34. Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Four
Reader, I ran.
It’s something that shames me still, even until this day.
I’ll wake up sometimes in the middle of the night, unable to fall back asleep, just replaying the events of that night—everything that was said, everything I could have and should have done differently.
There are so many things I would have done differently, if I could just go back and do them again.
But that night, I ran.
At least one man managed to get past Croydon to pursue me.
Luckily, pure adrenaline and instinct made me use some of the tactics Ursa had taught me back on Earth.
I wasn’t nearly as familiar with SuperVegas’s layout as I had been in the wilderness surrounding our den, but the same basic concepts applied.
Run in circles. Make abrupt, unexpected turns to throw your pursuer off course.
And when appropriate, when possible, hide from a larger, faster predator.
I repeated all of these steps until I could be confident I’d shaken off the man who was following me, exhausting myself in the process.
By the time I made it back to the Trojan Horse, I was ready to collapse.
I managed to drag myself the remaining few yards, and then I did slump onto the edge of the ramp, my body suddenly sapped of all its energy, leaving me as nothing but a husk with a frantically pounding heart.
Peripherally, I was vaguely aware of some of the crew loading the toilet paper onto the ship. The job had been completed, at least. Croydon and I had provided a good enough distraction in the end, even if it hadn’t been what we’d planned.
Croydon. At the thought of him captured, probably terribly hurt, my throat tightened. I swallowed through it, summoning up whatever energy I could to draw attention to myself. “Help! I need help!”
I couldn’t see Ursa amongst the men down on the loading bay, or I would have called for him directly. But no sooner had the words left my mouth than he appeared in the cargo bay door. Spotting me, he clambered down the ramp, some of his usual agility and grace made clumsy in his haste to reach me.
“Mina hurt?” Ursa demanded. He gripped my wrists to pull up my arms so he could inspect me for injury, circling me like a fussy mother hen.
“No!” I shook my head urgently, deeply frustrated with myself for the tears welling in my eyes, the lump in my throat.
Somehow, being here in Ursa’s presence—feeling his worry, his coddling, knowing I was with him and safe—made it more difficult to keep from crying than when I’d actually been in danger.
But none of that would help Croydon. “I’m fine, but they—they’ve captured Croydon. ”
A murmur of surprise went up in the men around us. Some of them—Alexei, and another man whose name I can’t remember—closed in on me. “What happened?” Alexei demanded. “Where’s Croydon?”
“I don’t know.” It was wretched, wretched to have to admit that.
I saw exactly what he thought of me in the heavy disgust that settled over his face. “You left him behind.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement—an accusation.
All the men’s eyes bored into me, glaring and resentful.
Ursa must have noticed it, too, because his body bristled, then went rigid.
He placed his hand on the back of my neck, and I couldn’t tell if it was meant to be a comforting gesture to me, or a warning gesture to them.
Then all at once, Tobago was at my side. I didn’t know where he’d appeared from—presumably from somewhere within the bowels of the ship—though word must have spread quickly. He crouched in front of me, meeting my gaze. “Mina. Where’s Croydon?”
Tears flooded my eyes. I blinked them back. I knew Tobago wouldn’t thank me for the show of emotion, and it wouldn’t help Croydon. I couldn’t break down yet; only after he’d been safely retrieved. “They took him.”
“Who took him?”
I pressed my eyes shut, willing my body to stop shaking, my heart to stop racing. I had to stay calm or there’d be no way I could be useful in helping to save Croydon. “Some men on the street recognized me from Rawley’s bulletin. They tried to grab me. Croydon told me to run, so I did.”
Tobago looked grim, although at least there was nothing reprimanding in his expression. “Did anyone follow you back here?”
I shook my head, confident of at least that much. “Someone tried, but I lost him about ten minutes ago.”
My assurance seemed to surprise Tobago; he didn’t know about my training with Ursa.
There was a lot he didn’t know about my life now, and there was quite a lot, I was discovering, that I didn’t know about him.
That was the trouble with childhood friends, sometimes.
To you, they stayed frozen in the place you left them all those years ago, but there was a whole life lived in between then and now that you knew nothing about.
Tobago regarded me for a moment, considering my response, before at last he nodded and rose to his feet. “Leave the rest. Everyone, get on the ship now. We should have been gone five minutes ago.”
I managed to stand with much difficulty, even with Ursa helping me. Once I was up, though, my earlier adrenaline returned, propelling me forward to race after Tobago, even as men shoved past me up the ramp.
Grasping the back of Tobago’s jumpsuit, I halted him in place. “What about Croydon?”
Tobago’s eyes took on the blank, shuttered look I recognized from those months before he left Haven 3 for good, when Trini or I would try to talk to him about what was happening with their parents.
Then, like now, some important part of him seemed to be withdrawing, shutting off all his emotion. “What about him?” he asked.
I gaped at him incredulously. “We have to go back for him. We can’t leave him here.”
In all the tossing and turning I still do at night, remembering the way I left Croydon behind, there’s only one thing with which I can console myself.
I ran, yes. I left him behind. But I know in my heart I believed I was running for help.
A rescue party. I was abandoning him temporarily to get reinforcements.
