Chapter 37
JILLIAN
The station fills with the dull, fleshy thuds of bodies hitting the floor. Even Darwin goes down, slumped like a puppet with its strings cut.
For a second, I think they’re all dead.
I stagger forward, heart punching my ribs. “No. No, no, no—”
“They’re not gone,” Maug says. His hand wraps around mine, steady as bedrock. “Just stunned. The link—broken.”
I press two fingers to Darwin’s neck. There’s a pulse. Weak, but there.
Relief almost topples me.
But there’s no time for collapse.
We move.
Maug and I race toward the medbay, ducking through flickering corridors and broken emergency bulkheads. Lights buzz overhead, flickering like they’re trying to decide if the station is haunted or just barely alive.
“We’ll use the regen injectors,” I say, breathless, already prepping a hypo in my head. “We still have trace vials of your blood left. I can synthesize—”
“No synthesis,” Maug grunts beside me, his claws curled tight. “Too diluted.”
I nod. “Then we go direct.”
We break into the medbay.
It’s chaos. Empty and full at once—overturned carts, shattered monitors, the smell of disinfectant fighting with fungal residue.
Maug sits without a word, pulls his arm back, exposes a vein without flinching.
I take the blood myself.
It flows, thick and gold-tinged, into the sterile chamber of the hypo.
I test it. Stable. Potent. Clean.
And then we begin.
One by one.
Patient by patient.
We inject them.
The recovery is… messy.
Their bodies react to the blood like it’s holy water on a demon. Some seize. Some vomit black sludge. Some scream so loud I think their throats will split. A few claw at their own skin like they’re trying to dig the infection out with their bare hands.
But most of them come back.
Slowly.
Their eyes clear.
Their voices return—cracked, confused, human.
A girl from the hydroponics bay sobs into Maug’s chest, her entire body shaking. A tech from engineering throws up three times before whispering, “Where’s my wife? Did she make it?”
I can’t answer.
Darwin is one of the last.
When he wakes, it’s like watching glass melt.
Confusion. Panic. Horror.
“Jillian,” he gasps. “I—was I—” He grips my arm. “Was I one of them?”
I meet his eyes. “Yes.”
He nods. Doesn’t argue.
Tears fall.
I let him sob.
But I walk away.
I’m not here to nurse guilt. Not anymore.
I’m not anyone’s redemption arc.
Maug and I work for sixteen hours straight.
No breaks. No food.
Just blood and hope and endless medical alerts.
My hands are raw. My back aches. My skin smells like antiseptic and sorrow. But we keep going.
Because they’re alive.
And because stopping means thinking. And thinking might break me.
We finish the last injection just as the station’s ambient audio sensors ping a system-wide update.
Maug looks up. “What is it?”
I check the terminal.
And I see it.
The waveform.
The music.
Flatline.
It’s gone.
I exhale.
Not a sob. Not a sigh.
Just… stillness.
I press my forehead to the cold steel of the terminal.
I let myself rest.
Not long.
Just enough.