Lost Star

by Rebecca Royce

  Staring up at the orb in the sky, that seemed really surprising to me. “It’s still so bright.”

  “We’ll get ten minutes of sunset and then pitch darkness. I want us somewhere we can hide in the dark. I don’t want us to just keep running. The guys will keep them back. I know they will. We’ll keep moving in the daylight. I have no idea if people live here or what animals come out at night. These bullets are for Evander. Not shooting unknown wildlife.”

  That made sense. “I trust you.”

  His face was hard when he stared at me. “I lost my wife. I wasn’t with her. But I swear to you, we’re going to have time for you to know who I am and that you can trust me.”

  The pain he carried. I touched the side of his face. “There are some things I know just because I know them. Trusting you is one of those things. I just have one question.”

  “What’s that?” He took both my hands in his.

  “What color is your hair? Is it brown? Is it blond? I can’t tell.”

  He snorted, throwing his head back. “It’s brown. I’ll do something about the dual color when this is over. Unless you’d rather it be blond.”

  “I don’t care what color your hair is. Dye it pink if you want. I was just curious. You’re handsome, end of story.”

  I put my hands on my knees. With everything happening, I probably should not have been focused on his hair. But that other—the big bad Evander that had been chasing me for so long—I was beyond able to deal with that. I was running for my life, and that was enough of a feat for now.

  “You okay?” I asked him. “I mean, I guess neither of us thought we were going to do this today.”

  His smile surprised me. “I’m always up for a good fight, or in this case, run and hide from Evander. I’d rather it was Sandler Cartel, but someone else beat them. I’m still fighting the good fight, and you feel like…a second chance. I couldn’t save someone I loved deeply, but I can save you. I know I can. And in the end, we can all walk away and have a great life. Or at least you can. I don’t know what happens to me at the end of this. I just know when I saw those blue eyes of yours that I’d do whatever to make sure they always had life in them.”

  For the first time in my life, I wanted to take someone’s pain. I actually would have killed for it. But Trenton had been clear with me from the beginning. That was his and only is. This wasn’t the time nor the place to push on that.

  Not on this hot, foreign planet. Who would have terraformed a place like this, and why would anyone live here?

  Those were not questions I’d get answers to, I didn’t think.

  19 On the Run

  We walked, instead of running, until the sun went down. When darkness hit, so did the rain. It was cold, a stark contrast to the heat on my skin. At first it felt nice—a cool shower after a hot walk—but it quickly changed to just being wet and uncomfortable.

  Trenton had been quiet for a long stretch of time. He was looking for somewhere to get us cover, and eventually pulled on my arm to drag me under a stretch of trees. The trees were so grown over each other, the branches and leaves seemed to have created an umbrella. We stood under it for a second before he climbed onto one of the trees and extended his hand so I could take it. Unlike when Dev had jumped out of Artemis, I had to help myself up somewhat. Trenton helped for sure, but I did have to participate in the climbing.

  He wrapped his arms around me. “I’m sorry. I wish I had a way to get you dry.”

  Was he kidding? “You’re all soaked because you’re taking care of me. I should be apologizing to you.”

  He shook his head. “You’re a light in the universe. I’d never have met you if we weren’t living in hell. But even this, hanging out in this tree, wet, it feels great to be here with you.” He took my hand. “If I had a light, I’d ask permission to look at your wrist. Let’s just assume that tonight, it’s at zero. Okay? You’re not sick. We’re just having a weird date on this planet in the middle of nowhere where we wanted to get wet and sticky.”

  I laughed. “Are we safe? Did we get far enough away?”

  “I think so. We won’t know for sure, but I don’t hear any gunfire. I don’t hear any fighting. And we have signals worked out from the main fighting days that would tell me if we were in danger. The nothingness is a good sign. They’re playing cat and mouse with the other Super Soldiers. It could go on a long time. Trust me on this, if you were in danger, we’d know. They won’t let anything happen to you any more than I would.”

  I shivered, and he held me closer, then he stiffened. “Do you see that?”

