Kate
Ifly forward. The wind is knocked out of me and my body is on fire. My limbs feel like there are being torn off me at the joints. My skin, like it’s being ripped from my bones. It hurts a thousand times more than any pain I’ve ever felt before.
I’m blind, the world around me is pitched in total darkness and I struggle to right myself, to douse the inferno that devours my flesh.
I scream, but the only sound I hear is the quickening of my pulse rushing through my ears.
Flames of scorching pain slice through my face. Is my body being burned alive somewhere? There’s too much pressure in my skull, the heat sears me and I cannot think or breathe. The pain is too great. It swallows me whole.
A bright blinding light flashes and rakes across my vision. An explosion of stars and suns and universes right before my eyes.
Then it’s over.
Gone.
It all abruptly disappears.
And Rune stands before me, breathing heavily, with my faceplate in his hands. “Kate?” His expression twists and furrows with worry.
“Take…take it…off.” I claw at the armor, I want it away from my skin, gone from my sight.
Rune immediately drops the helmet on the floor and slides gears and things across the metal plates that bind me. I’m covered in sweat, drenched in it. Rune’s hands slip and slide over my skin as he tries to tear the suit from my body. “Jex,” he rasps. “Her skin is too hot.” His voice breaks.
I’m suddenly horizontal and half naked, trembling violently. “R-r-r-u-n-n-e.” I try to speak his name, but the word stumbles and slurs past my lips. I struggle to stop the spinning in my head.
“Quiet down, girl,” Sarah says from somewhere above my head. “Don’t struggle. Let us help regulate your temperature and get you to optimal health.”
“N-n-n-o-o m-machine,” I stammer.
Rune doesn’t listen and plugs the bottom half of the armor in. I try to kick my feet away but they’re too heavy to move. He shifts his attention to the top of my body and holds my face in his hands. “Kate, it’s me. It’s okay,” he whispers.
Hot tears pour out of my eyes and stream over my temples and into my hair. Rune’s eyebrows pull together and his face blanches more than its usual pallor. “Kate?” he breathes.
His thumbs brush over my tears as my eyes roll into the back of my head. I fight it, the feeling of succumbing. I need just a moment to tell them. To let them know Pious is coming. “P-pious kn-n-nows w-where…”
“Jex!” Rune growls. “We need to evacuate this part of the core, now.”
Jex hovers over me, his eyes darting all over my face. “This is the reason we could not remove the armor from her body. He must have locked her inside long enough to find her location.”
Yes! That’s it. That’s the answer. I try to agree—to tell him he’s right—but I end up dry heaving into the closest person’s lap.
“General sir, we should separate, take her into the core’s basin and we’ll circle around the perimeter and meet you there.” Jex’s voice sounds like he’s talking from deep underwater.
I don’t know what Rune’s answer to him is, because his voice fades to a low murmur and I’m lifted away. My body floats through a long winding tunnel as Rune hums soft soothing sounds in my ear. I’m not sure, but it feels like it takes hours. At least long enough for my muscles to ease their trembling, for the sweat to dry from my skin, and for someone to have stripped me completely bare of any armor.
Rune makes a small refuge for us in a hidden alcove just off the main corridors of the core. It’s freezing in here which helps get the sting of the Caelum armor out of my skin, but still, now I’m beyond cold. He sits, leaning his back against the wall, and gathers me in his arms to keep me warm. I don’t have the strength to refuse. I keep going over the things that Pious showed me, and I wonder if there’s really such a lonely life waiting for me back home.
“Can you tell me what happened?” he asks softly. “Did the ship show you something?” The warmth of his lips, so close to my ear, sends a shiver through my shoulders.
“Pious,” I whisper, turning my head to look up at him. It puts my face a mere inch in front of his. It’s quite disarming. “H-he was in the arboretum.”
His eyes flit across my face, making my cheeks heat. The way my body lays over his is suddenly too intimate. How did we even get in this position? I shift my weight to move away and his hands softly tighten and press into my sides. “Please, don’t,” he pleads. “Please stay here with me like this. Just for a moment.” His fingers spread out, his thumb caressing my skin. “Tell me what happened.”
I suck in a quick breath and hesitate. The way his hands touch me slowly melt away all my fear and worry.
I just need to keep focusing on Rune.
His eyes are so liquid blue I feel like I’m falling into them, willing to drown. In another time, another place. God, in another life I could see myself falling for Rune. If he were only a regular guy I met at school or in a coffeeshop. But he’s not. He’s not of my world.
