* * *
A knock on my door caught my attention, and I lifted my head to see who stood there. I’d cried myself dry, and my head pounded.
Sterling opened the door and then walked through it before I could answer the knock. He stared at me. I’d barely gotten through my ordeal with Judge. Managing Sterling’s anger and disappointment was going to be a big problem in my current state.
“You’re both going to have to get over yourselves.” He sunk down on the floor next to me. “I’m not mad at either of you. If you want to be pissed off because the universe sometimes sucks, you can have at it, sweet baby. I choose to think the fact that you’re alive and we got here is an indication that sometimes things go right. He’s out there obsessing that you’ll never forgive him for venting his spleen, and you’re worrying over …”
He let his voice trial off, a clear indication he wanted me to answer his still not quite articulated question.
“I’m worried we’ve made a terrible mistake. We all changed in the time we were apart. Maybe this doesn’t work anymore. Maybe my being angry when I shouldn’t be is an indication we’re not as compatible in the cold universe as we were on the planet.”
Sterling shrugged, and I gaped at him. He shrugged? That was his whole response?
He gave me a sideways grin and shook his head. “Don’t overthink it. You love me. I love you. I know you also love Judge, and that guy would tear himself up for you in a heartbeat. If we have to have drama to have your voice, then so be it. Say what you think. We’ll do the same. I know your soul. We haven’t made a mistake.”
I put my head on his shoulder. He smelled like smoke, which was an odd scent, and it made me sniff. “Something burning?”
“I built some bombs. Had to do it. I don’t trust Judge with explosives right now.”
“You’re going to rescue Ari.”
He took my hand in his. “Here’s the thing. You have to come. He doesn’t know me. I don’t want him fighting his rescue. So you are coming even though it kills me to bring you. Pull it together. We’ve got to go get your psychiatrist.”
“He’s really more of a friend.”
Sterling rose, and I got up with him. “I actually prefer to think of him as your doctor, if it’s all the same to you. I’m not all that comfortable with the idea of friend. I’m not sharing your heart with anyone who isn’t on this ship this very moment. So, yeah, okay, we’ll figure out friends and how I won’t kill them from jealousy.”
“It’s not at all the same—”
He didn’t let me finish. Instead, with my hand safely ensconced in his, we walked out toward the outfitting area. The ship had changed a bit since I’d been on it last, and not just with furniture they’d added. The guys had set up a whole military area with guns, knives, shielding, and what looked like some kind of bomb distributer. It was actually a return for the old lady Artemis. My uncles had a similar space when they’d lived on her. But it had been disbanded by the time I’d had the unfortunate luck to get thrown through the black hole. Or fortunate luck, as the case turned out to be. It was as I thought about the past that the truth of what was happening hit me like a sledgehammer, which was also in the weapons closet, ironically.
“Wait.” I stopped moving. I hated cowardice, particularly in myself. “I’ve never done anything like this before. We’re going onto that ship, and we’re …”
Damian rounded the corner, pulling me toward him for a kiss on the mouth. Sterling didn’t let go of my hand, and I ended up nestled between them. After his kiss, Damian grinned. “We’re going to go get your buddy Ari. You’re going to stay behind Sterling and in front of me. Nothing will touch you. We’ll take care of this. You’re going to be an observer.”
Sterling groaned. “An observer with a gun.” As if to stress his point, he let go of my hand in order to stick a weapon in it. I knew how to shoot. I’d proven it to them on Orion. It was one of the perks of having my uncles and my father in my life. They’d made sure I was really, really good at shooting.
But, I’d never pointed one at anyone. I’d barely managed the zombies.
“Oh.” Damian whirled around. “The next time you want to get really mad and yell, do it to me. I won’t storm out until one of us gets naked and after everything that you, yes it’ll be you, getting naked implies.”
I jolted. That was not the Damian reaction I’d expected. Hurt at my anger, yes; joking, no. He patted Sterling on the arm. “Hurry. We’re only going to be unseen by their sensors for so long. You said it yourself. Nothing is invisible forever.”
When had he said that? Damian walked onto the shuttle in time for Cash to stick his head out of the hatch. “Oh good, you got her. I’m still not sure on this. She had surgery hours ago.”
“Looks okay to me.” Sterling kissed my hand holding the gun. “Come on. Let’s get going so we can get back. And besides, if she needs any help with the tube on her arm, she has the man who invented it himself to help her out.”
I didn’t see Judge, and Lewis wasn’t around. I wanted to say goodbye before I went on to do whatever they had planned on the mission to get Ari. Judge and I had things left to say that didn’t include yelling, and it seemed weird that Lewis wasn’t there to see me off. On Orion he hadn’t liked me to go into storage areas without giving me a hug. Was he angry?
Sterling put a hand on the center of my back and ushered me onto the shuttle. If Artemis was old, the shuttles were even more ancient. I looked around at the peeling paint. Someone needed to pay attention to this place. At least I knew what I’d be doing when we got back from this event.
“I—” The door had no sooner shut than the shuttle jolted while it pulled away from Artemis. None of them would make eye contact with me.
I took a deep, steadying breath. “What’s going on?”
