A few moments later, after Sterling banked the ship right and we all had to grip onto something to avoid falling over, the would-be battle was over. Without a sound in the control room to indicate he was done, Sterling had blown up the other ship.
He tapped his fingers twice on the control panel and then turned around to the rest of us. Judge grinned. “I love how you beat people. One-two-three. Done. So glad you’re on my side.”
Damian spun around in his chair to pat Sterling on the arm. Cash and Lewis were both talking. I couldn’t even hear what they said.
For the life of me, all I could see were Sterling’s blue eyes. He’d blown up that ship—and I was glad he had, particularly if the idiot had been firing at us—but he was so matter-of-fact. I don’t know why I’d thought it would be different. Sterling had, more than once, explained to me how perfectly designed he had been to be the perfect soldier. He’d shut a lot of that out, except for protecting his family.
I swallowed. I wasn’t afraid of him, not even a little bit. It was just a big change to actually see him in action. He’d been totally focused and barely seemed bothered by the whole experience. My uncles had at least sweat through their battles.
Sterling must have put the ship on autopilot. He rose and walked toward me. “I’ll blow anyone out of the sky who threatens any of you. Don’t act like you didn’t know that.”
I’d never in my life been so frustrated to not speak. There was so much I would say to Sterling if I could, and I didn’t want to leave it long enough to write a diatribe back to him. Instead, I threw my arms around his neck. He picked me up. He shuddered slightly. With my arms around him, I could feel it. It wouldn’t have been obvious to anyone else, but since I held him, I could tell.
“I think she’s okay with it, brother.” Damian stood. “Why do you suppose he picked now to start trouble? He was on a wait-and-see mission before.”
Lewis shook his head. “Maybe he’d waited enough and decided to see.”
I could actually help with this, voice or no voice. I wiggled until Sterling put me down. The McQueen brothers had made it easy for us to monitor the communications of the Sandler Cartel. It wasn’t something we were supposed to do very often, lest we get caught and lose the ability to do it ever again. Only in moments of desperation, had been the orders, were we allowed access to the comm systems. I sat down at the comm. The same way we’d been able to speak to Ari earlier, we could listen to what the Sandlers said. Artemis was old and had creaky dials, but after a few minutes, I was able to isolate a local communication before it dissipated into nothingness.
I turned up the volume.
“Got it.” I recognized the voice of Caleb Sandler. He was a second cousin of Paloma’s husbands and ran one of the fleets. The McQueen boys had a strong hatred for most of their family.
“Reach back out, Leon. If you’re there. Do you think it’s possible that old junky ship blew him out of the sky? I told you we should have waited.”
Sterling shook his head. “What a stupid fuck. A leader doesn’t berate over an open mic. At least now I know more of what we’re dealing with. I’m going to increase our speed. I want to get to that station.
“I hear you.” I didn’t know the voice on the other end of the comm. “He’s gone. Telemetry has downloaded into ours. I’ll check all of his readings later. You’re still in possession of Ari Bennett, yes? If you have him, you have all the information we need. He’ll sing like a songbird when the drugs hit.”
Judge pointed at the comm. “Do you think they know they’re on an open mic? Why are they talking like this?”
This was really, really bad news. A major hit. I couldn’t deal with my incredible worry about Ari. He was one of the nicest people I’d ever met. What were they going to do to him? Unfortunately, I knew. I’d become well-versed in Sandler torture techniques when we’d undertaken beating them.
No, I shook my head. They couldn’t be allowed to harm Ari. My stomach clenched at the thought.
I had no choice. I grabbed the tablet. Typing was going to have to do. They don’t know they’re on the open. We’ve tapped into their internal stuff. But, all of that aside, we have to go get Ari. He knows everything. If they have him, we’re in big trouble.
Some of the things Sandler did were unthinkable.
“Sweet baby.” Sterling’s eyes had gone cold. “We’ll get him back.”
