“Take her out!” Mellie ordered.
The guard in front took aim and fired.
“No!” I yelled and jumped in front of Ever. My chest exploded in pain and I stumbled backward into her.
“Kaci!” Ever’s arm encircled my waist and she hit the jump button, transporting us to her ship.
“Ever!” a familiar voice shouted. “Oh, shit! What happened?”
Between gasping for air, I looked around at the familiar bridge of the Nirvana and said, “You’re home.”
I stared into Ever’s golden eyes. She had made it back to her ship and her crew was there. They would take care of her. I closed my eyes knowing she was safe. I could go now. In her arms.
Chapter Sixteen
Everleigh
“NO. NO. NO.” MY HEART pounded violently as I watched Kaci’s blue eyes close. “Kaci. Kaci, wake up. You do not get to do this.” Looking up at Huxley, Zabe, and Briar, I begged, “Help me.”
Despite not seeing them for weeks, and not knowing what was going on, none of them hesitated. They jumped into action like the family they were.
“I’ll get us far from this planet. You guys take care of her,” Zabe said.
I scooped Kaci up and ran to the medical bay with Huxley and Briar right behind me. Carefully, I placed her on the table and pushed the button to scan her. Nero jumped off and Briar gave a quick yelp then she laughed.
“Hey, little guy,” she cooed.
“Briar! Kaci needs help. Nero can wait.” I ripped open Kaci’s shirt. Blood was pouring out of the gunshot wound in her chest. The scan showed the bullet was close to her heart, but hadn’t nicked it. I pushed down on the wound with my hands. Tears poured down my face. “You need to heal. Kaci. Listen to me. You need to heal. I need you.”
The monitors started beeping. “She’s crashing, Ever,” Huxley said.
“Briar, get the shock stick.” I wiped my eyes with the back of my blood-covered hands. “Shock her.”
Briar put the stick directly above her heart and hit the button sending a current through her body. She jerked, but the monitors didn’t stop screaming.
“I need to get the bullet out.” I grabbed a pair of forceps. My hand shook so violently that I wasn’t sure if I could do it.
Huxley put his hand over my shaking one. “You can do this.”
Swallowing back bile, I proceeded to push the forceps into her wound and fish around until I found the bullet. I yanked it out and let it fall to the floor. “Shock her again,” I said as I looked around for a cloth. Briar shocked her and I immediately put the cloth over the wound and put pressure on it. The machines settled down. “I need to close the wound.”
Huxley got the laser wand out of one of the drawers and handed it to me. Placing the tip onto her wound, I moved it around until it was sealed.
It wasn’t pretty, but it didn’t have to be. It just had to be closed enough for her to heal. I wondered if there was anything she couldn’t heal from. Could she come back from this? What would be too much for her nanites to handle?
When I was finished, I stood next to her, staring, willing her to open her eyes. She had jumped in front of me, saved me, taken a bullet for me. Tears slid down my cheeks. Silent ones at first, but before long the sobbing came.
Huxley put his hand on my shoulder. “Ever. Wash up. It’s okay. You can take a minute. She’s stable.”
I walked over to the sink and scrubbed my hands clean, then I splashed water on my face.
“Are you ready to talk?”
“No. Water?”
“Of course.” Huxley strode over to the fridge, got a bottle of water, and handed it to me.
I didn’t take my eyes off of Akacia. I watched as her chest rose and fell. Grabbing a chair, I pulled it over to her bedside and sat down, taking her hand in mine.
Zabe walked in. “How is she?”
“Alive,” Briar answered.
“How are you?” Zabe directed his question to me.
For the first time since we jumped, I took a deep breath and appreciated where we were. I looked at each of them. “Thank you.”
They all smiled, but it was Huxley that said, “You’re welcome.”
“How did you know?” I asked.
“That little device paid off. I attached it to their comms line. We overheard the call Terronda made to Caspar.”
“Nice.”
