Chapter 39 Kit
KIT
SFS POLARIS
She looks at the mixture in her hand, shaking it up and watching the colors mix, a pinkish-gold hue settling together.
This is the version that had been providing them with limited success.
More when used with the counter-curse, though they’d been employing that method scarcely, given the propensity for it to go sideways so quickly.
She feels they’re close, but still, there is something missing.
And the problem remains — Lumaria hasn’t been able to convince Aquidium to part with more of its mineral, especially after the heist. They’ve locked the entire planet down, and even with the minister’s smooth-talking, the Governor of Aquidium hasn’t budged.
There are murmurs of interplanetary war, though Task has assured her Draven has things well in hand.
Still, asking Task to retrieve the pagadium had perhaps caused more harm than good. She should have tried the diplomatic route first, but everything has been so time-sensitive. Her brother’s life had been on the line.
She sets down the solution, crossing the room to the fridge where the infected blood samples are kept.
She’ll look at the cells again, review all the notes from the trials.
There has to be something she’s missed. As she pulls up the notes on her Prism again, she considers the evolution of the Fever.
It’s not a traditional virus, and while the source is still unclear, the way it is getting stronger isn’t.
It feeds off people’s magical cores, burrowing into them until it drains them of their lifeblood entirely.
They’ve learned that once the Fever kills someone, sucks them dry, it jumps to another host. Sometimes, they would see the energy pathways merge with those in another infected person, creating something like a super-Fever.
Other times, it would simply find an uninfected host and start the draining process all over again.
While the pink salt, pagadium, and counter-curse all seemed to protect the magical core in some small way, it still wasn’t enough to protect it entirely.
She thinks about what happened with the Fever when they accidentally drew it out from Knox, the way it shattered when it touched her bleeding hand, and an idea sparks in her mind. An idea that could help them get around the pagadium problem, even though it is perhaps insane.
If she can manipulate life force, if there’s something in her blood, in her very DNA, that makes it possible, then maybe there’s a way to leverage that for the antidote.
She returns to the fridge and pulls out a tube of her own blood.
She’ll just try it. Even if she can’t reliably use her power, that doesn’t mean it isn’t there, lying dormant.
She picks up the glass slide with an infected cell on it.
Leftover from when the virus was at its prime, fighting for purchase in Knox’s body.
She places it under the scope, focuses it so that the cells are magnified to a power of ten million.
She carefully uses a finger to draw out a drop of her own blood from the tube, guiding it so it hovers over the deep red spot. She releases it, watching as it falls, almost in slow motion.
The second her blood splashes onto the slide with Knox’s, the energy from her cells seems to wrap itself around Knox’s.
The infected cells change shape, suddenly encased in a protective bubble.
And then, she sees a shift in one cytoplasm, the inclusion bodies that were once there gone.
As if the virus had never been there at all.
More than protecting the uninfected blood cells, it’s like her cells are healing the infected ones.
She sucks in a breath, unsure what to make of it.
If this is the response she’s getting with infected cells, would it be enough for them to create a barrier around someone’s magical core?
Could her blood have been the key all along?
Her legs are shaking, and she braces herself against her workstation. This could have been a fluke. She needs to confirm it with another set of infected cells, get Nevis and Oswald in here to see it too, try it on one of the infected patients.
For some inexplicable reason, her mind flashes to Task.
They’ve not gotten to spend much time together since they’d fought in the vestibule of the medical bay, and she’s tried to push him out of her mind while at work.
But right now, she’s overflowing with emotion, thinking of how he’s helped her and how he should get some credit for this too. For doing something good.
She’s sore, her entire body exhausted as she drags herself down the corridor from the medical deck to her room. She’d gotten Nevis and Oswald in the lab, and they’d confirmed that she wasn’t losing her mind. What she was seeing with the cells was indeed, what was actually happening.
They’d mixed it into a serum with the pink salt and pagadium, administered it to one of the infected Lumarian citizens, and it had worked quickly.
