CHAPTER 14
I want to sleep in senseless nothing. I want to float in forgetting. I shrink from the memories that lap at the edge of my consciousness. But the tide rises, washes over me, an unwanted breaker of self-awareness.
The world glitters.
Faces smile. Tongues gild truths.
Baby-fat hands grasp sun-bright treasures.
I dance, I twirl, I glide over solid gold ground.
I’m floating.
The world quakes.
Bullet wounds gape. Heartbeats fail.
Trembling hands touch blood.
I scramble for safety as the ground beneath me cracks,
flakes, falls away but there’s nothing
nothing
nothing to hold on to.
I’m floating .
The world blurs.
Poison pacifies. Sex sedates.
Slender hands clutch silver-light pleasure.
I slip, I drip, I dive.
I’m floating.
No… Not floating.
A woodsy smell tickles my nose. A steady drum beats against my cheek. Something firm hammocks beneath my back, and my weighty limbs are tucked against a warm… body.
I’m… someone’s carrying me.
On reflex, my eyelids strain to lift. I weld them shut. I don’t want to wake up.
“A con artist, a genius, and a poet to boot, huh?”
Mitchell’s deep voice vibrates against my ear. The ear that’s… pressed into his chest. His heartbeat is the drum I heard.
“Your poetry’s kind of on the creepy side, though.” A chuckle rumbles and I want to purr and snuggle into it. “But then, so is your in-depth knowledge of poisons.”
Wait, why is my ear against Mitchell’s chest?
I allow my eyes to open after all.
I’m looking at the underside of the captain’s chiselled jawline. And up his nose. And up at a blur of foliage with cracks of sky beyond. Pinkish sunset sky. The view jostles to the steady rhythm of Mitchell’s footfalls .
“What’s… what’s going on?” My words come out sounding more smeared together than intended.
“We’re on our way back to the ship. Ballga took Sam on the hover. Your friends went ahead to find their clothes and dry off after we were sure you were recovering.”
“Sam,” I mumble. “Sam’s okay?”
“You saved his life.”
Relief floods through me, better than the warming rush of venom. Sam’s okay.
The rhythmic jostling pauses. Mitchell’s chin tilts down so I can see his face. I’m snared once more in his uniquely beautiful green-brown eyes. The emotion in them stops the breath my lungs had planned on pulling in.
I squeeze my eyes shut again.
Mitchell resumes walking.
“Wait… poetry?” I peer up at his jaw. If I nuzzled there, it would feel scratchy, like sandpaper.
Not that I want to nuzzle Captain Goody-Goody.
I don’t want to nuzzle him.
I don’t.
That’d be utterly enjoyable.
No. Stupid. Utterly stupid is what I meant to think.
“You were talking in your sleep. Something about glitter and dancing and blood.” His jawline moves and I can tell he’s grinning by the sound of his voice when he adds, “Like I said, kind of creepy.”
I like the rumbling of Mitchell’s voice in his chest way too much. I like the grin I hear in his words way too much. I like the way he smells of pine woods way too much . I shouldn’t be in his arms. I try to twist out of his grasp, but my body only wiggles half-heartedly, like a doomed worm on a line.
Giving up, I listen to the strong, steady drumming of his heart.
Being carried by Mitchell makes me feel grounded like I haven’t felt since before that day. And yet, like I’m floating. Like I don’t have to carry my own weight. Like I’m safe .
The steady rhythm of his heartbeat is lulling me back into sweet delirium.
“You’re a lie,” I mutter, snuggling into his arms and resting a palm against his chest. “No one’s heart beats that steady.”
-X-
Bloody palms.
Bloody, Mary-Jane-shaped footprints.
Bloody truth seeping along a grid of tile-grout canals.
I pretend I don’t know who put the bullet holes in beloved bodies.
But I saw .
I saw the whole thing.
Hold in the screams, hold in the truth, hold in the vomit that climbs my esophagus in Father’s presence.
You killed them , I don’t say.
You make me sick , I don’t spew.
You killed Mom, too, didn’t you?
Pressure hardens rage into a heavy lump of coal. I bury it in my chest and choke up lies instead.
Gilded vomit.
Father vomits golden lies, too. Liquid gold spews from our lips. We’re fountains.
What a tragedy, Father says.
An enemy attack in our own home.
What a tragedy, I repeat. It’s not a lie.
We vomit bathtubs of gold together. Swimming pools full of it. We dip the rotting corpses so they’re plated in gold.
