Chapter 24 #2
Ryker came up next. The abrupt rain plus the sludge created by the scanner made the area unstable. He stumbled forward, detaching himself from the weyline to grab the geologists by the arms. They were too busy watching the storm, and taking damn notes of it, to save themselves.
Ryker forced the scientists into the back of the rover. “The captain is coming up now!”
Roys’ hand grasped the ledge. He crawled out, feet half sunk in the mud when the ground gave way.
He fell into the pit. I cursed, and yanked the weyline lever, bringing Roys up manually.
He appeared out of the ruckus, covered in mud.
Chunks of earth collapsed, dragging him down a second time.
My visor shrieked, pulse rate accelerating.
I pushed the lever all the way back, a speed that was not recommended, but he couldn’t bitch at me if he was dead.
Roys tumbled out of the pit to roll across the ground toward the rover. He lurched onto his feet, ripping free of the weyline. I dove over the console to throw open the passenger door. The wind growled, a living entity of such force that the door slammed shut and sent Roys clear off his feet.
“What’s going on up there?!” Ryker called over comms.
“Roys can’t get his stupid ass in the rover!”
Roys lay in the flora, caught among the stalks that hadn’t yet snapped in half.
Those that did were billowing around us, creating a deadly storm of debris.
One hit the windshield, not strong enough to break, but the lightning could ruin us.
The rover should withstand a hit or two.
Breaking through the material wasn’t a problem.
The power would be. I wasn’t sure we’d be able to move after a strike; then we would be sitting ducks. We had to get out of there and Roys…
He clung to the flora, incapable of exiting without being whisked away by the storm. The wind shook the rover, making the sirens blare and mechanisms creak. If the storm worsened, the rover might be thrown, risking all our lives. We had to go.
We had to leave him.
I backed up as fast as possible. My visor flared red.
Roys became nothing more than a dark splotch stuck in the flora.
He may survive the storm if he stays there.
If not… that was part of the job. I wasn’t dying out there because idiots wanted to look at rocks.
I wasn’t dying for him, just like I wouldn’t for Arana or Lilea… or Maddy.
Roys never spoke over the commlink. He said nothing when he should have witnessed the rover speed off.
My foot lay heavy on the accelerator, taking us further from the storm.
From him. And all the while I waited for his voice, for him to call out, ask where I was going, what I was doing, to come back, but nothing came.
Nothing ever would if I kept going.
He wouldn’t survive the storm no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise. We’d return to find a body. He’d be gone. No more annoying captain; a new one would arrive, likely worse than him—no—definitely worse, and life would go on. I’d get over what happened.
Like I did with Maddy?
“Fuck!” I swerved.
Shouting came from the cargo bay even without the commlink. I brought Roys’ tracker up on the rover's screen. He had moved, either from the storm or of his own will, making it further into the flora.
You’re going back for him when you wouldn’t do the same for your sister?
My teeth gnashed against my cheeks. I shoved the rover through debris, one of which hit my door and sent the rover creaking sideways.
We fell into place with Ryker cursing over the commlink.
The rover settled with the passenger side pointed toward the forest. Crawling over the console, I pushed open the door, having to keep my full weight against the mechanism to keep it from closing.
“Come on!” I screamed.
Roys’ tracker moved. I couldn’t see him, and it was then I realized he was crawling. The wind couldn’t yank him off his feet when he was below all the debris, using the flora as anchor points to drag him closer. Unfortunately, the rover couldn’t get closer.
“Pick up the pace!” I shouted when the wind nearly sent me flying back inside.
“I’m doing my best,” he finally spoke.
I bit back whatever stupid remark I had to say, fearful of what it might have been.
Roys got to his feet just when a bolt of lightning battered the top of the rover.
A scream tore through my throat. The scent of burning meat and something acidic seared my nostrils.
My visor shrieked, heart rate skyrocketing and warning of medical assistance.
Then Roys was there, clinging to the door and shoving me into the rover.
I tumbled over the console, adrenaline coursing through my veins. I pushed off without our seatbelts. Roys put both of ours on, neither of us uttering a word as I drove through darkness with brief intervals of lightning.
My eyes burned from the red in my visor blinking, blinking, blinking.
Lightning struck around us, setting fire to the flora that the rain doused.
It wasn’t until we breached the dark cover of the storm that I realized Roys had a hand on my thigh.
He held firm, fingers pressing against my tense muscles that eased under the slow rubbing of his thumb.
Ryker came over the commlink shouting about shitty equipment.
