I pulled out of Jordan’s hand. In retrospect, it was totally bizarre that I could, but he’d loosened his grip when Bo came over. I knew the man headed for River. I’d seen him before in the other space station. My mind was garbled; I could hardly remember anything past getting trampled. Yet… I knew him. He’d been in the line of guys who had come to inspect us before the auction. I think he’d wanted to buy me. If the guys hadn’t intervened, I’d be living a hellish existence right now. Then I saw the name tag hanging around his neck. I recognized the name.
The guys called him Xavier. He was tall with red hair, a red beard, and blue eyes. He wore a bright green jacket. That was what I remembered. The colors. The red, the green, it had stuck with me. I called out behind me something that had to be close to the word Xavier.
The man was running at River, and he had a knife in his hand.
Bo and Jordan collided. I saw it before I turned completely to rush at River. I must have looked like a lunatic. My arms flailed around, and I shouted at River. He stood, his head to the side. “‘Cilla? What’s going on?”
He stepped into my direction, and Xavier raised his knife-holding hand. I didn’t think. I acted. I shoved River backward, he stumbled over the box of tablets, hitting the bench. Never in a million years would I be able to do that again, he was too strong. It had been the surprise of the whole thing. I stopped, so relieved. I’d gotten him out of the way of Xavier.
Xavier. Yes. Where was he?
Standing right next to me, actually, staring at me with an open mouth. Why was he doing that? He backed up fast. River roared. It was a sound I hadn’t heard him make before. Suddenly, my knees were heavy. Wow, if I was this tired from a little sprint I’d really lost strength since I got on the ship. Bo held my shoulders. He was saying something as River and Jordan both leapt at Xavier.
I looked down because there was something warm on my stomach. Red. Hot. Dripping. That was blood. Why was there blood? Oh, I had a knife in my stomach. The one Xavier had held. Held. Held…
Okay. There was something wrong. My stomach burned. Well, there was a knife in it. Xavier had stabbed me instead. River was okay. I really couldn’t breathe. Okay. Okay. Okay.
“Bo, I have a knife in my stomach.”
He nodded. “I see that my love. I see that. We’re going to get that out. You’re going to be just fine. Completely recovered. I promised.”
The world sort of dimmed while the most intense pain I’d ever felt tore through me. “I don’t think so.”
There was only pain, the soul sucking, mind altering, life-taking kind. The funny thing was, I knew I’d do it again. Because if I hadn’t, River would be the one dying and that would have been so much worse.
Huh… I guessed I loved them.
I wasn’t really surprised.
That was a great last thought for a life. Much more than I would have expected.
7
A Different Life
I floated until I couldn’t anymore. When that stopped, it was like I fell, hard. Pain assaulted me. I cried out, and a cold washcloth was placed on my forehead.
“I know that hurts,” Jordan’s voice whispered in my ear. “The knife is out. You can go into the machine now.”
The pain. There was only the pain.
When I woke again, it was inside the medical machine. I wasn’t dead, which was great news, but I didn’t feel wonderful. When nausea rolled through me, I closed my eyes. Sleep came back fast. I didn’t dream, which was a relief. Medical induced imaginings were always terrifying. I preferred the warmth and nothingness of darkness right then.
When I arose for the third time, I wasn’t in the machine but tucked into a bed. It wasn’t my own since the bedside table didn’t have the crystal that Jordan gave me. It took me a second to recognize the space as Bo’s. Things were strewn all over the floor, and he’d never picked up his socks. That was what finally brought recognition. The socks all over the place.
“Hey.” It wasn’t Bo’s voice but River’s. He knelt down on the side of the bed, placing a hand on the side of my face. When he spoke, his voice was low, almost a whisper. “You’re nice and cool, which is good. The doctor we contacted remotely told us that once you came out of the machine, you needed to sleep for a good long while. I don’t think it’s been enough time. You kept trying to wake up in the machine. Turn off your brain. It’s okay to just rest right now.”
