Ella had stayed sitting in the middle of the hold, silently watching him as time marched by and he’d failed to find a way out. Now, as the ship shuddered into its station docking berth, she got up and came over to him.
“Don’t you think you’ve wasted enough energy trying to find a way out of here?”
He scoffed, but the sound turned into a cough. And coughing sent one mother of an agonizing spasm ripping through his middle. He doubled over, the pain made worse by the vise squeezing his lungs, leaving him unable to breathe properly.
Ella caught his arm with surprising strength, keeping him from collapsing face first. But she wasn’t strong enough to keep him from going down altogether, and the two of them ended up sitting on the floor, her arms around him, propping him against her. Usually he would have been scrambling to escape anyone touching him, especially her, but he couldn’t find the stamina to care.
“Rian, you should have conserved your energy.” She splayed one hand against the middle of his chest, as if checking his heartbeat.
“What for? All the fun torture and brainwashing? No thanks. I’d prefer to check out before that.” The back of his throat dry, his words came out rough.
She shifted them slightly, settling herself back against the bulkhead and taking his weight more easily against her smaller frame. He should get up; he was probably too heavy for her, and he still had to find a way out of this. But it was as if his arms and legs had disconnected from his brain and left him with an “out of order” sign.
“The others will come for us—”
“Yeah, they probably will, the idiots. And they’ll get themselves killed.”
“You don’t know that.” Her voice was quieter, simmering with determination.
“Don’t I?” He let his eyes slip closed. Just for a second. Just to get some energy back. “Anyway, I thought you didn’t care. I thought you’d come to realize I’m a lost cause.”
“I never said I didn’t care or that I’d given up on you.”
Though the bands were keeping her abilities dampened, he could have sworn her touch was taking away some of the pain. Or maybe he was just that far gone. Maybe he’d get his wish and die before the Reidar could turn him loose on the galaxy again.
“You might not have said the words, but your actions told me loud and clear. Despite the fact that it’s impossible to avoid people onboard the Imojenna, where we all live in one another’s pockets, you did a pretty impressive job of keeping out of my way after we took the Swift Brion. Because of what I did to you.”
He thought she might have shaken her head; he felt it in the subtle movement of her against him and where her long hair brushed over his upper arm.
“It wasn’t because of what you did, Rian. It was because of what I did.”
Well, nothing much surprised him these days, but that sure as shite did. He cracked his eyes open and shifted to look up at her. “What do you mean?”
If he hadn’t already been having trouble breathing, seeing her up close, her gorgeous mossy-hazel eyes fixed so intently on him, it definitely would have stolen the air right out of his chest.
“The way I retaliated when you had me trapped. I got angry and I used my abilities against you, to bring you down. It went against all of my training, showed me that I was capable of things I’d never considered before, that I was weak and prone to emotion as my teachers always accused.”
He reached up and caught her hand where she still had it pressed against the middle of his chest. “That’s what you think happened?”
She gave a single resolute nod. “I discarded my training and acted on impulse. All those months onboard the Imojenna, the farther I got away from Aryn and my life there, I started forgetting who I was and what my purpose is. I became weaker, began letting my emotions come before logic—”
“No.” He squeezed her hand, and she returned the gesture, hanging onto him tightly, like he was her only lifeline. “You’re not weak. Using your abilities against me, that was the right thing to do. That is your strength. You stand up for yourself and never let anyone hurt you or put you down. Especially me. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time. Whatever those frecking idiots on Aryn told you, they were wrong. The universe is a harsh, dark place, and the only way to survive it is to use whatever tools you have at your disposal.”
Her gaze searched his, as though looking for redemption, looking for a truth she needed, to justify the person she kept hidden behind her priestess mask.
“But what if I hurt someone? What if I do something atrocious to those undeserving?”
“You’ll never hurt anyone, princess. Not anyone who doesn’t merit it, anyway. Like I said, this universe is a dark place. But you are the light, and nothing will ever change that.”
She exhaled, as though his words had released something within her.
“Is that why you didn’t use your abilities to stop the Reidar from taking us?” he asked, struggling to keep his eyes open, the lids feeling weighted, dragging downward.
Her gaze cut away from him. “No. I became emotional when the Reidar hurt you. Emotion means loss of control and my abilities fail me. I’m sorry I couldn’t save us.”
“It doesn’t matter now.” He gave in and let his eyes shut him into the black again. “This probably isn’t going to end in fairy tales and rainbows for me. The best I can do is make sure I don’t take anyone else with me. But promise me, if you get those cuffs off, you’ll try to stay calm, use your abilities, and do whatever it takes to get yourself free.”
Ella tightened her arms around him, letting go of his hand to cup his cheek. “I’ll promise to do better next time, if you promise to stay awake. The others will come for us, Rian.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he murmured, before sinking deeper into nothingness.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Kira ventured up into the ship, her stomach rumbling at the scent wafting down the passageway. They’d left Forbes about two hours ago and since then, Nyah had woken up, clearly not any worse for wear from her injury. She’d given her a light painkiller, though since the MRD had done most of the work in knitting tissue and flesh back together, she shouldn’t have been in as much pain.