Cash raised his gaze. “We didn’t exactly tell Lewis and Judge you were coming with us.”
“What?” This went against everything I knew about them. They’d been all about the honesty on Orion. When Lewis had taken me to the heated cave without telling the others, it had been a big problem. “Why?”
Damian cleared his throat. “Lewis isn’t going to like you running off on this mission hours after surgery. He’d be right; I’d don’t much care for it either, but I’m more willing to bend the rules because Cash is here. And Judge isn’t in any emotional state to deal with you going off anywhere. We decided he didn’t need to know.”
Cash snorted. “You mean you decided. You and Sterling. And then next thing I knew, they’d convinced me to get on the shuttle and go along with this plan. Lewis is going to ring my neck.”
“And Judge is going to rage.” Sterling yawned. “We need her. End of story.” He sat down in the navigation chair. “Just like we discussed. In and out. Cash remains on the shuttle.”
I plopped myself down in one of the extra seats in the control room. “This is really feeling off, guys. Since when do you lie to each other?”
“Lewis wouldn’t hesitate to lie to us if he needed something in regards to you. For Judge, this is a first. But he’s not reasonable. He needs a break—a time out of sorts.”
I rubbed my eyes. “For the record, I’m not okay with this. I don’t want to start hiding things. My mother made that mistake, or at least that’s the stories that I’ve heard. Before I was born. She kept all the men in her life on a need to know basis. That’s not how I want things to be.”
Sterling swirled in his chair. “Well, until a few hours ago, you weren’t speaking. I had to improvise. You want Ari alive. You do as I say, he comes back alive. If Judge gets his feelings hurt and Lewis seethes, then so be it”
I could have pointed out the obvious, which was that they were going to be upset because they loved me and would be worried about my safety. They knew Lewis and Judge and how upset they’d be.
I needed to be clear on the plan. I didn’t want to screw it up. “So we grab and go? Like some kind of robbery?” I’d seen someone do it on the promena
de once. It had seemed a desperate move. There was nowhere to go. They’d been caught very quickly.
“Damian is going to disable their systems. Temporarily. We’ll have ten minutes to get him and get off.”
I stood. “If they’ve taken him onto one of the Sandler command ships, they’re huge. We aren’t going to find him that quickly.”
Sterling showed me a toothy grin. “That’s why it’s so good that we don’t have to worry about figuring out which room he’s in. I’ve got that under control.”
“How’s that? Did they announce it over an airwave while I was out cold?”
“It’s obvious.”
It was? “Again I ask, how so?”
“Judge broke into their system, downloaded the schematic before he came in and started a fight with you.”
I shook my head. “Arguably I did that.”
Damian reached over and stroked my hair. “Arguably Lewis did that when he came out and shared the news about you being angry and that’s why you weren’t speaking.”
“Aha, that’s why you didn’t tell him. You’re mad at Judge because he yelled at me, and you’re angry at Lewis because somehow this is all his fault?”
None of that was fair. I had caused all of this. A muscle in Cash’s jaw ticked. “We just got you back. I’m not going to lose you. Do you understand? I love you. Lewis should have kept your freak-out to himself, and Judge should have kept his temper in check. Years from now, when we’re all secure, we can all fight then.”
“Arguments don’t work like that. They happen when they happen. I’m not good at them. But I hardly think it’s fair to blame—”
Sterling pointed at the screen in front of us. “I don’t care about any of this. Fight, don’t fight. I’m not participating. The point I was making earlier was that I went ahead and figured out the only place on the ship where they could be keeping Ari. We should be fine getting in and out.”
Damian nodded. “We’re set. View screen is on.” A quick picture of the ship we were approaching danced into view. Unlike modern ships, Artemis’ shuttle sometimes still battled to show a correct picture on the screen. I stepped toward it.
“Sterling, that is not just any ship. After Quinn Sandler blew up Tommy’s old ship, this one took over as lead in the fleet. Its one of the best ships ever built, well, according to Tommy who designed it.”
Sterling shrugged. “I’m going to blow it to smithereens after we get off.”
I hated the thought of death, but I wasn’t naive. I’d seen this particular ship before, up close and in person. It had fired on Artemis, forcing me to jettison my brother out in a pod to save him; then I’d plummeted through a black hole.
As it turned out, my future had been waiting for me. Of course, that hadn’t been the outcome Sandler had been hoping for. If they couldn’t take me, they wanted me dead so they could harm my mother.
I didn’t have any problem with blowing them up. Cash’s hand on his back caught my attention. His voice was low. “Violence is difficult, I know. Human life is—”
I shook my head to interrupt him. “I’m not having trouble with the violence. I’m remembering … other times. Sterling, the Sandlers aren’t to be underestimated. They’re a nightmare.”
“I got this.”
I let Cash pull me against him. He smelled like home, and for a few seconds I drifted in the scent.
“Does your arm feel okay?”
I took a deep breath. “If it didn’t, what would you propose doing about it?”
“I’d try to fix it.”
I lifted my arm so he could see. “It’s a little itchy.”
“That’s probably the new skin coming alive.”