I swallowed. “You’re okay.” It was good to see his face. Xavier had clearly not finished what he intended after I passed out.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “I’m fine. Don’t you ever, ever do that to me again. If someone is coming at me with a weapon, you let him. I can take care of myself; I have a lot. And even if they got me, I’ve lived a life. Granted, it would be a short one, but it would have been a life. You’re not to sacrifice yourself ever for me, you beautiful woman. Do you understand?”
Truth was, I couldn’t make that promise and that was when an ache I knew would be coming, a pain I was suddenly aware of in my heart alerted me to the real reason I couldn’t sleep.
“‘Cilla, I want a promise.”
I shook my head. “You’re not getting one.”
He groaned then ran his thumb over my eyebrow. “Close your eyes. We’ll do this later.”
“Are you giving her a hard time?” The door opened and closed while Bo entered the room. “She’s not slept enough.”
River nodded. “I know.” He stood and moved away, letting Bo come close.
The man whose bed I was in took River’s place beside me. “This is my fault. I should never even have mentioned that things were going according to plan. I tempted fate. I know better. But in the future, my love, you yell out something like Bo, River’s going to get killed. You don’t dart forward like some avenging angel and take a knife in the gut.”
“She won’t promise me.” River leaned against the wall.
Bo looked over his shoulder. “We’ll work on her later.”
I closed my eyes. They wanted me to sleep. I’d try to do that. It was better than telling them the truth I knew I’d have to confess. Apparently, near death experiences meant that I had to stop lying to myself.
They were right. I hadn’t slept enough.
I walked on quiet feet through the main hallway of Malice. It was very early in the morning according to the clock in Bo’s room. The guys weren’t with me, which was a relief in the sense that seeing them watching over me would make me feel warm and snuggly. That didn’t work for what I had to do. I needed to be honest with them, even though it was going to hurt me—and them, which was worse—to do so.
I found them around the small table in the comm room. They all had coffee in their hands. It smelled amazing, although I doubted it was the first thing I should stick in my stomach after waking up.
“Hey.” Jordan jumped to his feet from the pilot’s seat. “You’re awake. I’m sorry you were alone.”
“Oh, that’s okay.”
They all started speaking at once. It was apologies and explanations and declarations about my health. I held out my hand to stop them. When Bo moved toward me with his arms open, I took a step back. There was nothing I would have loved more than a hug. Only, I couldn’t be dishonest and that would mean that I wouldn’t be hugging Bo anymore.
Or Jordan. And I wouldn’t get to know what it would be like to be with River when he trusted our feelings.
“I can’t do this.” Saying the words felt like a death. I’d imagined the whole walk over to the comm room how awful I would feel uttering the words. It was so much worse.
Jordan raised his eyebrows. “Can’t do what, love?”
Oh, I wished he had picked any other word. “I can’t live like this.”
Bo answered instead of Jordan. “This has been incredibly intense. I know that. Xavier has always been our biggest problem, but he’s dead now. He won’t be hurting anyone ever again. We’ll get back to business, the way it’s been since you joined us.”
I h
ad to put a hand on the wall or I might faint from either lack of food or a complete emotional breakdown. “That’s the thing. This is hard to say. Impossibly hard. Because I love you. All three of you. But the truth of the matter is that I have a really hard time with the pirating. I’m not judging you. I know that in my entire life, I will never meet better men. You’re kind. Funny. Smart. Interesting. Loving people. You don’t hurt regular folks, although I’d argue that someone gets into trouble when you rob their ships, and those crews have families, too. Never mind, it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t the stabbing. It was the space station. I have to live somewhere quietly, where there is a chance to be decent. I know, Bo, you told me that first day that my parents sell their daughters. They try to kill their sons. I get it. They’re bad people, awful parents. I’ve always known. That doesn’t mean that I have to be a bad person, just because they are. This isn’t the life I’m supposed to live.” I sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry, Jordan. I wanted to believe the winds were for us, too. And, Bo, this isn’t because of that conversation.” The tears started. I’d never been able to control them, not when I was really upset. “River, you were right not to trust me.”
