“I know what you did,” I tell him. “And why.”
“No idea what you’re on about, why don’t you be a good girl and get me a drink?”
Oh, he’s trying to distract me now by pissing me off again, but it won’t work. “You can’t bullshit me, March. I saw.”
He turns his head to face me then, and I see a surprisingly vulnerable slant to his mouth. “You were upset,” he mutters. “I just didn’t want you killing us.”
“So you made yourself a target. Better that I’m mad at you, hating you, than hurting, is that it?”
“Exactly,” he answers, too quietly.
Perversely I feel like that’s just about the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me, and yeah, I know how that sounds. But I’m…not right. I wasn’t, before Kai, and now, even less so. But regardless, it touches me that he chose to piss me off.
Exhaling, I say, “Don’t do that again, March. Please. I appreciate the concern, I do, but…I’ll never get over it if I don’t deal with it. And if I’m going to hate you, I want it to be real, not over mind games. I know you’re good at them, better than me, but I really don’t want to play.”
He narrows his dark eyes on me. “I’ll do whatever’s necessary to protect this ship and my crew. I’m not making you any promises, Jax. I’m still not convinced you aren’t a liability, not convinced we shouldn’t have waited for someone more stable, even if that meant it took substantially longer.”
That hurts, and it’s meant to, but I don’t flinch. Because even though he’s doing his damnedest to play the hard-ass, make me think he doesn’t give a shit about me, I know that’s wrong. I saw. I felt. Just enough to make me wonder what else was there, before he slammed the door so hard it convinced me he has something to hide.
And I’m going to find out what.
CHAPTER 18
As usual, we’re in the middle of an argument.
However, I am just an observer in this particular squabble, sitting in the hub with my ankle propped on my knee. Dina beetles her brows, and she’s up in March’s face, doing everything but shaking a fist. I don’t think she’d bother, though. If she intended to hit him, she wouldn’t give warning; she’d let her knuckles do the talking. In the time we’ve traveled together, I’ve learned some respect for the woman.
“I’m telling you, we need to take the ship down,” Dina says heatedly. “If you four launch in the pod, then I’m fragged if they track us down before you get back. And what if I need to do some work outside the ship? You going to leave me up here doing the walk without backup? Plus, I can’t shut down certain systems while in synchronous orbit. They’ll find it easier to locate us.”
“She has a point.” Everyone glances at Doc, who shrugs. “I understand you’re worried about the ship being damaged on the planet, but if something happens up here, we’re no better off, and we’ll have lost Dina.”
“And nobody wants that.” I don’t mean to sound quite so acerbic, but Dina just grins. To her, that probably felt like an endearment, and I can’t help grinning back.
Dina backs off, now that she has popular support. “Take us down then. Find a landing spot, ideally a clearing with some cover.”
“Anything else, your majesty?” March sketches a bow that would do credit to someone meeting real royalty.
“Frag you,” she returns without heat. “My family was deposed fifteen years ago.”
My brows arch as March returns to the cockpit, but Dina’s already turning away to get back to work on the phase drive. That leaves me glancing at Doc for clarification, and he shakes his head before heading to medical. Finally, I turn to Loras, who sighs.
“I believe Dina comes from the Imperial family on Tarnus, or rather, what used to be the Imperial family. There was a populist movement on her world, perhaps twenty turns ago, and—”
“It ended in a bloody coup?” I guess.
Not that I don’t want to hear the two-hour lecture that Loras would have volunteered on Tarnian history, but well, I don’t know shit about the universe, and I don’t want to know. The only thing I’m good at is grimspace, and it’ll eventually kill me.
“That is an oversimplification,” Loras observes with a sliver of disapproval, “but essentially correct. I believe Dina had been exiled in disfavor for…consorting with her handmaidens and taking an unseemly interest in alien technology, so she was not in the capital at the time.”
I can’t resist the urge to tease him. “Consorting, huh?”
“Trust you to fixate on the prurient and miss the trauma she survived.”
“Trauma?” Even as I repeat the word, I know I’ve been a moron.
“She’s the only survivor from the royal family, and they only permitted her off planet for two reasons: her predilection for her own sex and her promise she will never return.”
“Her promise?” That doesn’t seem like much of a warranty, even relying on some antiquated code of honor, not that I think Dina would abide by such a thing. I’m parroting shit like I’m brainless, but I guess I just never imagined there was anything more to her than met the eye.
“If she sets foot on the surface of Tarnus, the chip in her head will discharge,” he tells me dispassionately. “Any attempt to remove it will also result in detonation. They made sure she will keep her word.”
