Gemma furrowed her brows but stepped inside, nearly tripping over a piece of duct work before realizing she was within the innards of Zion. It was dark, but the light from the hall brightened it enough to admire the Revanium skeleton of the most sophisticated structure this side of the Illari Galaxy.
Christian pieced the wall back together once he was inside. “There are several of these maintenance doors all over the building if you know where to look.”
She eyed him suspiciously.
“Dad’s a maintenance chief in Perileos.” He motioned for Gemma to move further in. “I’m not gonna be able to get around you, so keep walking.”
Gemma brushed her fingertips against the cold metal beams as she worked her way through the narrow passages. Not being able to see more than a few inches in front of her made her hair stand on end, especially after that sensory deprivation trial. At least it helped that she could feel the walls on either side of her. It made it easier to sense where to maneuver and step. There were a few sharp turns, but they mostly ambled forward, deeper inside Zion’s body.
A dim light appeared a short distance away, brightening as Gemma grew closer to the source. She took a few more steps before entering a small alcove, where a window oversaw her planet from dozens of levels above the surface.
Reva’s sky was dark and filled with large, glorious stars that held their sway in the quiet of the night, basking the world below in their gentle glow. One of the moons was at half-size off in the distance, and fromthis height, the sky was silk against stone, the red of Reva’s surface a dark crimson in the moonlight.
Gemma ambled toward the window with her mouth slightly ajar, unable to speak. The view was breathtaking.
She pressed her palms against the glass, as if she could fall through and float into the universe beyond and dance with the constellations above.
“Amazing, right?” Christian said from beside her, watching her as she admired the view.
All these beautiful stars, yet he was staring at her.
“This is...” She swallowed down the overwhelming emotions. “Thank you for showing me.”
He smiled softly, stepping closer. “I figured you could use a view like this after the day you had.”
Her throat tightened. Christian had been nothing but kind and gentle and empathetic and understanding since the moment he’d caught her falling off the bunked bed’s ladder. And now, he was sharing this intimate semblance of peace with her.
She ached to tell him about Moriah, but how could she tell him about Moriah’s death without revealing why she was here? If he found out she was with the Dissent, he would not only hate her, but he’d turn her in, and the guy she’d come to care about would be the one to sign her death sentence.
The moment she found herself as part of a team, the fragile walls around her heart started to fracture. Just the thought of the impending post-Trials loneliness enveloped her like a manifesting disease.
Her chest hitched as she lowered herself to the floor.
Christian’s eyebrows drew together as he sat, facing her. “You know you can talk to me, right?”
She drew her knees up to her chest, cocooning them in her arms. “Please don’t ask. You don’t want to know.”
He frowned, looking over her shoulder out the window. A flicker of pain flashed over his face before he blinked slowly, sighing. “You asked me before how I learned to shoot. There’s more to that story.”
Gemma focused her gaze on him. There was so much sadness in his eyes that her own heart ached.
“I was ten when my mom died,” Christian explained in a hushed voice. “She was followed home by a group of bounty hunters, and they...” He cleared his throat. “She died in a way no woman ever should while my sister and I hid inside an armoire, forced to watch. It’s not a memory you want to hear about in detail. Trust me.”
Gemma’s eyes burned. A ten-year-old boy should never have to witness that kind of savagery inflicted on his mother. She couldn’t imagine seeing such violence.
When her parents had died, it was from a virus that had taken hundreds of lives in Perileos twelve years ago. Watching them dwindle away had eaten pieces of Gemma’s soul. How much of Christian’s had been destroyed when evil took his mother?
“My mom’s last words to my dad were, ‘Promise me you’ll get them out of here,’ ” Christian continued. “So, Dad hired tutors in about every subject for me and Lysa. General school subjects, chess, martial arts—even the illegal ones like firearms instructors. All to make sure we passed our Trials one day.
“He went bankrupt several times holding to that promise. Borrowed money from the wrong people and got the blazes beat out of him several times. That’s why I started fighting, to make up some of the money he’d lost and make sure he lived long enough to continue providing Lysa the training she needed.”
Gemma put her hand on his arm, shifting so she sat cross-legged. Christian covered her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that whatever happened that made you sew your own hand together, that caused you to have the same look on your face that I see way too often in the mirror...I can handle it.”
Gemma bit back tears, averting her gaze. Avoiding him for the rest of the Trials would be impossible; there was no use denying it anymore. She was falling for him, and she didn’t know if she could stop.
She didn’t know if she wanted to.
The last person she’d really opened up to about anything was Nadine. Gemma could use someone to talk with; she didn’t want the loneliness to fester into another hole in her heart. She would just have to be careful how she worded things, telling the truth while withholding some of the details.
