She left, sweeping her tray up with a flourish that rattled her half-empty juice box.
Major Dar’Tan struggled to his feet, catching up before she made it halfway down the ramp. “Melin, wait.”
She turned, half-heartedly. He reached for her shoulder, and she twisted to avoid the contact. His hand dropped to his side, and he groaned before composing himself.
“Please.” His voice was low, half pleading, half persuasion. “Give us a moment of your time.” His voice dropped lower, “We are losing here unless we dissolve into direct conflict again. At this moment, I’m willing to try just about anything but outright aggression. I’d throw in a half-trained monkey if I thought it would do something.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Melin repeated flatly. “Still retired.”
“Think on it.”
She continued down the ramp and he stayed behind. When she was on the empty first floor, nearly to the door, he called, “Why did you come here, Sera?”
Melin paused, resting her bad hand on the smooth concrete of a wall. She didn’t turn around. “A fresh start. Not this.”
Chapter Nine
The cell smelled of death and excrement.
A part of Melin wanted to go back to the old version of these dreams—where she was an incorporeal body—because the added sense of smell reminded her how grateful she was for modern sanitation services. Although in her experience, all prisons had that unique smell of fear and piss no amount of cleaning solvents erased.
This dream was new.
This prison cell was rough stone and dark save for torchlight coming from outside the door’s barred window.
A girl sat in the corner, arms wrapped about her knees, face tucked. Every so often a shiver rattled her thin body, shaking the red hair that tumbled in riotous tangles about her and pooled into a dirty pile on the floor. She wore rough trousers and a tunic that might have been blue at one point but now veered toward brown. Both items of clothing were ones Melin had only seen in her dreams—they were archaic, weird, and strangely right.
Melin had tried leaving the room, but she was as trapped as the girl.
She snapped her fingers. No sound.
She yelled.
Nothing.
Dammit. She hated these dreams.
The girl didn’t move, not even when Melin tried to thump her on the shoulder, hand passing through Mari’s body. They both shivered for different reasons. Melin stepped away, shoulders slumped. Back to being a ghost.
Hours—it seemed like hours but could have been minutes—passed.
Nothing happened.
Melin yawned and pinched herself. Nothing.
She closed her eyes and slapped her face.
The impact zone tingled like both cheek and hand had fallen asleep. It was the most sensation since her arrival, close to real pain.
Tentatively, she opened her eyes.
Stone walls greeted her.
Still here.
Fuck.
Melin stared up at the tiny slit on the wall too small for even a baby to slip through, much less an adult, but with bars spaced a handsbreadth apart, nevertheless. A weak ray of sunshine slipped through, the only light in the room.
The door was as unpromising as the window.
Footsteps echoed down the hallway. Melin perked up, glad something was finally happening, but a slit at the bottom of the door opened, and a bowl slid into the room.
The girl lifted her head—had she been sleeping?—and scrambled toward it, using her fingers to shovel the food into her mouth with abandon.
Under the grime, her skin was pale and her features delicate, her eyes hidden by long, black-gold lashes. Melin was fascinated—she looked like a doll. A grimy doll with a nasty bruise on her cheek and a split lip, but a doll, nonetheless.
Recognition hit. It was Mari, although she looked much different than the fierce woman Melin was used to seeing.
Mari finished eating and crept into her corner, holding the bowl limply in her hands. She ducked her head, curls falling over her face as her shoulders heaved. The half-eaten contents wobbled gelatinously. Another sob, and the bowl slipped from her fingers with a crack. Cold stew smeared across the floor but the girl made no effort to pick it up. Instead, she covered her face with her hands and sobbed silently. She didn’t seem to notice her fingers were transferring her meal to her face.
There was nothing of the defiant regal lady in this sobbing creature.
More time passed, the cell moving from bright to dark and dull bright again. Melin counted to a thousand and down and up again. After twenty repetitions, she started pacing around the room, occasionally smacking herself, attempting to wake up. Finally, she flopped into a corner of the cell. Dreams were supposed to be exciting.
The girl didn’t move from her corner.
She only broke from her tight ball to use Melin’s corner as a bathroom. Melin scrambled out of the way and averted her eyes each time, but it was like she didn’t even exist. She ended up choosing another corner.
Footsteps down the hall again.
They paused outside the door. Keys jangled instead of the food slot.
Both Melin and the girl gawked.
The girl crouched as the bolts were drawn back.
The door eased ajar.
When it was halfway open, the girl attacked.
One of the guards smacked her down with a burly arm, hauled her to her feet, and flung her outside the cell. Melin hurried after, slipping into the hallway to avoid getting trapped in the cell. She cursed at the stupid inconsistent dream-ghost rules that didn’t let her do anything useful, like pass through walls or haunt shit.
Two guards in archaic brown tunics and dirty red pants loomed over Mari, one bending to either punch her or restrain her. Both ignored Melin completely. A man stood before Mari, hands on his hips and lips pursed in disgust.
Melin jumped.
It was the scarred man, although he lacked some scars and still had both arms. He wore the same uniform as the guards, but with two sliver stripes on the cuffs and a black cloak. He only carried one sword, the curved blade called Nevermore.
