“Got into a little tussle,” I answered.
“With the captain?” She waited for a response I never gave. If that upset her, she said nothing, choosing to point at the cradle. “Get in. That nose will heal in three minutes, tops, and I’m assuming you want to keep this quiet.”
I glanced at the entrance, half expecting Elado to appear and say he saw everything, that Roys would be reassigned, and then I may never see him again…
“What did you see?” I asked, chest tight and palms sweating.
“I saw youdragging the captain to his bedroom… he hit you?” She had a dangerous look about her, as if she would bolt to Roys’ room at any moment to beat the truth out of him. Then beat him more for putting blood on my face.
“It wasn’t…” I couldn’t find the words. Either I told her the truth, or she would make up her own that painted Roys in a poor light. “I can’t explain. It’s personal.”
“Since when did you care about that?” She gave a smile, somehow teasing and kind all at once. Saying that showed too much, to her and me, but I kept ignoring because I already felt like I walked with the weight of the sky on my shoulders.
“It’s not that I care… he’s good in bed and I want to keep him around.”
She laughed, then threw a hand over her mouth to silence the sound. We watched the door. No one came, and we shared a relieved sigh.
“When did the sex start?” she asked.
“I sucked him off in the caves.”
Another laugh, but that one was stifled behind the back of her hand. “You’re okay with sharing that but not what happened tonight?”
I should have been okay with sharing. Telling her the story should have been as easy as admitting to what happened in the caves. But I couldn’t bring myself to utter a word. Roys had his secrets, and now they were mine, too.
She dropped her arms and swung them. “Okay. I trust your judgement.”
“Why? It could be serious, something that could fuck us all over,” I said, half wishing she would change her mind because she should watch out for herself. We all should. Trust broke easier than glass. It was like the tide, coming in to drown when one least expected it.
She knocked her fist against the cradle and said, “Getin, Lucky.”
I hadn’t felt like anyone would ever be on my side in so long that I missed how many people actually were.
After stripping, I threw my clothes at her. She laid them on the counter while I slid into the cradle. The healing remedy was thick, like what I expected stepping into jello would feel like, and a peculiar green color. Why I couldn’t just shove my face in, I never understood because Tareik never dumbed down the answers enough.
Arana gave me a breathing tube. “I’ll clean up the blood.”
“I can get it.”
She left before I could say more. It felt strange trusting her to keep this secret. My secrets had been my own for too long that they tangled within me like old roots. Gnarled and convoluted, they had been so unmovable until now, and now that they were loosening, unraveling, coiling in ways I had never imagined, I didn’t know what to do.
I dropped into the cradle, where the world went silent and my thoughts screamed. I hated being in there, surrounded, suspended in what felt like endless space. My nose burned. The sound of cracking bones bounced through my skull. When I resurfaced, my broken nose had healed, and Arana hadn’t returned.
After drying off, I got dressed and saw the habitat cleaned. Arana made sure there was no proof of what transpired, though I had to venture outside and cover the broken glass with soil. When I returned to Roys’ room carrying med spray, he was moving.
Roys’ commlink beeped on his wrist. That noise ruffled the sleeping man enough for him to grumble and swat at it. He accidentally answered the call. I stumbled to the bed, snatched his wrist, and pointed it toward me so whoever was on the line wouldn’t see him passed out in bed.
There was a child, a boy, staring back at me with Roys’ eyes and dark-brown hair curled around his ears. He held a bear that had seenbetter days, so worn that it needed to be put out of its misery. When the boy spoke, there was confusion in his tone, but he used earth speak. He kept talking, and I didn’t move. Simply stood there a moment longer until the boy called over his shoulder and a woman walked in from another room.
“Hello?” she said, having used an option on her end to translate.
“Hi,” I muttered, flicking my attention between her and the boy. Her hair was dark too, and he had her nose, slightly upturned and round. Her cool white skin contrasted with her black hair falling in waves over her shoulders.
“Where’s my dad?” the boy asked, and that title hit me in the core.
“Malwin,” the woman whispered. Malwin slumped in his chair. “You must be one of Roys’ officers.”
“I am. He’s…“ Still unconscious, and would remain that way for a while based on the times I had been stunned. “Not feeling so great. We had a long day. He didn’t keep himself hydrated. I was in here checking on him when you called. Sorry, I shouldn’t have answered.”
