Voller salutes and saunters off toward his quarters, leaving just Kane and me.
The air immediately thickens with tension, and I wish I could run. But I keep my boots firmly planted in place and straighten my shoulders. If he wants to do this, we’re going to do it.
Kane studies me, gaze boring into me. “They don’t know. Theycan’t understand.” Jaw tight, he shakes his head in disbelief. “But I do know and I still can’t figure out what you’re thinking. Why are you doing this?” He throws his hands up in exasperation. “I don’t think it’s possible to dream up a worse scenario for you, one that could possibly include more triggers.” He edges closer to me. “A month. You were trapped, alone in the dark for a month, with nothing but the dead and your hallucin—”
“I know,” I say tightly. “I was there. Remember?”
“Doyou?” he shoots back. He pauses, his eyes widening slightly. “Wait. Is this about what happened? Are you trying to punish yourself for—”
“No!” Not exactly. How do I explain that I always knew the consequences would one day come back around? That there’s a difference between me punishing myself and punishment being exacted?
“Then what are you thinking?” he demands.
“I’m thinking I don’t have a choice. I want a future that doesn’t exist for me right now. One I choose, out here.” I jab my hand in the general direction of space. “I want my transport company, something I own and control for the first time in my life, even though it scares me. I want Voller to blow his share on expensive Scotch and redheads. I want Lourdes to donate it to her church for that new building she’s always talking about.”
His eyebrows arc upward in surprise. Idolisten, even if I don’t interact.
“And I want Nysus to be able to buy…” I pause. “Whatever it is he’d want to buy.”
Kane’s mouth quirks in a reluctant smile.
“And I want you to have time with your daughter, to see her more than once every eighteen months for a couple of weeks.” My voice cracks, and I avoid his eyes, then, afraid mine will reveal too much. “And if I have to go through hell to get all of that, then fine.” I’ve been expecting hell, via the other shoe dropping, for years anyway.
“Claire,” he says softly.
“And yeah, maybe some of it is about righting a wrong.” I fold my arms across my chest in defense, keeping my attention focusedon a deep scratch on the floor. “My mother has no grave on Earth because Verux destroyed the habs at Ferris. There’s no place to visit her or leave flowers.”
Or beg for her forgiveness.
“CitiFutura is responsible for those people, whether they died through an accident or a deliberate act,” I continue heatedly. “Their families deserve answers, they deserve to have their people back. Not just the wealthy news-getters but the crew who served, too. They don’t get left behind because it’s more convenient for Verux these days, their names just carved into another shitty monument in marble with no truth behind it.” The Ferris memorial is in what’s left of Grant Park, in Chicago. I’ve seen pictures. TheAuroramonument is actually on the Verux campus in California, a tribute to “pioneering souls lost,” erected on the ten-year anniversary of the day CitiFutura lost contact.
As soon as I stop talking, silence crowds back in, and the creeping horror of having revealed too much, of having peeled back layers of defenses that took years to construct, crawls over me.
My face goes hot, eyes stinging, and I turn away to stare up at the light panel overhead, willing the moisture in my eyes to evaporate. I can’t look at Kane and risk seeing pity.
“Besides, it’s three days,” I add, working to make my voice sound less choked. “It won’t be that bad.”
At this point, I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince. Damnit, I should have just kept my mouth shut.
His hand on my shoulder gently tugs me back to face him.
“You are either the bravest woman I have ever met or the craziest,” he says, before pulling me closer, his arms encircling me.
IknowI should shove away, but in that moment, my weakness is stronger than my resolve. My arms seem to rise of their own accord, locking around him, my fist wrapping tight in the back of his T-shirt. To hold and be held for the first time in a long time doesn’t feel as scary as I expected, like tiptoeing to the edge of a dark abyss and staring down.
Instead, it feels like a relief, a weight lifted.
“Why can’t it be both? It’s probably both,” I say, my voice shaky and muffled against his collarbone. He smells of warm cotton, the comfortingly familiar faint metallic tang of LINA’s water, and soap.
“It probably is,” he agrees with a laugh.
Kane steps back without letting go, his hand tipping up my chin, and he frowns at the tear tracks on my face before he wipes them gently away.
My gaze catches on his mouth and before I can stop myself, before I can even think, I push myself up and press my lips against his.
He makes a soft noise in surprise, and then pulls back. Just an inch or two, but enough. “Claire,” he begins in that gentle voice.
Shock at my behavior roils me, followed almost immediately by the scorching heat of utter and complete humiliation. What the fuck was I thinking? What am Idoing?
