Somewhere distantly, I understood I had to be somehow entered into security. I lifted my hand. I hoped that was all he needed. I felt a pinch on my finger.
“Thank you. You can walk around anywhere you want within the perimeter. Diana said you all have top clearance, so every building, any time.”
Clay nodded at Jackson. “Thanks.”
“Yeah.” Jackson stepped back.
Keith put his arm around my shoulders, and we walked again. I didn’t know how long, and I wasn’t even sure where we ended up. I couldn’t find my way again if I had to. The next thing I focused on was that I was in the shower. The water was warm but not too hot. I rinsed shampoo that smelled like Clay out of my hair.
He liked his shampoos to smell like oranges. It was sexy on him. I stared down at my body. There were scars everywhere. Big ones. Small ones. Medium sized. The skin was rough. I’d been in and out of the med machines since the Sisterhood of the Universe. The skin always healed from my beatings. Whatever happened to me, and I still didn’t know what, must have been very bad.
I didn’t care. What did any of what happened to me matter when Quinn and Tommy were dead? I took the towel and stepped out of the shower. Clay sat on the closed toilet seat across the room, watching me.
He rose. “Need help?”
“No.” I shook my head. I wasn’t even going to towel dry my hair. I didn’t care. If it was knotty and had to be shaved off, that was fine, too. “What happened to me? I’m pretty destroyed.”
“Are you?” He rose. “Let me see.”
I dropped the towel. In another circumstance, this might be sexy. I had none of that inclination, and it had nothing to do with Clay. He wasn’t making moves like he wanted me either. This was me—and I suspected him—way too numb to be interested in sex.
“Honestly, honey”—his eyes rose, and he met my gaze—“this is incredibly well done. I’m sure Ari can fix more of it with the scar machine. Or, you know what, Keith knows how to do it. He can. You were burned so badly I was afraid your skin was going to fall off. We shoved you in the machine. My sister was shouting at us to hurry. She tried to go back for Tommy and Quinn. I don’t know what happened to her.”
I blinked. “Your sister?”
“Waverly.” He ran a hand through his hair, and I picked up the towel. “We met her for the first time. She’s the daughter of the woman he was briefly married to after Mom. She helped us, as best she could. Basically kept you alive. You’ll probably remember her when you start to get your memories back. She’s nice. I hope she’s not dead.”
He looked away. He’d met one of the sisters. That was nice. I should feel something about that, and I was sure at some point, I would.
“Clay. I can’t.” I wasn’t sure what I was saying I couldn’t do. I just knew I couldn’t. “You probably can’t either.”
He shook his head. “I’m done, too. Come on.”
I followed him out to the room and put on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt that were too big on me. They were probably Clay’s.
“Hey.” Keith stood. He had food in his hand and a fork. “Paloma, I’m going to need you to eat this and drink something.”
I was neither hungry nor thirsty. “No, thank you.”
“I’m afraid I have to insist.”
Clay crossed in front of me, dumping the towel into a laundry bin. He walked to the window and looked outside. Where were we? I didn’t even know. It was something else I would at some point care about.
Or maybe not. I didn’t know.
“You can’t insist that I eat or drink, Keith. I’m not a child.”
He nodded. “That’s true, my love. But Ari says if you don’t eat or drink, you’re going to have to go back in the machine. They’ve been keeping you alive, so sustaining your nutrition went below sustaining your life. The machine can only do what it does. You’ll have to do another round.”
I didn’t want that. I walked to him on exhausted legs, took the food, and ate. I think I’d managed five bites down before I was done. I had managed not to vomit when I woke up this time. Apparently, all I needed to get through the med machine without puking was emotional trauma. I didn’t want to push it. I drank some water, and then I was done.
It must have been enough for Keith, or maybe like Clay and myself, he just couldn’t. We fell into the bed together. Was it nighttime?
I didn’t even know.