I saw in the grim set of Tobago’s jaw that I’d severely miscalculated. “We can’t go back,” he said.
Croydon had known when he’d told me to run.
He was sacrificing himself, not just temporarily for a few hours until I could rally a rescue party.
For days, at first, while the police decided what to do with a man who’d been part of a street brawl; then years, likely, once they realized he was part of the massive robbery that had just taken place.
I couldn’t accept it. Even after Tobago shrugged out of my grip and continued his journey up the ramp and onto the ship, I followed after him.
“No! We can’t leave him there. I got taken on Newearth, and Ursa came back for me.
” Stupidly, some part of me hoped if I just reminded him of that fact, he would relent.
Tobago shook his head. “We’re not on some dusty mining settlement.
This is SuperVegas. They have state-of-the-art holding facilities, laser perimeters, highly trained guards.
By now they’ve already run Croydon’s prints and done his retinol scan.
As soon as they realize there’s been a robbery at that factory, they’re going to put two and two together.
We have to get out of here before that happens, or we’re all going to be stuck here. ”
It was then I realized that Tobago wasn’t speaking entirely for my benefit. Several of the men around us were watching. Many of them were Croydon’s friends, and all of them, the whole crew, were family. Even if they wouldn’t say so outright, none of them wanted to leave him behind.
Even so, they couldn’t help but see the sense in what Tobago was saying, any more than I could. “We can’t leave him here,” I tried again helplessly, but by then Tobago was already walking away from me again. He had no more time to spare on trying to help me understand. He had to be the captain now.
I’m not sure how I made it back to our room after that. It’s possible I walked, but it’s equally possible Ursa carried me. Numb, exhausted, and heartbroken over what had taken place, I became lost in grief and shock.
The next thing I became vaguely aware of was sitting at the edge of our bed, Ursa kneeling before me as he carefully removed my boots, my socks.
Then somehow it was the next morning. I woke up wearing fresh thermals, prone on the mattress, wrapped in Ursa’s arms. I could see from the digital clock across the room that it was still far too early to be awake without reason.
As memories from the night before came back, first in a trickle, then in a wave, I bit down on my lip, trying to stifle my cries so I wouldn’t wake Ursa.
Silent tears trickled down my cheeks unchecked.
Failed. I’d failed in a most catastrophic, spectacular fashion.
And Croydon had suffered the consequences.
That genial, often crude, sometimes downright disgusting, terribly brave man had sacrificed his own future for me so I could escape, and in thanks, I would be leaving him on SuperVegas to rot in prison for the rest of his life.
The crew would hate me now. They would blame me. And I couldn’t even fault them, because I also blamed myself.
Another sob shook my body, which I attempted to muffle. Nonetheless, Ursa shifted behind me, his hold on me instinctively tightening.
I stilled, not wanting to wake him if he was asleep; but then I felt the gentle nudge of his nose at my scalp, a silent question. “Mina,” he murmured.
I wept. His being awake gave me permission to let loose the floodgates, to let my guard fall, and his arms around me let me know I would have a soft place to land.
Ursa. His warmth. His heart beating against my back, a soothing lull.
His arms anchoring me so I would not, could not drift away.
What a thing it is to be held that way. Like a child, the child we all become when we’re most in need of comfort.
Knowing we are safe and sound and loved, what a gift that is.
After some time, when my cries began to subside into shaky breaths and sniffles, Ursa loosened one arm enough so he could reach up to gently wipe the tears from my face. “Mina.” He brushed his lips over the top of my head. “Mina.”
Fresh tears spilled from my eyes. I seemed to have an endless supply of them. I was crying for what had happened to Croydon, what it would mean for his future. But I was also crying for myself—the painful realization of what I’d discovered that night. “I’m a coward,” I told him.
He oughtn’t love me. It was already clear in so many ways just how far above me Ursa was—his superior strength and good, loyal heart and achingly handsome face.
This was a stark reminder of yet another way that he far outstripped me.
Ursa was brave. So incredibly brave. And I .
. . had run without hesitation, leaving Croydon behind to fend for himself.
“Mina is—” Ursa stopped, correcting himself this time. “You are no coward.”
As sweet as the sentiment was, it only gave me another reason to chastise myself. Why was I always nitpicking his speech? Why couldn’t I be more encouraging and let him know all the marvelous ways I’d seen him grow these past few months, how much I admired him for his remarkable progress?
Ursa was too good for me. He couldn’t conceive of just how spineless and fainthearted I was, because he himself was so unceasingly valiant and fearless. He had no cowardice in him, and so he could not conceive of just how truly awful I’d been.
Selfishly, I didn’t want him to know. I wanted him to always look at me like the woman he’d followed into Olympus Camp—sirens blaring, men shouting, chaos ensuing all around us—just so he could be closer to me.
But I also couldn’t bear to lie to him, or to myself.
Shakily, I relayed the events of the night to him again, everything that had happened, up until the moment Croydon urged me to flee.
“I ran,” I confessed. “I just ran. I didn’t try to help him.
I didn’t try to distract them or offer myself instead. I just ran.”
Ursa nuzzled the back of my head. “You are safe.”
“I ran,” I whispered back bleakly.
“You ran to me,” he murmured, tightening his arms around me once more.