25 Can You Keep Me Alive?
Can You Keep Me Alive?
O utside the Cavaller’s window a monument appeared: a twenty-foot- tall bronze sculpture of an ancient spacecraft being launched. Carved into a plaque along the sculpture’s marble base were the words, in bolded script:
EXPAN CENTRAL UNIVERSITY
WHERE KNOWLEDGE TAKES FLIGHT
“I thought I’d take you somewhere that meant something to me,” Nix said as the car banked right and accelerated onto the campus airway. “It might be a bit simple, but I hope you like it.”
Temmi pressed her nose to the tinted window. Below, university students in crisp violet-and-white uniforms streamed along flowered walking paths. They meandered between handsome buildings, sometimes stopping to chat with friends or lounge on manicured lawns.
Expan Central. The most prestigious university in the empire. Temmi had spent her life dreaming about this place. Seeing it now was surreal. Somewhere down there, Scot Meridan was living the life that should’ve been hers.
Would she have hated the empire as much as she did if she’d won the PNA Scholarship? If she’d gotten off X72?
The Cavaller slowed and descended atop a landing pad on the roof of a towering building.
An assistant producer opened the side door.
Temmi stepped onto the roof. A light breeze played with her loose hair; Manny and his makeup team had whisked her away after breakfast to “rescue her sad appearance.” What had followed was a firm talking-to about the necessity of removing one’s makeup before going to sleep and then an individual confessional breaking down her reaction to being Nix’s very first one-on-one date.
Kalvin, Justine, and a camera crew poured out of a second Cavaller.
While they began setting up, Nix took Temmi’s hand and walked her to the roof’s edge.
A pocked metal railing kept them from a massive drop.
Late-afternoon sunlight seared her face.
Nix began pointing out the names of buildings.
The admin hall, the freshman dorms, the mathematics complex.
There was a full-on lake in the campus’s center, a flock of white-feathered birds skimming the surface.
Temmi squinted. “What are those?”
“Swans,” Nix said, beaming. “The unofficial ECU mascot.”
“They’re beautiful.” It was like a dream turned inside out.
Because Temmi wasn’t there as an honored student.
She wasn’t here to prove herself to the world of academia, to expand upon the fields of organic bioengineering and applied physics.
To find herself amongst like-minded people.
She was there as little more than a clown.
“And this”—Nix pointed to the building they were standing atop—“is the physics lab. It’s where I did all the research for my dissertation. I practically lived here.”
“What research?” Temmi tried to make a joke, but the words came out too sharp. “You’re a theoretical physicist.”
But Nix only laughed, his hand finding hers and squeezing.
And she knew for certain, in that moment, that if she’d won the PNA Scholarship, if she’d ended up there, she would’ve learned to love Expan.
They crammed into a rooftop elevator alongside Kalvin, Justine, and two camera operators.
As they descended, Nix grinned at Temmi with childlike excitement.
She tried to muster her own, but it was trapped beneath a thickening layer of resentment.
What might she have accomplished if she’d ended up there two years before?
Would she have ever crossed paths with Nix?
Perhaps they could’ve been friends in truth.
The prince led her to a sterile room with long worktables and rolling shelves full of lab equipment. The show must’ve prepped the university for their visit, because the lab was empty, and they passed no one in the corridors.
“I thought we could have a little challenge,” Nix said with a grin. He lifted what appeared to be a carton of eggs off the center worktable, dipping his head to hide what looked like an actual blush. “An egg drop.”
“An egg drop?”
“I thought it’d be fun if we each built a remote-controlled flying vehicle and saw whose could carry their egg farthest and fastest.”
“Ah.” In fairness, that did sound quite fun.
Exactly Temmi’s idea of a good time. And she had little doubt she’d kick the prince’s royal ass.
But there were too many thoughts occupying her mind to enjoy the moment.
And then her gaze landed on a holo at the rear of the lab, tucked into the corner between wall and ceiling.
It idly played footage from last night’s opening ceremony.
Temmi watched herself practically trip down the manor’s staircase, her dress torn, her face an embarrassed shade of crimson. The image collapsed and some talk show host with eyes too close together laughed silently. Expanese captions danced along the bottom of the holo:
Someone has to be the comedic relief.
