Warily, I look around and immediately spot the wrist-slasher in the visitor chair. The sharpened bracket tumbles to the floor as he moans. “Tallie?” the woman calls out over the noise of the residents and the soothing murmurs of attendants in the hallway.
Fuck.I jerk my gaze away from the man—the ghost?—in the chair, as a familiar throat-clearing sound comes from the doorway. Max.
“It sounds like you had a rough night,” he says. “You sure you’re up for this?”
For a moment, I’m torn. It would be easier to stay away and hide behind the thick fog of artificial and medically induced sanity. But I need to know what happened, how I ended up here, whether Kane and Nysus are still alive. And the sooner I’m out of here and off-planet, the better. I hope.
What if whatever happened on theAurorabroke me for good? What if I just keep seeing these people everywhere, the same way I see Kane, Lourdes, and Voller?
My breathing picks up as panic seeps in beneath the remains of the sedative.
“Marja!” the old man shouts from somewhere nearby.
“I’m ready,” I say as clearly as I can with a dry mouth and thick tongue. I have to try. And if it’s just as bad out there as it is down here on Earth, in the Tower, well, then it’ll be a lot easier to end myself in space than locked down in a facility designed to prevent that. The thought brings a surprising amount of calm with it. Just to have a plan.
If I’d had the courage to do it on my last space walk, then none of this would have even happened.
Except Kane would never have left me out there, and he and the others might have died attempting to save me.
So instead, he dies seeing things that aren’t there and calling for his daughter? Voller puts a drill to his head and Lourdes removes her eyes because they can’t take it? Much better, Kovalik.
I wince inwardly but manage to hold Max’s gaze until he nods.
“Good. Glad to hear it,” Max says. He jerks his head at Reed, who tosses a pile of fabric onto the bed. I recognize the blue instantly. Verux jumpsuit. Probably with the requisite Verux-branded undergarments. Of course.
Reed leaves, turning sideways past Max. “This is a bad idea,” he mutters.
But Max ignores him. “She’s ready,” he says to someone out in the hall, and two female attendants bustle in and remove my restraints. Max steps back into the hall as they start to pull the sheets down to help me out of bed.
“I can stand and dress myself,” I say with more confidence than I feel. “Can I have some privacy, please?” When he doesn’t respond, I press. “Unless you’re planning on dressing me while we’re en route.”
The two attendants glance back at the doorway and at a signal I can’t see, they leave.
I push myself out of bed, putting my feet gingerly on the floor, highly aware of Max and likely Reed in the corridor, waiting for me to fall. To fail.
I’m slow, arms and legs trembling, but I manage to get my patient pajamas off and the new garments on. Though the jumpsuit is crisp and new, instead of worn and soft like one of mine, I instantly feel more like myself when it’s on.
I have a harder time with socks and boots. Fine motor skills are… rough. Still, I get it done. And I take an extra second for what I hope looks like an attempt at making the bed and sweep up all the pills I can find, dropping them into a tiny zippered pocket on my jumpsuit.
“Okay,” I say to Max, who peers back in.
“Excellent.” He reenters the room with a wheelchair.
I stare at him. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
He pats the padded back of the chair. “Policy, I’m afraid.” He hesitates. “No one will see you, if that’s what you’re concerned about. This has all been classified at the highest levels.”
Yeah, because what I look like is my biggest concern here.
I’d argue with Max, but I can feel my energy flagging already. Quick bursts are all I seem to be capable of at the moment. With reluctance, I move to the foot of the bed and sit in the wheelchair, carefully avoiding the puddle of blood from the suicidal man in my visitor’s chair.
Max pulls the wheelchair carefully out of the room into the hall and stops.
“Oh, and we can’t forget.” He holds out a pill cup over my shoulder.
I take the cup from him, hoping he’ll be too distracted with pushing me down the hall to notice that I don’t put them in my mouth. It would be easier to take the pills, to stop questioning everything I see, but I need to have a clear head if I want to figure out what happened on theAurora.
But Max waits, his hands on the handles behind me. “Bottoms up,” he says after a moment, handing me a packet of water, exactly the kind I’m used to from the LINA. Soft metallic sides on the pouch reflect heat and light, enhancing its shelf life, and it has a wide-mouthed straw opening. Max must have brought it in himself,because Tower staff would never have given a patient something like this. For the exact reason I’m about to demonstrate.