I was exhausted, yet sleep didn’t come. I’d been sedated for months. I hadn’t even known such a thing was possible. Clay and Keith were instantly out cold. Neither one of them moved at all. Had they slept in months? Probably not. I would have kept watch on them constantly in the same situation.
I’d never share a bed with Tommy or Quinn again. I sucked in a breath, and before I could help it, a sob escaped my mouth. How was it we would never speak again? Where was Tommy with advice on getting through this and the promise this would somehow be okay? Where was Quinn to make me laugh? Where were their hearts, their minds, their beliefs, and everything about them that made them who they were? Did that all just vanish?
How could I have slept when they were dying? Keith shifted slightly, his arm moving over me. Had I woken him? It didn’t seem so.
They’d been dying, and I hadn’t even known it. Of course, they were the first thing I’d thought about when I’d opened my eyes. Had I known somehow? I couldn’t even give myself that much credit. I’d probably known they weren’t on the shuttle when they first put me in the machine.
Where were they? What had happened to their bodies? All of this was too removed. My husbands were dead. I needed to see. There was recording. They’d told me they’d seen it.
I had to see it. I wasn’t going to ask. Fair or not, there was a chance Clay and Keith would tell me no. I was a grown woman. I got to say if I wanted to see it, and I wanted to see it right then. I scooted out of bed. I wasn’t even particularly quiet or careful, and neither of them budged.
My poor loves. They’d lost so much. Their brothers. And the month of thinking I might be dead, too. They needed to sleep. They’d already seen what I was seeking out, probably more than they’d wanted.
I didn’t know this place, not even where our rooms were in relation to anywhere else, but I did know there had to be a feed somewhere I could use. I didn’t put on shoes. Someone had slipped them on my feet before I’d left the med bay but I had no idea where they were now.
There had to be a central area. It might be outside. I’d find it.
It was nighttime, but not late. Plenty of people wandered around. I earned some looks; the girl with the wet hair and no shoes. Still, the doors opened and closed as I stormed around, and no one got in my way.
Finally, I found a room with screens. No one was there, and I decided to see if it would do what I wanted. I knew these systems. They were like Mars Station. I told the computer to run a search on Thomas and Quinn Sandler death, and it did.
Images appeared, and I selected the one I wanted. Okay, I was ready to watch.
The door opened and closed. I jumped. I’d been so ready I hadn’t thought about anyone coming in. A man stood there I’d never met before. He was tall, maybe one of the tallest people I’d ever seen. He had olive skin and striking black eyes. He stared at me.
“You’re Paloma, yes?”
I nodded. I didn’t have a clue who he was, but I doubted I’d ever dare not answer him.
“You’re going to look at the feed of your husbands dying.”
So far, he seemed to be stating the obvious. “Who are you?” I had the mark that Jackson person had given me. I had the right to be wherever the heck I wanted to be.
“My name is Rohan. I followed the sound of your heartbeat. We have been listening for it since you were brought in. It stopped twice in that machine. Everyone was terrified to lose you. Should you be wandering around?”
I rocked back on my bare feet. “That’s the thing, Rohan. I am out of ideas about what to do. I can’t think. I can’t eat. I can’t
sleep. They’re dead. I didn’t know my heart stopped beating. I can’t even care. I…”
He walked to the screen. “If you’re going to watch this, you should sit down. Watch it. Watch it one more time after that. Then never watch it again. You deserve to see how your loved ones died. I have none, but I would want that if I did. They loved you deeply, from the conversations your other two have had. They would not want you to watch it more than twice. Enough to remember it but not enough to obsess.”
Well, I supposed this stranger was correct. All of that made a certain amount of sense.
He turned to me one more time. “Turn it on. Sit down. Watch it seated. Watch it now. I am not going to leave you here to view it alone. I’ve also hit my comm button. If either of your husbands wake up, they will know you’re here. They’ve suffered. I don’t want them to worry needlessly.”
Who in the heck was this man? “Where did you come from?”
“I was made in a lab on the other side of the black hole. I was a super-soldier for Evander Corporation. I work for Diana now.”
