I felt his smile against my hair, knew it was wry from his small huff of breath. “Is it wrong to try? Maybe what’s wrong is never putting yourself out there for fear of losing things you don’t even have.”
I looked up through lashes spiked with moisture. Did Jax mean…?
Sniffling, I wiped the tears from my face, my hand shaking. “Did you ever think…? Maybe you and Fi…?”
He swallowed. His mouth flattened into a line as he cupped my head and slowly pulled me back down against his chest again. His big fingers moved in soothing circles over the base of my skull.
I leaned in to him. He didn’t answer. And I didn’t press.
Chapter 24
Mareeka hugged me on thelanding dock and then scowled and snapped, “Sick bay. Now!”
“How’s Coltin?” I asked without preamble.
“Alive…I think.”
I froze. That was terrifying—and could only mean he was teetering on the edge.
Her blue eyes softened at my obvious distress. So did her voice. “He’s stronger than he used to be. We told him you were coming, but I’m not sure he heard.”
Tears stung my eyes. “His breathing…”
“Will always be a problem,” Mareeka said. She frowned. “What happened to you?”
I was a mess. I’d shown up on Starway 8 in a bloody spacewalk undersuit, barefoot, and looking like I hadn’t slept in a week. No wonder her face was pinched with worry.
“Nothing incurable,” I said, glancing down at my side. My broken heart was another matter. “I brought those injections I told you about.”
A statuesque woman with warm bronze skin and glossy black hair rushed toward us from the side, and my heart swelled at the sight of her. Surral was from the New India Conglomerate. The water-and-mineral-rich Sector 15 system had been one of the first settled after most of the population of a whole huge country had up and left Earth, leaving it to fail without them. That was ancient history now, but the group of planets still nearly rivaled Sector 12’s privileged rocks in terms of wealth and resources. Most New Indians stayed in Sector 15, where they pretty much had it all. Surral had left the day she met Mareeka, who’d been visiting there on a fund-raising trip for Starway 8.
Surral hugged me and then stepped back, scowling as well. Her stern expression clashed with the cheeriness of her rainbow-hued scrubs.
“Hey, Surral.” I fought the urge to scuff my toe against the platform and hang my head. Neither of them looked happy with me.
While Mareeka had ice-blond hair and piercing blue eyes that I’d seen make galactic officials tremble, it was Surral who knew how to make me squirm when she wanted to. To the outside world, the two of them were tall, lean, hard, and the unquestioned generals of this place. To us, the kids who grew up here, they were Mom and Mom.
To each other, they were everything—along with their kids.
Surral’s mouth turned down in a way I knew from experience meant displeasure in the extreme. “No one ever expects you to do things at the expense of yourself, Tess.”
I stood taller, even though it hurt. They were the ones who had taught me about service, about choosing others—and what was right—over myself, or the easy way out.
“Then what’s the point of living?” I asked.
At that, they both rolled their eyes, knowing any further argument was a lost cause.
“Let’s go,” Mareeka said, waving everyone forward.
Jax and Fiona each picked up a large case of the prepared injections. I carried a smaller bag, and Mareeka and Surral each took another case. That was it. That was all we had, and I hoped to the Sky Mother it would be enough.
I glanced back at the ship as we left the dock. Miko gave me a quick wave. She and Shiori were already busy trashing the old numbers and putting up new stickers on theEndeavor. Between them, they had three hands and two eyes. They could do it, although seeing them up there on that ladder was a little nerve-racking.
I heard kids calling out to me as we made our way to the medical facility on the sixteenth level. I smiled and nodded my hellos, recognizing most of the faces, even if I didn’t know everyone’s name.
In sick bay, we arrived more to moans than to greetings. I swept worried glances around, taking in the feverish eyes and dry lips in faces that had thinned too much. My heart squeezed at the sheer number of kids, all lined up in beds that stretched on for what seemed like forever under the long string of faintly humming overhead lights. From what Surral had said on the way up, I knew that other large spaces looked like this one, and that the whole floor above and below us had been commandeered for medical purposes as well.
A lump grew in my throat and stuck. I could hardly swallow. “There were no antiviral shots? Nothing?”
