by AJ Super
“I’ll bet it did.” Nyx looked around. “Where is she?”
“I left her on the ship. Sarama has the bridge. But I needed to make sure that Erebus didn’t do something stupid.” Kai splayed his hands over Nyx’s cheeks and leaned his forehead against hers.
“What? Like infect a planet?” She remembered the jittering message on the screen as they walked down the street. “She tried to tell me you were coming. But you didn’t make it in time.” She pushed away.
“What? You’re not on the machine,” Kai said defensively. “How did we not make it in time?”
“We were, though. We were.” Nyx’s voice cracked, the memory of her maman’s death freshly painted in her mind. “And I saw. I remembered. I know what you did.”
Kai’s eyes glazed. “How? You’re not brain-blown. I don’t understand. How were you on the machine and survived?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t eventually remember? That someday someone might not tell me? You’ve been lying to me for all of these years. I expect something like this from Malcam. But not you.”
He knit his brows. “What are you talking about?”
“My maman.”
He glanced at the floor, away from her burning eyes. “I was just a kid,” he whispered. “It was an accident.”
Nyx tightened her lips. “You killed my maman. Then you lied about it.”
Malcam laughed. “Good. You remember.”
She glared at Malcam. “Shut it. You knew, too.”
Matthews walked behind Nyx and put a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off and turned to Kai. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Kai’s gaze wandered to the floor. “It was an accident. I thought I could save you from him.” He nodded to Matthews. “He was taking you away. I was aiming for him. She stepped in the way at the last second. Then your father had your memory wiped. You were so young. We were so young. I couldn’t forgive myself. How would you be able to forgive me?”
Nyx ground her teeth and raised her hand. She reached back and stopped, letting her hand fall to her thigh.
His lips pulled into a frown. “Do it. It’ll make you feel better.”
“No it won’t.” She turned to Malcam and kicked his foot. “You knew. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Malcam scrunched his face in pain as he inched his back up the wall to standing. “Would you have believed me? It’s not like you’re my biggest fan.”
“Instead everyone, including my father never told me the truth. They let me believe some faceless person shot maman in cold blood. And I forgave you.” She turned and accused Kai.
Kai cast his eyes to the ground. “No. You couldn’t forgive what you didn’t know.”
Family didn’t lie to each other. She felt a red-hot string of anger zip up her spine. He should be the one suffering, not her. She should have had a lifetime to come to terms with these memories, to accept her maman’s fate. But everyone lied to her. Especially Kai.
She entwined her white light with his blazing red inferno. She grabbed the white flame burning brightly within his crimson energy, the white flame that she had put there, and strangled it.
Kai’s head snapped back, and he cried out, falling to his knees.
Matthews grabbed her shoulders and spun her around. He shook her. “I know what you’re doing. I can’t see it like you can, but I know. What do you want to do, kill him?”
Nyx tensed. Tears drifted from the edges of her eyes, down her cheeks. “Yes, I’ll kill both of them,” she murmured hoarsely and sent a tendril to wrap around Malcam’s lightly burning white flame.
Matthews slapped her. “Stop.”
“Why should I?” Nyx screamed. “They’re the reason I’m alone.” She squeezed out the flames, leaving nothing but a spark. Kai collapsed next to Nyx, and Betty ran to him and put fingers to the pulse-point on his neck. Malcam fell against the wall.
Matthews gathered Nyx in his arms. “I miss her, too. She was a great friend.”
Tears streamed down her face. “What’s wrong with me?” she whispered.
Matthews smoothed her hair back. “Nothing. Now, let them go.”
Nyx snaked her white energy wisps from both Malcam and Kai. The white fire beneath their energies sputtered to life again, small and insistent, beating with her heartbeat, breathing with her breath.
Kai stood woozily, hand to his head. “What did you just do to me?”
Nyx glared at Kai.
Matthews held Nyx away and stared at her tear streaked face in silence. He brushed her cheeks dry. “So, do we leave this space trash here, or do we take it with us?” he asked, motioning to Malcam and Kai.
“How about you leave the space trash here?” A voice blasted from the open doorway.
