Thank you to those who stopped by last week. I’m glad for a new Sunday and a new Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sundays. I am continuing with The Scent of Memory. For those who visited last week, the cyborg was not Aren, but Sargent Six or Sixer, formerly Danica De Graaf, the sister of Second and the cousin of Luke De Graaf, the Governor of Nordika who appears in this segment. Luke is married to Elizabeth the ER chief, and was also Marisol’s first boyfriend. Aren, now Cap, is the second cyborg rescued from the crash. In this scene, Marisol sees him for the first time.
Mari stood, but her legs turned to jelly. She collapsed onto the floor. The port line yanked from her skull. “Breathe,” she heard someone say, but couldn’t process who it was. Aren was alive. Aren. Was. Alive.
The whoosh of a hypo spray rushed by her ear. “Mari, we need you to get it together. Every minute is precious right now.”
She gulped in stale hospital air until her lungs burned with it. Warm hands on her arms helped her stand.
“Marisol.” Luke’s words vibrated, forceful and frustrated and fearful. “We need you.”
She blinked to discover tears had welled in her eyes. She wiped them away with the back of her hand.
Aren sat up. Those unique eyes taking in everything in the room. They latched onto her and drew her in, like he always could.
“Where am I?” he asked. His voice, like honeyed whiskey, whispered along her skin. His gaze seemed to drill deeper into her.
“Nordika. Your home.” She forced each syllable over the lump in her throat. She breathed him in. Only the cold slam of metal hit her nose, and her heart broke all over again. Gone was his distinct perfume of crystal dust, charcoal, watercolor paint, greenhouse sugar and sled dog. She grabbed at the wall to keep from collapsing again.
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The Scent of Memory Blurb
Twelve years ago, Marisol lost Aren. Now he’s back – pointing a gun at her head and treating her like a stranger.
Rebel hacker, Marisol Martinez, never thought volunteering to keep the hospital safe from cyborgs would lead her back to the man sabotage ripped from her arms. The man she swore to avenge by any means possible.
For over a decade, Cap protected the cyborgs under his command from every danger. Until he meets an insurgent, whose scent wreaks havoc on his control. She calls him Aren and insists she knows him. But she’s wrong. He has no past, no present, no future – only orders he’s programmed to complete.
Forced together, Marisol and Cap can’t resist the passion that keeps building between them. With time running out, Marisol must use her computer skills to restore Aren’s memories or Cap will kill all subversives on the planet – starting with her.
What a powerful moment of reunion . . . filled with such emotion and sadness. Well done!
That would definitely be a difficult moment to see him like that after she believed him dead.
What a complex set of scents! Too many emotions for poor Mari.
Drama, drama, drama. And heartbreak. And of course the scents! Quite an astonishing excerpt, so much emotion. Loved it!
A powerful and realistic reaction. Now what??
Her former lover is back from the dead? I’d faint, too. Love all the reference to smell. Perfect title.
Great evocation of resurfacing from unconsciousness!
This scene is soooo good! 🙂 Great snippet.
Is it wrong that MY heart is breaking for her? So much to take in. Wow.
There’s so much going on in that scene. Lots of tension and emotion.
This scene evokes a lot of emotions in the reader. I wonder how he’ll react to being rescued?
That’s a very emotional scene!