He said that as if I could somehow extract meaning from it, so when he didn’t continue, I gave him the most obnoxiously annoyed look I could manage, and then squinted my eyes at him. “You do realize that literally none of that explains what the hell she’s talking about, or answers my damn question? I mean, do you want that girl’s mother to die? You called us for help, for crying out loud.”
“Yes, but we don’t understand why you’re meeting with us,” he explained, and the slight snap of teasing condescension made me bristle. Sure, he was sexy as sin, but anyone who fell for this man would be in a world of trouble, trying to keep him from running all over them. He practically oozed command. “I believe you when you say that your mother died, but…” Trailing off, he looked at his sister and clamped his mouth shut, the look on his face telling her it was her decision.
She studied me a second or two longer, and then nodded. “There are only two more in the cargo bay,” she informed me. “Our cousin, Helena Vox, and her mother, Amberlynn Ashabee. I’m Melissa Croft, and this is my older brother, Thomas.”
Thomas gave me an imperious nod, and I rolled my eyes, unimpressed. “My name is Liana Castell,” I informed them. I started to open my mouth again, but suddenly Quess was speaking.
“Her name is Champion Liana Honorbound Castell, Wayfinder, Defender of the Gate, and leader of the Knights of the Citadel.”
My eyes drifted closed as I tried to keep the embarrassment off my face, but I thoroughly planned to murder Quess later. The only reason to give all the details was to brag, and that really wasn’t my style. Not to mention, they had no idea what any of that even meant.
“What happened to Devon Alexander?” the girl asked curiously, and my eyes shot open. She knew the former Champion’s name? That solidified the fact that they were a part of the same group who had come here before. Devon Alexander had been on the council twenty-five years ago, and the fact that they knew his name and that I had taken his place was incredibly revealing. I wanted to know more about what happened—because I was certain that something in that story could help me figure out who exactly had escalated the destruction of Scipio since that time.
And if I knew that, perhaps I could use it to keep them from getting any worse.
“Champion Castell killed him,” Maddox informed them, her voice carrying a dangerous undercurrent.
And just like that, I added Maddox to the murder list. I loved my friends, and I knew they meant well, but this was not the best start to fostering a positive relationship. Rolling my eyes, I let enough of my displeasure show as was socially acceptable.
“To be fair, he tried to frame me for murder and then kill me.” I paused as a secondary thought occurred to me, and added, “Technically, I didn’t even kill him.” I sometimes forgot that little detail. Everyone in the Tower believed that I had done it on Scipio’s orders, but it was Leo who had actually killed him, right after Devon tried to kill Grey by shorting out his net. “Quess, Maddox, get on the ship and see what you can do for their aunt.”
I gave the siblings in front of me a searching look, letting them know that the ultimate choice was theirs, and Melissa nodded. Quess and Maddox immediately broke off from Leo and Alex, leaving the five of us alone as they went up the ramp.
“Thank you,” Melissa said, and I shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. Because they deserved to know that we weren’t even meeting under legitimate terms. I was a representative of the Tower, but I wasn’t here as one, and we only had a limited amount of time before they had to leave—or risked being discovered.
“Don’t thank me yet,” I said grimly. “You need to know that we aren’t exactly… meeting with you on behalf of the council. We knocked out the sensors and hijacked your signal to keep you off the Tower’s radar. But that won’t last long. If the council finds out you are here, they’ll pull up the protocols from what happened last time and follow precedent.”
“You mean use those laser things on us?” Thomas asked, and I nodded. The two exchanged a long, considering look. “Then we should talk inside,” Thomas said brusquely. I watched as he pulled the gun out of the holster, ejected the clip and a round from the chamber with a practiced move, and then set the weapon on the ground. Melissa followed, her hands a blur as she repeated his action with her own gun, before placing it next to his.
I stared at both of them and realized that if we had gotten into a shooting match with them, they probably would’ve won. I had only used the thing once, with the help of some weird ability in the legacy net that hadn’t even been mine. Still, I did know how to remove the clip and clear the chamber, so I followed their lead.