“Actually, darling”—River hadn’t moved—“I think I do trust you. Never more so than right now. This is absolute truth coming out of you, maybe for the first time.”
“The world is awful. It’s cold, and it’s hard. I never told you this before. It’s so awful I can barely stand it. My father sold off his first wife to purchase my mother. They try to kill children. I have to do better. That’s not this. I’m sorry. I’ll stay in my room except to grab food until you drop me off. I won’t get in the way. I wanted this. I really am in love with you all, but I can’t be who you need, either.”
I turned and ran. Food would wait. I wasn’t sure I could stomach it anyway.
* * *
The crystal Jordan had given me blinked with color in the weird, almost magical way that it always did. I was sure that someone could give me the scientific reason for why it did that, but I preferred the mystery.
I wiped at my eyes. I’d quit crying. I had no one to blame but myself. When I’d first learned what they did, I should have acknowledged my initial reaction as being one I wasn’t going to be able to change. If that made me a judgmental, awful person, then that’s what I was. They were incredible people. I loved the men, not the job.
I lifted up my shirt. A big, ugly ragged looking scar marred my skin. A doctor could make the mark go away. The machines didn’t usually handle the cosmetic. I didn’t think I’d ever get rid of it. Better to remember what had happened and what I had lost.
This was a loss. The biggest I would ever face.
I put my head in the pillow. The hours passed slowly. I waited until I was sure two of the guys would be in their rooms and one would be piloting the ship to get out of bed. I snuck out for food. As quickly and quietly as I could manage, I hydrated some meat and poured myself some water. It wasn’t the same as Bo’s cooking, but it filled me up.
I crept back into my room and closed the door. Without a tablet of my own, I had nothing to read, so I closed my eyes and just tried to breathe.
The ship changed direction. I didn’t know when I had become so attuned to Malice—the shifts in space, the movements—but the few weeks I’d been on her had taught me what certain movements meant. Whoever piloted was turning us in a different direction. Maybe there was a more direct route to where they were going to leave me.
A knock sounded on the door, and I rose. The cowardly part of myself, the one that hadn’t spoken up all this time, had hoped they’d leave me alone. How was I going to get through this again? But they deserved to tell me what a terrible person I was, and I was going to stand there and take it.
I opened the door. All three of the faces I would miss for the rest of my life stared back at me.
“Hi.” I swung the door open further. This was their ship. They could come in and yell at me on it.
They stepped inside, each one of them taking a place in a different spot in the room. River sat down on the edge of my bed while Jordan leaned against the wall on the other side. Bo kept his place in front of the door.
It was Jordan who addressed me first. “We’ve been thinking a lot about what you said. And we just have a question.”
I swallowed through the dryness in my throat. “Okay.”
“Do you really love us? You said that you did. And I don’t think you’re a liar. This is important. Is it real? Or do you just want to go and you said that to not be cruel.”
I choked back a sob. “No, I really love you. This feels like dying. Okay? And the only thing I want to do is make the pain stop. I can’t do that. I have to be honest. I think that doing this day in and day out, the pirating part, it would slowly kill me. I know that makes me a judgmental, high and mighty person. I can’t help it.”
“Well.” Bo cleared his throat, the slightest smile on his face. “Everyone has a flaw. Nice to finally see yours.”
I rubbed at my eyes. “Are you laughing at me? Why are you smiling?”
Bo took one step forward. “Truth is, we’re kind of tired of this, too. It’s what we do and in a way similar to your initial situation. We didn’t have anywhere else to go. We never did.”
“Now we think we do.” River’s voice called my attention to him. “See? We’re all thinking that your father needs to be removed from his daughters. He seems to have lived a life causing harm to all those around him. One way or another, we can get him off his farm. Would you like to go back there? With us? I mean, Bo and Jordan both had experience living off the land twenty years ago. I never did so you’re going to have to hand hold me. I’ll figure something out to be useful. Go back, take the farm, raise your sisters until they’re old enough to choose for themselves?”