He bent in one smooth motion and pulled Mari to her feet, squeezing a tendon in her shoulder that made her gasp in pain when she fought him. She stopped struggling and stared up at him with a haughtiness that could have cleared the slime off the walls. There was no recognition in her face. The man squeezed her arm, and a low hiss escaped her throat.
He laughed. “Get back to work,” he said, addressing the guards although he held Mari’s gaze. “I can handle this shrimp.” When neither guard moved, he looked up. His eyes widened a fraction as he spotted Melin behind them, but he recovered and snapped, “Did I stutter? Go.”
“Yes, sir,” the guards chorused and practically ran down the hall.
The scarred man hauled Mari in the opposite direction.
They turned a corner, entering a hallway where the cell doors were bars instead of wooden doors, clearly showing the cells’ occupants. At the sight of Mari and the scarred man, the prisoners rushed to the bars, jeering and spitting.
The spittle only hit the scarred man. His lips thinned into a line, but he didn’t stop.
Melin realized the prisoners weren’t jeering at Mari—but the guard.
A particularly viscous blob hit the scarred man’s cheek and slid down. He grunted and moved faster.
They reached the end of the cells and made it to the bottom of a stairwell. The guards stationed there saluted the scarred man, eyed Mari with curiosity, and let them go without question.
The man kept a firm grip on Mari’s arm, dragging her up the stairs. Mari went compliantly until they cleared the stairwell. They were halfway down a dimly lit hallway when she dug her heels into the ground, sagging until her bottom hit the floor. The man pulled her upright, and she punched him in the nose.
He growled and dragged her toward an open doorway, pressing himself against the wall, the girl against him. He held her in
place with one arm, the other pressed against her mouth to smother her cries of outrage.
“We don’t have time for this,” he hissed. He stared straight at Melin as he spoke, eyes boring into hers.
Then he winced.
Mari had bitten his hand.
She slammed her head backward, but he dodged and held her tightly. “Shh. Someone’s coming.” Mari struggled harder, eyes wide in panic, and he groaned. “Dammit, Highness, this is a rescue.”
Mari shook her head, muffled words coming from beneath his hand. Tentatively, he released his hold, and the girl twisted to face him. “A rescue?” she whispered, outraged. “Who are you?”
“Introductions later.” He motioned for her to be quiet, and they waited, barely breathing as someone walked down the hallway. When the footsteps were gone, the scarred man pushed them off the wall. “Come on.” He grabbed her arm again and moved out of the room and down the hallway. Mari shook off his hand, but followed close, her face suspicious and angry.
The man turned and glared at Melin. “Go away,” he mouthed.
*
Melin woke curled on her right side on the cot, her left arm cradled on her stomach. She sat up, her hand going for a weapon that wasn’t there, and faced the intruder.
Trudi had opened the door to the quartermaster’s office and stood at the door’s threshold. “Quiet night?”
Melin yawned. “Not so much as a mouse.”
She’d been sleeping in the quartermaster’s office for the past several weeks, ever since the inventory numbers had been off and Trudi hadn’t been able to discover the reason. When Trudi mentioned sleeping in the warehouse since the cameras didn’t work when tech as down, Melin had offered to take her place—and it had stuck. She was more than happy to get away from the devolving situation in the Yellow House anyway.
“Good. Get yourself cleaned up, and I’ll see you in an hour. You don’t look like you slept too well.”
“I didn’t. Weird dreams.”
Trudi frowned but didn’t press. Instead, she changed gears. “You know what, you haven’t had a day off since you’ve been here, have you?”
Melin counted backward. She had been on planet for over a month. “No.”
Trudi grinned. “Good. I’ll see you tomorrow. Take the day off.”
“And do…what, exactly?”
“You’ll figure it out.” There was something else in Trudi’s voice, but Melin decided not to pursue it. Trudi was Trudi. Some days were better than others, and they didn’t talk feelings.
The sunlight dazzled when she left the embassy building for the first time in days. She stood and admired the sky, eyes watering as they adjusted to the brightness.
It was a breathtakingly beautiful day, one that she could spend doing whatever she wanted.
She had no idea what she’d do.
First came PT. Maybe she’d go for a twenty-kilometer run on one of the runners in the gym since the tech was up. Then a shower. Then change clothes.
After that…she stared about her.
The rose-colored walls blocked off the view of everything. She hadn’t seen the city since she’d arrived onplanet. She hadn’t seen the sea. The only reason she knew it still existed was the salty dead-fish scent permeating the compound when the wind blew from the south. She hadn’t touched the walls since the first night even though something about them called to her, inviting her to sink her hands in stone and fall forever.
Both housemates were gone by the time Melin walked into the Yellow House after a long detour through the gardens. The doors to their bedrooms were flung open and sunlight poured through the windows, spilling into the hallway.
Melin’s door was closed just as she’d left it the day before during her clandestine shower and change of clothes—a visit carefully calculated to coincide when both housemates were at their assigned workstations.
She’d had to change the locks on her door after she’d found her things strewn about the room one morning after returning from a night shift at the quartermasters. Nothing appeared to be missing, so she didn’t report it to the guard post but had borrowed a spare lock from Trudi. All sources pointed to Izzie or Accalia, but she wasn’t certain and didn’t want to make more of a fuss.