The cells had responded favorably, rushing to create a protective barrier around the infected’s magical core, preventing the Fever from accessing its food source.
Slowly, they’d watched the patient’s levels change, and on the last magitech scan they ran, the Fever had diminished so significantly, they almost couldn’t see it at all.
Oswald had actually hugged her, dialing Luminary Ellsworth and shouting so loudly it was difficult to understand him.
Kit’s blood was the missing ingredient. If they could scale the solution, there was promise.
She cuts a glance into the hangar as she walks past, looking for Task. She wants to tell him about this development.
Almost as if she’d conjured him up, he’s moving towards her from across the hangar, shirt off and dripping sweat.
She takes in his broad chest, the tattoo under his ear, the way the veins in his forearms stand out as he’s gripping his surge-saber in his right hand.
She feels a low ache in her belly looking at him, and she bites down on her lip.
“Didn’t mean to interrupt your training,” Kit says.
“Not interrupting, love,” Task says, wiping his face on arm. Kit thinks she might melt into the ground right here. “We were just finishing up.”
He steps forward, pupils dilated as his eyes drip over her.
Kit swallows, heart in her throat. “Where’s Voss?
” she manages, trying to dilute the thick tension in the air.
They haven’t touched since that night in the vestibule.
Task had been busy with his wing, Kit locked away in the medical bay, and there had been little overlap between them.
“Already headed back to his quarters.” He tilts his head, a smiling tugging on his lips. “Why?”
Kit doesn’t want to answer him, doesn’t want to admit the real reason she stopped here.
“Couldn’t stay away from me?” Task sets his surge-saber against the metal wall, and Kit’s stomach flips.
There are still several inches of space between them, and Kit wants him to close them.
Wants to touch him again, press her body into his.
He casts a glance around them, as if checking to make sure they’re really alone, and then steps toward her, wrapping a hand around her neck, arching her head back until she’s looking into his deep azure eyes.
She thinks she might be drowning in him, her breath coming in tiny gasps in her chest. “Tell me you want me, love. Tell me you want this and I’m yours. ”
Kit wishes she had more self-control, but she’s too exhausted to keep herself in line. She bites her lip again, whispering, “I want you.”
He crashes his lips into hers, and she feels desperate in the same way he does.
His teeth nip against her bottom lip and she whimpers, opens her mouth to let his tongue sweep against hers, wraps her arms around his neck as he picks her up, wraps her thighs around him.
She can feel him pressing into her, his erection rubbing against her core.
He moves his lips down her jaw, to her neck, biting down.
She cries out, more loudly than she meant to, and Task pulls back, panting.
“We should go somewhere more private,” Kit manages, running a hand through her tangled hair.
“Here,” Task says, and he grabs her hand, pulling her towards a small closet on the side of the hangar.
It’s cramped and dark, the walls lined with bottles of oil and fuel, but Task shoves her up against one of them, reattaching his lips to hers, hands roaming up under her shirt.
He squeezes her breast, kissing her still, and then his hands are moving down her body, fingers tracing along the top of her trousers.
She gasps and Task chuckles under his breath. “So sensitive.”
“Shut up,” Kit says, head hanging backwards as he slides his fingers underneath, runs them along the top of her panties. He’s doing what he did the last time he’d really gotten his hands on her in the infirmary. Teasing her. “Task,” she demands.
“Hmm?” He looks up at her from under a lock of blonde hair, fingers inching ever-so-slowly towards where she wants them.
“You’re killing me,” she whines, and he moves his fingers lower, pressing against her through her underwear.
“Fuck, Kit,” he says, sucking in a breath.
“You’re so wet for me.” She can’t see his eyes well in the dim room, but his voice is gruff, husky, and then he’s yanking her trousers down, dropping to his knees in front of her and running his hands up her thighs as she trembles with her own desire, trying to stay standing.
“I need to taste you,” he says, and she thinks she might say something that sounds like “yes” and “please” at the same time, but she can’t be sure because he’s running a thumb under her panties, along the seam of her as she rolls her hips into him.