The sound was sharp, cutting through the heavy tension in the room. Kirr didn't move. He kept his glare fixed on Kaarigan, the two alien men locked into a battle of wills.
The chime sounded again. Urgent. Demanding.
Kirr glanced down, snarling as he tapped the display. "M'Aab."
Kellat's voice filled the sudden silence of the office, calm and professional. "Kirr. I need Harper in the medical hall. Now please. I’m about to initiate the wake protocol on her cousin. She should be here.”
The comm clicked off.
Kirr smiled down at her, ignoring the panel in front of them like they were no long there. "Kellat’s waking Delilah."
Delilah was waking up. Her cousin was going to live.
She stared back at him, but she didn't feel triumph. She didn't feel joy.
She just felt hollow.
14
The corridor to the medical bay was a blur of gray metal and white lights, passing too fast and yet not fast enough. Harper moved because Kirr's hand was on her back, propelling her forward, a solid, warm weight that grounded her while her mind spun out into the void.
They had taken everything.
In the span of an hour, the universe had stripped her bare. No Kirr. No Delilah. No home. Just a one-way ticket to some place in space with a stranger, while her cousin waited to be shipped off God knew where.
And now Delilah was waking up.
She stumbled as the doors to the medical bay slid open with a hiss. The air inside was cool, smelling of ozone and something antiseptic that stung the back of her nose.
Kirr didn't stop. He steered her toward the bay Delilah was in, his jaw set so hard a muscle twitched beneath his skin. But halfway there, his wrist computer chimed again.
He swore as he looked down at it, a harsh, guttural sound. "That… draanthic."
His attention switched to her, his golden eyes fierce and intense. "Go to her. I need to deal with this before Kaarigan locks down my command codes."
"Kirr, I?—"
"Go," he urged, giving her a gentle push toward the bay where Kellat stood. "I am not letting them take you. I am fighting this, Harper. Every step. Just stay with Kellat." He tightened his grip on her shoulder. "Do not leave with anyone but me."
He turned, stalking down the corridor out of the healer’s bay, already talking to someone, gesticulating animatedly.
Dully, she watched him go, then turned away to walk into Delilah's ‘room’.
It was peaceful here. Too peaceful.
Delilah lay on the huge, alien medical bed, small and pale against the dark sheets. For a moment, Harper was back there, in the wreckage of the flyer, with smoke choking the air. She focused on the lights blinking rhythmically on the panel above her cousin’s head.
Kellat looked up as Harper entered. The Healer usually had a calm, unshakeable demeanor, but today his brow was furrowed, his braided hair pulled back severely. He didn't look like a man who was about to deliver good news.
"How is she?" she asked, her voice sounding thin to her own ears. "You said she was waking up."
Kellat hesitated. He tapped a command on the holographic display, dismissing a stream of complex data. "That was the plan. Her vitals had stabilized, and the neural activity suggested she was ready to emerge from the restorative coma."
"Suggested?" She moved to the bedside, her hand hovering over Delilah's but afraid to touch. "What does that mean? Is she okay?"
"There has been... a change." The big healer skirted around the bed, his movements precise but heavy. He didn't look away from the screen results. "In the last twenty minutes, her brain wave patterns shifted. They don't match any baseline I recognize—human or Latharian."
The floor seemed to drop out from under her. "A change… what do you mean? Oh God. Is she… gone?"
