Her wet hair clung to her cheeks and made the chill in the room almost unbearable. The stinging scent of antiseptics made her stomach pitch. Her eyes still burned from the awful antibacterial fluids they had sprayed her with in that small stall. Trying not to cry, Emma hugged her arms and tried to convince herself the horror would end soon. After she had been taken away from Jack and Max, the two scary cyborg medics had threatened to jab with her with needles loaded up with sedatives if she didn't shut up. She had clamped her lips together immediately, terrified they would kill her if they gave her a normal cyborg dose of those meds. When they had reached the hospital, she had been wheeled into a quarantine sector and pushed into a shower stall where she had been ordered to strip. Humiliated, she had complied out of fear. Only two men in the world had ever seen her like that—and they'd betrayed her. Emma's chest ached with the realization Max and Jack hadn't told her the truth. They had made it sound like the Outpost was some heavenly place where she would have plenty of food, medical care and safety.
