Chapter 24
KIT
SFS POLARIS
Kit strides down the fifth-floor corridor, a tray of glass vials filled with blood balanced in her arms. She’d spent most of the day in the new triage in the lounge, testing citizens to see whether the Fever had spread after the breach.
She’s more exhausted than she’s been since departing Lumaria, her workload suddenly doubled.
She follows the slow curve of the wall until she reaches the elevator, attempting to press the call button without dropping the tray.
“Allow me.” A low voice snakes around her, and she snaps her head to the left, seeing the man who is sometimes with Task and the other Guardians, but who she’s gotten the distinct sense that Task doesn’t like.
He’s never said that outright, but the way his face pinches slightly whenever he seems him, the way he purses his lips and clenches his fists, Kit can tell they don’t get along.
“Thanks,” Kit says, stepping back as she waits for the lift.
“Alexander Caden,” the man says, “of House Caden. I’d offer to shake your hand, but…
” He gestures to the tray of vials in her arms. He introduces himself as if she should know who he is, who House Caden is, but Kit knows nothing of the hierarchies on Nexarium, beyond what little she’s gleaned from Finn’s brief history lesson and Task’s stories.
“No need,” Kit replies. She’s wary, unsure why he’s approached her in the hallway when he’s never spoken to her before. She’d assumed he’d continue to keep his distance; she was, after all, not as powerful, obviously lower class in the eyes of the Nexarians.
A blue light glows and the elevator door slides open. Kit goes to step inside, hoping Alexander Caden doesn’t follow her, but he does, leaning against the glass tube as the doors slide shut.
Kit casts a glance at him from the corner of her eye. “Can I help you with something?”
Alexander shrugs. “Just thought it polite to introduce myself to the woman Canmore has been staring at for the better part of three weeks.”
Kit feels her cheeks burn but says nothing. Task has been doing a lot more than staring at her — he’s been helping her. But she’s not about to reveal that to Alexander. Instead, she makes a show of rolling her eyes, saying, “He hasn’t been staring at me.”
“You know he’s supposed to marry next year, right?” Caden grins at her as the elevator doors peel open.
Kit throws a look over her shoulder as she exits. “Good for him.” The words rankle her, even though they shouldn’t.
“I’m simply telling you since I see you with each other frequently,” Caden says, drawing out the last word as he falls into step beside her.
“We’re not,” Kit says, denying it a bit too quickly.
Caden smirks, raising a brow. “No?”
Kit picks up her pace, wanting to shake him off. She curses the winding Polaris corridors; this one seems to go on forever.
“His uncle would never allow it, of course,” Caden continues.
Kit doesn’t want to engage with him, but she finds the words falling from her mouth anyway. “Allow what?”
“Marriage to a Low,” Caden says. “To anyone other than a noble house.”
Kit stops outside the door to her lab, eyes settling on Caden’s handsome face. “I need to get this into the cooler.”
“I’m looking out for you,” Caden shrugs. “There’s no sense getting attached to someone you can’t have.” He’s silent for a moment, pondering. “And Task would never sacrifice his inheritance.”
“It’s none of your concern,” Kit says, shifting the tray into her left arm so she can press her palm to the biopad. She wants to get away from him, feels his words twisting inside her belly, lodging in her sternum. She breathes a sigh of relief as the door slides open, allowing her entry.
“If it impacts House Dormius, it is,” Caden says. He thankfully doesn’t follow her into her lab, but keeps his eyes locked on her as the door slides closed, his head tilted, as if committing her to memory.
Kit feels as though she’s encountered something slimy, her skin crawling. And Caden’s words… she didn’t want to listen to them, especially because she knows there is nothing going on between her and Task. And yet, they make her stomach feel sour.
She tries to banish the last five minutes from her head, taking the tray to the cooler so she can chill the samples for testing later.
None of these extraneous things matter. What matters is her research, her people, the cure.
That is what she needs to focus on. She slides on a pair of clean gloves, resolving to stay up until she can map the energy pathways in the Fever from memory.
Kit had indeed stayed up late into the night, falling asleep on the digibook she’d had open on her lab table.
She’d rushed around all day, the hours in the quarantine ward bleeding together as she and Amaltheia worked around the clock to try to keep the Fever at bay.
The testing had revealed fifteen newly infected passengers, which had overwhelmed the small quarantine ward.
