Tegan buried her head in her hands. Even if she caught Jack and Cobalt, she was dead, or Detrick was. Which means I’m dead, because no way am I letting Phedre’s greasy fingers anywhere near my brother. I should never have let her get them anywhere near me.
Twenty Years Ago
“This is an interesting little ship you have here,” Phedre said as Tegan welcomed her aboard the Spirit. “And such a cute name. Is that how you and your fellows think of yourselves? As Transcendent Spirits?”
Tegan gritted her teeth. She’d put up with a lot of guff from Phedre, but she would be damned before she let someone insult her ship. “It’s what we aspire to be. And if you don’t like the ship, you’re welcome to seek transportation elsewhere.”
“Of course I like the ship! It’s going to help me fulfill my dreams.” Phedre’s voice was as smooth as butter. “You know that’s what Arachne is, right? The answer to every question we’ve ever had.”
She’s trying to distract me. “Look, Phedre. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Us working together, I mean.”
“I’m happy to walk away, if that’s what you really want.” Phedre ran her hand along the Spirit’s bronze hull. “But I don’t think it is. After all, I have the government connections to get you passage to Arachne. You do want to go, don’t you?”
More than anything, but Phedre’s not the answer. Roslyn or Jack or Gavin would help if you just called and asked. Tegan swallowed. But then they would think you need them, but you don’t.
She grunted in acknowledgement. “Come on. I’ll give you a tour.”
Showing Phedre around didn’t take very long. The ship had a few bunks, a privy, a small armory in back, and a cockpit in front. The Spirit didn’t look like much, as Phedre’s wrinkled nose made apparent, but it had been Tegan’s home for over a hundred years. She’d shared it with all of her fellow generation of Transients at one point or another. The ship had so many memories that Tegan couldn’t give it up if she tried.
When they got to the cockpit, she gave Phedre voice authorization access. With her first smile since her arrival, Phedre sank into the pilot’s seat.
“That’s my chair,” Tegan said.
“Not anymore, it’s not.” Phedre’s singsong tone belied the menace Tegan suspected lay beneath her benign expression. “Oh, come now, Tegan. You know I’m a better pilot than you are. I’ve been flying ships for far longer.”
Tegan wanted to take back Phedre’s voice authorization. She wanted to take back the entire arrangement, but she couldn’t because she needed to prove to her fellow Transients that she could do things on her own, and she wasn’t just some ferry they could visit when they needed a ride. She sat down in the copilot’s seat and vowed to do whatever Phedre wanted.
Present Day
When Tegan had the courage to look at her datapad again, she almost laughed. Gavin was going head-to-head with some security guards, which meant he had escaped his cell. She breathed a sigh of relief.
He might win this thing after all. She did laugh that time. Of course he will. He’s got lifetimes of experience to draw on.
As she chuckled, another thought struck her. Jack and Cobalt couldn’t be headed to Bellerophon proper. They would never be allowed on the planet. They must be going somewhere less legit. Somewhere like Eurydice.
“Call Ant,” Tegan said to her datapad. As the device made the connection across the datasphere, she whistled. Things were looking up.
Chapter 31
Twenty Years Ago
Roslyn lay in the same cot in the medical lab where she had spent the past four weeks. Or so they tell me. I can only remember two of them. I spent the first two having delusions. If that is how being sick feels, I never want to contract another disease.
“Can I please get up?” she asked Gavin for what seemed like the millionth time. “I’m better. I swear it. I can sit up. I can eat. I can count to ten in about four hundred different languages. I’m pretty sure I can handle walking across camp.”
Gavin sat on the edge of her bed and ran a thermometer over her forehead. “Your fever’s stayed down.”
“It’s been down for a week. The rash has faded. I’m better. You can’t keep me prisoner here forever.”
He tapped his finger on the thermometer, not looking at her. “You are better, but you still have that cough, and I’m worried about re-exposure.”
“Gavin—”
“I don’t think you realize how much you worried us.” He met her gaze, his brown eyes still full of fear. “You almost died. For a couple of days there, I thought every breath you took was going to be your last. And if you’d died, you wouldn’t have come back.”
