Big Guy swooped in and heaved Shade up just as he was slipping from my grasp.
“Careful of Bonk,” Shade mumbled, and tenderness flooded my chest.
With fingers that still shook, I unclipped the front straps of Shade’s bag. Poor Bonk. He’d been jostled around so much.
Big Guy started helping Shade toward the steps of theEndeavor, and the pack slipped from his shoulders and into my hands. I unzipped it and looked inside.
A groggy Bonk lay curled up on a crumpled brown towel. He slowly turned his head. His eyes were unevenly open, as if one were heavier than the other. He was just waking up from the sedative and looked small and limp and helpless. He let out a croaky meow when he saw me, and a lump swelled in my throat.
Swallowing it down, I whispered a hello before zipping the bag back up. Bonk probably wouldn’t appreciate being confined now that he was awake, but there was no way I was letting him loose until I was sure he couldn’t run away again.
I set the Bonk pack down beside Shade on the steps of theEndeavorand then looked at Big Guy. “First aid kit,” I said. “Under the main console on the bridge.” I couldn’t go back in there. Not yet.
He nodded and went.
“I’ll be right back,” I told Shade, giving his shoulder a squeeze.
He nodded without looking up, his head hanging low as he gingerly stretched out his injured leg.
I went to the nearest com station on the wall. I needed Surral, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember her bracelet code. I knew Mareeka’s, though. She changed it only once a year, to match Surral’s age. I typed in fifty-six and waited for her to answer.
“Yes?” Mareeka’s voice crashed into me, nearly breaking whatever dams of control I still had in place.
“It’s Tess.” My voice croaked like Bonk’s. “I need Surral on my dock. Two gunshot wounds.”
“What!” That was both of them—Surral’s voice coming from slightly farther away, where she probably sat across the dinner table from Mareeka.
“Not me. Fiona and…someone else.” My next breath shuddered hard in my throat. “And I need a cleaning crew. No children, please. Biological…” I couldn’t bring myself to saywaste.
I fought tears, thinking only of Miko, even though there were also six dead goons on the dock.
“Surral is getting supplies,” Mareeka said. “I’m on my way.”
I heard them both curse the temporary security blackout before the channel went dead.
I moved back to Shade with purposeful, measured strides, trying to regain some of the numbness from before. I needed it, because right now, every word I said was a battle not to scream, and every step I took was a struggle not to run from the future before us all.
Big Guy handed me the first aid kit, his face reflecting shock and sympathy after what he’d seen on the bridge.
“Is Fiona still alive?” I asked, not wanting to feel my words as they came out. The question scared me too much. For me. For Jax.
He nodded. “Unconscious, but breathing. Your first mate looks like he’s about ready to give up on life. Told him you were still with us, and that seemed to help.”
Us.Had Big Guy joined the crew, then? I hoped so. His presence reassured me somehow.
I found scissors in the first aid kit and cut off first the makeshift bandage and then the blood-wet leg of Shade’s dark combat pants. “Sorry to ruin your clothes, since you have nothing left.”
“Got a few spare things in my little cruiser over there.” He tipped his head toward one of the other occupied bays on the dock.
As I looked, my eyes snagged on some lumpy shapes in a dark, recessed corner. Five Starway 8 sentinels were on the floor, bound, gagged, and what looked like sedated. With the cameras down, Mareekahadposted guards on the open docks. They must have encountered Bridgebane first and maybe known he was somehow connected to the orphanage, so they hadn’t put up a fight. Shade hadn’t been questioned, and the Overseer would have shot to kill.
“Big Guy? Can you check on those guards over there? Free them and make sure they’re all right?” I asked, pointing to the sentinels.
Big Guy nodded and jogged off.
“That’ll fit inside theEndeavor,” I said of Shade’s small ship. It was the two-person craft he’d used to fly me to the beach.
Shade looked up, something in his eyes melting right into me. “Is that an invite?” he asked.
