“It’s getting late,” Vera tries again. “What do you think, Lament?”
At last, his attention catches. “What?”
“If we’re going to make it back to Skyhub before the sergeant wakes up, we need to get moving. We can debrief on the way.”
“Oh,” he says faintly.
“I’m going to get the Sky Runner started,” she continues a little redundantly, like she’s not trusting him to get it. “We’ll wait for you, but don’t stay too much longer, okay?”
Lament nods. Vera and Jester head out, but I don’t like the idea of leaving Lament here alone among all this gore, so I hang back, biting the inside of my lip and considering my next move. He’s still just standing there, staring at the bodies. Or at nothing. Hard to tell, really. I step closer until we’re almost shoulder to shoulder, trying to read his expression. “What are you looking at?”
He tenses. “What do you think?”
“Sorry.” I scratch the back of my neck. “Stupid question.”
Discomfort crosses his face. “No, I didn’t…” He gives a sigh that’s more movement than sound, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “It wasn’t a bad question. I just… have this feeling.”
“What feeling?”
He drops his hand. “We’ve left tracks in the sand.”
I glance around at our footprints stamped into the earth by four pairs of boots. “Ah. Good point. Indeed.”
He looks at me like I’m being purposefully obtuse. “We’re theonlyones who’ve left tracks.”
“Yeah, but we’re the only ones who’ve—oh, wait.” I see it now. Around the raptors there should be claw marks, body gouges, pad prints, but the sand is smooth. The only footprints in this cave are ours. “The prints could’ve been erased by the wind,” I offer.
“Do you feel any wind?”
No. Despite the gales whistling outside, the air within the cave is calm. “So if not the wind…”
“Someone was here first,” Lament supplies. “They covered their tracks before they left.”
“That doesn’t make sense. If someone else came to investigate, why bother hiding the evidence?”
“Not to investigate,” Lament says darkly. “To experiment.”
My brows fly up. “What?”
“I don’t have proof,” he hedges. “It’s just a hunch.”
“A hunch,” I repeat blankly. “You’re saying the mist might be some kind of weapon? That this”—I wave my hand over the bloodbath—“was atest?”
“It’s possible.”
We stand there for a minute contemplating the scene with new eyes. The air is cool, a little damp. It reminds me of Venthros. A lifetime ago, it might have reminded me of home.
I sense more than see Lament look at me. I’ll admit, it takes more than a little courage to look back.
He really is beautiful. I haven’t wanted to notice this, given that he’s supposed to be my new flight partner and seems to revile everything about me, but the thought is there anyway, plain and a little helpless: I’m attracted to him. Lament’s eyes are more blue than green right now, shadowed in the low light. Almond-shaped, with light blond eyelashes, brows poised on the edge of some new expression. Somewhere in the distance, Vera’s Sky Runner gives a hum, whizzing to life. That’s my cue to get moving, but I feel rooted to the spot, held in place by the gaze of a man who doesn’t even want me here. Didn’t want me here? I’m having trouble remembering.
“Vera is waiting for you,” he says, and is it my imagination, or has his voice sort of… gentled? “You should get going.”
My throat is oddly scratchy. “Right. Yeah.”
I’ve almost managed to make my legs work when Vera’s spacecraft revs in earnest. There’s a flash of orange light, the chest-deep surge of a sonic boom. I whip around to see the Sky Runner vanishing into the atmosphere without me.
Lament and I scramble for our headsets in unison. I shove mine over my ears in time to hear Lament’s choked, “Vera.”
