She guessed yes.
“I told you it wasn’t going to hurt.” Ritter’s voice sounded too close for comfort, and Velda flinched away from him. “Not this first part, anyway.”
She knew it. She knew it had been too good to be true. The staff wouldn’t have been refusing to participate anymore if there had been no effects.
She could hear the box being closed back up and the trolley rolled away. And then Ritter was back, removing the blindfolds.
“Now what?” Ethan asked.
“Now we wait,” Ritter said. He glanced at the screen propped up on the shelf nearby. “This time tomorrow, I’ll do some tests.Then things might get a little uncomfortable, but everyone who’s been through it is perfectly fine.”
“Have you been through it?” Velda asked.
Ritter snapped his gaze to hers, held it for a moment, and then went to the door and opened it. He stood in the threshold to address the two guards waiting outside. “You can take them to the holding room. Full containment.”
They were unclipped from the beds, secured with restraints, and taken back down the passageway, but this time, they bypassed the mess and were taken to a small room that Velda guessed was the closest a ship of this small size got to a brig.
It had two benches running down each side, with a thin mattress on each, a tiny bathroom at the back with a sink, toilet and shower, and nothing else.
The guards unclipped the restraints and Velda felt a surge of relief at that.
Another guard appeared with sheets and blankets and dumped a set at the end of each mattress.
Then the door closed, and they were sitting, facing each other.
“Alone at last,” Velda said, to try to make Ethan smile.
He looked as grim as she’d ever seen him.
He didn’t even try to accommodate her.
“They’ve got to be recording us,” he said.
She sighed, stood, and began to make up her bed. “I know.”
12
He was failing her.
He had just found her, just made the connection of his dreams with her, and here they were, locked in a cell, exposed to who the hell knew what.
Ethan rubbed a finger over the base of his throat, where he’d felt the small cold ball land, as if Ritter had dropped it when he’d gotten close enough.
He hadn’t placed it down, which made Ethan think he hadn’t been touching it with his hands. Maybe he was holding it using a clamp of some kind.
As soon as Velda sat back down on her now-made bed, he stood and took the single step that divided their beds and crouched down in front of her.
“Here?” he asked, touching the hollow of her clavicle.
She nodded. “You, too?”
He nodded back, and smoothed a finger over her skin.
When he was done, she did the same to him.
Had he felt a strange tingle when she did that? He couldn’t tell if it was psychosomatic or a real response.
He didn’t want to ask her if she felt it, too. Not now, when he was sure Ritter was listening to every single word they said.