How lovely.
People say they’re works of art.
I vomit and vomit and vomit ’til my desiccated body shrivels. ’Til my veins are powder. ’Til I’m a corpse choking on dust.
-X-
I wake on my hands and knees, dry heaving, drenched in cold sweat. I drag in air, push it out, forcing my breath to steady. Just another twisted version of my usual nightmare.
The dim glow of a nightlight softens the darkness around me. I’m in my bunk in the ship’s dormitory. The privacy slider stands open a sliver, like someone checked in on me while I slept. But as far as I can see through the crack, the room is quiet and empty.
Hopefully that means I didn’t scream. Or retch too loudly.
Or spout poetry in my sleep, because apparently I do that, too.
I pull off my sweat-drenched leggings and sports bra. The vial of Delirium, ever-present in my bra band, drops onto wrinkled sheets with a soft thud. Its silver glow turns the bedding into a moonlit landscape of ridged mountains and valleys and swirling rock formations.
A little Delirium would go a long way to relieve the residue of disgust and terror left to crystalize in my body in the wake of the nightmare. Just a tiny half-dose.
No one would know.
My fingers brush the glass for the briefest half-second, before I draw back my hand. Sam might need more of my blood. I’ve got to keep clean for him.
I feel for the slippery waterproof fabric of my bag at the foot of the bed. Pulling the zipper slowly so it doesn’t make too much noise, I open the satchel and tug out a baggy nightshirt. I pull it over my head and draw the worn cotton down over my damp, naked skin. Then I drop the vial of Delirium in my bag and let the zipper swallow its glowing light.
The slider sighs open at the touch of my palm. A dim glow ribbons the base of the rectangular dormitory, just barely illuminating three walls of built-in bunks, privacy sliders shut like cupboard doors. Faint snoring rumbles from Vince’s closed-off cubicle, and something like a purr emanates faintly from Ballga’s.
I tiptoe across to Sam’s bunk and press my palm to the dim grey metal of his privacy screen. It slides to the side with a whisper-quiet hiss. Sam lies inside, blankets bunched at his waist. His small chest rises and falls, clad in fresh, clean pyjamas. The masked characters that speckle the fabric in heroic poses must be Star Rovers.
I rub my hands together, warming them with friction, then gently press my middle and index fingers to the soft skin of Sam’s neck. His pulse taps a sleepy lento, back in the safe range.
A smile curls my lips, then fades. Poor kid has seen as much trauma in his short life as I have in my longer one, maybe more. He watched his father disappear to the mines and never return, watched his mother die in the most gruesome way possible. He lives the refugee crisis firsthand every day on the job with Mitchell and Ballga .
When I was his age, my world was nothing but solid-gold, pink-ruffled ignorance.
I hope the kid never drowns the bad memories in Delirium, like I did.
Sam’s small chest rises and falls with peaceful vitality. I don’t think he’ll turn to drugs. He seems happy and whole, strong despite all he’s been through.
I slide the screen shut and throw my black bag over my shoulder before padding to the hallway in search of a shower. A crispy chunk of hair on one side of my head smells suspiciously like reptile dung.
Moving quietly along the curve of the dimly lit hall, I find the door I’ve passed through to use the toilet. As I suspected, another one nearby is embossed with the image of a showerhead spraying dashed lines.
The door opens to a small, round room with a drain in the middle of the floor, a curved bench along the wall, and a big showerhead in the centre of the ceiling. Built-in shelves line one side, scattered with various bottles, a partly used bar of soap, and, I notice with a laugh, a yellow plastic water pistol. The laugh fades as the uncomfortable feeling of intruding on a family twists again in my chest.
I shove it away, step in, and lock the door. No amount of guilt or longing is going to keep me from my first hot shower in six months .
I hang my nightshirt and bag on a peg near the entrance, then examine a set of controls on the opposite wall. Years of use have rubbed away the labels. I give the most faded button a hopeful poke and squeal with delight as steaming rain cascades from the ceiling and patters on the floor.
The lone tap in our flat back in the Underground spat an unreliable trickle of ice water that we used for tooth-chattering sponge baths.
As I bask in the steaming glory of my first hot shower in months, the stress of the nightmare seeps away and trickles down the drain. So does the residue of today’s unpleasant encounter with Dinobird.
When my hair’s soaked, I peruse the shelf of toiletries to see what I can use.
