Page 75 of My Tiny Giant

His smile grew wider. “Better than okay, Eleven.” He arched his back, his morning erection bobbing in the air. “Are you planning to—” he stopped abruptly.

Rising on his elbows, he stared at me intently. “Emma? Are you okay? You look...smaller.”

Shoving his hands into the mattress, he moved to get up.

“Not so fast!” I lifted both hands in warning. “Please, be careful. Get up slowly. Let your body adjust a little.”

I had no idea what to do here or even how to feel about his increased size, to be hopeful or scared. Right now, I was both.

“What happened?” He lifted his hand, staring at it, then placed it on my arm next to him. “I... Did I grow?” He looked up at me, his eyebrows drawing together. “Am I about to return to my old size, Emma?”

I covered my mouth with my hand, just gazing at him for a second or two.

“I’m not sure if you’re still growing right now, but you most definitely got bigger overnight, Agan. Look.” I stretched my hand next to his arm. “This was how tall you were yesterday, the length of my hand. And now, your arm is longer than that. You’ve gotten bigger, honey.”

“Let me see.” Holding on to my finger, he rose to his feet.

“Carefully,” I pleaded in my head.

Hope and fear kept warring in my chest. Seeing him standing tall—strong and healthy—helped hope prevail, at least for the time being.

“We need to call Professor Kidreks, make him meet us at the lab right away.” I swung my legs off the mattress, ready to get up, but Agan squeezed my finger tighter, holding me back.

“Emma. Wait.”

“We can’t wait, Agan. Considering what happened to the yirzi ... If your body needs help to adjust to the size increase—”

“Then Professor Kidreks won’t be able to do much, anyway,” he finished for me. “Emma, all they’ve been doing in that lab is just monitoring, measuring, and testing. No one knows shit about what’s going on with me or how to change anything. Even fucking Voltuds didn’t know how to reverse the results of his own experiments. He was concerned with making things smaller . He’d done no research on how to make his subjects bigger again.”

“We need to do something, Agan,” I mumbled, scared for him and feeling helpless, just like all those scientists must be feeling about giving Agan his life back. I glanced at Helix’s screen over the bed. “Your next daily check-up is not for another two hours or so. We need to call the professor to make him meet us earlier.”

He shook his head resolutely.

“I’m not in a rush to see him and his team.

“But what if you get worse? What if you...”

Die.

I couldn’t bring myself to say the word out loud. My throat closed in, cutting off my air supply for a second or two.

“If I die,” he said it for me, “then I much prefer spending my last minutes here with you then on the professor’s gurney.”

I released a shaky breath. A part of me wished to grab Agan and rush him to the lab, to do something—anything. Another part of me understood that he was a grown man, capable of making his own decisions and of being in charge of his body. He was also most likely right about the professor not being able to make any difference for him.

“Helix,” Agan asked the AI. “How long is it until we have to leave here for my evaluation?”

“One hour and twenty-six minutes, Lieutenant Drankai,” came from Helix’s screen.

“Enough time, then.”

“For what?” I asked.

He walked along the mattress to me. “I promised to make you a Ravil dish one day. I finally got hold of an ozeah shell yesterday. I was planning to make it for dinner, but...” His voice trailed off.

Oh God, he knew. He knew there might be a possibility he wouldn’t make it until the dinnertime, now.

My heart sank and my hands trembled.