Now she was on the hunt for some food for both Nyah and her, while her patient rested in the medbay. Plus, it was probably about time she stopped hiding out.
After Varean had walked away from her in the passageway, she’d returned to the medbay and given in to the tears she’d been holding back for what seemed like forever. She’d cried for Callan and Jensen, for Rian and Ella, and the fact that she hurt so much over Varean, over something she’d always known couldn’t be, but had fallen into anyway.
She wasn’t sure what he’d wanted to achieve from talking to her—he knew just as well as she did there was nothing to be said or done to change their situation. Dwelling on it would only make things messier, and with everything else going on, she couldn’t handle that.
She came into a small common area, about a quarter of the size of the one on the Imojenna. The room was packed full of both the Ebony Winter’s crew, plus what was left of their own crew, Commander Colter Routh and Tannin’s friend Jase. The mood was nothing short of dour, only a few quiet words exchanged as the food was served.
“Where are we headed?” she asked Zahli as she stopped next to her friend and accepted the plate Tannin handed her.
“We still don’t know.” Zahli’s expression was drawn, as though she fully expected to find Rian dead and was already grieving.
“But I thought Varean—”
“That’s just it. He went down into one of the lower cabins and when he didn’t come back, Lianna and I went to check on him. We found him in some sort of trance or coma, and we can’t bring him out of it.”
She set down the plate carelessly, almost dropping it and making it clatter against the bench, her heart going in the same direction. “Why didn’t you come and get me?”
“You were looking a
fter Nyah.” Zahli shrugged, clearly unsure of what decision she should have made, which was totally out of character. Usually Zahli was the first one to make a choice and stick with it. “I was going to give it another half an hour, and then get you if he still hadn’t come around. I just thought after everything, you wouldn’t want to deal with him.”
“Whether or not I want to deal with him comes second to finding Rian.” She pushed off from the bench and hurried out of the room, Zahli on her heels.
Down on the lower level of the ship, she found Varean in the second of two cabins. He was sitting propped up against the bulkhead on one of the cots, eyes closed, yet body tense. A trickle of blood tracked out of his nose.
“Was he like that before?” She got onto the cot, kneeling and checking his eyes. His pupils were totally blown. “Damn it.”
“He looked fine before.” Zahli stood at the edge of the bed. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Mydriasis.”
“Which means what to those of us without a medical degree?”
“It can be an indicator of intracranial pressure or impending brain herniation, among other things. It’s bad. Help me lay him down.”
Between the two of them, they managed to shift Varean around and lay him flat on the cot. “Zahli, run to the medbay and get my med kit.”
She pressed her fingers into Varean’s neck to measure his pulse then leaned down and listened to his chest. His heart rate was up and his breathing shallow. His body wasn’t going to be able to take much more before his systems started to fail.
“Varean, if you can hear me, you need to stop. You need to come out of this or it’s going to kill you.”
His muscles twitched, though she couldn’t have said whether it was a response to her demand or simply his body beginning to hit critical mass.
Zahli returned with the med kit, slightly out of breath.
Kira grabbed a scanner and switched it on, monitoring first his head and then moving down his body. Just as she’d expected, his brain was swelling, restricting his oxygen and blood flow.
Her first instinct was to give him something to bring down his heart rate and possibly reduce the pressure on his skull, but his hypersensitivity to medication might only make things worse.
Her chest got tight, like her ribs were clamping down on her lungs. Varean couldn’t die. They needed him.
After everything, she refused to let it all end like this.
“What are you going to do?” Zahli asked, expression edging toward desperation. Not because she cared about Varean, of course, but because he was her best chance of finding Rian.
“I don’t know.” Not the words people wanted to hear a doctor say. But the unknown variable of Varean’s Mar’keish and Reidar DNA made doing anything a risk. Without medication, the only option was to drill a hole in his head to release some of the pressure. But that came with its own risks. Doing nothing wasn’t an option.
“Okay, Varean. I hope whatever you found out was worth it, because this isn’t going to be pleasant.” She pulled out the MRD and searched through the case of fittings until she found the one she needed to perform this little surgery.
She sifted her fingers through his hair, mentally mapping the skull and brain, recalling her training to locate the exact spot.
Varean groaned, shifting beneath her touch and making her pause.
“Here, Zahli, hold this for a second.” She handed the MRD off to her friend and lifted Varean’s eyelids again. His pupils were normal and reactive now, irises completely mercury silver. When she checked the second eye, he swatted her away.
“My head is killing me, and that’s not helping.” His voice was rough and gravelly, but steady. He blinked open his eyes and then pressed the heel of his palm into his forehead. “Christ, it feels like someone used my skull for batting practice while I was out of it.”
“Did it work? Did you find out where Rian and Ella are?” Zahli knelt down next to the bed, gaze searching Varean’s pale face.
“I know where they’re headed, but they haven’t arrived yet. They’re in transit.” With a harsh exhale, he pushed himself upright but then swayed, almost pitching right off the edge of the rack.