“All right, we’re ready. Damian’s going to screw with their systems.” Sterling grinned, which would have been completely inappropriate for anyone except him, and spun in his chair. “I love days like today.”
I was glad someone did.
* * *
The alarm sounded loudly on the Sandler command ship. It made my ears throb but covered our insertion very well. Sterling docked our shuttle in an empty slot made for one of their own shuttles, which they would soon find was missing and floating somewhere out in space headed to who knew where. They could ponder it for about five seconds before Sterling blew them up.
With the commotion of every single one of their systems either shutting down or starting to go down, they hadn’t noticed our arrival and would hopefully not notice our departure. My heart lodged in my throat, and I was sure the hand holding Sterling’s was coated in sweat.
If it bugged him, he didn’t say. Behind me Damian stayed so close to me he could have practically crawled inside of my jacket with me. Sterling had said they meant to keep me safe, and they’d evidently meant it.
If Sterling was correct, then we were only two hallways away from where they held Ari. Damian’s plans would have brought all hands on deck into the engine room and the navigation console. Hopefully, Ari had minimal guards with him.
I heard the noise the same time that Damian did.
In two shots, Damian had them both down on the floor. Sterling didn’t even turn around. “Good work, Damian.”
“Thanks.”
Neither of my husbands seemed particularly fazed. I knew all about Sterling’s background, but when had Damian become so good at killing?
Every step I took after that one felt like I moved one step closer to my death. I knew it was dramatic, I knew it didn’t help to think about those things, but there it was. My first time not hiding from fear, not being left with the children under the floor boards, but charging toward danger, and I was a nervous wreck.
Sterling ripped an electric panel off the wall next to the door where, presumably, they kept Ari and started messing with the electrics.
He was busy. Even in my foggy-headed state of terror, which made me want to flee back to the shuttle, I knew that much. I moved to his left. Damian would cover his right, and I could do his—
“No. Back where you were. Safe between us.”
I didn’t argue with Sterling. He couldn’t afford the distraction. But I also didn’t move. He narrowed his eyes and otherwise made no comment that he’d even noticed I’d outright defied his instructions.
I heard the person coming down the hallway from the opposite direction. If Sterling or Damian did, I would never know. The scuff of the shoes on the linoleum floors, the huff and puffing of his breath—they were coming.
I raised the gun and fired.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Family
I’d no sooner killed my first person than Sterling had his arm around me, tugging me into the room he’d managed to open. I’d killed someone …
Ari was out cold on the table, one of his arms hanging off. He didn’t budge at all to indicate consciousness, and seconds later Sterling had him over his back. I hadn’t been needed on the mission at all. Ari wouldn’t know who moved him around or where he was going.
And I’d killed a man.
He was dead on the ground. I turned to stare at him. He was older than me, maybe in his early thirties, or he had been. He didn’t have an age anymore. He’d forever be dead …
Damian squeezed my shoulder. “He would have shot us.”
“I know.” But he was dead, and I’d done it. “When did you first kill someone?”
Sterling shook his head. “You two can do the whole ‘rundown on death’ off this ship. If it means anything, sweet baby, he was going to be dead in two minutes when I blew up this place.”
It didn’t.
* * *
Cash hovered over the unconscious Ari, reading the stats the med machine gave him. The buzz filled our small shuttle. Every once in a while, Cash muttered something about drugs and truth serums. Those drugs were illegal—or at least they were supposed to be. I doubted Garrison Sandler cared very much when it came to the laws of the land.
Sterling had lived up to his word. Two minutes after we were back on the shuttle, he’d targe
ted their engines and blown them all to hell. My family and the others fighting were going to want to know how he’d figured out their systems so easily.
My arm itched. I stared down at it. Cash had been right; the skin was coming back, the pink deepening. Itching was a small problem.
Damian plopped down next to me. “I’ll say it again. He would have killed us.”
“She didn’t have to kill him. You could have done it. Or she could have done what I told her to do and gotten behind me. I would have ended him.” Sterling leaned back in his chair.
Damian snorted. “I think she thought she had your back. You were busy.”
“Is that what you thought?” Sterling raised his eyebrows. “That I needed you to protect me?”
I’d had enough. Having already determined that my temper wasn’t reasonable, okay, or even rational, I really didn’t want to start screaming again, but I didn’t feel like shutting down either.
“Sterling, you’re being an asshole. Okay? I didn’t get behind you. Yes, I thought I could help you. Maybe that was stupid, but it was what it was. Did I anticipate I’d shoot someone? No. But I did it. And it’s not sitting well.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t even have to look at him to shoot him. The next time we do something like this, you do what I say when I say it. I can’t stop and argue with you in the middle of it.”
“Thank you for saving Ari. It means the world to me that you did. I love you. But there isn’t going to be a next time for this. I’m not sure that any of this should continue at all.”
How was it possible to love these men and still feel like they were complete strangers? Was it possible whatever chances we’d had disappeared on Orion?
Sterling opened and closed his mouth. I’d actually struck him dumb. That was okay, I was feeling pretty stupid myself. Nothing made sense, and I wasn’t sure it ever would again.