Joshua skittered around Nyx and Matthews. “Commander Singh, I’m so glad you’re finally here. What took you so long?” He twirled a loose lock of red hair nervously and extended his other hand to a stocky, black-haired man with dark-brown skin and a sharp chin in an olive-green uniform.
Commander Singh glared at Joshua’s hand until he lowered it. “We were going to wait until ces brigands walked out, let them feel like they were getting away nice and free-like, but it was taking too long. Curfew has passed. Is that smoking hunk-of-junk finally scrap-metal?” He eyeballed the sparking conduits above the chrome table.
Joshua turned, bowed his head, and nodded.
“I hope dangling you out there caught us some big fish to fry then,” Singh grumbled. “Because otherwise, all this paraphernalia is going to land you in prison for wasting my time.”
Joshua turned. He pointed to Matthews. “Here you’ve got the captain of the pirate ship Thanatos, and the girl next to him, daughter of Senator Nue Marcus and Captain Xaoc Marcus. And the bloody one, he’s the current captain of the Medusa.” He crossed his arms and turned back to Commander Singh. “I think I’ve held up my end of the bargain.”
Singh stepped into the room. “You may have.” He snapped his fingers, and a cadre of six rifle-bearing Queen’s Guard in olive-green seeped into the room. Elizabet held her hands up and let one of the Guardsmen take her gun. Falak followed suit.
A Queen’s Guard ripped Matthews and Nyx apart, tearing the rifle strapped to Matthews from his shoulder. Another Guardsman took Malcam’s gun from Kai’s hand, and Kai’s gun from his holster.
Everyone, disarmed, stood with their hands outstretched while Commander Singh hovered to the side of the doorway speaking into a tiny communicator.
Malcam laughed.
“Why aren’t you dead yet?” Nyx hissed.
He coughed. “Same reason your mommy-killer fiancé isn’t, I think.” He moved a bit, getting his legs underneath him, hands in the air. “I’m not shot anymore.”
Nyx spun. The Guardsmen drew down on her.
“Whoa. Don’t shoot. My hands are here. See?” She waved her hands in the air, high.
The towering, muscular Malcam straightened. The Guardsmen shifted. “It’s okay, ladies and gentlemen. I’m going to live.” He poked a finger in the hole of his bloody jacket and made a face.
“What did I do?” Nyx murmured, horrified. Just being infected by her blood must have healing properties, and the day he’d shot her in the gut on the Medusa, she got plenty of blood on him.
Malcam smirked. “Made me invincible after all.”
Commander Singh stepped into the middle of the damp, rusted room. “In the name of the queen, you are all under arrest. Your ships and shuttles have been put on lock-down, and the queen is being informed of your detention.”
The lockdowns wouldn’t last if Erebus had anything to do with it, but the queen would know where they were. Not that predictions weren’t her special power, but having them solidly in one spot would be a prediction she wouldn’t have to make. They’d be at her mercy. Erebus would be at her mercy.
A Guardsman slapped her with the butt of his rifle. “Go on, get moving.”
Nyx obeyed, trudging through the junk shop, in line with the rest o
f the prisoners, hands behind her head. Joshua slammed the door behind them, the sound echoing with finality. “Where are we going?” Nyx asked loudly.
Singh turned his head in the dusky violet light, dark eyes hard. “You’ll be held in a detention facility until other preparations can be made, Mademoiselle Marcus.”
The Guardsman behind Nyx pushed her, and she stumbled forward. Betty and Red caught her. Nyx turned to the Guardsman and stopped in the middle of the street. The lanky man leveled the pulse rifle at her nose. “Bouge-toi!”
Another Queen’s Guard walked up to her side and slammed the butt of her rifle into Nyx’s side. “Move.”
Nyx sputtered for breath.
Without blood, there was no way she could infect these Guardsmen. Without infecting them, she had no power over them. She couldn’t get them out of this. The queen would capture them all this time.
