Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
EDDIE
“Please understand, Captain Stone. I find it hard to believe that someone caused the damage to the Golden Lion. The damage is not consistent with what we know humanoids are capable of.”
Eddie sighed, not bothering to hide it this time. “Lieutenant Valla and Head of Security Wort both agreed that the damage done to the people on board was within the capabilities. Of even Terrans.”
“And the damage to the ship itself?”
He’d spent the last several weeks talking to Quasar reps with different levels of clearance and respect. It grated on him: the repetition, the disdain, the disbelief when there was physical proof of everything on the four separate cam feeds recorded by at least a dozen different computers.
“If you will review the footage and the debriefs, you will see that someone had to—”
Searing, ripping pain tore through his chest to his heart. It brought him to his knees before the captain and the board members he spoke to.
Just as quickly, it dulled to a tender ache deep within his core, where the bond with Jett fluttered against his heart.
Arms wrapped around Eddie’s shoulder and the captain spoke. “Are you okay?”
Darkness flashed as another wave of pain blinded Eddie. He saw Jett submerged in the Void, struggling in its grasp, reaching for something outside of view.
HE IS OURS
The Voice rumbled. It left him nauseous and quaking beneath tidal fury.
“Eddie?”
He looked up into Augustus’s lined and worried face, and balked at the shock he saw there. The captain was a calm, steady man, rarely showing his emotions to those around him. Especially while on the job. Behind him, the members of Quasar Corporate mimicked the same shock.
“I think I need to rest,” Eddie said to no one in particular.
Ra’ana turned to the tab screen and said something, but the words were drowned out as the incandescent Voice rumbled once more.
HE. IS. OURS.
Eddie woke in a sparse medical room, his uniform jacket laying at the foot of the bed. As he pushed himself up, he groaned, his head spun and chest ached, as if something had been torn from within and the Void set ablaze.
Deep within him, Jett’s presence was stronger, softer. Like he’d been drawn into a deep and restful sleep.
Realization hit Eddie like an electric shock, and he shot out of the bed and down the hall before anyone could stop him.
At Jett’s door he stopped as something snapped into place inside him. Jett was no longer lost to the depths inside Eddie’s soul, but closer, warmer. Peeking through the door, Eddie saw Jett’s chest move as he breathed deeper. The oxygen mask had been removed.
A nurse appeared beside him, but Eddie didn’t turn.
“He woke up?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t pretty. He cried out and thrashed around. He tried to speak but we didn’t understand what he said. So we sedated him.”
Eddie’s heart pounded in his chest. “How long ago was that?”
There was a pause. “Right before you were brought in here, Captain.”
A sigh escaped Eddie and he stepped inside Jett’s room. “Will he be okay?”
“As far as we can tell, yes. He should wake up sometime in the next day or so.”
Slouching into his chair, Eddie took Jett’s hand in his. “I’m here Jett. I’ll be here when you wake up again.”