by K. Webster
Lox’s brows lift. “You have Haxinth?” The greedy glint in his black eyes sends a shiver of unease skittering down my spine. It takes everything in me not to let my sub-bones crack and pop in warning.
“Only enough for the procedure. But back at the facility, more can be concocted,” I assure him. I am not sure what his interest is in it. Unless he has some need for that as well. Much like his lumbella. Much like Breccan’s sun addiction. I suppose some morts have something they crave, even if it harms them. “What purpose do you have for it?”
He gives me a sheepish smile. “Sometimes I can’t sleep. Haxinth helps me sleep.”
Like a corpse.
I shudder at that thought.
“I see.” I give him a forced smile. “We will make sure Avrell gets you what you need when you arrive. In due time, friend.”
I leave him alone and hurry down the corridor to the room Emery was resting in. I find her sitting on the cot pale and dazed. The raspy wheezing in her chest sends alarm blaring through every nerve ending in my body.
“Lilapetal,” I murmur, striding over to her and taking a knee in front of her. “Look at me.”
She lifts her nog and her dulled blue eyes meet mine. “Hi, my mate.”
My heart warms at her words. I want nothing more than to take her right now. Right here on this cot. But with Lox looming nearby, I do not want to chance it. Besides, she needs this procedure immediately.
“It is time,” I tell her. “But I need to warn you.”
She presses a cold finger to my lips. “I know there are risks.”
“It is not that,” I rumble, darting a quick look over my shoulder. “It is Lox. He is unwell.” I tap my nog. “Here.”
Her lips purse and she nods. “Should we leave?”
“No,” I growl. “This surgery is the difference between life and death for you. I need his assistance to perform it. Just be careful. Be wary.”
I pull her to her feet and kiss her nose. Her blue eyes flicker with unspoken words. She bites on her bottom lip with her blunt, useless teeth, as though she can keep her thoughts hidden away from me. I see them brewing, but I do not have time to coax them from her. Time is of the essence.
“Calix,” Emery hisses.
“What is it, my mate?”
Her eyes become watery. “I…I…” A single tear leaks out and streaks down her pink cheek.
“Shhh,” I murmur. “Do not fear this operation. I will not let anything happen to you.”
She swallows, giving me a pitiful look, but simply nods. Quickly, I rifle through my pack for the Haxinth and pocket the vials. Then, I pull her behind me and down the corridor. Inside the room, I find Lox preparing the table. The lights are bright and as we near the table, I discover it is warm.
“Lox,” I say upon entering. “Can you leave us for a moment while Emery dresses in a gown?”
He gives me a mock salute and hobbles out of the room, closing the door behind him. I pull an old gown from a drawer. It has been protected from dust but still smells a little peculiar. Since she is so weak, I help her undress and then we get the gown on her.
Once I have her settled on the bed, I withdraw the vial of Haxinth from my pocket and show her. “This will make you fall into a deep sleep. You will not feel a thing,” I assure her. “Do you trust me, lilapetal?”
She nods and her eyes grow teary again. Her fingers wrap around my wrist, gripping me tightly despite her overall weakness. “Calix…” Her nose turns pink and she sniffles. “There’s something you should know.”
I pull her grip from my wrist and bring her palm to my chest. “I know, my mate. My heart beats for you as yours does mine. It will continue to beat, in unison, for many revolutions to come. This solar, you will remain by my side. Just like every solar from here on out.”
“Oh, Calix,” she chokes out. “That’s a declaration of love if I’ve ever heard one. I love you too. But…”
I frown at her words. “What is it, Emery?”
“There are things you don’t know about me. Things I need you to know. It’s unfair to you.”
“Go on,” I urge. “Whatever it is, I am sure it is fine.”
She closes her eyes and squeezes out a couple of tears. “That ship…the one we were taken from…”
“Yes?”
“I remember. I know why I was there. I was a prisoner,” she whispers. “I...I wasn’t kidnapped. It was legitimate.” A sob escapes her. “Calix, I’m a criminal. Aria, the others, we’re all criminals.”
I search my knowledge bank for the meaning of her words. “Clarify.”
“I’m not sure what the other girls were there for, but me…I was there because I’m a thief.” She lets out a ragged sigh that has me worrying over her lungs. “I stole valuable items from my employer so I could sell them for money. It was wrong, but my medical bills were piling up. And I needed my medications.” She swipes away her tears. “I was to do fifteen years, er fifteen revolutions, on a prison planet. Behind bars. Like in one of your reform cells.”
It all clicks into place and anger swells up inside me. The sub-bones in my spine crack as I rise to my full, intimidating height. She shrinks away from me, curling into herself on the bed.
“How dare they,” I snarl.
She blinks at me in confusion. “W-What?”
“How dare they imprison you for trying to extend your life? Where was their compassion?” I curl my lip up in disgust. “This planet you aliens came from is despicable. It was written in the stars that you ended up here. Where you are safe from those beasts.”
A crazed giggle erupts from her. “Y-You’re not disgusted with me?”
Leaning forward, I brush away some hair from her face with my claws. “Never. You are the most beautiful and precious thing in this universe. And you are mine.”