And though I’ve heard some horrific things in my day, I can’t help but shudder. Instinctively I know that the implant contains some ritualistic element, probably designed to shame her. I can’t quite reconcile this with the tough ship’s mechanic, but I know he’s telling me the truth, or…most of it.
“What aren’t you saying?”
Loras shakes his head with a faint half smile. “There’s a lesson in that, Jax. Nobody here is what he or she seems.”
Before I can ask, the ship bucks, and March’s voice sounds over the comm: “Everyone strap in, it’s going to get a little rough.”
For once I do exactly what he says without finding him to argue about it. A few minutes later I’m glad I did because the ship’s shaking, and I can feel us wallowing back and forth as we enter the atmosphere. Loras murmurs that we’re hitting thermal pockets, and I can’t tell from his expression how bad that is. March is probably struggling to keep the nose up, increase drag, trying not to liquefy our hull.
“He doesn’t use autopilot much, does he?”
Loras glances up from the console and seems to decide it’s time he strapped in as well. “I don’t know,” he answers. “We haven’t flown with him any more than you have.”
“Right.”
I feel like a shit for forgetting the poor bastard who died on Perlas Station. Before we can say anything more, we pitch sharply, and only the harness keeps me from being flung against the far wall. As it is, I’m going to have an impressive web of bruises all over my throat and shoulders. I feel my stomach surge into my throat because this reminds me of—
No. Oh no. This is like dream therapy, all over again.
My fault…why did they think it might be my fault? I got us to Matins IV, didn’t I? I didn’t hurt Kai. I wouldn’t have. But what…? I can’t remember; there’s a red haze around everything. It hurts, and I feel like—
We hit hard, and I feel the ship careening. Screaming metal, something tears loose. When there’s a hangar or a port, you can expect a certain amount of help—a computer beaming ideal trajectory, cooperative deployment of thrusters. Here, it’s just March and his best judgment. I’m holding a scream inside my head, and my throat seems swollen shut. I see nothing but the dark, spreading across my field of vision like a plague.
She’s screaming. I hear screaming. I’m pinned. Both my arms feel like they’ve been torn off, but I can hear her screaming. I have to help her, Mary give me strength, help me move this. Hurts. I’ll crawl. No. No. Too late—I can smell the—
There’s no burning meat, Jax. You’re safe. Everyone’s all right.
This is the first time I’ve heard him when we weren’t jacked in. But suddenly my head’s full of him, and I don’t know where I am. But I can feel my arms, and I’m whole, just like he’s promising. I become aware of someone crying—rough wracking sobs.
Oh Mary, it’s me.
It’s going to be a while before I can speak, and I don’t even want to think of opening my eyes because the crew is probably watching me with the horrified fascination usually reserved for the interstellar freak show. But I sense the negative even before I process his response. They’re checking out the Folly. We took some damage coming in.
Considering my meltdown, that seems like quite the understatement. Now I can feel his hands on my back, stroking, soothing. Guess he was right; I’m nowhere near stable and probably a liability to the mission. Shit, I can’t even handle a rough landing.
You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. That shocks me out of my self-pity. I wonder why he’s saying that, and as if I’d asked the question, he goes on: I could hear you screaming all the way up in the cockpit. And the second I touched you…Jax, I saw it all.
Shit. I did that? Gave him the charnel house from Matins IV to bear along with everything else? Mother Mary, is there no limit to the pain I’ll inflict?
He gives me a little shake, and I open my eyes. We’re still in the hub, but he’s got me on his lap by the console. There’s nobody else around right now, as he said. I’m starting to realize that March’s word is gold. He might be a lot of things, but the man doesn’t lie as far as I can tell.
“Was I screaming?”
I don’t remember. My throat isn’t sore, although the rest of me is.
“No,” Doc says from the doorway. “At least not so the rest of us could hear.” I register March’s surprise, but Saul continues, regarding us with an inscrutable expression. “He came from the cockpit at a dead run, yanked you up out of your seat. What happened, Jax?”
“Psychotic break.” I feel like I’m signing away my personal liberty by admitting as much, like maybe the Corp had a point in keeping me confined.
But Doc just nods, looking thoughtful. “Let’s get you to medical.”
It’s only then I realize that I’m still sitting on March’s lap, and his arms fall away from me with the slow, swimming reluctance of a mudsider learning to move in zero G. And I say quietly in the confines of my own head: Thank you. Not expecting to be heard. To my surprise, as I fold to my feet to follow Saul, I receive a very soft response that maybe I am not meant to hear.
I will always come for you, Jax.
CHAPTER 19
Ten minutes pass in silence.
Doc’s bedside manner is a little disturbing, but then he’s a geneticist more than an actual physician. I need to remember that. Finally, he concludes his battery of tests and regards me with an expression I can only describe as bemused.
