Page 39

“Jesus, B.” Her voice broke as she dropped to her knees beside B. “What happened?”

“Explosion at the vent,” he said. “Her suit took a hit.”

Layla nodded as she reached for B’s helmet seals. “You said she was okay?”

“She’s breathing. I can’t see any damage to the suit.”

The helmet released with a sharp hiss, and Layla lifted it free, careful of B’s head.

B sucked in a breath, her lashes fluttering. Then her dark eyes opened, unfocused at first. They found Layla, slid past her, then locked onto him.

“Who the fuck are you?”

9

Blythe blinked up at Rann.

Her head was absolutely splitting, a hard, bright pain behind her eyes. It felt like the airlock lights were drilling straight through her skull. She bit back a groan. Everything else bloody hurt as well. Ribs, shoulder, her thigh… crap, even her bloody toenails hurt.

Why the hell did her toenails hurt? They’d been in her boots all the time.

She closed her eyes as one awful moment played on a loop behind her eyes. The orange bloom at the corner of her faceplate had been her first indicator that something was wrong. Small at first, it had almost been pretty.

But then it had grown, blossomed into fire and white light, and a violent shudder that had thrown her clear of the hull.

The explosion anyone who spent any time at all in space feared.

She remembered being hit. A solid bodyslam that knocked every thought out of her head. Then all she had were scattered images that didn’t make sense. Black space. Their ship as it turned slowly beneath her and debris glittering in a sparkly trail.

Rann.

She blinked again, forcing her eyes to focus on him.

He was still in the uni-suit, shoulders crammed into the thing so tightly it looked painful. His hair had come loose from whatever tie he’d used, hanging around his face in pale, messy strands.

His expression was still. Too still.

It was not the expression of a scared young charter pilot.

“How the hell did you manage to reach me that fast?” she demanded.

His eyes flicked to Layla, then Stevie, before coming back to her.

“I wasn’t that far away,” he said, shrugging as he started fumbling with the seals on his suit. “I managed to grab you. You were out of it.”

“Bullshit.”

She pushed at the deck, trying to sit up. Her body objected immediately, pain ripping through her side so sharply that her breath caught. Layla grabbed her arm.

“Easy, B.”

“Don’t easy me.” She shook the woman off, then regretted it when the movement made the airlock tip sideways. “I wasn’t that out of it.”

Rann pulled one arm free of the uni-suit. The red expansion panels snapped back with little protesting clicks. “You were unconscious.”

“I remember you.”

But not clearly. Not enough. Frowning, she remembered his arm around her and him using his bigger body to block the bits of ship trying to kill them from hitting her. “You were nowhere near me when that thing went off.”