We kiss once more and then I regretfully break away from her to call Lox back in. He assists me in attaching many different machines to her to monitor her vitals. I ready a needle with the Haxinth.
“I love you, Calix,” Emery whispers. “Always remember that.”
I hear the finality in her voice. She is not dying this solar.
“I love you, my mate. Sleep now. I will see you soon.”
She nods and I waste no time administering the Haxinth. Her eyes grow heavy and then she is asleep a few moments later.
Lox and I move quickly. He suits up in a protective layer before dragging the table over to where she lies still. Living corpse. I despise that description, but it is fitting. Besides her breathing, she remains unmoving. It reminds me of when she was in the pod sleeping for all those solars before Aria woke her.
“You make the incision when I say,” I instruct Lox. “I will ready the surgical bot.”
His nog bobs wildly. “Yes, Phalix.”
“Calix,” I correct.
He ignores me and I let out a frustrated breath of air. It is a real possibility that I may need to kick him out of the room and do it all by myself. It’s what I prepared for since I didn’t expect him to be here anyway. At the first sign he cannot perform as needed, I will take that action. I will not sacrifice her health.
I sit at the surgical bot machine control panel. The notes my father made were clear and concise. I am able to easily breeze through the workings of it. The arm of the machine groans as it stretches across the room to where my living corpse lies. Through the monitor, I am awarded a close-up view of Emery.
“Draw down the gown. The incision needs to be vertical and between the breasts,” I instruct.
“I remember from last time, Phalix,” Lox grumbles, irritation in his tone.
With my face pressed against the forehead cushion, I watch with utmost clarity through the monitor as he pulls down her gown. A growl of possessiveness rumbles through me no matter how much I try to retain it. Now is not the time to worry about her virtue. Lox is only trying to help. He lifts a carpal knife and it glints under the light.
Rekk, please don’t hurt her.
“Not too deep,” I remind him.
Lox laughs. Dark and maniacal. I wince when he presses the blade into her pale flesh. Crimson swells from the incision. I waste no time and use the handle on the machine to direct the robotic hand toward the incision.
Time passes too quickly, but the constant, steady beating of her heart that echoes from the machine keeps me focused. It takes more incisions on Lox’s part to grant me access to her lungs, but once I’m given entry to the lungs, I’m able to see what it is that plagues my sweet mate.
Her lungs are pink and swollen, but that’s not what has alarm ringing through me. It is the webby nodules clinging to the flesh that has me worried. Once, as we lay in bed one night, Emery explained asthma to me.
This…
This is not what she explained.
This is something I understand. Pathogens. Disease. Foreign masses in the body.
Using the clawed end of the robot hand, I carefully hook one of the gray webs and pull. It flickers opaque as though to hide, and it makes me wonder if this is why they did not show up on the previous scans. The unknown parasite tries to cling to her precious lungs, but with tedious tugs, I’m able to free part of the web, sending a splatter of blood across her gown. Perspiration trickles down my temples as I focus. This is nothing like I have ever seen, which makes me wonder if she picked it up on the vessel she was on in space, or perhaps from her own planet. Slowly, I’m able to pull one of the webbed masses from her lungs and to where Lox can grab it with his tool. He tosses it into a container with a splat, sending more blood splattering on him and the floor. Normally, I would be going insane with the mess, but not now. Now, I am solely focused on getting these things out of her body.
One down, only approximately forty or fifty more to go.
I don’t have time to analyze what these things are, only that I want them gone.
“It moves,” Lox tells me, a slight tremor to his voice. “Slowly, but it is rekking moving.”
“Keep a lid on it,” I instruct.
Hours and hours pass.
My head pounds, my hand is cramped, and my own lungs are on fire from holding my breath so much. Eventually, I pull the last one free.
“Microbots,” I bark out to Lox. They’re programmed to heal abrasions, and there are many from where those parasites had leeched onto her. “Now that those masses are gone, I think they’ll work.”
He begins work using the microbots while I step away from the robotic machine and stretch my back. I make sure the lid is tightly secured on the container holding the parasites that I will study later, and I move it to a table along the wall. He finishes his work and then I take over the delicate task of closing her up. As I’m stitching her, Lox drops his tool and it clatters to the floor, splattering more of her blood. When our eyes meet, his pupils are tiny. The whites of his eyes have nearly taken over, giving him an eerie look about him.
“You’re dead,” he hisses, taking a step away from us.
I drop my gaze back down to Emery as I continue my stitching. “You need a break, Lox. Take a walk.”
“No,” Lox barks. “No!”
Panic shoots through me, but I attempt to stay calm. I cannot have him losing his ever rekking mind right now. “Lox,” I say slowly. “Why don’t you get into my pack and help yourself to some rations?”
He grabs at his unruly white and black locks and tugs. “I sent you to The Eternals. Why are you still here?”
I snap my nog up to glare at him. “What?”
“When you found out I had been using the Haxinth, you told me I couldn’t have it anymore. You said you’d put me in a reform cell. To let me detox,” he snarls, fury making the sub-bones in his spine snap as he takes a threatening stance. “I needed it. You wanted to take away what I needed.”
