Chapter 50
TASK
NEXARIUM
“Fuck!” Task swears as he runs, Kit slumped in his arms. He’s thankful they were on the lower level; no one is allowed down there except for Draven’s closest circle, so he’s not having to dodge people yet as he furiously tries to think about what it is he’s doing.
How he can get her out of Xaria. He’s trying to relieve some of her pain as he presses her hands into her, but she’s out cold, and he doesn’t think that anything he does now will help her.
And he’s almost at his limit — needs to weave if he’s to absorb more of it.
They don’t have much time. Caden is dead, he’s certain, as is the healer that was in the room with them, but the wooden disks will only keep Draven out for so long.
It’s only a matter of time before he wakes and sends the entire Nexarium Force after him.
There will be no coming back from this — he’s made a decision that will forever alter the course of his life, forever alter everything.
He can think about all that later, though.
Right now, he needs Voss, and a Hopper, and a place to go to where Draven won’t find them.
He stops for a moment in a dark corner of the basement, hidden in shadows.
He adjusts Kit in his arms, trying to reach his Chronogram to call Voss.
He’s having a hard time thinking straight; he hopes that Voss will have a better plan than he does, which is presently, nothing.
Something about seeing them torture Kit, the way he’d lost his mind entirely in that room has him stumbling through his brain, different half-formed thoughts shooting across his mind before he can fully grasp them.
“Task?” Voss answers.
Task tries to catch his breath, hitches Kit up in his arms again, too scared to put her on the floor. “We need to get off-planet. Now.”
“What happened?” Voss asks, his voice measured. Task isn’t sure how he is so calm, when it feels like Task’s entire world is imploding.
“We don’t have time,” Task says. “Voss. I need a plan. A way off this planet.”
“What do you mean?” Voss asks carefully, though Task thinks Voss knows that he’s done something he can’t take back.
Task clears his throat, darting into another hallway in the labyrinth below Xaria. “Get me off Nexarium. Draven is going to come for me.” He hears Voss breathe out heavily on the other end of the Chronogram. “You said you were with me.”
“I am,” Voss says, his voice tight. “Always. But there’s no…. Task, the entire Nexarium Force will be after us.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Task says, his voice cracking. He feels desperate, and he’s certain that Kit needs medical attention. It may already be too late. “I have Kit. Please, Voss. Help me.”
“You have Kit?”
“Yes,” Task says, reaching the steps at the end of the corridor and glancing over his shoulder. Nobody on his heels, yet.
“I’ll get Thorleye,” Voss says. “Meet me in the hangar.”
“You trust him?” Task says.
“Yes,” Voss says, shortly. “He’s got his own set of issues with this planet. Be quick.”
“We need a healer,” Task says. “She’s not conscious.”
Voss swears, then composes himself. “I’m on it.”
Task swallows over the growing lump in his throat, pressing his fingers against Kit’s neck, trying to feel for her pulse.
It’s there, but faint, and he thinks he might lose it.
His world is crumbling, everything falling to bits.
First Draven, and now Kit. He can’t lose her. He can’t. “Find someone. Please.”
“I will.” Voss cuts the call.
Task takes the steps two at a time, exploding into the corridor on the main level.
He looks left and right, two Guardians striding down the hallway.
He tries to gather himself, look official in some way.
He slows his pace to a walk. He is official.
For all they know, he’s executing on a task for Draven as his Hand. This is perfectly normal.
“Major,” the one on the left says, casting a look at the limp woman in his arms.
Task nods once. “Guardian Peale.” He says nothing more. He’s higher in rank than these two, and they shouldn’t question him. He doesn’t owe them an explanation. Even so, his heart thuds against his ribcage, the sound echoing in his ears.
“What’s wrong with the prisoner?”
Fucking hell. Of course these idiots can’t follow protocol.
“None of your concern.” Task’s voice is sharp in the corridor.
“Now if you’ll excuse me.” He pushes past them, his heels clipping against the stone floor, leaving them behind.
He needs to move faster, but he can’t break into a run yet.
Not while the two of them linger behind him.
He can feel their eyes on him as he turns right, disappearing from their view.
He casts a glance over his shoulder, Kit’s dead weight straining his arms. He tries to hoist her up, readjust her position in his arms, whispering to her again that he needs her to stay with him, to fight.
He hates Draven. He can’t believe he’s done this to her. Can’t believe that he’s taken away everything he’s ever loved. And that in spite of all that, he couldn’t bring himself to end him, even if he deserved it.