I stood, frozen as though my feet might not work were I to choose to move. “Are you serious?”
“We’d never joke about this,” Jordan added. “Any more than you would lie about how you’re feeling. We can make this work. Even River who has been a city boy and a ship pirate. He’ll adjust. It’ll be a novelty that people are not trying to kill him.”
I nodded fast, so much so that my hair fell right into my eyes. “Yes. Yes. I’d like that. I’d like it so much. I would just…”
“Good.” Bo tugged me against him, kissing me hard on the mouth. “Because you’re nuts if you think you’re getting rid of us. We’d sooner slit our own throats. Took us a slow minute to decide where to go. No more of this. We don’t have to be pirates. We do have to be with you. You’re our wife.”
Jordan took me from Bo, and Bo let him like it was the most natural thing in the world. “It was too fast. I get it. You doubted. Next time, just come to us and tell us what you need. What you need matters. And in this case, it just forced us to admit what we’d all really been feeling anyway. The stabbing had started that dialogue. That’s what we were doing when you came in.”
River rose, and then I was in his arms. “I’m so sorry you got stabbed. So incredibly sorry. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t leave us. Don’t cut out our hearts. Let us make you happy. That would be the best thing I could ever do in my entire life.”
“Okay.” Tears slipped from my eyes again, and I’d thought I was cried out. But these were happy tears, and maybe they came from a different place entirely.
Bo leaned over and kissed my cheek, and then Jordan did the same. It was Bo who spoke. “I’m going to take the ship off autopilot and make sure we’re in the right direction for home.”
Jordan rocked back on his feet. “I’m going to inventory what we have here. I know you hate the stealing, love. We will have to sell it, which will be the last time. We’ll use it to help with the farm and maybe to pay off your father. If he won’t take the payoff, I’ll physically oust him. That might happen, by the way. We won’t kill him, but he has to go.”
I wiped at my eyes. “Sounds good.”
“I’m staying here, with you,”
River finished.
Bo and Jordan nodded at him before they left the room. River turned me around so that I faced him directly. “You took a knife in the gut to save me. You almost died. And you did, by the way, almost die. And then you tried to leave. ‘Cilla.” He’d been calling me that a lot, shortening my name. I loved it. “You are going to either be the death of me or finally help me become the guy I should have been twenty years ago. I love you. You stood there so bravely in the control room and told us your truth. That’s after you shoved me backward and took a knife. Where do you get this strength from? I want to bottle it and use it on myself.”
I kissed his chin, and he sighed. “To be fair, River, I wasn’t planning on taking the knife in my gut. I was just trying to make sure you didn’t.”
“Well, that doesn’t negate the act. I’ll never forget it for the rest of my life.”
I almost asked him who had killed Xavier, and then I didn’t. I couldn’t remember what happened after the knifing and that was a gift. If my brain blocked out the imagery, then so be it. I’d stay ignorantly blissful.
He kissed me, gently. “I want to show you how I love you. I know it’s fast, like Jordan said. Some things just are. This is real. You belong to me. Being married to a Sandler is never easy. I will do better than the men in my family traditionally do. I promise.”
I didn’t know anything about how badly the men in his family did. I only knew that I would do everything I could for the rest of my life to see to it that River smiled regularly and always knew he could trust me.
I kissed him back, harder. I’d learned what a claiming felt like when it happened and that was what I gave him. He moaned against me which sent shivers through my body. In two seconds, I was flat on my back on the bed. His movements weren’t gentle or steady, in fact, I was pretty sure that his hands were shaking. I didn’t care. I just kissed and kissed him.
His tongue came into my mouth, and I pressed mine against it. Our mouths danced. He tasted sweet, and I lost myself in the caresses. He pulled back to look at me. In his gaze, I saw warring emotions—he was hot and also sad.
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