Thirty-Nine
Kolt
“Go,” I barked, my hand already at Skye’s back, pressing hard. She was halfway up the ramp when I took the remaining distance in two strides and practically rammed her through the open hatch. Her boot caught the lip, and she stumbled, but I caught her arm, and we tumbled into the dark interior together.
The ramp groaned beneath us. I turned and hit the manual seal, the control just inside the door. Or where I somehow knew it should be. The ramp whirred up and locked into place with a satisfying click, sealing out the growing light of dawn and the distant voices that had been growing louder with every passing second.
Inside, nothing. Darkness and the faint smell of recycled air. No voices, no movement, no shuffling boots from anydirection. My eyes adjusted quickly to take in the rows of cargo straps lining the walls and a narrow corridor leading deeper into the ship’s belly.
No crew yet, but the voices outside were closer now. I could hear more than two. A patrol, or worse, a sweep.
My hand found Skye’s wrist. I pulled her with me down the corridor, instinct telling me that a transport this size would keep its auxiliary storage near the rear. I found the door almost before I was looking for it.
“In here,” I murmured, pushing it open.
It was not a large space. Shelves of supply containers on two sides, hooks for equipment on the back wall, and maybe enough floor space for one and a half people to stand comfortably. I stepped in and drew Skye in after me, and she made a soft, involuntary sound that might have been a strangled laugh.
There was no way to close the door fully, so I pulled it to within a finger’s width of the frame and held it there. I could feel Skye’s breath against my chest and the warmth of her body pressed flush against mine.
We were both breathing hard. The run, the tension, and the adrenaline still coursed through my blood. I could feel her heart pounding through the thin fabric of her shirt, or maybe that was my pulse. It was hard to tell them apart.
I wrapped one arm around her, low at her back, to keep us both steady.
The voices outside were louder, followed by boots on the ramp. The sound of it sent a cold spike through my chest, but I drew Skye tighter, tucking her into the curve of my body. My chincame to rest on the top of her head, and I stayed still and waited. We both did.
The voices moved through the corridor, clipped and even. Two of them, talking about the departure window, about some cargo that hadn’t been properly logged, about the early time. They weren’t searching. They were simply crew preparing to depart.
I breathed a quiet sigh but didn’t move. Then the engines came to life in a low, rolling growl that climbed up through the floor and into my bones. We were lifting off.
I let out a deep breath that had been lodged somewhere between my ribs. Beneath my grasp, Skye’s body unclenched all at once. Her shoulders dropped, her head tilted back slightly, and the rigid line of her spine went soft.
“This is going to work,” she whispered.
As the ship shuddered through initial propulsion and then leveled into the smooth hum of flight, it hit me that I wasn’t ready for the end of the adventure. Even without knowing what would happen next, I wanted to hold on to the moment. I didn’t want to let go of the warmth of her against me and the softness of her body that fit perfectly against mine.
I didn’t know what would happen once we were free of this ship, free of the Zagrath, and back with our people. But I knew I wanted to remain exactly where I was for as long as the universe would allow it.
The propulsion smoothed. The thunder settled into a steady murmur.
After a moment, Skye shifted, keeping her voice barely a breath. “What do we do now?”
I opened my mouth to answer her, but a siren split the air. Skye went rigid, and I tightened my arm around her.
I pressed my lips to her hair and said nothing, because I had no answer to give her. I didn’t know what the alarm meant. I didn’t know if we’d been tracked down, if something had gone haywire aboard, or if the ship was being hailed or boarded.
I only knew that something had gone wrong.
Chapter
Forty
Skye
The siren screamed through the hull, and I stood in the dark with my back pressed against shelving that was digging into my shoulder blades and tried to think clearly. Kolt was a wall of stillness beside me, but I could feel the tension running through him like a live wire.
Then he said, low and close to my ear, “I think we’re reversing course.”
The floor shifted under us as he said it. It was a subtle change in the vibration's intensity and the pull of the vessel, but he was right. We were going back.