27
The planetside jail-cells were worse than the tiny ones on the Medusa. Cramped by curfew offenders, several people utilized the bunks jutting from the walls as seats and crowded on the benches built out of the side walls. Four small cells stacked next to each other on either side of the cavernous room, a lane between quartets, each quartet separated by a heavy plasticrete stuccoed wall. Rough benches punched from the walls like giant fists of pocked, grey flesh. An invisible energy shield wavered in front of each of the cells’ black bars, occasionally giving off a burst of static charge, leaving a shimmering line as it dissipated down the length of the barrier.
Commander Singh stopped at the horseshoe-shaped desk centered in the wide corridor between the cells, and bent over, motioning to the crowded cells.
The two Queen’s Guard behind the desk popped up from their rolling chairs to attention and saluted him, then ran their hands over the consoles, opening the least crowded cell, which still held almost a half-dozen people.
The Guardsmen surrounding Nyx and company pushed them into the cell.
Nyx spun to the shield as it rose. She reached to touch a charged bar.
“I wouldn’t,” a gruff figure with indigo hair and a floral-like tattoo raking their jaw growled from the bench. “Rishi here”—they nodded to an olive-skinned woman with black hair who leaned on their shoulder—“backed into it while having a spat with the barman over there, and it put her on her ass.”
Nyx pulled her hand away and glanced over at a portly man sitting on one of the beds, his head shaking in his hands. “Good to know.”
“Why you here?” the spike-haired figure growled, pushing a strand of Rishi’s hair from her face with an impossibly smooth, tattooed hand. They adjusted a red jacket around Rishi’s petite shoulders.
Nyx bobbed her head. “Existing. Apparently.” She swept around the cell, pacing. Her companions settled quietly. Nyx eyed the tattooed figure, not sure why they were talking. “You?”
“Same. You come in with all this other rabble?” They rested their hand on Rishi’s head.
Nyx looked at the group she came in with. Malcam and Red huddled in a corner by the shield, whispering. Falak had a terrified expression on his face, and Betty was patting his back. Kai stood with his arms crossed, staring at Nyx. Matthews leaned against the wall with his head down.
“Yeah. I did.”
“Singh brought you in himself?” they said. Rishi turned and moaned. The tattooed figure stared up at her with indigo eyes ringed in gold.
Nyx narrowed her eyes. They couldn’t be… could they? This person wanted something, but what was their angle? What did they want from her? Did they know who she was? “Why all the questions?”
They shrugged. “Just bored.” The indigo-haired figure knocked on the solid wall behind them. “Can’t talk to anyone in the cells next to us. And this lot…” They motioned to the people lying on the beds and sitting next to them. “They’re too quiet. Since they won’t let us out until morning, I like to get to know people while I’m stuck in here. It’s a long night.”
Nyx nodded slowly. “They release you?”
“After a night. It’s better than being on the streets. A meal, warm place to sleep. Just have to deal with others peeing in front of you, and the smell of bodies too close together.” They smiled wide. “The Protectorate government on Elysion doesn’t really have the resources to take everyone who is out past curfew to trial. Just a few here and there to make examples, mostly people with records and people with money or a high profile. Curfew’s good for something, I guess. Gets the Upsiders some justice on behalf of us down here.”
“I guess,” Nyx muttered. This really wasn’t justice in her mind. This crowding was inhumane. She flinched at the idea of having to pee in the auto-toilet that retracted from the wall next to the bunks.
Rishi’s companion’s face darkened. “And if you’re wanting out, so you aren’t made into a Star example, don’t think about bringing any of my people into it.”
“Star?” Nyx worked her mouth in surprise. “What are you talking about? Star example?”
They shrugged and looked at the camera.
Nyx could see it now. The gold ring in their indigo eyes. This person was like the queen. An old Sia from before the AI Wars. But Star example? Were they just playing with her? Or did they know something more? Were they something more?
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Kai whispered from behind her.
“And how do you propose…?” Nyx flashed her gaze to the two Guardsmen at the desk in the middle of the hall. This conversation couldn’t be heard by the guards, or by the suspicious-eyed Sia she was just talking to. She stepped closer to Kai and motioned for him to be quiet.
