Chapter 32
I lay in bed envisioning those vials and the empty spaces.
Roys used twice. Over the past few days, the times he acted odd — he wasn’t himself, was he? Not all of him, at least. There were pieces of him stitched together. A synthetic filled the empty spaces.
I should have recognized the signs. Itching his arms, refusing to take off those armbands, missing more often, not reacting quickly, getting sick and acting unusual.
I ignored the signs because how the fuck could Roys, of all people, still be using?
And the subtlety of it, he knew what he was doing, how to get around without being suspected. This wasn’t a one time occurrence.
Part of me didn’t believe he ever used, even after seeing those scars. I couldn’t wrap my head around him being anything different from the captain who got on our nerves, who drove me wild first because he was such a stickler and then because… because he was Roys.
But he had secrets and mistakes, as I claimed in the cave.
I would discover them eventually, and I had.
Except this secret could have him kicked off the mission.
If Elado discovered Roys not only didn’t dispose of the moira but was using it, he would be replaced.
Roys couldn’t possibly have the connections to avoid trouble.
He may not get demoted, but Corporate might send him to the other side of the galaxy.
Would we ever see each other again? These moments we built together, brick by painful brick, would they come crashing down so we may never see what could have been?
I focused on the scuff mark on my wall made from my frustration toward Roys to begin with. I ran my finger over the mark until the memory made my finger tingle.
Roys made his choice. It was none of my concern.
I willed sleep to take me, but in my nightmares, Roys’ lifeless eyes haunted me.
The next day, the survey team woke early.
Their excitement was palpable, nearly intoxicating.
Even Arana and Ryker didn’t mind Galya talking their ear off on the way to the shuttle.
I took the pilot seat and Iylene in the co-pilot spot, which I was far more grateful for now that I knew what Roys was up to.
He sat in the cabin by Elado. Maddy sat next to him, her arms crossed and eyes shut.
I had the urge to tell her. She would understand, would know what I was thinking about…
But she may tell Elado. I kept my mouth shut. We had orders. I focused on them.
The flight happened without a hitch. We landed at the base of the mountain.
Roys departed first, followed by our team, save me.
I remained in the cockpit with the survey team.
Once Roys deemed the area safe, the survey team practically teleported outside.
Maddy followed Elado toward the flora while I kept the shuttle ready to go if need be.
A holo screen in the cockpit monitored the trackers.
The ship’s scanner, while not the top model, registered more than our commlinks.
If anything dangerous came our way, I could notify everyone.
Flicking through their comms, listening in, chatting with Arana kept me busy; otherwise, I would have done something foolish sitting there stewing in thoughts of Roys and that damn storage room.
Was he checking? Did he use again? What if he took too much?
He hadn’t been using prior to this mission, at least there weren't any signs. Taking one of those damn vials could have killed him. If he were smart, he would have split the vials into smaller batches to get himself used to the synthetic again. In which case, he could be fine. I wasn’t worried.
“Did you fall asleep in there?” Roys stood outside the shuttle’s main doors, speaking to me through a private channel.
I had the doors shut and locked. Good thing nothing terrible happened, and they were running here to shout at me to open the doors, otherwise they would have made a nice snack for the flora.
Steadying myself, I replied, “No.”
The doors opened. Roys fell into the co-pilot seat and removed his visor.
My eyes followed the trail of sweat that ran along his chiseled jaw.
My attention lingered on his chest rising and falling, unlike the vision that plagued my night.
I wanted to reach out and feel his heart racing steadily and let myself believe nothing was wrong at all.
“I was coming to check on you. Figured you would get bored,” he explained.
“I am… so entertain me with a quickie.”
He offered a kiss that shouldn’t have made my toes curl. “I’d love to ruin you right here and now, but we are working and I can’t afford your distractions.”
That should have had me making a lewd remark, but I thought of his armbands, his eyes bright and smile wide, except it had nothing to do with me, just that darkness swirling through his ruined veins.
Roys fell back where he caught sight of the trackers. “Who’s older, you or your sister?”
“She is, by two years,” I replied, somehow grateful for the distraction. Maddy could make or ruin my day, but for the moment, I would take any topic if it meant clearing my head.
“Makes sense.”
“What are you implying?”
“She’s more mature than you.”
I guffawed. “She threatened to castrate me.”
“Which was entirely understandable given the situation.” He scratched his arm.
I kept my eyes ahead. He came here to make sure I was doing my job, and then he would wander off to check on the others. It wouldn’t last long. I would forget about all this shit because it wasn’t my problem.
“This is the part where you ask if I have siblings,” he said.
“Is it? I’m not that interested, though.” I tasted the lie as if I had eaten something sour. That sourness bled into my aching teeth, down my throat, burning my esophagus. “Do you have siblings?”
Roys smiled out of the corner of my eye, then that smile fell. “I did, although I never met them. Two older brothers, twins, apparently. I was two when they got sick, taken by a plague caused by all the garbage the High Risers dropped on us.”
The Colony wasn’t much different. Illness spread easily.
Though most illnesses had cures, we didn’t have the credits.
Humanity traveled throughout the galaxy and found worlds beyond worlds, but you could die of a fever because of imaginary currency.
Money laid the path of life as swiftly as ending it.
“Thanks for that depressing story.” I ran a thumb over my exoskin, counting the grooves between pieces.
“The one you have with Madlyn is no doubt depressing, too.” But he didn’t ask, although the option to talk lingered. He waited. He watched. I felt his attention, not scrutinizing or judgemental, simply there and ready to take whatever I offered.
I offered nothing, too dangerous. He found the cracks in my armor I believed to be sealed. He took over the spaces to make entirely his own, a command center that could shatter every logical decision.
