ANDROMA
“IT’S A MASTERPIECE, really,” Gilly said as she sat with her chin resting on her folded hands, examining Valen’s lacerated back.
“A masterpiece if you’re someone like Soyina,” Lira said. “We’ll likely never see her again, especially if Nor catches wind of her helping us.”
“Soyina enjoys delivering pain,” Gilly commented from across the med table. “Right, Andi?”
“What?” Andi looked up to see the two girls watching her.
“Still considering whether or not to kill Dextro?” Lira asked.
The girls, apparently, had heard the entire explosive fight go down. Andi’s and Dex’s screams could be heard echoing through the halls of the ship. They had found Andi afterward, when she’d emerged from her quarters. The tears had dried, and the girls spent time sitting with her in silence.
No music, no laughter. Just a few moments of quiet that allowed her mind to reset.
Now, a few hours later, her mood had improved. Her thoughts were still muddled, her emotions were still raw, but her body felt strangely lighter. As if hearing the truth from Dex, whether she had wanted to or not, had lifted a weight from her shoulders that she’d carried for years.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Andi said with a heavy sigh.
Lira watched her closely. “Later,” she said. “Otherwise, it will consume you.”
Andi nodded, knowing Lira—as always—was right. She leaned back in her chair, wincing as the pain in her chest flared up. “That damned stunner.”
Lira practically growled beside her. “The next job you go on will be with us watching your back.” She sighed and ran a hand across her hairless head. “If I ever see that Revivalist again, I will personally deliver my own special dose of pain, and we’ll see how she enjoys it.”
Andi smiled, despite the ache still pulsing in her chest. “I don’t doubt that you will.”
“Did she really shoot you?” Gilly asked. “Dex, too?” Andi nodded, and the gunner’s eyes widened. “I can’t believe I didn’t get to meet her. Can she really bring people back to life?”
Andi shrugged. “She claims she’s capable of that.”
The med bay door slid open with a cool hiss, and Breck stomped in. “Ladies,” she said impatiently, tucking her hair behind her ears. “I’m not interested in dining alone with Dextro tonight. We have a ship stocked with actual edible food since taking on this job. Come enjoy it with us.”
Gilly and Lira stood from their places on either side of Valen, but Andi stayed put, unwilling to move.
She’d helped Alfie clean his wounds, the blood-soaked rags now piled high in the corner of the small white room. Vials of his blood, freshly drawn by Alfie, were sitting in a testing box beside the rags. The AI wanted to ensure Valen hadn’t picked up any diseases or been injected with any strange pathogens during his time in Lunamere.
Valen’s back looked cleaner, but by no means was it in better shape. It made her ache just to look at it, imagining the lash of the electric whips that caused it, ripping and shredding and burning.
“Andi?” Lira’s voice drew Andi’s attention back to her crew.
She looked away from Valen to smile softly at the three of them. Gilly was standing on tiptoe, still trying her best to get a good look at Valen’s wounds. Andi waved a hand, which, she noted, was still covered in remnants of the battle waged in Lunamere. “Go on without me. I’m going to stay. Someone should be here with him when he wakes.”
Breck shrugged and pulled Gilly along with her, but Lira stopped for a moment.
“There’s a fissure in you. I can sense it even from here.” Lira loosed a gentle sigh before explaining her words. But when she did, they sunk like a rock into Andi’s gut. “Sooner or later, you’re going to have to choose between forgiveness or hate. And you and I both know which one is harder to live with.”
She didn’t wait for Andi to answer. She simply turned, graceful as a bird, and left the room.
* * *
Andi waited by Valen’s side all night, unsure of why she stayed.
Unsure of why she couldn’t look away from the lashes on his back that crisscrossed his skin like ribbons, or the bruises blooming across his pale skin like paint.
Valen Cortas had never been Andi’s favorite person. She’d hardly known him in her old life. He’d been strange and silent and always seemed to be watching with eyes a little too interested in keeping track of her.
But he was a Cortas.
He was a piece of Kalee.
And seeing him here reminded Andi of what could have been. Not if she’d stayed and faced the punishment of her trial, but before all of that. Before the night that changed everything. If she hadn’t taken the throttle of the transport ship in her hands, or gunned the engine a little too hard, or looked away for too long to laugh at what Kalee had said...
She could still remember the exact moment of impact. The horrible, mind-melting screech of metal against rock.
She could still remember those few strange, weightless seconds in between the stolen ship’s engine cutting off and the transport wing clipping the side of a floating mountain. The crash as the ship hit the ground. The hot flames of the burning engine, and the sound of Kalee gasping for life, sticky wet blood dripping onto Andi’s hands as she pressed and pressed and tried like hell to staunch the flow.
“It hurts,” Kalee had whispered, but the words came out all wrong. The voice wasn’t hers, and the rattling cough that followed made her lips too red, as blood trickled from them and her eyes closed...
Andi stood up.
This was a mission, like any other. Even if it was Valen Cortas. She owed him nothing—not her life or her emotions or the time she could have been spending now, sharing a meal and stories of Lunamere with her crew.
She paced, focusing instead on the pain in her muscles, the screaming knife wound in her shoulder that she still hadn’t allowed Alfie to patch up.
Pain was her anchor.
It was the only true thing in life that never lied or cheated. Best of all, if she tried hard enough, she could usually overcome it.
She wanted to believe Lira was wrong. But Andi knew there were fissures in her soul. She had always thought herself to be a wall as solid as the glass that made up the Marauder. She was the captain. She would not bend, and she sure as hell would never break.
But today, she had broken. And now she had to find a way to put the pieces back together.
She was just preparing to leave, to force herself away from Valen’s sleeping form, when a flicker of movement caught her eye.
His steady breathing had quickened, the burns and scars on his back seeming to squirm with each fast breath. His head was turned to face her, and his cracked lips fluttered like he was trying to form words.
Andi stepped back to his side, wondering whether she should call on Alfie. But the AI was currently charging back up, plugged in to the ship’s dash a floor above.
“Valen?” Andi asked. Her voice was a weak whisper.
She hated the sound of it.
She almost reached out to touch him when a beep sounded out from the testing box behind her. Andi turned, brow knitting. The small screen on the silver box flashed with an update.
Abnormal Reading. Seek further tests.
Alfie had been right. She wasn’t entirely surprised, judging by the conditions inside Lunamere. She turned back to look at Valen, wondering what lurked beneath the surface of his skin.
His breathing had quickened again. His hands, which had been lying still at his sides, began to curl into fists.
“Valen. You’re safe,” Andi said, feeling like a fool with each word she spoke, unsure of whether he could even hear her. “You’re not in Lunamere anymore. We’re taking you back to your father, back to...”
His eyes flew open and locked on hers.
“Valen?” Andi asked.
One moment he was stone still. The next, Valen’s hand shot out, ice-cold fingertips gripping the stained fabric of Andi’s bodysuit.
She backed away, but he pulled with a strength he hadn’t possessed before, keeping her in place.
He tugged her closer, hazel eyes wide and haunted. His voice was raw and ragged as a demon’s when he choked out two harsh words.
“Kill...me.”