My blood runs cold as realization rushes through me. Lox. It was Lox. He killed my father and left him to get picked over by predators. It wasn’t the elements or illness or a wild beast. It was him. A friend.
“Lox, I am Calix.”
He shakes his nog and then tugs his hair in a crazed way once more. I quickly tie off the last stitch and set to wrapping Emery in a medical cloth. Hopefully the microbots will do their job on her external wound because I am afraid I do not have time to monitor them. As soon as I drag the gown back over her bare breasts, I rise to my feet.
“You killed my father?” I growl.
He snarls at me, his claws bared and his eyes manic. “I bashed his skull in with a rock and fed him to a sabrevipe.”
Violent fury explodes through me and I pounce on him, sending several zutametal tools clattering to the floor. Emery’s bloody gauze from the procedure litters the space. The rekking mort is strong for his old age and manages to punch me in my side hard enough I lose my breath. His claws swipe the air above my face, but I shove at his chest just in time. My fist cracks against his nog, sending it whipping to the side. Before I can manage another swing, he rolls off me and is on his feet in the next instant.
And then he runs.
I check on my sweet mate, and the moment I feel sure she will be okay, I snatch up a carpal knife, still wet with Emery’s blood, and charge after the monster who killed my father.
He will not rekking get away with this.
13
Emery
Sweet, fresh air.
The lack of stones pressing in on my chest.
It’s the relief that brings me swimming up from unconsciousness.
I’m unable to move, but I can breathe, so I don’t panic. I know Calix must be near and it doesn’t hurt, so I let myself swim in the floaty sensation that must be the medication Calix administered.
Calix.
I’d been so worried about my past, so afraid to tell him about the worst parts of me, and he didn’t even care. He’d brushed away my fears without a second thought. It was as though he looked into my soul and saw me, the real me, and accepted me, faults and past and all.
I sigh, taking in a deep, long breath of that sweet, fresh air, and imagine Calix’s face. With my past and sickness behind us, we can have the future I imagined. Somehow, we’ll figure out a way to get back to the others. We made it through the storm once, we can do it again.
The cell is small. Cold. Lonely. I’m shaking and there isn’t any room to pace or lie down. Is this my future? Will I spend the next fifteen years standing in a tiny cell starving to death?
As if on cue, my stomach grumbles loudly.
It’s been days since I’ve last eaten. I’m going insane here. Kneeling, I run my fingers along the bottom of the door where a tiny draft of air swooshes in. I drink from it as though it’s actual water. But I’m left empty and parched.
Something glimmers, barely sticking inside beneath the door. Leaning forward, I run my tongue along it.
Water.
God, I am so thirsty.
I slurp up the foul tasting, and awfully thick water, and swallow it down. My stupid lungs choose this moment to fail me, sending me into a coughing fit that has me nearly throwing up the precious drink of filthy water. I manage to keep it down, barely.
What feels like hours or days later, the door finally opens. My captors haul me to my feet and all but carry me to a warm room. Hundreds of tubes are lined along the walls. I’m escorted to one rather roughly. I’m too weak to fight them.
I am pushed into the surprisingly warm and soft standing tube. As they attach tubes to me—tubes that I hope desperately will nourish me—I find myself relaxing. If I have to spend the next fifteen years being punished, I hope it is here, in this tube.
Moments later, something cool slides into my vein and immediately has sleep overtaking me.
I come to, pushing away my bad memories, and remember where I truly am. At Sector 1779. With Calix. In small increments, the sensation and movement seeps back into my muscles. I can see why Avrell cautioned about the Haxinth. The lack of control is debilitating, but it reminds me somewhat of the paralyzing toxica I’m subjected to when we m
ate, so it doesn’t make me panic. It only reminds me of Calix, which is soothing, but I’d rather see him, touch him. Reality, I’ve learned, it so much better than dreams.
But where is he?
It’s awfully quiet.
I take in the gradual return of feeling starting with my toes. I flex and relax them until I can wiggle them all. Then, I do the same with both feet until movement is back up to my calves. I continue flexing and relaxing all the muscles in my legs. It occurs to me I should worry about feeling returning to the operation site, but the medication has me so tranquil, I resolve to deal with that as it comes. Finally, I can move my hands and arms, then my mouth. Last, my eyes flutter open.
Everything is blurry at first and it takes a minute for my vision to adjust to the brightness from the lamps shining down on the bed. A finger of disquiet traces down my spine, but I’m not sure why at first. I attribute it to coming down from the drugs and the after effects of the surgery.
With a hand, I probe where I estimate the wound in my chest should be. How long has it been since they put me under? Days? Weeks? Certainly not months. Recovery, I imagine, would take a while, but the Morts, even here at the outdated satellite post, have incredibly sophisticated tools. My fingers find the puckered edges of a freshly healed scar through some gauze. Once I assure myself I’m not in any danger of aggravating the wound, I push myself to a sitting position and look around, eager to find Calix.
But the room is empty.
Save for the medical equipment and the table on which I’m sitting, there’s nothing else.
The sense of unease increases. Prior to the surgery, it would have sent me into a fit of epic proportions, ending with me passing out, but now, I only begin to breathe more heavily.