That night played over in my head too many times to count. Maddy haunted my dreams. She was the specter on the edge of every nightmare, always waiting to deliver the final blow. Her scream, my name, pleading on her bloody tongue, was a part of me, carved so deeply it would never heal. But there was always a relief, a sick, fucked-up relief that she was dead, that she wasn’t suffering, just gone.
Except she wasn’t. She was here at the habitat, in front of me, alive… and abandoned.
“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
I ripped apart petals. Tore stalks out of the soil. Kicked and thrashed and threw, using a limb to crush another, hitting over and over and over until my muscles shrieked. Until I shrieked, loud, painful, and cracking my voice, forcing the bugs to scatter in droves. My nails cracked, bleeding. My throat ached, going hoarse. There was sap everywhere, all over me, mixed with sweat. I got sick, vomiting all I had for breakfast. Then there was a snap, and I spun, flamethrower drawn.
I saw Maddy, her eyes sunken and leg hanging at an odd angle, broken nearly beyond recognition. Then she vanished, and Lilea was there. Arms up, her head retracted into her shell to reveal two big yellow eyes.
“It’s just me,” she said tentatively.
“What…” I swallowed hard and set the flamethrower aside. My hands were sticky, covered in sap and blood. Labored breaths ripped through my throat struggling to whisper, “What are you doing here?”
Lilea dropped her arms. Her head peeked out, little by little. “I thought you didn’t look so good, and being out here on your own isn’t allowed, so I followed you.”
Followed and watched me having a breakdown. Sap bled from the torn petals and broken stalks, a sea of carcasses at our feet. Blooms wilted, drooped over in mourning. Their broken pieces crunched beneath our boots, endless proof of my destruction. I tasted blood in my mouth. My cheeks were sore, and my head felt moments away from imploding, even more so now as a peculiar agitation took root.
“We should head back; otherwise, the captain will come fetch us personally, and neither of us wants that.” Lilea retrieved my visor. She went to slide it on me. I evaded.
My voice held an edge I didn’t think of using. “What are you doing?”
“I just said—”
“Why would you risk coming out here for me? It’s dangerous. You don’t even have your flamethrower.”
Lilea glanced at her waist, where her holster hugged a useless blaster. She could have died for me, of all fucking people.
“Did you forget I abandoned you? That I would do so again if I had to? You shouldn’t… are you a complete fucking idiot?” I licked my lips that were sweetened by sap. Never had I tasted such a thing. My mouth salivated, and I swallowed hard, feeling sick.
Lilea shoved my visor against my face so roughly that my nose ached. The visor fit into place, and my heart rate blinked on the screen, slowing but not steady.
“Being pissy toward me won’t push me away, if that is what you are trying.” Lilea yanked the flamethrower from my shoulder. My shaking hands were clue enough that she would do better with it than I could. She stood tall. “We all make our own choices out here, and my choice is to help my team, regardless of their temper tantrums.”
I nearly bit through my tongue, struggling between shaking or yelling at her. “You should make better choices. Our world does not favor compassion.”
“Our world does not favor much of anything, so we might as well choose what to favor ourselves. Now come here.” Her eyes followed me up and down. “You look like you need a hug.”
I didn’t have the energy to respond or evade her approach. My limbs were lead, my body frozen. When she hugged me, I didn’t return the gesture. To do so felt wrong, like I didn’t have the right to accept it. She rubbed her head against mine while making that cooing sound her people did when comforting each other. There was no comfort for me, nothing to remove an ache from a wound that had long since festered and rotted me from within.
The word came out cracked, a broken, pathetic thing. “I’m sorry… about the field… leaving you. I’m sorry.”
She linked her arm with mine. “That sounded mighty painful for you to say. Are you all right?”
“I may spontaneously combust, so you should consider keeping your distance.”
Lilea laughed while moving us through the forest. My body was nothing more than a vessel for her guidance.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“Okay.” She kept a conversation with herself, droning on about the possibility of Roys letting us break out an extra case of booze to celebrate the survey team’s arrival. That was all I heard, mumbled noises continuously interrupted by Maddy’s voice.
“He’s my brother,”that hatred, the vitriol, the next thing to haunt my nightmares.
“Captain.” Lilea stopped.
We were inside the energy shield, in the field, right outside the jungle. Roys stood in front of us, arms crossed and lips set into a grim line. He took one look at me and softened.