This was in part because they hadn’t come up with a good plan for those that caught the Fever.
The solution that posed the least risk would be to get them off the ship immediately, but that would effectively mean sending someone into the galaxy to die.
A quick death, at least, outside the confines of gravity and oxygen, but that option would also incite violence.
It was amazing how brutal people became when their loved ones were threatened.
Kit had seen it time and again at the Center.
Instead of ejecting fifteen Lumarians into space, they’d worked to push in extra beds, squeezing them into corners and rearranging things in the ward to fit as many people as they could.
Despite their best efforts today, two had already succumbed to the Fever, and it’s only a matter of time before others follow. Before more are infected.
She’s relieved now to have a moment to decompress. She sits cross-legged on her bed, wearing a loose-fitting cotton button-down and pants, playing a game of poker with Knox.
They’re coming to the end of this game, and Kit is fairly certain her hand will win. She has three of a kind, and she doesn’t think that Knox can beat it, if she’s reading him correctly.
“Two aces, two kings,” Knox says, placing his cards down in front of him and waiting for Kit.
“Three of a kind,” Kit says, laying down her hand. This is the third hand in a row she’s won, and Knox is usually excellent at poker. “Something on your mind?” She shoots him a grin and raises her brows as she collects the cards, shuffling them back into the deck.
His cheeks grow pink. “No,” he says, but he taps his fingers to his lips as he does it. She’s known him all his life, and this is his tell.
“There’s no use lying to me,” she says. “I can tell when you are.”
Knox rolls his eyes.
“A girl, perhaps?”
“It’s none of your business! And anyways, no.”
Kit deals the cards again, trying not to smile. She’ll get it out of him before the night is over. “You’re losing a lot of money tonight, bud. You better focus.”
“I’m aware,” Knox grumbles, glancing at the two cards in his hand before letting out a small cough.
Kit’s head immediately snaps up from her own cards. A cough could be meaningless, but since the quarantine ward was breached, every time she hears one, a pit of dread fills her stomach. “Knox?”
“I’m fine,” he says. “Go.”
Kit eyes him warily, but says, “Raise.”
Knox opens his mouth to speak but winds up coughing again, a loud sound that bounces off the walls of her room. “It’s just allergies,” he says, shaking his head, gesturing to the windowsill of plants Kit has in her room. “I haven’t been to the sundome much. I’m not used to it.”
She doesn’t buy it, and she’s about to get up and grab a testing kit from her bathroom when she sees it. A trickle of blood at the edge of his mouth. Her stomach bottoms out. “Knox,” she says. No, no, no, no, no, her brain is looping on repeat in her head.
“Hmm?” He looks at her with his big, emerald green eyes. The ones that look just like hers.
“You’re… There’s blood,” Kit manages to get out, gesturing to the corner of Knox’s lip.
He coughs again, covers his mouth with his hand, and pulls it away, looking at it in horror.
Kit’s up before she can process it, casting a shield around her face.
She’d removed the Defendis earlier and let her precautions slip in the privacy of her room.
But she’s just been sitting with him for two hours, completely unprotected, and now he’s showing symptoms, which means the infection has progressed to at least the second stage of severity.
“We need to get you to the quarantine ward,” she says, coming around to Knox’s side. “Can you stand?”
Knox’s entire body rattles as he coughs, his shoulders hunched forward as his eyes fill with tears.
Before Kit can even get him to his feet, he’s gasping, trying to suck in air and failing, a gurgling sound in his throat.
The blood must be pooling there, and she’s shouting at him, “Cough it out!” She pulls up her Chronogram, dialing Nevis, who answers immediately as Kit yells, “It’s Knox!
Please hurry. I need help getting him down to the medical bay. ”
The blood is running down Knox’s chin now, dribbling down the creases of his mouth, and he’s panting, his hands on his thighs as he struggles to stand.
“No, Knox, stay right there,” Kit says, pushing him back down on her bed, not caring about the blood, only fixating on the fact that her brother has Crimson Fever and she hasn’t found a cure yet.
They don’t have a cure. He’s going to die. He’s going to die and she’s going to lose him. She can’t lose him too.
She tries to still her mind, keep her spiraling emotions in check, but this is her brother. He’s wheezing now, as if his lungs might shut down at any second and she isn’t sure what to do with no way to move him and none of her medical supplies.