“You are injured.” His voice came out louder, harsher, than he intended.
Her head jerked upward. A watery gaze focused first on his face, then down on her arm. She covered the stains with her hand.
“May I see?” He swiveled in his seat, his hands shaking with his need to touch her.
After a small hesitation, she placed her arm in his hand. Tension eased in his chest at the contact, his fingers flexing.
Reaching with his other hand, he gently rolled up her sleeve to see what she had done to herself. Four crescent-shaped marks impaled her skin. A smear of dried blood discolored the surrounding area.
“You have four marks on your arm now.” She had three back at her outpost, the ones he had healed unintentionally.
Her eyes lifted to his. “There’s one for you now.”
That thing in his chest shifted again, so large now it clogged his throat too.
“May I heal you?”
Almost immediately, she shook her head. “I know they won’t scar like the others, but I need them for now, as a reminder.”
He remembered what she had said at her outpost, that they were a badge of honor. She wore her marks like the Tellusians wore tattoos. A symbol. A tribute. And from Knox, he understood more about how pain could focus a person.
That she had added a mark for him, perhaps thinking him dead, made the space in his chest grow.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
Her emotions changed again, swelling differently. She moved then, lifting herself from her chair and into his lap, the papery material of the medical garb rustling. Instinctively, his arms went around her to hold her close.
A sense of calm, of rightness, infused him as her body settled fully against his. He could hear her heart and feel her breath. Her head tucked under his chin perfectly, and he never wanted to let her go.
Her breath hitched; his grip around her waist flexed.
It took him a moment to realize he had spoken the desire aloud.
She stared up into his eyes, searching. “How did you know where to find me?”
While sinking into the deep brown of her irises, he debated the benefit of telling her the truth, that it might alienate her. But he had also vowed never to lie.
Iax lifted his hand and brushed her hair away from her cheek. “When I was in contact with you, trace amounts of my Calypson essence remained on your person.” Her eyes widened, but he continued. “It provided me with a direction, then the pull became stronger as I neared your position.”
She looked down at herself, a new tension straightening her away from him.
“It is not visible to the human eye,” he explained. “Unless someone changes visible spectrum filters, like during your blood test.”
Meeting his gaze again, her throat bobbed up and down in a swallow. “It didn’t matter that Sawyer destroyed my outpost. The CORE found out about me, about what you said, from my memories.” Moisture welled up in her eyes. “I don’t know how it worked, but they knew everything about me. My entire past. ThingsIdidn’t even remember.”
A wave of emotion rose inside her and washed over him, deep with a shade of grief. One tear slipped free, and he caught it with his thumb.
“I was there in Sector Ten as a baby.” Her breath caught, and more tears slipped free. “Briar Galloway was there too when I was born, then she sent me away. I didn’t even know I was adopted.”
Another wave of that sadness crested over him just as a wealth of tears fell from her eyes. A sob rippled through her body. She tucked herself tighter into his arms, and he held her close, perhaps too tightly, but could not loosen his hold while she cried.
These truths hurt her. At the onset of his journey, The Four had given him information, knowledge, to aid in the success of his task: that she was an anomaly, that she was a Calypson, though she did not share any of the traits a Calypson usually exhibited, and that she had been sent away.
In the beginning, these were only facts to him. Now they were pain to her. A different sort of emotion rose in him. To hear her sobs, to feel her body shake—it broke pieces of him on the inside, ones he could not name, nor mend. Those broken pieces turned into aching wounds, and he found his eyes welling with moisture as well.
He closed his eyes and held her tight, feeling her pain along with his own.
Eventually, her sobs subsided into sniffles. She lifted her head, her eyes rimmed with red. “I don’t know what those scientists would have done to me if you hadn’t come.”