Well, that was more information than I could digest. I didn’t want to think about black holes, soldiers, or labs. I wanted to see how my loved ones died. I hit the button.
And I watched.
They were lined up next to each other. I didn’t know why this made me feel better. I’d thought maybe they’d each died alone. They wore blindfolds. Tommy stood tall, unmoving and Quinn jumped around a bit. Neither one of them spoke. They’d no sooner been positioned than the guns fired. A loud, harrowing sound. Those were old weapons—ancient—and they’d been designed to kill painfully. Tommy was immediately struck in the head. He went down, but they missed on Quinn. The first strike of the bullet didn’t hit him in the head—but the chest. He would have felt it. Oh by the universe, he would have felt it.
I cried out.
But it wasn’t over. Their dead bodies were dragged through the street while people wearing all red—the Sandler red the guys loved me in so much, the same color as the ones who had leveled the promenade on Mars Station wore—cheered. I wanted to be sick, but I held it back. I needed to see, and I watched it. Something inside of me died.
And then I watched it again.
Clay ran through the door as I turned off the screen. He panted, which meant he must have run the whole way.
“She’s physically stable.” Rohan nodded at Clay before he walked right out of the room, having been silent the whole time I’d watched.
I knew something for sure—and only one thing—I was going to kill Garrison Sandler. I would end his life. And not like he had killed Tommy and Quinn. Quinn had held his hands out in front of him as though to ward off the bullets. Tommy hadn’t flinched. I shuddered. Clay was talking to me, but I couldn’t hear him through the rushing noise in my head.
I. Was. Going. To. Kill. Garrison. Sandler.
And I was going to make it hurt.
3
Communication Problems
Ten months ago
Meeting of the Fleet—month two, Earth Standard Time
I pressed the button on the comm and tried to find my patience. How did Keith and Tommy deal with these people on a regular basis? “Yes. I understand, Captain Fitz.” I cleared my throat. “But I think you’re going to have to turn the system on if you want it to work.”
Stagnating in space. That was what Tommy had called it the night before when he’d been stomping about the shuttle. He wanted to get moving. I didn’t blame him. That wasn’t going to happen, however, if the two captains who couldn’t get their phase systems working didn’t get in line. Keith’s head was down on the console. He hadn’t moved in two hours. His neck had to have been hurting him. He’d been dealing with this guy too long.
“I am convinced turning it on will blow up the ship.”
The man on the other end of the call had to be someone’s uncle, cousin, brother, nephew that had been given this ship as a means to get him off Earth and away from whomever owned the vessel in the first place. I was convinced. Or something equally aggravating.
Our systems connected to his showed the phase burners on his shuttle to be ready, functional, and not at all likely to blow anything up. Or at least, not any more likely than anything else on any shuttle anywhere.
I took a deep breath. The guys trusted me to handle communications, and so far, it had been easy. With the exception of the two duds in the group, the other captains needed basic information, and then they needed to be allowed to do their jobs.
“Captain Fitz, I am going to be completely honest with you.” This was a new step for me. I was Paloma Delacroix Sandler, disgraced former debutante from Mars station turned failed Sister of the Universe initiate turned figuring-it-out Sandler wife. I was in no way qualified to tell anyone what to do. Except this man. I was going to get him moving or get him out of the way before Tommy had a stroke.
There was silence. “Yes, Mrs. Sandler.”
“It is going to blow up your ship. It’s going to go kaboom the second you turn it on. I think you should take your ship and head back to Earth right now. Just turn that little ship around and return to where you came from. You need to trust your instincts; if they tell you the ship is going to blow up, you have to go. Get out of here, fast.”
A stuttering sound came over the line. “Yes. Yes. I am going to do that. Thank you, Mrs. Sandler. I am going to go now. My crew and I wish you well.”
I shut off the comm and turned around when a sound behind me caught my attention. Tommy stood in the threshold of the door, both his eyebrows raised. “Ah, Mrs. Sandler. Did you just convince one of my captains to abandon the fight?”
