“There,” he said, adjusting something on his scanner. “This tower is barely powered, but it’s giving up enough to increase the range and sensitivity of what I’ve got.”
He activated the scan, and we both stared at the display on his arm as it cycled through frequency ranges, searching for any sign of emergency beacons.
For several minutes, there was nothing. Just the same empty readings we’d been getting since we crashed. I was starting to think we’d climbed all those stairs for nothing when the scanner suddenly beeped.
“Wait,” Torven said, fine-tuning the signal. “There’s something…”
The display showed a faint but unmistakable beacon signature, flickering in and out of detection range.
“That’s one of ours,” he said, his voice tight with excitement. “It’s weak, probably because of atmospheric interference, but it’s definitely one of our emergency beacons. Someone had to have turned it on in order for it to be onthisfrequency.”
“Can you get a location?”
“Not with the signal this weak. But if we try again during a lull in the weather activity, we might be able to get a clearer reading. Maybe even establish two-way communication.”
The relief that flooded through me was so intense it wasalmost overwhelming. We weren’t alone. At least some of the crew had survived the crash and were alive out there somewhere.
“They made it,” I said, hardly believing it, and thinking of Cleo. “They actually made it.”
“Some of them, anyway.” But Torven was grinning, the first full, genuine smile I’d seen from him since before we crashed. “This changes everything.”
Without thinking, I threw my arms around him in a jubilant hug. He caught me easily, lifting me slightly off the ground as he hugged me back. For a moment, we were just two people celebrating the first piece of good news we’d had in days.
But then something shifted.
Maybe it was the way his arms tightened around me, or the way I became suddenly aware of the solid warmth of his body against mine. Maybe it was the relief and adrenaline making everything feel more intense. Whatever it was, when I started to pull back from the hug, I found myself looking up into his green eyes from much closer than I’d ever been before.
His gaze dropped to my lips, and my breath caught.
“Zara,” he said quietly—using my first name—and there was something in his voice that made my heart start racing.
“Yes?”
“Can I…?” Instead of finishing, he leaned down and kissed me.
It was soft at first, tentative, like he was giving me a chance to pull away. Ah,thiswas his question. I answered him by winding my arms around his neck and kissing himback. His arms tightened around me again and the kiss deepened.
He tasted like the metallic water we’d been drinking and something uniquely him. His lips were warm and his hands gentle. I felt like every nerve ending in my body had suddenly come alive, and all I wanted was to get closer to him.
But then reality crashed back in, and we both pulled away at the same time, breathing hard.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his skin flushing with a riot of colors. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Don’t apologize,” I said quickly. “I kissed you back.”
We stared at each other for a moment. The air between us now charged with tension and possibility, and the awkwardness that comes from crossing a line you can’t uncross.
“We should…” Torven started, then cleared his throat. “We should head back downstairs. Get some rest before we try the communication equipment again.”
“Right,” I agreed, though I wanted to ask what exactly had just happened between us. “That makes sense. We’ll need to be alert when we attempt contact.”
But as we gathered our things and prepared to make the long climb back down to our makeshift camp, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way he’d looked at me just before he kissed me. Like I was something precious and dangerous and feral all at once. It was very confusing.
And I couldn’t stop wondering what would have happened if we hadn’t pulled away.
The beacon signal had given us hope that we weren’t alone on this planet. But the kiss had made me realize thateven if we were rescued tomorrow, something fundamental had changed between us. Something that couldn’t be ignored or forgotten by going back to our normal lives.
As we started the long descent back to the base level, I found myself wondering if that was a good thing or a terrifying complication.
