Chapter 34 Elanie
It was a thin plan, and I gave us a much lower chance of success than Mal did. But I was beginning to realize that I liked defying the odds.
Grover had clung to me all evening, demanding to be held and scratched like he knew something was about to happen.
But now, while I stared up at the stars through our skydome, even with Grover’s warm weight on my belly, even with a plan in place, a familiar loneliness settled over me, pushing me into our bed, crushing me.
And just like they did every night since Sem had left, tears filled my eyes, spilling warm and wet down my cheeks.
Only tonight I wasn’t crying because he had abandoned me.
Tonight, I was crying because I had abandoned him.
I still didn’t understand how I could have believed Gol so easily. Where had my logic gone? It was like being in love had altered my cognitive capacity, reduced my processing speed, hacked my CPU to run a subroutine indexing every shade of blue. Cobalt, cerulean, indigo, navy, midnight—
Footsteps padded quietly over the sand beside my hut, and I bolted upright, throwing my hand over Grover’s beak before he could make a peep.
The hairs along my arms rose as my skin pulled tight. They were faster than usual, quieter too, but I knew those footsteps. Those were my footsteps.
My heart thundered, my entire body humming as if lightning had struck the hut. And when Sem slipped silently in through our door, dripping wet and…completely naked, I whispered, “Is this a dream?”
Taking my hand from Grover’s beak, I rubbed my eyes. When I opened them again, he was still there, still wet, still naked. Oh my gods.
“Hi, Elanie.”
My systems failed all at once in a catastrophic surge.
His voice, his eyes, his skin. His smile alone triggered a cascade of internal alarms, a few of which I’d never even seen before.
I was paralyzed, still sitting in my bed, tears streaming down my cheeks.
The only thing I managed to blubber as my circuits fragged themselves was “They cut your hair.”
He took a step closer, then another. When he ran his hand over his silver buzzcut, tiny droplets of star-lit water misted into the air.
“Are you wet?” I asked, my logic continuing to lag.
“A bit.” Without offering further explanation, he dropped to his knees in front of me. “I know Gol told you I’d left without saying goodbye. But I didn’t leave. He—”
“Imprisoned you underground,” I said, wondering if I’d ever look anywhere but into his eyes again. Why would I, when everything that was good and sweet in the entire Known Universe existed there?
“You knew?” He pulled back, his brows knitting together. “You knew I was down there?”
Realizing my mistake, I shooed Grover off my lap and grasped Sem’s arms. “No. I didn’t know.
Until today, I believed him. I thought you’d left me.
I couldn’t even get out of bed until this morning.
I kept thinking, how could he leave me here?
What did I do wrong? Was our fight that bad? Was I that bad at relationships?”
A ragged breath escaped him, his hands rising to cup my face. “Saints, sweetheart. No. You are perfect. Our fight was nothing. And I’m so sorry. I would never leave you, Elanie. Never.”
“I know.” I grasped his face too, pressing my forehead to his.
“I was so heartbroken at first, I couldn’t think straight.
But once I came back online, I knew you’d never leave without talking to me first. And then I realized that Gol would never have let you leave Thura anyway. So I tracked Mal down—”
“Mal,” Sem said loudly.
I covered his mouth. “Shh. Gol is always listening.”
His eyes narrowed to dagger points. “I’m sure he is. But I need to speak to Mal. I met someone down there.” He laughed softly, and I leaned into the sound I thought I’d never hear again. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But Mal is the key to getting us out of here. All of us.”
“Mal will be here first thing in the morning. We’ve made a plan. To get you out.”
“You made a plan?” he asked, his voice thick. “You were going to try to rescue me?”
His face turned blurry through a wave of fresh tears. “Of course. Because it’s you. It’s not Thura, it’s you. I’m not happy unless I’m with—”
He silenced me with a kiss, his body pushing me down onto the bed as I opened my legs, an invitation to fit himself between them.
I’d missed him. But, stars, I’d missed this too. I’d missed the weight of him, the way the hard parts of his body lined up with the soft parts of mine, like I’d been custom designed to lie beneath him. But he was wet and shivering.
“I can’t stay long,” he said against my lips. “I have to get back before anyone down there notices I’m gone.”
“No.” I wrapped my legs around his hips, viselike, and raised my core temperature to warm him. “You can’t leave me again. Please, Sem.”
“It’ll be okay.” He kissed my neck, my throat. “We’ll be back together soon.”
Cupping his face again, pulling his gaze to mine, I said, “I need you. I need to feel you before you go. I need to remember. Please.”
He was already naked, and so was I. So when I reached for him, when he kissed me again, our bodies did the rest.
It was so quiet. Silent except for our breaths, the breeze through our windows.
His eyes glistened above me, gazing so deeply into mine I wanted to cry every time he blinked.
We moved together like we were one, breathing the same breaths, sharing the same space.
The same heart beating inside our chests.
“Why is it so different this time?” I asked as the slow, heavy drag of him filled my body with heat and light. As my heart seemed to break with every thrust. As I closed my eyes and hot tears slid down my temples. “What is this feeling?”
“It’s different because this isn’t just sex anymore.” He kissed me so tenderly my chest ached from the weight of it. “This is more.”
“No,” I said, finally understanding. “This is why. This is the reason.”
“The reason?”
I sighed as he moved inside me, over me, everywhere at once. “When you first asked, I didn’t know the answer. But I do now.” Placing my hand over his beating heart, I told him, “This is why, Sem. This is why I installed the upgrade. This was what I was looking for. It’s you. You are my reason.”
He closed his eyes against the same swell of emotion that rose inside me too, pressed his forehead to mine, and we didn’t speak for a long while after that.
There would be no sleep for me tonight. Terrified for his swim back through the pipe, I kept my ear pressed tightly to the floor of our hut for what felt like an eternity, not moving, barely breathing.
Until finally, so faintly I could have convinced myself I’d imagined it, the first few notes of “Oops, I Kissed Him First” drifted up through the floorboards.
A smile cracked my face as I rolled onto my back and kicked my feet in the air. Which startled Grover into a few frantic laps around the hut.
He’d made it. Sem was still alive. Now Mal and I just had to keep it that way.
Mal crept into the hut just before dawn, sneaking in the morning’s bushel of laundry. We hid the linens under the bed and in the dresser quickly. And when I told him that Sem had escaped and then broken back into the underground, Mal practically blew a fuse.
“Yes!” Mal’s nod was so enthusiastic his hydraulics clicked. “He is Portisan. Excellent swimmers and larger than average lung volume. Your mate is very brave. Brave and adventurous!”
I placed my hand on Mal’s arm. “We need to be brave and adventurous too. Are you ready?”
“It is time.” His eyes dimmed. “I have stood by long enough. I thought I was only sacrificing my own freedom to remain near my family, but I have been letting others remain imprisoned.” His shoulders fell. “I am complicit.”
I didn’t know what to say to him, so I said nothing.
“I am ready to make amends. No matter what it takes.” His knees bent and straightened, his jaw clenching. “No matter how angry Gol will be with me.”
“If everything goes to plan, none of us will ever see Gol again, unless it’s on our VCs when he’s thrown into an Imperion detention sphere twenty leagues beneath the sea.”
“I hope so,” Mal said, then his head tilted to the side. “But when does anything ever go to plan?”