  I didn’t see anything, not really. When the clouds moved occasionally, I could see the moons were bright, but all I could see when they weren’t illuminated in the darkness were trees, rain, rocks. Not anything else.

  “Stay here. I’m not going far. Do you see that glint on the horizon over there?”

  I looked, but I really didn’t. “No.”

  “It’s…it’s close. Just stay up here. I’ll be right back. I’m not leaving you.”

  I cleared my throat. “Trenton, don’t forget I can zap. Anyone comes at me, I’ll hurt them.”

  “I haven’t forgotten. But if you do that, you’ll get taken down and the next one can knock you out. You’re not capable of fighting off an army. Just stay here. Two minutes, I’ll be back.”

  What did he think he saw? I never got to ask him, because just as soon as he said those words, he was gone. He disappeared into the night, and I sucked in a breath. I really wasn’t as brave as I was pretending to be. It was just when everyone was so incredibly brave, and all for me, I couldn’t be whining and screaming in this wet, hot jungle just because I was scared out of my mind.

  I listened to the sounds. In the days I wanted to get away from my life, I couldn’t have pictured this. All of these men dedicated to me, and this strange place. In some ways, I was the luckiest person in the world. If I could pretend I didn’t have any of my other struggles, I’d never been so happy in my life. Wow. I’d really gotten deranged.

  Rubbing my eyes, I also tried to listen to the sounds around me. We hadn’t seen any animals, but I could hear sounds in the distance that didn’t sound human. Something howled. I had next to no experience with wildlife. We had been sheltered from all things that were too ‘real’ at the temple. More and more resentment rode me about that. There were things I could have known how to handle, if only I had realized I needed to know those things. They’d kept me like a child. No, it was worse than that. They’d left me feeling like a tool. Oh, don’t worry, Sienna, you need no life skills. You’ll just be a tool for the rest of your life that other people use to feel better. Sit here and do as you’re told. You had the so-called good fortune of being born very powerful in the gene mutation department.

  Something snapped, like maybe a branch, and I stiffened. Okay. That was close. Whatever it was and I—

  “It’s me.” Trenton climbed back up to where I sat on the branch. I hadn’t seen him. Of course, I hadn’t been looking, and maybe he was good at hiding. He held something, a bag, in his hand.

  “What did you find?”

  “There’s a cabin, a metal one, a little ways from here. We’re going over there to spend the night. It’s not warmer, but it’s dryer. Put this on. It’ll give you some coverage until we get there.”

  He handed me a jacket. “They have rain gear?”

  “That’s what is mostly in the cabin. It’s loud in there, too. But I think coverage is the most important thing right now. It must rain here like this all of a sudden. Whoever owns that thing is most concerned with not getting wet. There are a few other tools. No food. It’ll do for now.”

  He wasn’t covered in anything as he handed me the rain gear. “Why didn’t you grab one for you?”

  “I was more focused on getting you dry.” He smiled. “Come on. I’ll be fine for five more minutes, and then I’ll change in the shed. It’s really a shed. Don’t expect great things.”

  Spending the night i
n the tree wet or dry in a shed? I’d take the shed. He helped me get down, and although my legs burned from using them in all kinds of ways, I managed not to stumble. Once we were down, I put the coat on, and it did offer some protection from the rain. It was certainly better than not having it.

  We walked in silence to the shed he’d found and stepped inside. If outside was dark, it was even more so when he shut the door and closed us in. Trenton pulled out his tablet, which offered some light, and pulled some clothes from a container in the side of the room. He pulled off his shirt, and I did the same, each of us changing into new tops and then eventually bottoms. They were water resistant outfits, not comfortable, but it was nice to be dryer.

  The rain pounded on top of the shed’s roof. It was loud, almost deafeningly so. Trenton pulled me over to him, and we both sank down onto the ground.

  He stared down at his tablet and then turned it off. “Nothing from them, but I wouldn’t expect it. If they were to lose their tablet, it’s too easily hacked.”

  “Should you have it at all then?”

