I roll onto my side, white spots dancing in my vision. I want to see her coming, at least.
Except.
She’s not there.
I blink rapidly, trying to clear my vision of the spots. They gradually recede, but she’s still not there.
There’s no one underneath the bed. Just the expanse of empty carpeting I expected in the first place.
I push myself up on one wobbly arm—it takes two attempts before I can hold myself up—to look for her. She’s not at the foot of the bed. Or anywhere that I can see.
With one hand pressed to the growing and suspiciously damp lump at the back of my head, I struggle to my knees for a better view of the room.
It’s empty. She’s gone.
Or—more likely—she was never here in the first place.
I sag back to the floor, tears spilling down my face. Pulling my fingers away from my head, I find blood. Not a lot, but enough.
Shit.
It was her, I’m fairly sure, the woman Kane and I found under the bed in one of the other suites. The one with her eyes and ears covered, whose discovery had so bothered me. The one whose body we had removed and placed on the other side of thesealedbulkhead doors.
What the fuck is happening to me?
Except I already know. Revisited trauma, hallucinations, leading up to a psychotic break. It has to be. Starting with seeing my mother. My own brain was trying to warn me, and I didn’t listen.
But this time, this time is different. When I was eleven and alone, I could feel myself slipping away, could feel my grip on reality loosening. And being a terrified kid, I welcomed anything that made me feel less isolated and scared.
But now? I don’t feel that same disconnect. Reality feels as tethered to me as always. And I’m not alone. I have people depending on me. I can’t afford to lose my mind.
And yet, here we are.
Carefully, I push myself to my feet, gritting my teeth against the throbbing in my head, and stagger toward the bathroom.
A few moments of rummaging in the detritus on the floor produces what appears to be a clean washcloth, which I press against the back of my head with one hand.
Refusing to look at my reflection in the mirror, I run cold water over my other hand, rinsing away the blood. Then I freeze, realizing what I’ve done. Contaminated myself with their water, if there are contaminants within to be found.
Fuck. I need to report this—all of this—to Kane. Tell him to take over, and, I don’t know, knock me out. Stick me in a room somewhere and lock me up until we get back to sector K147.
My face burns with humiliation and frustration. I was right. I’m too damaged. Too dangerous.
But the thought of ceding control, even to Kane, feels even more dangerous. Like I’m the only one standing between us and disaster, which is a special bit of arrogance. As if I’ve ever been able to stand between anyone and disaster without flinging the door wide open.
I shake my head and wince.
For the safety of my crew, I need to tell Kane what happened. Let him decide what to do. If I keep it to myself and truly lose my shit, they may not realize it fast enough to save themselves. Someone needs to be on the lookout for aberrant behavior. Rather,moreaberrant behavior.
I wait until the bleeding has mostly stopped, then I clean myself up, wiping the blood out of my hair and the tears off my face with cool water from the faucet. In for a penny, in for a million more, apparently.
Maybe I would be more convincing to Kane if I showed up tearstained and bloody, but I don’t have it in me to go that far. Dignity may be cold comfort in this situation, but I’m going to hold on to whatever I can salvage.
Once I’m as pulled together as I can be, I head out of the suite and slowly toward the bridge, running my hand along the wall to keep my balance steady against the pulse in my head.
When I reach the bridge, though, I find Nysus and Kane huddled over something on one of the screens at the comm station, and Voller at navigation, scowling at the readout projected on the stars through the window in front of him. It provides speed, coordinates of our current location, our projected path, and time to destination.
According to that readout, I was asleep two hours more than my designated six. Lourdes should have woken me up. Not that that matters now.