I know, I know. But, Patrik, how entirely un-self-aware is she to be that awkward on camera? It’s like she has no filter!
Perhaps that’s just how they talk on her planet?
You’re entirely too nice.
Nix appeared, blocking her view of the holo. He snapped at someone to shut it off, then focused on Temmi. “Hey, forget about all that. It’s just me and you here.” Slowly, he removed his right glove, tucked it under his armpit, and brushed his naked thumb down Temmi’s cheek. “Focus on me.”
His touch was warm, but Temmi couldn’t find solace in it. He was wrong. It wasn’t just her and him. The cameras were there, probably capturing this mini meltdown right now, already planning to air it for the inhabitants of hundreds of worlds to see.
Comedic relief.
A fucking joke.
A dead contestant.
Temmi’s vision was narrowing and the dread she’d woken up to coiling atop her chest was back and constricting her rib cage and oh gods this must be what it felt like to die.
Before she could think better of it—because she wasn’t thinking at all—she was ripping her mic from her back, throwing it to the floor, and shouldering past the imperial prince.
She sprinted for the lab room’s swinging door, not slowing until she was halfway down the empty corridor.
She was trapped. Trapped in her head, in her body, in this ridiculous flowy outfit that Manny had forced her into.
Trapped in this hallway, this university that had consumed her every dream for years, this planet that oppressed her home.
She was a mouse in a maze, running, running, running, out of fear, out of hunger, out of a need for purpose.
But the maze walls were closing in, and what if there was no way out?
What if she died there like Kya Ep-Kmin?
Nix’s bare hands landed on her bare shoulders. He was kneeling. When had she dropped to the floor? She didn’t remember falling to her knees, only remembered the corridor lengthening, becoming endless in her mind’s eye, futility written on every surface.
“You’re having a panic attack.” His words were low, his mouth near. So, why did he feel so distant?
Temmi didn’t respond. She couldn’t. There was glass in her lungs, a ship’s hull on her chest. She hadn’t felt like this since her arrest—since the first time she’d been ripped away from her family.
Except then, they’d been able to visit her.
And they had, every week for six months.
Ollie, hair greasy and fingertips perpetually oil-stained from cleaning vats, laughing at her across a visitor’s table, her mother breathing roughly at his side, muttering over and over how unfair it was to lock Temmi up in an adult prison when she was only a kid.
How was it that Temmi had survived that but this felt like it was going to kill her?
Ollie would make some joke about how she was the only person in the world who would prefer jail to reality holovision.
Gods and nebulas, she missed her brother.
Not having him there was like living with a severed limb, an acute phantom ache, the knowledge of something vital missing.
“I get panic attacks too.” Nix held up a hand to Justine, who was approaching from behind him. “Cut the cameras. Leave us.” He turned those dark violet eyes back to Temmi. “I had one last night, actually.”
“I need to go home.” Temmi shuffled backward from his touch. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Temmi, breathe. You’re safe with me.” But he didn’t pursue, his hands falling limp at his sides.
No, she wasn’t. She wasn’t safe anywhere. “The bathroom—where?”
His brows furrowed, his skin bunching with some unspoken sadness. It deepened the ache of his beauty. “Around the corner. I can take you.”
Temmi didn’t take a full breath until she was alone inside a toilet stall.
And then had her perceived safety immediately shattered by the memory of Kya’s neck lolling sideways.
Temmi threw herself out of the stall and crawled beneath the sanitizing counter, drawing her knees into her chest and closing her eyes.
What the fuck is wrong with me? No one else was having twice-a-day breakdowns.
The other women were cool, composed, enviable.
Kya was dead; so what? Was it really all that surprising?
Hundreds of X-ers died every week to meet the empire’s quota for orrist basalt.
Why should one random woman’s death so completely unmoor Temmi?
Because the manor was supposed to be safe.
Because privileged women dating the imperial heirs weren’t supposed to get murdered.
Because Temmi had no idea who the culprit was and if they’d target her next.
The awful truth was, the killer could be anyone.
Justine or another producer, an attendant, another contestant, a guard.
Hell, even Manny and his entire team had access to all the contestants and their rooms.