“Erebus can take down the shielding on the bars and unlock the doors. I’m sure she can see us by now.” He nodded to the tiny cameras in the corners of the cell by the bars. “She’d do it if we told her to.”
Nyx grimaced. She could see Erebus’ green code flitting through the electronics if she concentrated. It wouldn’t be hard for her to shut down the shields and unlock the bars using Erebus’ energy. But…
“And the guards? And the Queen’s Officers beyond them?” she hissed. “They’re all armed to the teeth. We don’t have anything to fight back with.” Nyx shifted her weight and crossed her arms. “But do tell. Are we going to find a garbage chute and slide down that to get away, then?”
“I’m trying to come up with something, anything, to get us out of here before the queen comes. We can’t just stay here,” Kai growled under his breath.
“Yes, we can. And we will,” Nyx said. She didn’t want to get caught in a shooting match and spread her blood to other people. Her infection needed to stay controlled. She needed to stay controlled. She didn’t need more people like Malcam, like Kai. Maybe even like Matthews and Joshua. She didn’t need invincible people living in this universe. People weren’t meant to live forever, and she wasn’t an executioner. She didn’t want to be responsible for the people she infected or the world she might create.
It would be worse, though, if the queen got a hold of her. Either she’d be executed so that she wasn’t a threat, or she’d end up as some kind of pawn in the queen’s political maneuverings. The Thanatos and Erebus would be leveraged against her, and she wouldn’t be free anymore.
“We could come up with a distraction.” He looked around. “There are all of these people stuck in here with us. We have the numbers.”
“It won’t work… We’ll get too much resistance. And I don’t want to be responsible for a bunch of dead Downsiders.” Nyx pointed outside. “We have to escape when we’re outside.”
“If we wait, I think we can get out of here,” Malcam mumbled.
Kai stepped in front of Nyx. “Why would we work with you?”
Malcam straightened. “What’re you going to do? Use the princess’ newfound superpowers? She doesn’t even seem to know how to use them yet.” He smirked at Nyx.
Kai scrunched his face.
Malcam chuckled. “Or are you going to fight your way out? With what? Guns? Your fists? A
nd here I thought you were the smart one, and I was just the brawn.”
Both their lights flared. Crimson blaze danced with blue waves and, under both, the beat of a white flame quickened with her breath. If they started fighting in here, they might get separated. Nyx shifted between them.
Red bristled behind Malcam. Matthews continued to lounge against the wall. Malcam and Kai stepped to each other, fists balled, staring into each other’s eyes as if they would start growling like alley cats at any moment.
Nyx closed her eyes and ran both hands through her short hair, pulling hard. A low growl burst from her lips. “You can measure your intelligence later.” She turned to Malcam. “How do you suggest we get out of this?”
“I’m not working with a mutineer,” Kai said menacingly.
“And if it’s the only chance we have?” Nyx whispered.
“There’s always another way,” Kai grumbled and walked to the bench protruding from the wall.
“Not right now.” Nyx turned to Malcam. “So—what’s your plan?”
“That commander said they were sending us somewhere once they made arrangements, right?” Malcam whispered.
She nodded. “They have to transport us.”
Malcam smiled wickedly, “They have to transport us.” He looked at Kai. “There will be two armed Queen’s Guard in the back of the transport with us. It’s standard procedure, and I doubt they’ll deviate. And in order for this to work, he needs to be on board.”
Kai lifted a brow. “You need my help?”
“You’ll just need to do what you do best when it comes to me…” Malcam paused.
Nyx snickered at Kai’s confused look. “Fight. You’ll have to fight.”
A small smile played across Kai’s face. “I think I can do that.”
After quietly devising their escape and passing the plan to Red and Betty, Nyx curled on the cold floor with Kai’s arm around her. She stared at his closed eyes as he rested before their big break.
How was she supposed to forgive this man for killing her maman, for lying to her about it? The image of her maman’s head snapping backward and her hand rising to the back of her dark hair, sticky with blood, would not fade from Nyx’s mind. It repeated, over and over and over. Kai bundled her closer to his chest, his warmth stifling.