“A ransom, huh? They were going to give you guys to the highest buyer.” Zabe bent over and studied Nero.
“I know. Would have been Caspar if it hadn’t been for you guys. Tell me what happened after I went to get Kaci.” My eyes traveled around the room, stopping at each of them. All three looked like they hadn’t slept in weeks, but they didn’t look harmed.
“The second we saw him open fire on the Artemis, we fired on him, disabling his ship. He hasn’t been able to go anywhere and his comms were down until two nights ago. We stayed out of reach of his weapons trying to figure out what to do. We contacted Valinor, but they wouldn’t work with us because we turned the Empress over in the first place. So we were on our own. We knew we had to get close enough for the jump device to activate without Caspar detecting us.”
“I still can’t believe he has an anti-cloaking device. I guess I should. I mean, he’s Caspar. Nothing should surprise me.” I shook my head.
“When that call came in, it was the perfect distraction. He wasn’t watching us, he was trying to get the money together. We knew for sure where you’d be. We were able to get close enough. Then we hoped the jump device wasn’t damaged and you still had it,” Briar said.
“Do you know if Caspar…did he kill our families?” I asked.
“We don’t think so, but no way to know for sure. With his comms down, he couldn’t make any calls to order anyone to kill them. And he couldn’t go anywhere. So we’re hoping they’re still alive.” Huxley ran his hand through his silver hair.
Nero jumped up next to Kaci, turned in a circle a few times, and then settled into a comfortable spot.
“Stupid animal,” I said with a sigh, but reached out and petted him anyway.
“So, you two work things out? Can’t help but notice you’re together,” Briar said.
“She hates me for betraying her. Not that I blame her. I’ve been trying to be patient, hoping she’ll come around, and I think…she might be. I don’t know if she can ever really forgive me and…”
“How did she get shot?” Briar asked.
“She saved me.”
“Sounds like she’s forgiven you.”
I ran my thumb over her knuckles. I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how to answer. I wasn’t sure how long it would take her to heal. Standing up, I peeked under the bandage. The wound was still there, raw and nasty looking.
I turned back around, opened my arms, and my family walked into them. Before long I was blubbering like an idiot. I hoped snot wasn’t dripping out of my nose. When we finally broke apart, I dabbed my eyes with my shirt.
“I’m so glad you’re all okay. I thought Caspar had killed you. I thought you were dead.” My voice cracked.
“We’re not. Look. We’re right here,” Huxley stated, grabbing my hands. “We’re all okay.”
“We worried the same thing had happened to you,” Briar said. “But something told us to have hope.”
“I missed you guys,” I said through my tears.
“Alright,” Zabe teased, pulling me into another hug. “Enough crying.” He wiped his own eyes. “I’m going to go check things on the bridge.”
Plopping back down in the chair, I rested my head on the table Kaci was laying on. Exhausted, I must have drifted off. When I woke, I changed the bandage. It looked much better. Not completely healed, but getting there.
“Whoa. Her injury looks almost completely gone,” Briar commented from across the room.
“She heals,” I said.
“What?”
“She has nanites in her. They heal her physical wounds.”
“No shit,” Huxley said,
looking quite impressed.
“Seriously?” Briar’s eyes were wide with amazement. “Nanites?”
Zabe stood in the doorway. “Is she safe?”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“Does she have nanites in her brain? Could they control her?” Zabe asked.
I hadn’t thought of that. “I don’t know.”
“Depends what kind they are or how they’re programmed,” Briar answered. “I could run some tests, but I’d like her permission to do so.”
“I’m just not sure why she hasn’t regained consciousness yet.” It’s not like there was an instruction manual for her. Maybe one existed for nanites, but if it did, I didn’t have it.
“We’ll ask her when she wakes up,” Briar said.
“Why don’t you go shower?” Huxley suggested.
“I’m not leaving her.”
“We would come get you if she wakes.”
“No.”
“How about food. Have you eaten anything yet?”
“No.”