  He shook his head. “No, probably not. But we do. So we’ll take good care of it.”

  Trenton drew me close. He smelled like the rain, and I imagined that I did, too. “I wish I had food for you. I’ll try to hunt in the morning. I have the tools in here, which are, I think, more meant to handle chopping up tree branches. But I’m good at repurposing things. I’ll see what I can do.”

  I put my head on his shoulder. Exhaustion was starting to hit me, which must mean the adrenaline was running out. “I’m not hungry, and maybe we won’t have to worry in the morning. Like we can get back to Artemis.”

  “Best case scenario, for sure.”

  I listened to the pounding some more, but it did nothing to soothe my nerves. It was possible to be tired but too strung out to sleep. “Did you grow up doing all of this? Hunting? Climbing? Running?”

  His laugh surprised me. That didn’t seem like the right response to that question. “Sorry.” He laughed again. “No, I’m very rich. Or my family was. We had lots of people to do whatever we wanted to do. I liked ships, so I learned them, and eventually started to fight on behalf of the rebellion when Sandler became a problem. But I mean, rich. That’s how I was able to get a wife. Or to be the sort of person she’d meet and pick. Then when she died, I threw my past away pretty much. I don’t know what my family is up to. I still have the credits and the gold in my account. It’s paid for us to resupply on occasion but…yeah. I’m not the same as I used to be. Or maybe I was never that way. I just tried to make it work, because I thought it was going to be life.”

  I nodded. “So you and I are the same in some ways. We have a before and an after. And the two lives are hardly recognizable to each other.”

  He was so quiet, I wondered if I had said the wrong thing. My heart clenched. Finally, he answered. “I’d never thought about it before, but yes, you’re right. A before and an after. I like that. It lends itself to the idea that there can be something substantial in the after.” Trenton squeezed my hand. “You should try to sleep. I’m going to stay up, and I’ll wake you if we need to move or if the guys are coming. Try to rest.”

  He expected me to rest? In these circumstances. Even as tired as I was getting, I couldn’t see that happening. But eventually, I did doze. It might have been the sound of the rain on the roof, my utter exhaustion, or the fact that Trenton held me tight against him and I trusted him. Or maybe it was that I was sick and my numbers were rising. Or that I’d run for hours when I’d never done anything like that before.

  All I knew was that one second, I was wide-awake, and the next, there was blissful darkness.

  “Sienna.” Trenton shook me gently. Once, then twice. I came awake, all at once, and he placed a hand over my mouth to hush me.

  I nodded. Okay. I wouldn’t talk. He let go of my mouth and held up his tablet so I could see what he’d typed on it. Someone is here.

  That someone was obviously not one of our someones. I lifted my head to nod. What were we going to do inside this shed? Trenton got to his feet and pointed at me. He wanted me to stay where I was. I pulled my knees up to my chest. Would making myself smaller and hidden work in this place? There was the slightest sunlight coming through under the door. How did he know we had company?

  Trenton grabbed a tool off the wall. If it could strike down branches, it could hurt people. He snuck out the door, closing it behind him silently. I was glad the thing didn’t squeak.

  I put my head on top of my knees. I had to learn how to fight. That was pivotal. I had to be able to take care of myself if it came down to survival. I had to learn electronics. There were a lot of hads in my life. Right now, I wanted to help Trenton. I didn’t want to be a damsel in this shed. But I’d only make things worse by interfering at this juncture. I was incompetent, but not stupid.

  A sudden oof followed by a yell sounded outside. A second later, Trenton spoke. “Who are you?”

  “Oh, no. Please don’t hurt me. Take what you want. Just let me get home to my family.”

  I jumped to my feet and rushed through the door. A man was on his back on the other side of it. Trenton held the cutting tool to his throat. “I’ll ask again. Who are you?”

  “My name…my name is Robert Seewald. This is my hunting shed. I… Take it.”

  Trenton met my gaze and then dropped his weapon, throwing it to the side. “We don’t want your shed. Or your stuff. We needed it for the night. We’re running from some people who would hurt us.”

