Norah wiped the trickle of blood from her nose and cried.
Chapter Twenty-One:
***
Stryker wiped his face and spat out the taste of the Wieraptor. He waited until the creature had succumbed to his poison before he stood up and located his mask. He placed it over his head and let it settle onto the bridge of his nose.
His ears filled with the muffled sound of sniffles. He looked up to see Norah folded in on herself on the stairs, her head pressed into the crook of her arm. Before he realized what he was doing, he was at her side with his arms around her. He lifted her onto his lap and soothed her.
“It’s over,” he said as he threaded his fingers through her hair, pulling at her tangles. “It’s over.”
“It isn’t,” she hitched. “It’s always raining somewhere.”
“Good thing we're on a ship out in space.” Stryker thought about the planet they were currently orbiting, Axone, and knew he had to get them away from it as soon as possible. He didn’t want her to see it ever again.
Norah shook in his arms, her body tense against him. He didn’t know what to do to comfort her so he chose just to hold her instead.
They sat there for awhile, listening to the sounds of his ruined ship. He felt drained, more so than he remembered, and when his eyes trailed back to the Wieraptor, all he saw was the loss of his perfect record. It was alive, but barely, pushed beyond its limits like Norah and himself. He hated to see the creature destroyed, it wasn’t in him to kill those that were innocent. As the smell of pungent copper washed over him, it came with a keen sense of guilt.
He was also very aware of the water sample on the ground. And as he ran his hands over Norah’s back and through her hair, he studied the beast for any signs of...change.
A yell broke his train of thought–Matt’s voice rang out from on the other side of the ship.
“Hey! Are you guys alive? Hello?”
Norah lifted her head as he sighed.
“Hello? Anyone there?” Matt called out again. Stryker met Norah’s eyes as Matt continued to call out.
“It’s over,” he said again, trailing his fingers over her face and wiping away the last of her tears. “Will you be okay?”
“I think so,” she said after a moment. They both looked at the fallen Wieraptor. “Will you?”
Will I?He never thought about himself like that before. Will he? Cyborgs were always okay unless they were physically damaged. Stryker knew he was depleted of venom and that his frame had taken a beating, but was his mind okay?
Even as Norah lifted herself off of his lap and curled her hand around the torn skin of his neck, he felt his body repair itself. The pain was only relative to the length of time it would take to heal, or when it would go away. He barely felt it anymore. He looked up at Norah; she was disheveled, whereas he was roughed up and naked. Vulnerable where he was strong.
Seeing her like that, like he had failed in saving her, hurt him. Stryker rubbed his chest where his heart was. Norah pained him. He placed his hand over hers and lifted it to his mask, nuzzling it.
“I’ll be fine,” he said at last. He stood up and led her out of the lab. His feet felt the grooves of the claw marks as he led her to the bridge. Matt’s face appeared in the gap at the bottom of the door.
“You made it, and here I was, beginning to feel left behind.”
“Back up, Matt.” Stryker gripped the bottom of the door and forced it up into the slot above his head. The metal screeched into place but stuck. When the bridge came into view, clean compared to the lab and hallway, he walked past Matt and straight to the console.
“I don’t know what’s more unsettling,” Matt muttered. “That I’m not surprised by your nudity or that I’m glad you’re alive.”
Stryker grabbed the chip under his console and thrust it into Matt’s face. “This. Is. The manual,” he roared. “What the fuck, you could’ve been at Ghost by now, and my ship would be in repair. They would have taken care of everything. How can you not even throw a ship into auto-pilot?” He slammed the chip on a nearby table.
“When you said manual–”
“–don’t–” Stryker turned back at him.
“–I thought you meant a book.” Matt shrugged.
His muscles bunched and the need to strike out overpowered his reason. If it wasn’t for the slight hand that gripped his wrist, he would’ve let himself go off.Not in front of her.Stryker reeled himself in.Not again.
He pulled her into his side until he felt in control again.