Well, I had been caught very fast. It wasn’t like I wouldn’t have explained to the guys what I had done. I had every intention of doing so. I just hadn’t expected to do it instantly.
“Run away now or run away during battle. I think it would have been that eventually, and Keith can’t spend any more time convincing that man to turn on his systems. Look at him.” I nodded toward my dead-to-the-world asleep husband. “Are you going to baby him during a fight? He’s going to get his men needlessly killed just by being an idiot.” Okay, I wasn’t being kind. I knew it. “How bad is it that I sent away one ship?”
He walked to me. Was he going to yell very quietly since Keith was sleeping? “Not bad at all. Glad to be rid of him. I think he was someone’s cousin or something.” I sat up straighter. I wasn’t bad at reading people. In fact, I’d gotten kind of good at it. “Call over to the other ship that won’t turn on its phase dampeners and tell them to turn them on or go away. Then come see me, will you? In my room.”
I nodded. “What will we be doing in your room, General Sandler, before breakfast time this morning?” I batted my eyelashes at him, and he snorted before he covered his mouth up to stifle a laugh.
That hadn’t been exactly what I had been going for with the eyelash batting. He grinned. “Sorry, you just looked sort of deranged there for a second. What were you doing with your eyes?”
I waved my hand at him. “Never mind.”
“I’m actually not propositioning you to come to my room for sex. I’d never say no. I just want to spend some time. I want to go over some things with you, and I don’t want to wake Keith. Although, I’m wondering if anything could rouse him at this point.”
All right, I’d be right there as soon as I told the other ship captain to get his ass in gear or get out of our way.
Tommy’s room, like his office in the first house I’d met him, looked like a mess until I’d learned to appreciate he had his own way of organizing things that made sense to him. He never misplaced anything. When he wasn’t leading fighters, he designed ships. In fact, I was pretty sure he preferred being ship designer Tommy McQueen over General Sandler any day of the week. We just didn’t live in a world where he had that choice.
“He turned on his phase dampeners. I was shocked.” Tommy looked up from where he studied something on his tablet. He patted th
e bed next to him, and I scooted closer. “Keith is still out cold. Should we be worried?”
Tommy shook his head. “No, the twins have always had the remarkable ability to pass out wherever they want in the middle of whatever. I can’t do that. I have to be in my designated sleep spot and know it’s an appropriate time for me to sleep.”
I elbowed him gently. “Or you just have to be worn out enough, which is hard to do with you.”
“Well, lately I can’t sleep unless I’m with you.” He pointed at the tablet. “I will never sleep again unless I get this off my mind. During battle, and I don’t anticipate one for a few months, I am going to count on you to call the commands through the comm to the rest of the ships as I give them to you.” He held out the tablet. “They’re on here.”
I was so glad to have a job. I hated sitting around when they made decisions and handled things. Nothing amped up my anxiety as much as inactivity. “Count on me.”
“I do.” He stroked his thumb down my cheek. “You saved me, you know that right? You saved all of us. This would never have happened, today, next week, anything that took place on Earth, without you. I’d still be sitting on that planet near the blown up Sisterhood of the Universe trying to figure out how we were going to live like that forever. Quinn would be nearly out of his mind with guilt and barely functional. Keith would be a full on insomniac, wandering around the house ready to blow, and Clay would be lost to his work.”
He exaggerated. They had really not been that bad. “You told me you were leaving there in the winter. Remember when you came to me and said I could come find you guys but you were leaving in the winter? Then when you took me from my hotel job? Again, leaving in the winter.”
Tommy slouched down a little then finally flopped onto his stomach. “Yeah, well I lie. You know that. I lie to strangers when I need to. If I have to get to them to do what I want. I never lie to you anymore. I tell you the truth, even when you don’t want to hear it. I put some pressure on you back there. We weren’t going anywhere. Not in the winter or anytime soon. The only reason we left was because those profiteers spotted you.”