Chapter 27 CLEO
CLEO
HUNTER COMES WALKING OUT of the chief engineer’s office, side by side with his sister, and now I can see how similar they are. He’s a little taller, her face is a little harder, but you can tell the same factory spat out the pair of them.
I’m sitting with Sabrina and Grace at a desk that used to belong to a guy who tacked up pictures of every dog he ever met, and the divide between Hunter and me couldn’t be more obvious.
He’s a Graves, standing there with the boss. I’m a nobody, sitting here as a prisoner of her employees. Sabrina keeps trying to talk to me – I think she’s trying to humanize me in front of Grace – but I can’t make myself respond beyond a mumble.
What did he and his sister talk about in there?
The gap between Hunter and me isn’t the only reason I’m wondering about my life choices, though. The vibe in here doesn’t feel good – there’s a tension I don’t like singing through the air. And I still don’t know what they’re here for. I only know it’s more than altering a few registers.
Sabrina nudges me, and I snap out of it. ‘Let’s go,’ she murmurs, drawing my attention back to my work.
‘On it,’ I mutter, squinting again at the schematics Grace is pulling up.
‘There’s a switchboard there,’ I tell her, pointing at the place on the display.
‘It doesn’t show on the plans, but a whole bunch of other things are wired in there that shouldn’t be.
’ I used it for that exact reason – so many extra departments had wired in power sources that my usage would never stand out.
I remember silently thanking my father as I did it – I’ll never be as good as he was, but he taught me enough to make my own mods.
‘If you cut the power at that switchboard, you’ll save more than it looks like. ’
Hunter’s talking to his sister, and Nico hands him a meal pack from the team’s stash – after the way we drugged the Martian, they’re sticking strictly to their own rations, I guess.
Nico’s scowling behind his eye patch, probably wondering how he went from trying to kill Hunter to serving him lunch.
Probably wondering if Hunter’s the vengeful type.
Speaking of vengeful, I’ve eavesdropped enough to figure out where most of the Graves team are, right now.
The Martian’s still sleeping it off. Mr Chin-Up has been released from the freezer, and he’s pissed off but fine.
Currently, he’s chipping the expanding foam off the Boxer, presumably stopping to pick up ball bearings at regular intervals.
And Blue Braid will be back on duty once we cut the power to her section.
‘What about the greenhouse?’ Grace says beside me. She’s finely built, and walks like she weighs nothing at all, every movement elegant and efficient.
‘Shut it down, you mean?’ I sit back in my chair, wrapping one arm around my middle. ‘That place is full of plants, though, they won’t survive the cold. There’re fish too, zillions of them.’
Grace blinks at me. ‘You do understand that it’s not going to be there when we leave anyway, right?’
On my other side, Sabrina nudges me again, and I make myself nod. ‘Yeah, of course. I’ll have to go and disconnect it on-site, though. They didn’t want anyone shutting it down by accident, so it’s like life-support equipment – you have to do it in person. I can literally just rip the cables out.’
Hunter is suddenly standing above us. My head snaps up – I didn’t know he was listening. ‘If you’re heading to the greenhouse, I’ll come too,’ he says, as conversational as if we’re talking about just going out for a walk on a nice day.
‘We’re a little short on time,’ his sister says from behind him, arms folded.
‘I won’t be long,’ he promises. ‘I brought one of Dad’s sculptures with me, and my bag’s there. I don’t want to leave it behind.’
She softens, inclining her head. ‘Sure, you grab it.’
Then Nico’s by her side, looking like he invented the word looming. ‘I’ll handle escort,’ he says.
‘My brother doesn’t need an escort,’ Marguerite replies crisply. If there’s some sort of Nico vs. Hunter thing going on here, Nico needs to watch himself, because his boss has chosen a side.
‘Sure,’ Nico soothes. ‘I just want to see the greenhouse.’ He and Marguerite share a look, and I don’t miss the moment he flicks his gaze at me. He might not be willing to fight her on Hunter, but it’s not hard to convince her I need watching.
And so we head to the greenhouse. I’m in front, and Hunter falls easily into step with me. Nico follows us, in quiet conversation with Grace, both of them with their hands on their weapons as soon as we’re out of Marguerite’s sight.
I thought it couldn’t get quieter around here, but now that the fans are gone – shut down as part of our energy-saving efforts – we’re in a sort of muffled silence that feels like exactly what it is: the station dying.