Only I didn’t bother to move fast, because I knew I wasn’t confident enough with it yet. Instead, I opted for a lazier motion, hoping that they wouldn’t pick up on the fact that I wasn’t as good as them, while also showing them that I didn’t feel the need to compete with them.
Leo followed my action and unloaded his gun, and then the five of us were walking up the metal ramp toward the rectangular light coming from the opening. When we reached the top, I immediately zeroed in on Quess kneeling next to someone on the floor, Maddox squatting close by with his medical bag to hand him items as he needed them. I couldn’t see who they were working on, but a young woman, probably eighteen or nineteen years old, was standing over them both, her arms folded tight across her chest. Her hair was a deep auburn and hung in tight corkscrews around her heart-shaped face.
She glanced over at us as we entered, and I got a flash of blue eyes that were so vibrant, they glistened like the crystal components in our computers. “What are you doing?” she asked warily, taking half a step toward us. “You know that we’re not supposed to let anyone on the ship. Your dad—”
“Is already going to be pissed that we came here in the first place,” Thomas said on an exhale, two parts annoyed, one part indifferent. “We’re already in for a penny, Hela. Might as well get something out of it. Besides…” He trailed off and gave me another appraising look. “They’re keeping us secret from the rest of their council to help us.”
Helena—Hela—blinked her eyes several times, and then looked at the three of us, studying Leo first, then Alex, and finally me. “Her?” she asked, and Thomas nodded.
The redhead sucked in a breath, and then shook her head. “Mom is going to tear us all a new one when she wakes up.”
“Be grateful for it,” I told her in a raw, hoarse voice, before I could stop myself. The pain I felt regarding my mother’s death was only rivaled by my curiosity and interest in what she was saying—that they were breaking the rules about being here, as well. They weren’t alone—they had experienced supervision—but had gone against the orders of their government in an effort to save her. In a lot of ways, they were in the same boat that we were.
She gave me another considering look, her facial features tightening. “Guys, did you notice her eyes?”
“Of course we did,” Melissa said impatiently, flipping some of her deep brown hair over her shoulder. “It’s why we let them on board.” She paused and shifted her weight as her gaze drifted over to where Maddox and Quess were working. “How is she doing?”
“How she is doing is a very complicated question,” Quess grunted, his body moving back and forth with the motions of his hand. “The very simple answer is not bad, all things considered.”
“All things considered?” I repeated stupidly. On impulse, I moved over to where he was only a few inches away from falling face-first onto his patient. But as more of her came into view, I realized what Quess had meant.
The woman on the bed was in her early forties and had an assortment of slight wrinkles on her slack face, but that wasn’t what caught my eye. It was the lines of blackened and cracked flesh that radiated from her side up and across her chest, a slash of pink through the middle of it, where the flesh had ripped open to reveal the muscles and tendons inside. I immediately recognized the damage as severe electrical burns. It was clear they had been doing their best t
o take care of them with their own medicine, but some of the larger ones were leaking sickly yellow lines of pus.
“What did that?” I asked, horrified at the damage I was seeing. Quess was doing his damnedest to help her, and with what he had in his medical kit, I was certain he could save her, but she would be severely scarred for the rest of her life. Bio-foam was amazing with all sorts of lacerations, but on burnt flesh, we had to resort to other methods—namely a transplant of a gelatinous material we produced in the Tower, along with some secret components that sped up the healing process. It would scar, but she would be alive.
“We got caught up in a war going on in the south,” Thomas said tiredly. “We were down there trying to establish a diplomatic relationship with the regime of one of the settlements under attack, when there was a coup at his palace. We managed to make it back to our ship, but Amber was caught in a blast from one of their weapons. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
A war? Down south? Between people? It took me a moment—probably because I had been raised my entire life to believe that we were the only humans who had survived the End—but it finally clicked that there were more people. Living out there and surviving, just like we were. Well, maybe not exactly like us, but still. Dozens of questions hovered on my tongue, just begging for me to open my mouth and let them flood out, but I held them in place.
