"I know." Her voice is fading, slipping away even as I tighten my grip. "That's the problem."
She goes limp in my arms. Unconscious. Her blood soaks through my shirt, warm and wet, and for a moment I'm back on Sigma-9, standing over bodies I couldn't save, covered in blood that wasn't mine.
Not this time.
I run harder, her weight driving me forward instead of holding me back. The ship is ahead, the airlock open, Kesh already inside shouting coordinates and medical jargon I don't process.
I carry her through the lock. I lay her on the medical bay table. I step back, and my hands are red with her blood again.
But this time, I didn't leave.
This time, I stayed.
Chapter 9
Astra
Pain is the first thing.Not sharp, not clean, but deep and grinding, the kind that lives in bone and radiates outward like a signal fire broadcasting from somewhere near the base of my spine. I try to catalogue it before I open my eyes. Old habit. Know the damage before you let anyone see you're awake.
Bandages. Tight across my lower back, wrapping around my left side. Medical adhesive pulling at skin every time I breathe. The hum of the ship's recyclers overhead, that low, constant drone I've spent weeks sleeping under. Gravity stable, which means we're in transit, not docked.
And warmth. Close. Too close. The kind of warmth that comes from another body, from someone who has been sitting beside me for longer than they should have.
I open my eyes.
Dexter is in the chair beside the med bay cot, and he looks like hell. His jaw is shadowed with stubble, his hair pushed back from his face in a way that suggests fingers raked through it a hundred times. But it's his marks that tell me the truth. The bioluminescent lines tracing hisforearms and throat are dim, barely flickering, the faint amber of a fire burning on its last fuel. I've never seen them this low. Even when he was bleeding out on the laboratory floor, they burned brighter than this.
He's been afraid.
The realization slides through my chest like a cold needle, and I shove it away.
"How long?" My voice sounds like gravel. Like someone scraped my throat with a wire brush and left the debris.
"Two days." His eyes don't leave my face. Bloodshot, ringed with shadow, and focused with an intensity that makes me want to look away. "The shot was close to your spine. Another inch and..."
He stops. His jaw works once, the muscle jumping beneath the stubble.
"But it wasn't another inch," I finish for him.
"No." Something moves behind his eyes. Something he's choosing not to say. "It wasn't."
I try to sit up. My body vetoes the decision before I've lifted three inches, a white-hot lance of pain splitting through my lower back and dropping me flat. I hiss through my teeth and stare at the ceiling, counting breaths until the room stops pulsing.
"Don't." His hand hovers near my shoulder but doesn't land. Smart. "The tissue regenerator sealed the wound, but the nerve inflammation needs time. Another day, minimum."
"I've worked through worse."
"You haven't been shot an inch from your spinal column before."
"You don't know that."
His mouth thinens. He doesn't argue, which is how I know he's exhausted. The Dexter Torrence I rememberwould have pushed back, needled me, turned it into a game. This version just watches me with those dim, flickering marks and says nothing.
"You should rest," I tell him.
"So should you."
"I'm not the one who looks like he hasn't slept in two days."
