The urge to launch myself at him, to knock him out of his chair and pound my fist against his face, is overwhelming. I clench my hands, feeling the imaginary sting of split skin on my knuckles. Living in the Verux group home for so many years had been good for a few things, primarily absorbing—sometimes painfully—the life principle of do no harm but take no shit.
This time, though, a bubble of fear stops me. Not fear of Reed. Or even of the attendants and their syringes. No, it’s the idea that Max could change his mind. I don’t want to return to theAurora. Just the idea—let alone the eventual reality of it—makes me feel like I’m falling endlessly through space, whipping around in nauseating circles, losing track of any handhold or chance to stop my descent.
But the thought of Max retracting his request, of being left behind while strangers search for survivors, formycrew.
“I’ll go,” I say, the syllables sounding nonsensical, just noise escaping my throat.
“Good.” Max sounds satisfied, but oddly more than that, almost proud of me, in a paternal sort of way. “You’re doing the right thing.”
That’s the second time someone has said that to me in recent memory. Maybe this time it’ll turn out to be true.
“And you won’t be alone. Reed and I will be there to supervise and maintain safe conditions to the best of our ability,” Max adds.
“We’ll be watching,” Reed says, clearly meant more as warning than reassurance.
Their words barely register with me.
I shake my head. “But I would never have left Kane. Or Nysus or any of them. Not by choice.”
Max reaches over and pats my shoulder. “I think it’s impossible for any of us to know what we would or would not do after experiencing what you’ve been through. On theAurora.” He lowers his voice. “And on Ferris. Surviving is nothing to be ashamed of, Claire.” He gives me a smile touched with gentle pity.
Except it clearly is. Oh God, it is. The captain goes down with her ship. Leave no one behind. By surviving, I’ve violated every implicit code of leadership. Of family. And I don’t even fucking remember it.
Maybe that’s why you don’t remember it. You don’t want to.
“I’ll be in touch with more details soon,” Max says with one last pat on my shoulder before he stands. His worn shoes squeak with the movement.
Reed follows his lead, packing away the tiny speaker and swiping through the air above the table to turn off his keyboard.
They start to leave.
“Max,” I call after him.
He turns back, eyebrows raised in question.
“If I’m going to do this, I need…” I lick my dry lips, all too aware of the remaining taste of acidic vomit in my mouth. “I need you to tell them to pull back on the drugs.” I tilt my head toward the attendants, who are standing nearby. The cushion of medication, blunting my emotions, hazing my thoughts, it’s been the only thing getting me through each day. But the parade of pills—and occasional injection—have made me a slower, duller, more manageable version of me, even as they have eased the pain of living.
“I need to be… myself again.” The idea offers distant horror,like a smoking wreck on the horizon. But if this gambit is to have the slightest chance at success, I can’t take the risk of being even a little bit removed from reality. Look what happened the last time, when I was in possession of all my faculties. Or, the majority of them, anyway.
Max eyes me for a long moment. “I understand,” he says finally. “I do. But I think you can understand why we are grateful for your help and yet… not inclined to take that risk.”
It’s a slap, but one I feel only minimally. Thanks to the drugs he is refusing to lift.
“You need to maintain your equilibrium,” Max says. “The treatment plan is helping you do that. This will be a difficult situation as it is. We don’t need to make it more… challenging for you.”
Reed shoots me a triumphant look over his shoulder, and then they leave.
The attendants are on me immediately, shuffling me to my room to change out of my sweat-soaked and vomit-spattered pajamas.
Their hands are not unkind but swift, impersonal. I’m so used to it now, I barely notice.
Perhaps Max is right. Maybe the pills are helping, keeping me level. Maybe if I didn’t have them, I wouldn’t be able to stop screaming.
Or maybe it’s simply easier for Max—and everyone—if I’m more manageable. Maybe it’s safer. For them.
I don’t know.
Either way, when the male attendant presses the small cup in my hand, full to rattling—like one of those extinct snakes on Earth—of medications, I take it. After what I said to Max, he’s watching for resistance. But I know better than to show it. I tip the cup against my lip, letting the pills land against my tongue, the bitterness immediately triggering a wash of saliva and the desire to choke them down to end the sensation.