I glance sidelong at Hunter. Now that he has his back to Nico and Grace, he looks incredibly strained – not at all like a guy who just found out he’s still in charge of this situation.
His hair’s unkempt, as though he’s been dragging his fingers through it, curls all out of place.
His lips are pressed into a thin line, muscles tense.
Part of me still can’t forget he’s a Graves – can’t believe I ever did.
But another part still wants to believe he’s the boy I’ve been through this with.
The boy who held his breath and waited for permission to kiss me.
Who didn’t leave me behind out there in the dust storm, but fought for my life like it was his own.
Who held me like I was all that was keeping him afloat.
Part of me still wants to reach out to him.
Except he’s refusing to make eye contact with me, staring straight ahead as we walk, jaw squared.
Do I want to say something to him because he’s the closest connection I have to the top of the tree right now? Is it my instinct for safety that drives that urge? Or is it because he’s Hunter?
‘So,’ I say softly, testing the waters.
His gaze slides sideways, though he doesn’t break his stride. For a moment, our eyes lock, before his gaze flicks ahead once more. He doesn’t reply, but he’s listening.
‘Remember at the start of all this, when we were on the bridge, we joked that we could claim this place? And you said we couldn’t, because technically I was staff, so the base wasn’t abandoned?
’ I manage a feeble smile. ‘Guess you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble, planted the GravesUP flag right then and there.’
He closes his eyes for a moment, jaw clenched, but his expression doesn’t even flicker. He gives me nothing else. It’s like I took a jab at him, rather than trying for a weak joke.
My throat thickens, and for a moment there’s a dangerous ache behind my eyes. I swallow hard.
This is the reminder I need. Whatever my stupid heart wants to believe, Hunter’s not on my team. I have to watch my own back.
I’ve given him too much already – parts of myself I swore I’d keep safe from now on. I have to remember that I don’t belong in his life.
1 HOUR, 53 MINUTES REMAINING
The warm air of the greenhouse washes around me as we walk through the door, and it nearly brings tears to my eyes.
Coming back here feels like stepping into a haven I’d lost. Plants trail down from their frames and burst from their pots, and the rich scent of damp dirt fills my nostrils.
Fish glide silently, serenely around their pond.
Something inside me releases, a little more at peace – the animal part of me wants to be around nature and knows that for a moment, it is.
It feels like a lifetime ago that Hunter and I were here, eating tomatoes and a stolen packet of cookies, planning wild schemes that we so nearly pulled off. Everything’s changed since then.
I walk over to the main control panels against the wall, hunting through the tools set down nearby until I find a crowbar. Digging it into one of the seams around the edge of the panel, I start wrenching the cover off.
Hunter makes his way over to the plants where he stashed his bag. I watch him sidelong as he pulls his cuff from the bag’s side pocket and discreetly slips it onto his wrist.
Nico and Grace part ways and start to explore. Each of them keeps me in sight, but a greenhouse is a treat nobody wants to miss on Mars.
I pull the cover free and set it aside, then crouch to look at the spaghetti tangle of wires I’ve revealed. I hate that I’m doing this – the idea of killing a place like this makes me ache – but if it’s the plants or me, I’m going to choose me.
Off to my right, Hunter stretches like a guy trying to be super casual, then comes sauntering over to join me in looking at the wires. He lifts one hand to cover his mouth and angles his body away from Nico before he talks.
Hunter is not good at stealth.
‘We need to talk,’ he murmurs.
‘Now you want to talk?’ I mutter, eyes on my work.
‘Cleo, please,’ he whispers. ‘I have a thousand apologies to make, let me start with one. We don’t have much time.’
I don’t say anything for a moment, yanking a wire free of its connector as I start to shut down the heating system.
My head and my heart are right back into the same battle they’ve been waging since his sister arrived. Since before that. I don’t want to talk to Hunter Graves. And also, I do, because my heart still doesn’t know who this boy is.
‘Just a minute,’ I mutter, and yank out another wire. Then I rise to my feet, turning so my back’s to Hunter.
‘You done?’ Nico calls from across the room.
‘Not even close,’ I call back. ‘But I can’t shut everything down at once, or a fail-safe kicks in.
This is the greenhouse, it’s protected. Something goes wrong, you know how hard it is to convince the neighbors to hook you up with more seeds, fresh fish?
I’ve done a few, now I need to wait a few minutes before I keep going.
’ I mean, who knows? That could be true. Sounds good.