I muted him because I couldn’t deal with his dramatics or much of anything other than driving.
I focused on getting us back to the habitat, continuously checking our scanner.
Out of the storm, the scanner worked fine, blaring about a severe storm. Fucking worthless.
“Ethin, stop the rover,” Roys said, still catching his breath. He removed his visor, letting it drop to the floor between his feet.
I drove faster. The rover groaned, having taken a beating from the storm already. My eyes focused on the words blaring across my visor; exoskin damaged. Seek medical assistance.
“You’re bleeding.”
An abrupt surge of agony made my right arm twitch. My fingers released the wheel until I gripped tight enough to make the appendage ache. “We can’t stop. That storm came out of nowhere.”
“I just want to use the med spray to stop the bleeding. It will take a second.”
“No—”
“Ethin.”
“You’re not going back down there!” I shouted. His fingers flexed on my thigh. “I don’t know why you went in the first place. Do you have a fucking death wish?”
I looked at him as if he should answer. He didn’t. There was blood on the console, more peeking out from the seat under his thigh. My eyes were heavy but refused to close.
I shifted my attention between him and the path ahead.
“You must, because only a complete idiot would have done that. We were going to die in those caves, and you jumped back in to get buried or lost or drowned! You should have sent someone else. Better yet, not send anyone at all! Tell those stupid geologists to send the fucking droids or they can go down there on their own. You aren’t risking your life for them. ”
“Okay.” He squeezed my leg. “I won’t, but you need to stop. Ease up for a moment.”
When I didn’t, he took my right hand, still twitching with pain, and pried each finger off the wheel.
The slight movement made my arm scream and burn.
The rover slowed, as did my breathing until we stopped.
Roys explained to the others how we were stopping for a moment while leaning over the console.
“Let’s get your arm out. Careful,” he whispered, assisting me to peel my arm out of the exoskin.
I bit back a groan. The lightning fried pieces of my exoskin off.
The jolt hadn’t hit me directly, but the force had been close enough to cause damage.
Beneath the broken bits of exoskin was a long gash surrounded by charred skin.
Blood dripped from my fingers onto the seat.
A horrendous smell, a foul odor like meat grilled too long and left out, made my eyes water.
Roys frowned while holding the med spray. “This will sting.”
My head fell back on the seat, eyes shut from the added burn of the med spray. Roys ran his knuckles down my back, enticing my skin to break out with goosebumps. I hated it.
I didn’t want him to stop.
The pain lessened to a dull throb. The cradle would have to do the rest of the work, but the bleeding stopped. My arm remained weak, and my fingers numb.
“How about I drive?” Roys repeated the slow caress against my back.
“I can do my damn job.”
“I’m not saying you can’t, but you should rest, and tomorrow, I’ll send the droids.
” Roys cheated by removing my visor to take me by the chin for a kiss, smooth and simple and nothing like what happened.
Every ounce of tension melted under his soothing attention.
He settled his forehead against mine. “We won’t go near that cave, okay? ”
“Never again?”
Another kiss. “Never,” he whispered.
“...okay.”
Exhaustion struck harder than a gut punch.
I wanted to get back to the habitat. I wanted us to go back to his office and hide away where I would forget this happened.
My nerves were as fried as my exoskin. I slid out of the rover.
Roys took up driving while I sat on the passenger side trying not to think of Roys falling into shadows, of me driving off without him, of finding his body lying there in the flora.
“Thank you,” he said.
I shifted toward the window. “For what?”
“Coming back.”
He should be upset. He should lecture me about abandoning him.
But Roys settled that hand on my thigh like he couldn’t fathom the idea of being apart. I wouldn’t look down. My breath fogged the glass where I brought my finger up to draw spirals. Another breath covered them, and I repeated the process, wishing it would distract me from the open silence.
Words settled on my tongue, yearning to break forth, and I bit them back to no avail. “I liked it, too.”
His fingers tensed, as did my thigh. “What?”
“The field.”
He admitted the same all those days ago when I ran off, and he remembered based on the way his thumb rubbed my leg. Such a simple gesture that I couldn’t bear to witness or acknowledge.
To my relief, we said nothing more. At the habitat, Ryker assisted me to the cradle. Roys offered, but Ryker was easier, simpler.
After undressing in the med bay, I dropped into the cradle where, at some point, I thought I heard Maddy, even saw her looking down at me. Eyes wide and bottom lip caught in her teeth, her hand traced the shape of my arm, then she was gone.
I must have been delirious.