“I thought she was dead,” Hela whispered, blood draining from her face. “Will she make it?”
I wanted to reassure her, but once again, Quess beat me to it.
“Listen, you don’t know me yet,” he said, emphasizing the yet with the sound of tape tearing from a leech patch, designed to draw out infection in wounds like this. “But I am friggin’ awesome at everything I do. So believe me when I say that your mother is going to be just fine.”
Beside him, Maddox chuckled and looked up at Hela. “He is really good at what he does.”
Hela scowled at them, her eyes almost crossing with the force of her annoyance. “I won’t believe it until I see it,” she declared imperiously.
Quess only laughed at that and continued to work. I watched for a few more seconds, and then moved back to Melissa and Thomas, the questions dancing a merry jig around my head. I wanted to ask all of them at once, but I didn’t want to overwhelm them, or tip my hand about just how ignorant we were regarding the outside world. So I settled on the one that had been bugging me since the start of this.
“Why do you all keep fixating on my eyes?”
Thomas gave me a small and sad smile. “Sorry if we’re weird about that. You can tell a lot about a person from their eyes, and yours are very special.”
“Why?” I demanded, still woefully confused and unhappy about it. Was it the color? Admittedly, amber-colored eyes were super rare, but what did that have to do with anything?
“Your eyes remind us of our parents,” Melissa said. I looked over at her, and her own eyes were full of shadows. “They have the same look. They have ever since the war.”
“The war down south?” I asked, still bewildered. “And what does it even matter if I have the same look in my eyes as they did?”
“Relax,” Melissa said soothingly. “It’s just evidence that you’ve seen a lot of horror in your life and managed to survive with a sense of justice and honor intact. We respect that. Hell, our parents and extended family probably wrote the damn book on it. We just… We can tell that you wouldn’t hurt us unprovoked.”
I blinked at her, and then shook my head and tried not to snort derisively. That was the stupidest thing I had ever heard. But if it earned me some trust, then I was willing to take it.
19
“Here, it’s better if we talk in the cockpit,” Melissa announced, gesturing toward a door in the wall of the cargo bay, which presumably led to the bubble of glass that I had seen on the front earlier. “We can leave your people to work on our aunt without distracting them with our conversation.”
I nodded and looked at Alex and Leo. Leo seemed interested, but Alex… Alex’s gaze was focused on the wall, his face pale and haunted. He wasn’t in the right shape to handle any of this. If anything, I was pretty sure he was still in shock. I’d been there a time or two myself, so I recognized the signs.
“Go ahead,” I told them. “I’ll be there in a minute. I’m just going to relieve my Lieutenant.”
Thomas and Melissa shrugged and started moving toward the door, but Leo waited for me as I sidled up to my brother’s side. “Alex?” I called softly. He blinked, but his gaze didn’t stray from the wall. “Alex.” I reached out and touched his hand, wrapping one finger around his pinkie and giving it a little squeeze. “Alex!” This time I shook him a little bit, shoving my shoulder into his and desperately trying to get him to focus.
“Liana?” he asked, his voice reed-thin and filled with confusion. “What?”
Fear exploded through me, and I tugged him to face me, to look me in the eyes. “Alex, I need you to be with me right now, okay? Do you remember where we are?”
He licked his lips and looked around. “The alien ship,” he told me. Good. That was good. He was still aware of what was going on. I needed to keep him focused and alert. If he stood around too long, I was afraid he might go catatonic. His brain was trying to protect him from what he had experienced, and while I wanted to give him the time and space to process everything, I couldn’t afford to let him shut down now, while we were still in danger of potentially being caught—or attacked.
“Yes,” I told him, smiling encouragingly at him. “I need you to help Quess save this woman. Do you think you can do that?”
