Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
The atrium smells like burnt wiring and coagulating blood, and there’s only two of us on this ship who bleed.
“Mekkra.” His name leaves my lips as if it’s been punched out of my chest.
He’s on his side, one arm bent wrong beneath his hulking form. And from what looks like at least twenty stab wounds on his one side, red leaks through…way too much red.
My hand hovers over Mekkra’s chest, unsure of what to do.
“You’re not allowed to die,” I whisper, swallowing hard. “A warlord doethn’t get to die in the damn hallway!”
A wheezing huff leaves him, and I can’t tell if it’s a tiny laugh or a punctured lung.
“If you let me die, you’d be free,” he rasps before his head lolls back and he loses consciousness for a moment. He comes to again with a cough.
“Thut up.” My voice, even through the annoyance of my lisp, shakes. “Don’t you dare—” I can’t even bring myself to say die.
My hands circle his wrists, and I use every bit of my strength in what feels like an impossible tug of war. Even with Starcroft’s help, dragging Mekkra’s body to the medbay feels like a marathon.
“Leave me,” he mutters.
Like that’s even an option.
“And do what? Take over ath Warlord Mae? Abtholutely the fuck not,” I scoff.
The lights overhead flicker, and something down the corridor groans—metal bending, systems failing.
I don’t have fucking time for this.
I switch my grip, hooking my arms under his, and drag him. My arms are slick with his leaking blood.
Mekkra's spines scrape at the floor like nails on a chalkboard, leaving jagged trails as they scrape their path.
“Medbay is just three doors down, don’t give up on Warlord Mekkra just yet,” Starcroft’s muffled digital voice comes from behind the alien’s body.
“Three door isth nothing for Mekkra, you can make that right?”
His head lolls backwards, there’s blood at the corner of his mouth, and without thinking, I wipe it away with my sleeve.
“Are you…you’re crying,” he murmurs.
“I am not.”
I am.
With one last tug of his arms, I fall backward, tripping over the metal threshold of the medbay’s door frame.
The wind is knocked out of me as I lie flat on my back, and I only start breathing when what looks like a claw machine crane hovers over me before dropping and quickly ratcheting straps around Mekkra’s back.
“I should have…protected you. Shouldn’t have brought you into my dangerous world,” he says, regret fraying the edges of his voice.
“But you did, and now you’re not allowed to die.”
There it is, the selfish truth of it. I need him to survive out here in the space equivalent of bumfuck nowhere.
The claw arm lifts him into the air as if he weighs nothing and leaves me feeling like a weakling. But despite the work it took for me to get him here, there’s a sense of relief as he’s placed into a pod that I can only assume will help him.
I climb to standing and make my way over right as the lid snaps shut. The top is clear, and as I look down at him, Starcroft flits over and hovers near my head.
“Thank you for helping him,” he says softly.
I nod and watch as tiny robotic hands wielding needles fly out from the interior of the pod and stitch up the most heinous looking of his stab wounds. Some kind of orange light scans over his chest.
“Vitals critical, permission to take life-saving measures?” a voice asks over the intercom.
“Permission granted,” Starcoft responds.
“Ith he dying?” I whisper as he drifts into unconsciousness again. My palm presses against the glass between us, as if I push hard enough I can keep him here.
“Not if I have any say,” the floating droid harrumphs.
Another arm extends inside the pod, and to this one there’s attached a flat paddle that settles snugly against the middle of his chest.
“Stand clear of the medpod,” the intercom drones.
I’m not sure why I don’t remove my hand. Maybe I’m afraid if I do, he’ll slip away. Maybe I don’t deserve to touch him at all. Starcroft has to pry my fingers from the glass, his grip firmer than necessary, and pushes me a few feet back as the paddle ignites with electric sparks.
There’s a moment of silence, and Mekkra is completely still. His body doesn’t move an inch, not even to breathe.
“Stand clear,” the intercom repeats.
This time as the static charges through him, his mouth gasps open, and he roars to life. Even before Mekkra opens his eyes, his fists are bashing at the lid—furious, but alive.
I rush forward.
“Thtay thtill, we’re trying to help you,” I command.
Like my voice pulls him from whatever violent edge he was teetering on, his eyes snap up to mine.
“You shouldn’t want to help me.” He coughs, and small splatters of dark blood spray from his mouth as he speaks. “You don’t belong anywhere near me.”
The words land heavier than the blood.
“Well, I do, now lie thtill!” There’s a sternness to my voice I haven’t heard in years. I didn’t dare stand up to the Deenz because I wanted to live, and I didn’t want to face their harsh repercussions. I don’t know when I decided Mekkra was worth the risk.
This whole situation is fucked, but Mekkra protected me from Quldo’s bots. He could have let me be taken…
Fuck, Quldo just tried to kidnap me. That slug-looking motherfucker sent his droids here?
Even though I’m sure Mekkra is in pain and trying his best to lie still, he sees the realization flash across my face.
“What is it?” He winces as something that looks burning hot cauterizes a stab wound on his leg. I can smell burning flesh and fur—it makes my stomach twist.
“I know who jutht attacked uth, and I know why.”
He winces as he presses his arm up to open the pod.
“Tell me,” Mekkra says through gritted teeth. “Tell me who thought they could hurt you?” His eyes glance down at my even fatter-than-before lip, and something feral moves behind them. Not possessive. Protective. Like I’m something precious he doesn’t think he deserves.
“Lord Quldo,” I whisper.
The name tastes like rot.
Mekkra goes very still. Not weak. Focused.
“I promise you, he shall die by my hand,” he says, and this time when he reaches his palm out to mine, it isn’t a threat.
“You don’t—”
“You are worth it, and I will kill him,” he whispers.
It’s a vow.
Because taking his hand means choosing the fire. And not taking it means choosing a life where I pretend I don’t feel this at all.
My fingers lock quietly into his own.