I turned and walked from the room. Frustration rode me, and I needed to be able to do something about it. Not being able to communicate? It sucked. Ari was taken—and he was one of the ten people who knew the plan that Quinn Sandler had come up with to beat his father. Besides, he was my friend.
I had so few of those.
“Boo.” Cash ran after me, grabbing my arm to stop my tear down the hallway. “You’re awake. I’m awake. Lewis is awake. Let’s get the procedure done. Let Sterling figure out how to find Ari. He’s good at it. We’ll get you under control. No more needles. By the time it’s over, we might have some answers.”
Cash was always so reasonable. My lower lip trembled. I was going to cry. Instead, I sucked in my breath and nodded. He was right. Let’s get the pain over with, and maybe there would be smooth space ahead. Things couldn’t go wrong all the time. They couldn’t.
An hour later, Lewis stood over me. When he and Cash got focused, they really knew how to things get done. He smiled down. “When you wake, it’ll be time for breakfast. Damian is going to make you something light for after the operation.”
The last thing I wanted to do was think about food, and Damian cooked because it soothed his nerves. We were all on edge, and I could take credit for most of it with my not speaking.
“You won’t feel a thing.”
I hoped he was right.
The last thing I saw before the room darkened was Cash coming over, a mask on his face.
* * *
I sat up, my heart pounding and the room too bright.
“Easy there, kiddo.” Dane’s voice reached out to me. “You’ve been asleep for a long time. This is going to feel disorienting. We’re all here.”
I couldn’t see a thing, but I could remember this moment. I’d lived it already. I was remembering waking on Mars Station after I’d come out of the coma. It was one of the worst moments of my life. I must be dreaming, having my procedure. Of all things, why did I have to remember this?
“Baby.” My mother’s voice surrounded me. “How are you feeling? We’ve been so worried about you. But your color is good, and Dane says you are going to be fine.”
I couldn’t stop this. It was going to happen, again, whether I wanted it to or not.
With a lot more effort than it should have taken, I managed to sit up on the table. Sure enough, my entire family was there—Dad, Mom, and my uncles Dane, Cooper, Wes, CJ and Nolan. They all stared at me, various looks on their faces that I was, in my way, prepared to interpret.
My throat hurt to use, but I forced through the pain. “How long?”
“Well, we’ve come through the black hole and gotten home,” my father answered for the group. “On our time line it’s been nearly a year since we left Orion. Ten months, to be precise.”
On our time line? I took a deep breath. I knew what they meant. The way time moved on this side of the galaxy was different than on the other side. My husbands were gone. I’d never see them again.
I took a deep breath. Watching this, I groaned. I wished I could tell the version of myself to shut up, to not say what I’d said next.
“I wish you had left me to die.” I pulled my knees to my chest. “Truth is, I didn’t think you’d solve the infection. I thought you’d fail and then you’d live up to the promise you made me to end this.”
My mother sucked in her breath and rounded on Dane. “You promised to kill her?”
“Oh, don’t act like you’d really be angry with him even if he did.” I swung my feet over that side of the medical bed. “He’ll grovel, and you’ll forgive him and move on. Why didn’t
you all let me die? It would have been so damned convenient for you.”
With her hands on her hips, my mother hollered at Dane. “Is this some kind of side effect from the induced coma?”
“I don’t think so.” Dane rocked back on his feet. “Diana, honey …”
My father finally spoke. “This is because she’s been through a huge trauma. She’s just woken up from a coma, and she’s never seeing her husbands again. I remember what it was like to be in a similar situation myself once. In the black hole. When Cooper’s sister blew up the exit.”
Why were they talking over me like I wasn’t even there? I was telling them to let me die, and they were talking about ancient history? How standard. What did it matter that my life was over and they’d doomed me to pain for the rest of existence? I took a deep breath, and then I yelled at the top of my lungs. I yelled for the year that I’d lost. I hollered for the time I had spent in the care of these loving people who had never seemed to understand me. I cried because I adored five men I would miss forever and ever. I screamed until there was nothing else left inside of me.