Alex swallowed and looked over my shoulder to where Quess was working, just in front of the other set of benches, where Amberlynn was lying on a pallet on the floor. “But Maddox is helping him.”
“I know, but I need her to help me talk to these aliens. So can you take over for her?”
My brother shifted his weight from one leg back to the other, and then nodded slowly. “I can help,” he said thickly. I moved to one side to let him pass, and then motioned for Maddox to follow me. The large area we were in ended in a wall with a door just off to the right, and as I peered through it, I saw that it led to a short hall and then another open space. I couldn’t make out much, because Leo was standing in the way, and Thomas and Melissa were behind him, waiting. Apparently, that was the cockpit, as they called it.
Behind me, I heard Maddox hand the medical supplies she was holding over to Alex, and then start walking toward me. Leo stood aside, revealing a large compartment. Chairs were mounted to the walls on both the sides and the back of the room, making room for fifteen people or so. A table sat off to one side, taking up a large slab of floor space, and there was a chair in front of the bubble window, suspended from the ceiling, with a long panel of buttons and controls sitting in front of it.
“Is that where you control this thing?” I asked, excitement coursing through me as I saw the command chair. “How does it work? How can you fly?” My fingers stretched out to touch the back of the chair, aching to stroke over the fabric there, but Melissa reached out and caught my wrist with one hand.
“The last time one of our people was here, Devon Alexander repeatedly suggested killing them to take our tech. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t show so much interest. It makes me nervous.”
My fingers curled inward, and I looked at her, both surprised at her finally admitting that one of their people had been here before, and shocked at what she was saying. “He did?” I saw the confirmation in her eyes and frowned. “I’m sorry.”
I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for, but it felt appropriate. Perhaps it was because Devon had been a representative of the Tower and had greeted them with mistrust and the threat of violence. No wonder they were so on edge.
“It’s okay,” she said, letting my hand go with a flick of her brown hair. “You clearly didn’t know.” She paused, and then frowned. “Wait, how do you know about us, but not know about us at
the same time? You took over Devon’s position. Shouldn’t there be files on this?”
Maddox, Leo, and I shared bemused looks. Yes, there should be was the answer, but in the Tower, where carefully kept secrets could mean the difference between survival and death, the council had learned to compartmentalize issues that could threaten our society. And telling anyone about the outside world had been categorized as dangerous.
But to my surprise, Thomas started explaining before I could. “I swear to God, Melissa, you never get any of the details right. The council basically told Mom never to come back, and that they fully intended to keep our existence a secret! And then fired on her and Dad to try and make sure she couldn’t tell anyone about them. Don’t you remember?”
Melissa cocked her head, her eyes growing distant, and then shrugged. “You’re probably right, of course. But Mom’s story had a lot of speedbumps along the way, and to be honest, the whole segue into the Tower wasn’t my favorite part. It was stupid.”
“Mom was captured by Desmond’s people, and the ship was damaged by Solomon!” Thomas exclaimed irritably. “It wasn’t exactly her choice to even come this way, especially with everything that was going on at the time.” He paused, and then snapped out, “Besides, you’re not supposed to have a favorite part. It’s not exactly a happy tale.”
I watched the exchange between them with growing confusion. I had picked up on the idea that their mother had been the one to visit the Tower before, obviously, but I wasn’t entirely sure what they were talking about. They were talking about history like it was a story. Why?
“What are you talking about?” Maddox asked, beating me to the punch.
Thomas and Melissa looked away from each other, as if surprised that we were still here. Melissa’s face darkened to a shade of red that rivaled a tomato, and she looked at Thomas, who rolled his eyes.
“I apologize for my sister and myself. We’re not doing a very good job explaining ourselves. Here.” He reached behind his back and started to pull something out, and movement out of the corner of my eye told me that Maddox and Leo had interpreted the act as hostile and were tensing for a fight. I reached out with both arms and clamped hands on their wrists before they could step forward.