Arc isn’t going to leave her side, and I don’t plan to make him.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Why do you ask questions when you already know the answer?”
“Because you deserve to answer for yourself… and otherwise I might not ever speak again.”
He snorts. “Some might think that was a better option?”
“Do you?”
His smile fades. “There you go again.”
“Then I won’t stop.”
We all still again when she moves… just the tiniest amount, snuggling her cheek against one of the blankets with a soft little sigh.
“We should probably call Cindy,” Arc says, but he doesn’t move.
“No.” I voice what he doesn’t feel confident enough to. “We keep her here, we keep her a secret, and we wait until she wakes up to make any more decisions.”
Shock agrees, and Arc sinks to the floor beside the bed, watching her.
I watch him. “I’ll go meet with Breaker and Drift. See what I can find at the crash site.”
Shock nods. “And swing by the escape pod on your way back. There’s a compartment near the base with a bag in it. She’ll want her things.”
“Can you grab my helmet too?”
“Of course.” Leaving them to look after her, I step into my room and pull on the suit.
The others wear it to protect against the cold and the monsters’ claws and teeth. We only need it for the latter.
I pause at the doorway to Arc’s room before I head downstairs, but I don’t pull the curtain aside. I can hear them well enough to know that nothing’s changed in the few minutes I’ve been gone.
Our outpost is several levels carved into the rocky face of the caldera. The bottom isn’t a garage. But we blew out the wall shortly after moving in and put doors and a rolling hatch in it to make it serve the same purpose.
I fly out of the long icy tunnel and into the Zone without looking back, and when I’m finally far enough away, I let myself think something I managed not to let free where he might hear it.
We’ve been losing Arc for a while. I hate myself for hoping she’s what we need to bring him back.
I don’t have to ask my helmet to navigate a course to the wreckage. I don’t know how anyone could miss the billowing plume of black smoke carving its way into the sky.
The wreckage is worse than I thought it would be. Mangled metal stabbed into the ice. If I didn’tknowit had been a ship, I might have been hard-pressed to guess.
Drift and Breaker are already here.
Breaker nods a greeting, but keeps his distance.
He doesn’t carry any weapons; his hands are weapons enough, and the electric pulse that courses through them won’t let him operate anything with a longer range.
One touch and a cavrinskh is out.
“Glad to see one of you finally showed up.” Drift doesn’t look at me and I wonder if he even knows which one I am.
Most of the brotherhood have lumped Shock and I together for so long… I don’t think they actually know which of us iswhich anymore… Arc is saved from that by being enough of an asshole that they can’thelpbut know him.
Distinction by infamy.