The bar soap smells like Mitchell, bringing to mind my journey home today, buried against his pine-scented chest. The memory of feeling warm and safe in his arms tugs at the corners of my lips. I force them back down.
Captain Goody-Goody does not smell good .
My renegade hands lift the smooth white bar and I sniff again. Tension sighs out of my shoulders, and I do feel safe. Safer than I have in a very long time.
Safe, I remind myself, is a lie parents tell little girls to gild the rotting corpses .
I absolutely refuse to use Mitchell’s soap. Slamming the bar back where I found it, I grab a bottle at random and squeeze it into my hair. It smells like bubble gum, but whatever. I lather my scalp roughly, swipe bubble gum suds over the important bits, and rinse.
I need to get out of here before I melt into a mushy ball of needy female.
Instead, my feet splash toward the wall of their own accord. My fingers curl over the lip of the shelf and I press my nose to the bar of soap, drawing in a deep, delightfully woodsy breath.
Today wasn’t the first time I caught a whiff of evergreen. I also smelled it when my body was wrapped around Mitchell’s, dangling from that tree. Warmth blossoms in my cheeks—and elsewhere —at the memory.
I am not into Captain Goody-Goody, I tell myself as my traitorous hand reaches toward his soap again. It’s just a good smell. A really good… smell.
Strength of will has never been my thing, but this is ridiculous. I force my hand away from where it hovers over Mitchell’s soap and use it to slap myself hard on the cheek, instead.
The wet smack echoes in my head, but not loud enough to crowd out the memory of my legs and arms koala’d around the captain.
-X -
Shower finished, I peer into a little square mirror built into the wall of the bathing room, dragging a comb through black and navy strands as fast as I can while attempting with all my limited willpower not to think about Mitchell’s body between my legs.
Captain Perfect is so high above me he might as well be on another planet. He’s a fucking saviour of refugees and orphans, and I’m a runaway, an addict, and a murderer.
When it comes to getting laid, I’m confident. I’ve never been rejected by a boy in my life. But I’ve never met someone like Mitchell before. There’s a good chance he would laugh in my face if I tried to get him in bed.
The potential for rejection intimidates me.
But far, far more terrifying is the chance he might say yes. And the emotional aftermath of that debacle, that could break me. Because as much as I don’t want to admit it to myself, I feel feelings when I’m around the captain. Feelings like safety , and family , and trust . And those feelings are lies more addictive than Delirium. More deadly than any mere poison.
Safety and family and trust destroyed me once. I’m only taped-together shards of glass now. One more blow and I’ll be dust.
I toss the comb and grab my toothbrush.
I just need to get laid, that’s all.
I just need to get laid, and the feelings will go away .
I jam the toothbrush into my mouth. When I get back to the dormitory, I’ll sneak into Vince’s bunk. Tori doesn’t need to know. And anyway, I promised her I would keep my head straight, that I wouldn’t let emotions get involved. With Vince, that’s exactly what I’m ensuring. I’m confident it will just be sex without any pesky feelings getting involved.
Lips closed around the toothbrush, I start to hum. It takes a moment for me to realize I’m humming Ivanov’s Starlight Serenade , an orchestral piece commissioned to celebrate the maiden voyage of the first light drive vessel.
It also happens to be the last piece I performed for my grandparents.
I shove away the image of a little girl in pink frills, white socks with ribbon roses folded over polished Mary Janes, wielding a violin bow instead of a blade. Grandfather smiling. Grandmother clapping. Father vomiting gold.
I stop humming, but the music plays on, so faint that I wouldn’t hear it without my aural mods.
Weird.
I throw on a clean bra and tuck my little vial of comfort safely into the band, then pull the baggy nightshirt over my head. Grabbing my sack, I pad out into the hallway, following the faint melody .
Past the toilet, past the dormitory, past the engine room, past the lounge. The sound leads me to the door of the cockpit. I scrunch my nose. Why would music be coming from—
Realization slams into me, kickstarting my heart into race mode.
I know who’s going to be on the other side of that door.
And I know what he’s going to smell like.
And I know how his eyes will snag me ’til I’m desperate to look away and can’t.
I should turn around, go back to the dorm, and crawl into Vince’s bunk like I planned. But my limited supply of willpower is all used up. The melody is like a siren’s song, calling me. I can’t resist. I step forward on the cold floor, into the range of the automatic sensor, and let the cockpit door slide open.