“Without shoes, you’ll be hurt soon enough.”
Her mulish expression amplified her resemblance to Lacy.“Fine.But put me down as soon as possible.”
“Agreed.”
“Do you get sick?”Lacy placed a hand on her sister’s shoulder and looked closely.
“I never have before,” Layla said gamely.“Can you imagine Dad’s reaction if I got motion sick?”
They both laughed.
“Time to go, people.”
Everyone nodded.
Lacy and Burn were the first at the door.Burn peered out.
“It’s clear, Sarge,” Burn said as she completed her scan.
“All right, team, let’s go!”
Orion pulled the door back and Lacy and Burn raced into the dark night.
55
Lacy
I was suckingin air by the time we reached the shuttle and I wasn’t sure that I would ever lose the tension in my shoulders.I put my palm on the outside and rested a moment, trying to catch my breath.
“You can rest when you’re dead,” Burn hissed from behind me.“Get your ass in the shittle and get ready to boogie.”
“Shuttle,” I gasped, in between breaths.
“I.Don’t.Care,” Burn ground out.“Get.In.There.”
“I’m going, I’m going.”I hauled myself through the open door and stumbled into the cockpit.After we were off this damn planet, I was going to sleep for a week.Then I’d figured out what to do with the rest of my life, since I was pretty sure that Layla’s big reveal had nuked my relationship with Dax and the rest of the crew.
Practically on autopilot, I ran through the pre-flight checklist, saying each step out loud so I wouldn’t forget one.I didn’t want to miss a step, especially since this was a new-to-me shuttle that had been tinkered with by people who probably didn’t know what they were doing.We’d gotten here in one piece.Now I had to make sure we got back toFortunasafely.
I was tired, stressed out, and probably running on pure adrenaline by now, but there was some exhilaration there too.We’d found Layla and she was okay.Or, at least, she seemed okay.
As I ran through the checklist, there was a thump on the roof of the shuttle.I froze.It was followed by the sound of scrabbling up there.“Um, Burn, I think something just attacked the shuttle.Can you take care of it?”
Her laughter rang through the shuttle.“That was me, you idiot.I’m up here watching their backs.”
My cheeks flamed and I was glad that I was alone in here.“Oh, uh.Okay.Thanks.”
That actually helped ratchet down part of my stress level.Knowing that she was watching my sister’s back—and Dax’s—made me feel a lot better.I was able to run through the rest of the pre-flight checklist a lot quicker knowing that there was another layer of protection for the people I loved.
Loved?
Well, shit.There went my concentration again.
Only having done this a million times before helped me make it through the last of the checklist.All the while, my brain was scrambling to make sense of the emotions I’d just admitted.
Love.Pfft.
Sure, that might be what I felt for Dax, but I’d probably blown it all to hell when I didn’t tell him that I was Blazer’s daughter.