It wasn’t like she had any possessions she was terribly adamant about, although she had secretly hoped whoever had ransacked her room made off with her old Fleet uniform. No such luck. The blasted thing was still balled up in the same corner where she’d thrown it after the first night.
She changed into PT gear and spent an hour running in the near-deserted gym, followed by regular calisthenics. She managed two complete pull-ups—hardly a fraction of how many she used to be able do—but her cardio was nearly back to full strength.
The skin of her left arm was firming up, calluses growing on the baby skin palm. It still hurt and ached, and the bones felt soft, but each day she grew stronger. She hadn’t had a coughing fit in weeks.
She was finally healing.
She wasn’t completely healed or better—she’d never be what she was—but she felt lighter than she had in months. Years.
Working with Trudi had brought a peace she hadn’t imagined she’d find. It was almost enough to ignore the ache in the corner of her chest that wanted more.
She wrapped up her workout and hit the showers, keeping her head down and avoiding everyone. The stares she had recently earned while running on the treadmill during peak gym hours had made her move her training to random hours of the night. The gym connected to the embassy through an underground tunnel, so there were no worries about breaking curfew, and she only went when tech was up.
Her shower was shortened when the tech went down, and the hot water cut off. Grumbling, she changed into a clean uniform and headed outside.
Today, the walls called to her.
She wanted to see the rest of the world.
Guards toured the wall top, so she headed toward one of the nearest turrets. A guard stood outside one of the doors, smoking a cig. Corporal Hoang straightened hastily upon seeing her, tossing the butt onto the ground and grinding it flat with his heel. “I haven’t seen you in a while, Sergeant.”
“It’s just Melin.” She smiled back. “They’ve kept me busy.” She pointed up toward the stairs. “May I?”
He shook his head, looking rueful. “No civs allowed up top.”
“Come on,” she wheedled. “I haven’t seen the sea in a month. I’m getting claustrophobic.” He didn’t budge. “I won’t be a liability. You’ll never even know I was up there. Plus, I bet I can fire a rifle better than any of your soldiers up there.”
He grinned. “I bet you can.” He paused, then threw up his hands. “Okay, fine. You can come up, but if anything happens, promise you’ll head down right away.”
Melin raced inside the turret and practically flew up the stairs. She paused at the top, waiting for the corporal to catch up to her. He shook his head, panting as he let her outside. Two other guards were roaming this side of the wall, their helmets and flak jackets looking toasty in the hot sun. They spared her a glance before turning their attention to the outside.
Melin’s breath caught.
The bay glittered in the sunlight, more intensely blue than she had ever seen. She leaned against the wall and stared at the water, at the waves lapping against the rocks at the base of the island. A light breeze teased her hair out of its tail, ruffling it about her cheeks.
She could never grow tired of watching the water. Wave after wave rolled along the bay, to coil up and grow white at the tips before coming to ground on the rocks of the island with a whoosh. Her home planet hadn’t had large bodies of water. The first oceans she had seen were on Tantatoor, but those were green and glass-calm, nothing like this. Outside of the bay, the waves were wild, crazy, and hell bent on destroying everything in their path.
Several ships drifted across the harbor, bouncing up and down as they breached the breakers. Melin gripped the solid stone wall, awed by the vessels
’ ability to make it out without capsizing. The bouncing settled, but the masts with their bright sails lurched back and forth as the ships set off for their destinations.
She had a wild desire to be on one of those boats.
Sailing into the unknown.
“I’d wondered where I’d find you.”
Melin jumped. At some point Major Dar’Tan had joined her, leaning against a rough stone battlement like he didn’t have a care in the world. He grinned, still facing the sea. A breeze ruffled his hair and the lapels of his gray suit.
“You were looking for me.”
“I was hoping you had reconsidered my offer,” he said. “After a month of being confined to the basement, never seeing the light of day. You’re practically a vampire.”
“Which offer?” Melin asked. “You’ve made so many.”
“The one where you work directly for me. It involves more sunlight.”
“You haven’t proposed that yet. Besides, I’m not sure I like your rationale,” she replied, determinedly staring at the waves. They had yet to make eye contact.
“Do you want to go out into the city?” he asked, changing the subject abruptly.
“Of course I do. I want—” She cut herself off.
Answers was not the right explanation to this man. He wouldn’t understand. She didn’t understand what answers she wanted. Her dreams? Had they ever taken place, or were they some figment of her imagination, an anomaly caused by the trauma of her implant removal and subsequent self-soothing of her brain? For that matter, was any of this real, or was she still in cryo-sleep?
Melin pinched her left arm, relishing in the pain the sensation caused. When she was in cryo-sleep, there had been no pain. Even in her recent dreams, she’d never felt pain, save for light tingling. Come to think of it, there hadn’t been any smells in her cryo-sleep dreams either. She wrinkled her nose as a particularly fishy scent drifted along and tried to ignore her recent dreams contained smell. Maybe everything was false, and her brain was working overtime. Maybe she was still in cryo. She pinched herself again.
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