  Robert’s color came back slowly, but he still didn’t get off the ground. “Wh-what?”

  I didn’t know for sure, but since Evander was made up of Super Soldiers, I was going to fathom a guess that this poor man, who we’d terrified, was not one of those. He was at least fifteen pounds overweight and smaller in height than me. Unless I was only seeing one kind of Super Soldier, I didn’t think this guy would have qualified.

  I walked over to him, bent over, and helped him up. “We’re on the run from Evander. Do you know who that is? We had to hide in your shed. And borrow your things. We aren’t going to keep them. We’re going to figure out how to get them back to you.”

  He finally stood up straight. “Evander? That’s awful.” Robert shot Trenton a long look. “Maybe I can understand why you knocked me down. Sort of.” He pointed to the shed. “Is Evander here again? Because if Evander is here, we need to tell people. And maybe we could help you instead of you hiding in that shed and hurting people.”

  Trenton cleared his throat. “Sorry about that. I wasn’t sure that you weren’t here to hurt my girl. I had to be sure.”

  Robert’s jaw hardened. “Come with me. We have people who can help you get away. Why does Evander want you anyway? I thought they were gone. We get such conflicting information out here, which is a good thing and a bad thing. A good thing, because people mostly leave us alone.”

  I caught Trenton’s gaze. What did he want to do here? Did he want to go with this man or stay here in his shed? Or do something else entirely?

  “Okay.” Trenton nodded. “We’ll go with you.” He held out his hand, and I took it. Why were we changing our strategy like this? I didn’t ask, because Trenton kept speaking to Robert. “You have experience with Evander, then?”

  He looked over his shoulder as we followed him. “Does anyone not have experience with Evander? They got all the way out here. I know this is supposed to be the end of the universe, but we still have our bad experiences out here.”

  I smiled. If only he knew how much farther out in the universe I’d come from. We’d been the last planet they terraformed all those long years ago. Way before I was born. Before my grandparents were born. And here we all were…still on the edge of the galaxy.

  “Oh yeah?” Trenton squeezed my fingers. “What did they do to you guys?”

  He grumbled. “They took all of our fruit. Every last bit of it. That’s what we sell here, mostly. Our fruit is the best in the galaxy.”


  I suddenly knew where we were. Yes, the McGrintaugh Cluster—as the three planets were jointly known, even though people only lived on one—was famous for fruit. We really weren’t that far into the Dark Planets. This was practically the Earth Zone.

  “It is really good fruit,” I said. “I miss it. Our local grown fruit doesn’t compare. We don’t get it that often because of pirates, but when we do, oh my gosh, it’s the best.”

  This seemed to tickle Robert’s happy button. He grinned. “Mine is the best, too. These are my woods. Well, you’ve figured that. We’ll be lucky if we manage enough of a crop to deal with next year. It might be two years.” He sighed. “I’m so glad they ran them out. Those people from Mars and their ilk.”

  Trenton smirked. I bet he liked that description. Those people from Mars. Were any of them actually from Mars?

  “We’ll take your thanks. And they’re not totally gone yet. Soon. We’re getting rid of them.”

  Robert whirled around. “Really? You’re one of them?”

  “Yes, I was part of that crew. Frankly, we only got as far as we did because some of Evander turned on Evander. Do you have food where we’re going? I’m happy to pay for it. I just need to get food for my girl.”

  I loved how he called me that. His girl.

  “We’ll get you squared up. I’ll forgive you now that I know you’re one of those people from Mars.”

  Trenton’s smile was huge. When he grinned that big, he had a dimple I hardly ever got to see. “My wife, sorry, my late wife, she was from Mars. Originally. But I’m from Earth. Born and raised in the Canyon District.”

  Now Robert seemed even more impressed. He was practically bouncing. “Earth? Really?”

  We came through a clearing, and there was a small town ahead. I’d had no idea we were so close to civilization. It had felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. Trenton pulled out his tablet. There was a message on it. He quickly put it away. I nudged him. “All okay?”