And when I was done and recovered, I did it again.
And again. And damn it, again. For weeks. I was rude to Paloma. I caused a fight in a shopping center. I threw fruit.
It wasn’t until Ari had made me voice what I never would ever have said out loud because I didn’t speak my mind that I finally stopped yelling.
I was so angry I couldn’t see straight. I was furious with my husbands. How dare they go and get yanked back to Evander? How could they have left me to get bitten by a zombie? They had all promised me just the opposite would happen. And in breaking their oath—whether they had meant to do so or not—they had each become another person in my life who couldn’t be counted on.
The first time Ari had made me admit it aloud—how truly angry I was—I’d thrown something at his head. He’d been fortunate enough to duck. I was, apparently, not the first person he’d helped who hurled something.
I loved my five guys so much, and I was so furious with them, whether it was fair for me to be so or not. They hadn’t failed to keep their promises on purpose. And yet there it was.
Now they were back, and when I woke from whatever drugs were making me relive this in my sleep, nothing would have changed. I loved them completely, and I wanted to yell and scream at them just the same.
So I had quit speaking. Just like with my father and uncles, I’d never known how to reconcile being both loving and pissed off at the same time. Not speaking was perhaps the easy way out.
I watched myself scream in my dream, and exhaustion threatened to bring my subconscious self to my knees. This had gone on way too long. The problem with dreaming—or remembering—was that I never knew when it would come to an end or if, when it did, I would wish I could go back to sleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Necessary Roughness
I woke from the procedure a little dizzy. Lewis stared down at me, a smile on his face.
“Hey there,” he said, then kissed my cheek. “Everything went well. You hearing me? Do understand words again? You wake up hard, Doll. I hate it.” He kissed my cheek again. “Can you nod if you understand me?”
My tongue felt fine, and I wasn’t surprised. The understanding I’d gained from my own memory stayed with me. I at least grasped what I was feeling.
“I can do more than nod at you.” I forced myself to sit. I’d spent enough time flat on my back getting medical attention lately. I was officially done with it. The thought made me look at my arm. The skin was actually pink. I’d gotten so used to having the patch of white, nearly dead disgustingness on my arm I’d forgotten what it looked like to be normal.
A small, clear tube attached at one end of where the patch of dead skin had been to the other end of it. A pink liquid travelled from one end of the tube to the other.
Lewis ran a hand through my hair. “You can talk again. That’s a huge gift. Such a relief. Okay. The others will be thrilled. Cash was amazing. Small microchip in there keeps the medicine moving through your blood stream but pushes it specifically where you need it. When you need more, the machine will ping his tablet and one of us will insert the liquid directly into the tube. No touching you with needles.”
For a person who liked machines as much as I did, this one was amazing. I couldn’t feel it, couldn’t see it, and yet it was making my life so much better. “I … ah … I can’t thank you enough. And Cash. Where is he?”
“Well, we have found Ari. Or, at least, the ship he’s on. Sterling was able to track it from the messages being sent back and forth.” Lewis grinned. “Cash is getting things ready for the rescue. He’ll go with Sterling and Judge onto the other ship for the rescue. We might be ready to go get him a few hours from now.”
I took a deep breath. That was good news. So why did I feel like hell? “I’ve never been very good at expressing myself. I’ve always been the kind of person who lets things go. But sometimes, I can’t. And then I don’t know what to do with it.”
Lewis nodded, his hands coming to his hips. “Are you mad at me, Doll? Because of the needles? You got mad at me, didn’t know what to do, and stopped talking?”
“I don’t know that it’s that simple. I’m mad at all of you. I love you so completely, and I want to rage at all of you. So maybe it would have been better if I’d just kept not talking.” I held up my arm. “Anything I need to know about this? After care?”
“Ah.” Lewis scratched his head. “No, it’s fairly self-explanatory. I’ll check it several times a week for a bit, and then we’ll move to simply adding the medicine when needed. Hold on, you’re mad at all of us? What did we do?”
