I wait for a second, for some momentary flash of that moment, triggered by this revelation, but nothing comes. Just another blank space.
“Have you heard anything?” I ask. “Any attempt at communication from theAurora?”
Max shakes his head. “Just the same message repeating on the emergency channel.”
I thought that I’d inoculated myself against futile hope, until that moment, when it feels like my heart is plummeting toward my knees and I can’t breathe.
If anyone was still alive, wouldn’t they be waiting, hoping desperately for a response?
Max clears his throat. “Until we know what we’re dealing with, Alpha team will proceed first. Full enviro suits.”
“With ear protection,” I say, the words tumbling out of my mouth before I even realize what I’m saying. Where did that come from? Earplugs aren’t going to protect them against auditory hallucinations. But that’s right. I know it is, I just don’t knowhowI know. It’s like that feeling when you can’t think of a specific word—you can feel it, like an itch in your brain, but you just can’t produce the syllables.
Max is staring at me, eyes narrowed and forehead furrowed, as if I’ve suddenly appeared out of nowhere in front of him.
I start to ask him what’s wrong, but then he seems to recover, straightening his shoulders. “Full enviro suits, with ear protection, and—”
“And me,” I say immediately. I have no idea how they’re going to get over there with both ships currently moving, but they’re not going without me.
Max opens his mouth to protest, but I’m ready for him.
“I’m here to do a job, to make sure everyone gets out safely, right? I’m the lone survivor. That’s what you kept saying. So let me do what I came here to do.” I fold my arms across my chest. If he doesn’t want me to go, he’s going to have to tie me up somewhere. If there’s anyone from my crew left alive over there—which, I’m forced to admit, is seeming less and less likely—they’ve been living in a nightmare-scape for two and a half months already. Oxygen and heat means decay. Forget about whatever’s on the ship that’s causing all of this chaos and suffering, just survival under those conditions would be torture. I can’t just sit here and wait around. I need to help them, and absent that possibility, I need to know what happened.
I shift my weight from foot to foot with impatience. If I could run there, I would.
Max closes his mouth, looking resigned, and triumph spikes through me, giddy and obnoxious. It takes every bit of restraint I have not to pump my fist in victory.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Reed says loudly behind me. I forgot he was even back there. “You aren’t going to send her over there unsupervised.”
“I’m sure Diaz, Montgomery, and Shin are more than capable of keeping an eye on Claire,” Max says mildly, waving at the three security team leaders who have turned along with the rest of us to follow this exchange. None of whom look thrilled at the idea. Diaz is the same Diaz—short, pretty, with her dark hair pulled into a tight knot and a hard expression—who’d witnessed me speaking to McCaughey. She might be more than happy to dump my ass ontheAurorapermanently or until they figure out what to do with the ship.
“Unlessyouwant to go along,” Max adds, seemingly almost as an afterthought, but his tone holds the air of a threat.
“Yes,” Reed says, lifting his chin in challenge, as if to say,What are you going to do about it, old man?
Max’s lips thin.
“No,” I say immediately. “I can’t be looking after him. He’s too…” Pampered. Precious. Fucking annoying. “Too much work,” I finish finally. Besides, Reed, as a member of a third-generation Verux family, is likely considered valuable. I do not want that responsibility hanging over my head.
“You just want a chance to make sure you covered your tracks well enough without someone looking over your shoulder,” Reed taunts.
Then again, I won’t need to worry about keeping Reed alive if I kill him first.
Max holds up his hand, his expression weary. “Enough. Reed, if you think you can handle it, you’re in. I’m not sure what your father would say, though.”
And even I, as unfamiliar as I am with corporate hierarchies and the jostling and backstabbing that must take place to ascend, recognize that as a barb.
It’s also bait. Waving shit under Reed’s nose and daring him not to flinch at the stink.
Reed’s face flushes above his dirty collar. “He’d say that I’m doing my job. Protectingourcompany.”
And bait taken. I roll my eyes.
I study Max—currently in a stare-down with Reed—trying to figure out why he bothered. He’s not petty enough to push Reed into this simply because he knows he can, is he?
It dawns on me, then, for the first time, to wonder whether Reed, a symbol of the rampant nepotism in Verux, isn’t just fighting to prove himself but fighting to prove himself in a specific way. Say, for example, by taking Max’s job when he retires. Or, perhaps, byforcing Max out a little early to prove a point and win Daddy’s—and Granddaddy’s—approval.
Fuck. I do not have time for this political bullshit. Though, honestly, I feel a little for Max. He’s always been kind to me, if a bit bumbling, and he deserves better than someone like Reed Darrow as the replacement on his life’s work.