He pushes the thought from his mind as he continues to hurry towards the hangar, hoping that Voss has figured out a plan in the last five minutes.
They can’t stay in outer space forever; the Hoppers aren’t equipped for that.
They’ll need a place to land, far from here, where they won’t be followed.
They need to rip the tracker out of the ship — go off the grid somehow.
He can see the door to the hangar in the distance, a blue light emanating into the hallway.
He picks up his pace, ignoring the burn in his chest as he approaches it, shifts Kit’s weight so he can press his hand against it to open it.
He touches the biopad, but it blares red.
He tries again, pressing his hand more fully against it. Still red.
“Shit!” Task barks. That means Draven knows. He’s made it out of the basement procedure room, and he’s already on his heels.
Task bangs on the door, hoping that Voss is already in there, but vowing to deal with whatever turns out to be behind it. He’ll figure it out. He has to. He has to get her out of here. “Voss!”
He pounds again and the door slides open. He breathes a sigh of relief, seeing Axel Thorleye behind it. “Draven is on us.” The words spill from his mouth in a jumble as he breathes heavily. He runs his thumb across Kit’s shoulder, wants to reassure her that he’s there.
“We know,” Axel says, looking behind him.
There’s a black Hopper already hovering in the hangar, the thrum of the engine filling the space, so loud he can barely make himself heard.
“Here,” Axel shouts, reaching out his arms for Kit.
Task doesn’t want to give her up, doesn’t trust anyone else to hold her but him.
Axel seems to understand this, instead grabbing the lumi-dagger from the sheath at his thigh, holding it aloft as he backs up. “Come on, man. We need to move.”
Task stumbles forward, following Axel to the Hopper. The wind from the engines rustles through his hair, the noise thundering through the hangar. Voss reaches down from the belly of the ship, shouting. “Give her to me!”
He needs to get her on the Hopper, get on the Hopper himself. He can’t get in with Kit in his arms. He reluctantly lifts her limp body up to Voss, who grabs her under the armpits and hauls her into the belly of the ship.
“Thorleye, are you ready?”
“Roger,” Axel says. “I’m right behind you.”
Task grabs onto the edge of the hole in the belly of the Hopper, dragging himself up into its hull. This isn’t how they would normally board the ship, but the gangway is already up, the ship idling. He casts a glance to Voss, who is hovering over Kit, a healer on her knees next to him. “Help her!”
“We will,” Voss says. “Get Thorleye on here now. We need to go.” Voss is looking at his Chronogram, a diagram of Xaria cast in the air.
Guardians gather in the corridors, getting into formation outside of the hangar.
Task doesn’t think there’s any way they’re going to make it out of here alive.
They only have about thirty seconds before the first Guardians bust through the hangar door.
Task reaches a hand down for Thorleye, but he’s already halfway into the ship’s belly, his legs dangling over the edge. The purplish glow of a surge-saber lights him from behind.
“Axel!” he shouts, grabbing his arms to try to pull him over the edge as a Guardian swipes at his legs. He succeeds in making contact and Axel shouts, but manages to roll over the edge, crawling toward the deck.
“Are you alright?” Task shouts, looking to Axel’s leg. Blood seeps through the navy fabric, but Axel is on a mission, seemingly ignoring the fact that he’s bleeding.
“Fine,” Axel shouts back, dragging his ailing leg behind him as he comes to the deck.
“He needs a tourniquet!” Task yells at Voss and the healer, still tending to Kit towards the rear of the ship. “We won’t get out of here if our pilot is dead.”
“Goddamit,” Voss growls, snatching a roll of bandages from the healer’s satchel and stumbling toward Axel as the Hopper lurches forward.
“We’re out of here, boys,” Axel says. “Get in your seats.”
Voss kneels at his feet, tying the bandage around and around and pulling it tight. “We need to deal with this.”
“Let me get us out of here, Walther,” Axel demands, his eyes fixed on the exit illuminated at the other end of the hangar. “I’ve got this.”
Task runs toward the healer and Kit, gasping when he clocks her face. Tullia. He doesn’t have time to process it as he drags her to a bucket seat. “She needs more time!” Tullia shouts.
“We don’t have time,” Task says, looking down to where Kit lays on the floor, her eyes closed, hair a mess, a mottled rash on her neck and cheeks. “You can get back to her once we get out of here.”