I didn’t want to cry in front of him. I didn’t know who this person was whom I’d become in the last two years. I wasn’t sure I liked her, and I didn’t expect the guys to either. “Thank you for saving my life over and over, Lewis.”
I scooted past him. I needed some time to think. I wouldn’t change anything about my first night back with them for anything in the world, but I hadn’t had a breather where I wasn’t out cold since we’d all gotten back together.
And once they knew how truly awful I was, they’d likely not want anything to do with me anymore. This time I wasn’t sure I would survive it.
* * *
A pounding on my door interrupted my staring at the ceiling. I scooted down until I could get off my bed and onto the floor. The pounding came again. I opened the door to find Judge standing in the hall.
He stared at me for a moment, a tic in his jaw indicating his mood before he even said a word. If I had to guess, I’d have put money on Lewis filling him in on our non-conversation from earlier.
“You’re mad?” He stormed past me into my room, his shoulders back. He wasn’t bouncy Judge right now. This was the other side of Judge, the part that could focus and get massive amounts of work done.
I pointed at him. “I’m angry. Mad implies I just got upset. I’m carrying around a lot of stuff. I can’t help it. Did you come here to yell at me?”
“Maybe.” He raised his eyebrows. “Why are you angry?”
I’d known the second I’d opened my mouth to Lewis earlier that this moment would come. I hadn’t expected it to be Judge. Damian or Sterling had seemed more likely. Even Cash wouldn’t have surprised me. But I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen Judge angry before. He seemed so … rigid.
“I’m furious at you because you got sent back to Evander, because the chip in your necks took you all away from me. I’m pissed as hell because you all promised me you wouldn’t ever leave me. And then you did. For years. Is that fair? No. I’m angry at myself for carrying this resentment. I’m not a good person because I feel this way.”
Judge rocked back on his heels. “You know what? I’m fucking angry at you, too.”
“No kidding. You have every right to be upset at my anger. It sucks. Trust me, I’m the one living with it.”
He snorted. “I’m not angry at your an
ger. I’ve been pissed at you for years. Why the hell did you go and get bit by that Infected? I’ve watched the video over and over and over again. All you had to do was turn around. How did you not hear it? How did you not know the thing was standing right behind you? I’m so mad at you I can hardly see straight over it.”
He was mad I’d gotten bitten? “As the person who had to live with the almost dying, I can tell you it really sucked. I obviously didn’t do that on purpose, and before you go and tell me you didn’t get sucked back into that tube purposefully either, I’m here to let you know that I never promised you I wouldn’t.”
“Damn it, Diana. You don’t have the monopoly on pain on Artemis. We thought you were dead. We lived for months like that. I actually know what it’s like to exist in a universe where you are no longer living and breathing anywhere. At least in my mind. You think it was miserable imagining us moving on? Try thinking you never can.”
I guessed Judge was done yelling because he pounded his hand on the side of the door before he stormed out of my room. I sunk to the ground, my heart racing what felt like a million miles an hour. I’d expected to face Cash or Damian in anger but not Judge. I’d never seen his temper before. The truth was, for all that I loved them—and I still did and always would—it was ridiculous for me to assume everything was going to be okay just because we’d all gotten back together.
In the past, we’d lived in such strangely safe surroundings on Orion. With the exception of the Zombies and, as it turned out, the chips in their necks that sucked them into their pods, we’d had little to nothing to worry about. I’d fretted over my family. Still, there had been almost nothing for us to argue about. Things had changed. I’d changed. It would be ridiculous to think my husbands hadn’t.
I put my head between my knees and tried to breathe. I’d spoken my truth. It didn’t make me feel anything but small, but there it was. My voice was back. Ari had warned me during our talks on the promenade of Mars Station. Not speaking was easy; opening up was the grueling part. When the tears came, I didn’t try to stop them. I’d always hated crying, but sometimes there was nothing else to do. Particularly when I’d made Judge so furious.
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