Beckett
Her pulse is wrong.
It’s there. I have it. Two fingers on the inside of her wrist.
It’s slow. Too shallow. It changes between one breath and the next in a way pulses are not supposed to.
I’m not going to say anything yet. They don’t need to worry any more than they already are.
The clearing opens up ahead and I’m two steps into it when something drops out of the tree directly in front of me.
Kree lands and he’s already grinning, already talking, already mid-sentence.
“You’re back! Did you get your girl—”
The words die in his throat.
His eyes are on Nova. On the hospital gown. The way her hand is closed around my shirt and her face is turned into my shoulder. And probably the fact that she’s not awake.
He doesn’t move.
The grin is gone like it was switched off. He looks at her for a long moment and something happens on his face that makes me look away.
He steps forward and puts his hand on my shoulder. Squeezes once.
“Let’s get her home, Beckett.”
“Kree.” Liam, from the top of the ramp. Sharp.
Kree nods and steps aside.
Declan sees us come through the hatch and his hands go straight to the panel. The ramp starts rising before Rane’s through with Lena.
He knows we need to get the hell out of here.
I find the closest seat and sit with Nova against my chest. One arm around her, the other back on her pulse.
Her breathing is still shallow. I can’t help but hold her a little tighter.
Locke sits across from me. His hand goes up to the strap before he’s all the way down. I don’t make eye contact because his knuckles are already white and we haven’t even lifted yet.
Vaelor drops down beside me and his arm presses against mine and I don’t think he notices.
His right hand sits in his lap, mostly a hand, fur still at the wrist where it hasn’t gone all the way back.
He keeps looking at it and then at Nova and then at his hand again.
He moves over one seat. Giving himself space.
Trey helps Rane shove Lena into a seat and strap her in. She isn’t going anywhere. I can hear him talking to her, low, the same words more than once. She doesn’t answer.
Kyron doesn’t sit. He’s at the hatch, like he’s checking on all of us one last time. He picks Laith up by the back of his shirt, gets him over one shoulder, and goes out without a word.
It seals. The ship lifts.
A sound from Locke. Small. He’d hate me for naming it. His hand goes white on the strap.
“Easy.”
“I’m fine.”
“I know.”
Kree kneels next to me at some point. He has a cuff, something small with a blinking sensor, and he holds it up. I give him Nova’s wrist. He clips it on, the light steadies, and he looks at it for a second.
“Reading. I can give you numbers if you want them.”
“Not yet.”
He pulls a thermal strap from somewhere and lays it across her shoulders. Adjusts it once. His hand lands on my knee briefly and then he’s gone.
“Beckett.”
I look up. Trey. His hands are loose in his lap, doing nothing, fingers open like he forgot what they’re for.
“How is she.”
“Pulse. Breathing. Skin’s cool but not cold.” I hold his eyes. “She’s in there.”
He nods once and looks back at her but he doesn’t say anything else.
I keep my fingers on her wrist and count.
The engine fills everything. Trees through the window and then more trees and nobody talks. I watched Kyron fly past with Laith shortly after we got in the air.
He’s a hell of a lot faster than we are.
Vaelor hasn’t moved except to breathe. He’s looking at her face like he’s afraid she might disappear. His right hand sits in his lap. It’s back to normal now. But he keeps checking it. His hand, then Nova, then his hand.
He wants to touch her.
He lifts his hand twice. Gets six inches. Stops both times.
He doesn’t trust it yet.
Forty minutes in I notice something I don’t want to notice.
That was clean. Too clean. We walked her out of a high-security Order facility while she was lit through the walls and the corridor was empty. Clear lot. Clean lift. Nothing behind us the whole way out.
And where the fuck was Silas?
The only things that showed up were those shifters. And they looked more like strays rather than anything coordinated.
That’s not how the system works.
Either Linda is something much more than she looked. Or somebody above the room let us walk. Or whatever happened in that chair went so far past what they were prepared for that they’re still standing in it right now trying to understand it.
None of those are good.
We’re going to need to talk about that.
Later.
Vaelor’s breathing evens out. I hear it before I see it, one long exhale, his shoulders dropping half an inch.
I stand up.
I don’t plan it. I just stand with her and step the foot and a half between us and put her in his arms.
He goes still. Doesn’t react beyond that. Just sits there suddenly full of her, blinking at what just happened.
I move his right hand under her shoulders where mine was. His left arm so her head is on it. I adjust the thermal strap and check the cuff is still sitting right.
I sit back down beside him.
He starts after a while. Low enough the engine almost takes it. Low enough I shouldn’t be able to hear.
“Sweetheart.”
Her face doesn’t change.
“Sweetheart, wake up.”
Nothing.
“Come on.” Something underneath the words, a catch he doesn’t try to smooth. “Come on. We’ve got you. You’re safe now. Come on.”
Nothing.
“Wake up, sweetheart.”
I look at the floor.
I’m the one with two fingers on her pulse. I’ve been counting her breaths against my shirt for forty minutes. I know what this stack means — cool skin, shallow breath, a rate that won’t settle — in a body this small.
Vaelor doesn’t know what I know.
Vaelor is asking her to wake up.
And if she doesn’t wake up he’s going to keep asking. Tomorrow. Next week. In the kitchen at four in the morning when the coffee’s done. He’ll adjust it without making it a thing the way he always does and he’ll ask. He’ll be one of those people. The kind that never stop.
I’ve known Vaelor for years. I know his tells, I know his schedule, I know exactly how he goes still when he’s trying not to show something.
I don’t know what he’s going to do with this.
Something gives in my chest. I don’t look up.
Wake up, sweetheart, he says.
She doesn’t.