“I’m glad the two of you are on speaking terms, somewhat,” he went on.
“We won’t ever have what we used to,” I muttered, feeling lower than ever, thinking of her and the Colony and Roys, how our past wouldn’t let go of us. I traded one cell for another, deluding myself into believing that, since one was bigger, then it was better.
“And what was that?” he asked.
“Trust.”
“Trust can be rebuilt.”
“Not this time.”
Roys leaned over. His arm brushed mine. The touch shouldn’t have been comforting. Shouldn’t have brought back the memory of moira. The two empty slots he was lucky to have survived and the two full ones that could end him.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Family is complicated. Oddly enough, that’s what makes it so fulfilling,” he said.
“Are you close to your family, like, your parents?”
“Not as much as I’d like to be. This job keeps me away for long periods of time. Sometimes I think that’s for the best.” He took a breath, low and slow. “Others I would give anything to have more time at home.”
“After meeting me, I bet that desire to go home multiplied.”
“For a time,” he whispered, but those paltry words had more meaning, one that struck fear in me. “Go talk to her. I’ll stay in the shuttle for a couple more minutes.”
What if he froze?
Roys wasn’t in the right mindset. If the mission went wrong, Iylene would take the lead, but I would get us out of here, the same bastard who abandoned Maddy, Lilea, and even him.
Roys was the savior, the one who would put his life on the line for the rest of us.
That wasn’t my job. Could never be. I’d fuck it up.
“She doesn’t want me interrupting.”
“She does,” he countered.
“You don’t know her.”
“I know you.”
“Parts of me,” I interjected, holding tight to my arm. “We all have secrets, remember? If you knew mine, you would change your mind.”
Especially if he learned I knew about the moira and did nothing.
Coward.
But because he knew none of that, he wore that stupid cute smile that hadn’t made my heart flutter until recently. I wasn’t sure when it changed, but I needed it to stop, to escape the hope strangling my heart, knowing it would lead to destruction.
“Is that a challenge? Because if it is, I am happy to prove otherwise,” he said.
My lips nearly defied me. The secrets clawed their way up my throat, like a pack of starving beasts set loose.
I clamped down hard on my tongue. Maddy became the better option.
With her, I treaded familiar waters, and if he fucked up…
so be it. If he got relocated, so be it.
We’d get a new captain, and life would go on.
I didn’t care.
“I’ll be back in a moment.” Putting on my visor, I fled the shuttle, holding all the unfamiliarity that sent me into a spiral.
Bringing up Maddy’s tracker on my visor, I followed the signal. She used a handheld scanner to rove over a group of flora. She didn’t notice my presence until I stood beside her, where no conversation came to mind. All I continued to think about was Roys.
She swiped across her holo screen, showing one specimen after another and marking new information. “Do you need something?”
“No.” I shifted my weight from one foot to another. Maybe she wasn’t the better option. I was in such a load of shit that nothing could dig me out.
“Then why are you here?”
I couldn’t tell her the truth, or maybe I could and she’d tell me to get my shit together. I didn’t want to hear that.
“Captain offered to watch the shuttle for a sec. What are you calling this one?” I knocked the petal with the butt of the flamethrower.
“There’s no name yet. We leave Galya to handle that, but probably something none of us can pronounce.”
“Yeah, they can never use a normal name.”
Elado requested Maddy’s help. She walked around me to meet him.
She took objects out of their cart to take samples.
Those samples were taken to the cargo hold.
I thought the conversation ended sooner than it started, except Maddy gestured for me to follow her.
My hands shook, and I white-knuckled the flamethrower to hide that.
“Being in the militia, have you flown a speeder?” she asked.
“Yeah, that was my primary job before this. I guarded vessels,” I replied while checking the trackers on my commlink. Roys remained in the shuttle, but there was no telling what he was doing.
“Been in a couple of fights then?”
“More than a couple. Have you been in a speeder?”
“No.”
“Do you want to be?”
She shrugged. “It could be fun if an idiot isn’t flying.”
“I fly the shuttle for a reason. I’m the best pilot on this planet.”
Her lips twitched into a smile. “There are barely over twenty people on this planet.”
“Still better than last.” I laughed, and she nearly did too.
It was progress that gave me a small bit of courage.
“After this tour ends, I might be able to convince the captain to let me take you out on a speeder. We can’t go fast or do any crazy maneuvers; the G’s will knock you out, but at least a test flight. ”
“After this tour,” she repeated. The implication lingered. Maddy could end all my hopes. We had no reason to see each other. She would move up in the world, and I’d go nowhere. But she didn’t let me fall. She raised me up with a single word, “Okay.”
“Okay,” I repeated, breathless and dizzy.
We didn’t say more after that. I feared what I would do if I opened my mouth, if I let every feeling overtake me.
They had been turbulent of late, a storm in an asteroid field, treacherous and deadly.
For her and Roys. I didn’t know the maneuvers for this kind of storm, couldn’t fight or trick my way out of it.
I just had to cruise along and see where it all would take me.
Not long later, Roys summoned me back where he smiled from the cockpit. The suns cast their rays through the windows, cradling him in a warm yellow light. He looked right sitting there munching on candy and offering me another piece that I accepted.
“Did it go well?” he asked, those big blue eyes full of life, the most exquisite shade I’d ever seen.
“As well as it could.” I dropped into the pilot seat, where I toyed with the candy wrapper.
Roys laid a hand on my thigh. There was no ulterior motive. It was a simple touch, an encouragement that spoke more than he could. It was just a little thing with far too much meaning. Then he left, and I sat there sucking on the candy and ripping the wrapper to shreds.
My head fell back on the seat. “Fuck.”
I had to get rid of the moira.