“Will you eat if we bring you some food?” Briar’s quieter voice asked.
Part of me didn’t want to. I wanted to wait for her to wake up and we could eat together. But my stomach rumbled at the mention of food and suddenly I was starving. “Yes.”
Nero ate while I ate, then he went right back to resting next to Kaci. He was very much her pet. I hoped he’d be a good friend to her.
As the hours passed, I began to grow more and more anxious. I stared at her, reliving the day’s events until I saw her eyes flutter. I waited, but said nothing. She took a deep breath and her eyes opened, searched the room, and landed on me.
The corners of her lips curled in a smile. “Ever.” Her voice was hoarse.
“What the hell did you do that for?” I demanded.
“I’ll heal. You won’t.”
“You won’t heal if you’re dead.”
“I’m not dead.”
I choked back tears and nodded. The relief I felt now that she was awake and I knew she’d be okay was overwhelming. My heart swelled and I wanted to tell her everything I was feeling, but I was scared. Scared! Me. I was scared of opening up and letting her in. I was afraid that she would reject me, that she’d always see me as someone who betrayed her, or that she didn’t feel the same way. I was scared for her, too. My life wasn’t a good one. Not in the way she deserved. She deserved more. I was a criminal. Wanted by the Authority. She was an Empress.
It could never be. We could never be.
I swallowed hard, shoving the emotions back down. “Briar wanted to know if she could draw some of your blood and run some tests.”
“Why? The nanites?” Concern flickered in her eyes.
I nodded, unsure of how she’d feel about it.
“Okay,” she agreed, sitting up, and dangling her legs over the side of the bed.
“Zia, call the bridge.”
Briar answered, “How is she?”
“Awake and she’ll let you run the tests.”
“I’ll be right there.”
“What’s going through your mind?” I asked her as we waited.
She chewed on her lip and ran her fingers over the tattoo on her wrist. “If your friends think I’m a freak…”
“I doubt that is what they think of you.”
“Hey,” Briar said, walking in. “Good to see you, Akacia. Are you sure you’re okay with this?”
“Yes.” She held out her arm. “I wouldn’t mind some answers.”
Briar took a small device out of a drawer, pushed Kaci’s shirt out of the way, and placed it on her arm. The device drew her blood and collected it in a small vile. “Done,” she said. “I’ll start the tests.”
“Hungry?” I asked Kaci.
“Yeah.” Looking down, she peeked under the bandage, and then took it off. There was just a small circle-shaped scar left. It would probably be gone in a few hours. “You ripped my shirt.”
“Yeah.” I stood up and grabbed the one Briar had brought in earlier. “Here,” I said, handing it to her.
She looked right into my eyes as she took off her shirt and put on the other one. Standing up, she took a few steps to the door. Looking back, she said, “Are we going to eat or…?”
Nodding, I stood and walked with her to the kitchen.
I dug out everything I could find. Neither of us spoke while we practically inhaled the food. Kaci sat back in her seat and placed her hand on her belly.
“That was the best meal I’ve ever had.”
“It was hardly anything to brag about. We’re just hungry.”
“Do you think I could take a shower?”
My cheeks flushed as I thought about her in the shower. “Of course. I can take you to the room you stayed in before.”
When the door opened, Nero ran in. Akacia stopped after she stepped over the threshold. Her back still to me, she said, “You could shower with me.”
I was sure the blush in my cheeks deepened. I wanted to. Oh, how I wanted to. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t tease her or myself that way when I knew that this was destined to end.
“I can’t,” I said, without further explanation. It took everything in me to turn around and walk away.
Back in my room, I took my own shower, thinking about Kaci the whole time. Dressed in clean clothes, I made my way to the bridge. Huxley had his feet up. Zabe was fiddling with controls. And Briar was looking at maps. They all looked clean and more rested than earlier.
I smiled. I was home.
“Hey, Ever.” Briar crossed the room and wrapped her arms around me. “You smell much better.”