“You should stay horizontal for a while.” Kira set a hand on his shoulder, urging him to lie back down. “Your brain was under a tremendous amount of pressure. I thought it was going to kill you. And lucky you came out of it when you did. I was about to drill holes into your skull.”
He cut her a sharp look, laced with disbelief. “As fun as that sounds, next time, just give it a minute.”
“A minute?” Zahli’s voice went up several octaves, making Varean wince. “You’ve been out for over two hours.”
“Damn it, sorry. Time passes differently over there.”
“And we still don’t know exactly where Rian is. But you said you know where they’re going? Maybe we can beat them there, set an ambush—”
Varean shook his head. “No, we can’t. They’re headed for cold-space.”
Cold-space? The bottom dropped out of her stomach.
Back when she’d still been in med school, they studied a module on the super virus that had ripped through four planets decades ago and left less than 5 percent of the population alive. The IPC hadn’t wanted to risk the virus getting out into the rest of the galaxy and defended the system with deadly force with no warning. A ship tried to cross the lines, it got blasted. Which begged the question of how the Reidar planned on getting into cold-space and why.
“Why the hell would the Reidar take them into cold-space? And it seems like more than a small coincidence that the Mar’keish have resurfaced after decades, and now the Reidar are heading to what used to be their homeworld,” Zahli stated, voicing Kira’s own thoughts aloud. “If Rian and Ella end up in cold-space, they’ll never be able to leave, and that’s if they don’t die.”
“The Mar’keish aren’t working with the Reidar, if that’s what you’re thinking. That’s about the only thing I know for certain,” Varean shot back, his tone defensive. “If we’re going to get them back, we have to do it before they cross into the no-fly zone.”
Zahli pushed to her feet, posture taut. “But you said you don’t know where they are, only that they’re in transit. How the hell does that narrow it down?”
Kira set a hand on Zahli’s shoulder. “We know they left Forbes, and we know where they’re heading. Lianna can plot a probable course to narrow it down.”
“And what good will that do when we don’t even know what kind of ship they’re on?”
Varean released a short breath that sounded part pain, part resignation. “Just give me a little while to recharge, then I’ll try again. I’ll find something more specific.”
Zahli stared at him then gave a tight nod and left the room. Once she was gone, he threw an arm over his face, shielding his eyes. A swell of worry crested within Kira, despite wanting to stay detached and view him as nothing more than a means to an end.
“Is it really a good idea to do that again? It seems to have taken a lot out of you.” She couldn’t help the words escaping.
“The headache is just part of the fun. It happened when La’thar and Ko’en showed me how to do it, too.”
Why did she get the feeling he was leaving out something?
“And the brain swelling? Your head nearly exploding, was that part of the fun as well?” She crossed her arms, wishing she could see his eyes, wishing there were some way to make him tell her the full story. But he didn’t owe her anything, and if he didn’t want to tell her, that was his prerogative.
“I spent only a few days with the Mar’keish. We didn’t exactly get to work through everything. Still pretty much don’t understand anything about me and what I can do.”
“So is there a chance this could kill you? Because it certainly looked like things were heading that way.” And why did that have to make her chest hurt like taking a blow to the sternum? If only she could sever her feelings for him, like performing sur
gery. Neat, painless, over and done with in a short span of time.
Varean dropped his arm and focused on her with bleary eyes. “Since we’ve got no other way to find Rian, and we’re on the clock and running out of time, I don’t see any other option.”
She sat on the edge of the cot. “But when you’re doing this, aren’t you aware of the strain it’s putting on your body?”
“At first, yes. But this time I went deeper, so I was more disconnected from myself, if that makes sense.”
“Not really.”
He let out a low sigh and closed his eyes again.
“I’ll let you rest. But when you’re ready to try again, let me know so I can monitor your vitals this time.”
“Sure, Doc,” he murmured, sounding half asleep.
She left the room, ducking in to check on Nyah and coaxing her up to the galley, since she’d failed to bring any food down for her like she’d intended.
As she headed up-ship, she tried not to think about what Varean was doing for them, the risk he was taking, and why he was apparently willing to sacrifice himself. But no matter how she tried to push them down and away, the nagging questions hooked themselves into her mind like burrs and refused to dislodge.
Like the commando she’d first met, Varean seemed all set on throwing himself headlong into death, probably thinking it was a misguided way of saving her by saving Rian. Or maybe he thought it was the only way for him, being that he was a hybrid and possibly the only one in the entire universe. Or maybe he was reverting to his training and willing to face death as long as he saw the mission through. Whatever the case, she didn’t intend to sit by and let him die for this cause, no matter how important Rian and Ella were to the crew of the Imojenna.
…
Varean didn’t need a watch to tell him that he’d slept for exactly forty-five minutes. He’d trained his body to combat nap for no longer than half a sleep cycle. Surprisingly, he wasn’t feeling too bad. His head didn’t ache any longer, and he felt more rejuvenated than he’d expected, considering how he’d been after coming out of the last bout of the mind-benders.
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