I let out a laugh. “So glad soap was invented. Kaci?”
“Not yet.”
I gave a quick nod. “So where are we? What are we doing?”
“We’re here,” Briar responded, pointing at a spot on the map. “As far as what we’re doing, now that you’re back, you can tell us. Are we bringing Kaci home?”
“Yes. How far are we from Valinor?”
“Two nights.”
“What about killing Caspar?” Kaci asked from behind.
“Killing him?” Huxley looked between her and me.
“It was something we talked about. That neither of us would be free of him until he’s dead. I was sure that he had killed all of you,” I explained.
“He would have, but we damaged his ship.”
“I assume that even if I offered to buy you all from him, he’d refuse,” Kaci said. Nero jumped off her shoulder and onto the table, picking up and looking at the different things lying there.
“He’d never sell us. We’re too important to him,” Zabe replied.
“So how do we do it? How do we kill him?” Kaci inquired.
“You going to get your hands dirty, Empress?” Huxley asked with a raised brow.
All innocence left her face. “After what he did to me, I’d readily dirty them to end his life.”
Chapter Seventeen
Akacia
THE SMILE ON HUXLEY’S FACE disappeared. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
“It’s okay,” I replied. My mind started to wander back to Caspar’s spacecraft, back to being beaten, back to having my head shoved under water. I could feel the panic rising in my chest, but I took deep breaths and said, “I want him dead. And I’d like to be the one who does it.”
“We’d all like him dead,” Zabe said.
“You’re all under Caspar’s thumb, right? Because you’re Splicers?”
“You told her?” Huxley shot Ever a look.
“She didn’t tell me details. She said that was something you’d have to tell me,” I said so they didn’t think she outed them.
“Her father was the head of DRI,” Ever added.
All three of them looked at me. I shrugged. I knew they knew about me and I wanted them to know I didn’t care what they were. “So you guys have animal DNA and I have nanites. We make quite a team.”
“You’re a keeper, Kaci,�
�� Briar said. “A girl who doesn’t care what we are and has some secrets of her own.”
“I didn’t know about any of this prior to Caspar taking me. He thinks I know where my father’s research is, which is why he’ll keep coming after me.”
“And we’ll never be safe.”
“Do you know about your families?” I asked. “Ever was worried Caspar would kill them all because she rescued me.”
“No. We can’t exactly ask him,” Zabe commented.
“And we don’t know where they are so we can’t check for ourselves,” Briar added.
“How do you know he still has them?”
Briar tapped on the screen in front of her and pictures filled the screen. Pictures of thin people with sad or angry looks in their eyes. “Caspar sent us pictures proving that they were alive, being taken care of, whatever.”
“He’d prove food was delivered, but he’d also show us when things went wrong. We’d get pictures of those who had been beaten if we were even late with a delivery,” Huxley shared.
“And you can’t tell where he has them?”
Briar shook her head. “I’ve been trying to figure it out. The only thing I could tell was that they were on a planet.”
“So we need to take down one evil overlord and find a bunch of Splicers that have been put somewhere in the universe.” I looked out the window at the stars. “I need to contact Valinor.”
“Of course,” Ever responded. “Zia, hail them.”
“Hailing Valinor,” Zia’s voice replied.
A few seconds later, Galton, Vika and Bristow appeared on the screen. Galton scowled. “We told you the last time you contacted us, we wanted nothing to do with you.”
I stepped into view. Upon seeing me, Bristow exclaimed, “Kaci! Are you okay? How did you get there? What’s going on?”
Before I could answer his questions, Galton’s expression softened. “Empress!”
“I’m fine. How are you both? How’s Valinor?”
“We’re fine. Valinor is fine,” Bristow replied.
“You’re aboard the Nirvana?” Galton asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you safe?”
I kept my hands by my sides. “Yes, Galton—”
Anger flashed in his eyes. “Empress, these people betrayed you before. They’ll do it again.”
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