Tears welled in her eyes. She understood. Gavin had been terrified for her. Knowing how close she had come to dying forever, she was terrified for herself.
But she still couldn’t take another day in that bed. Exasperated, she let out a breath and ran her hands through her hair. “You can’t keep me locked up here forever because you’re worried for me. You have to let me take risks again.”
Gavin avoided her eyes again. “I know.”
“Good, then I can go.” Roslyn pushed away the sheets covering her.
He grabbed her hand. “I’ll let you go on one condition.”
Roslyn smiled. She had won. “Anything for you.”
“Talk to Jack.”
Her grin fell. “Anything but that.”
“Roslyn…”
She lay back on the cot and turned her back on Gavin. “Can I at least get some better lighting in here? Because if that’s the condition of my leaving, I’m going to be here for the rest of my natural life.”
Gavin sighed. “He’s been driving me—and everyone—insane. He literally would not leave your side the entire time you were sick.”
“I know. I remember the smell.” The first thing Roslyn had done when she was conscious enough to realize a very scruffy Jack was holding her hand was to tell him to get lost. She had heard him outside the medical tent more than a few times, but she refused to see him.
“He cares about you,” Gavin said.
She turned over and glared at him. “Don’t give me that! Jack and I were back together for like two minutes before he cheated on me this time. I’m done with him. I should have been done with him before, but he held Arachne in front of me like a carrot. And like a stupid horse, I fell for it.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I think he and Dr. Carriger were just using each other.”
“It doesn’t.” Roslyn lay flat on her back and stared up at the tent’s off-white ceiling. “If he had to cheat on me, I would like it to have been for something real, you know?”
“I do know.” Gavin’s voice was barely above a whisper.
Roslyn felt heat fill her cheeks. She had never cheated on Gavin, but she had left him high and dry more times than she could count. “Since when are you all Team Jack, anyway?”
“I’m not. But he’s been pestering me for days to let him talk to you. He’s also not doing his job, so Dr. Carriger keeps asking me to ask him to do it. I figure I can get at least one of them off my back if you go talk to him.”
“All right, fine. I’ll talk to Jack. But I’m doing this for you.”
Gavin stood up. “Thank you kindly.”
Roslyn had never considered Arachne a bright place, but when she stepped out of the medical tent for the first time in a month, the light nearly blinded her. As her eyes adjusted, someone called, “Rosie!” and footsteps headed toward her.
She didn’t look at him. There was no point. “Hello, Jack.”
“Rosie! Cronos, you look—”
“Emaciated? Pale? Just generally terrible?” Roslyn had meant to save the bitter sarcasm for later in the conversation. Or maybe I hadn’t. Either way, she realized how she must look to him. Her illness had taken a lot out o
f her, and she didn’t want to think about what her hair must look like. I should have asked Gavin for a brush.
“I was going to say amazing. A million times better than the last time I saw you.” Jack came into focus, and he looked much better than the last time she had seen him too. He had shaved, for one thing, and showered. “How shallow do you think I am?”
Roslyn raised her eyebrows. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
Jack sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Probably not. Look, can we go somewhere and talk?”
The petty part of her wanted to say no. They’d already had enough of a conversation to fulfill her promise to Gavin. She knew, though, that she would have to talk to Jack sooner or later. Which is weird because I don’t think Jack has ever wanted to have a serious conversation about our relationship in all the time I’ve known him.
She followed him back to the tent they had shared with Cobalt before she left for the exploration mission and tried not to wonder if Hannah and Jack had shared it in her absence.
Jack turned to her as soon as the tent flap fell. In the dim light, she could barely make out the contours of his face, but she would still know that outline anywhere. “Rosie, I’m an idiot.”
Roslyn crossed her arms. “You dragged me all the way back here to tell me that? It’s not exactly news.”
“I’m serious. I’ve treated you like shit our entire lives, and I don’t know why you take it. You deserve a million times better than me.” Jack ran his hands over his face and through his hair, leaving it mussed and surprising Roslyn. Though he pretended he didn’t, he cared a great deal about his appearance. Looking closer, she realized he hadn’t shaved in at least a day, and his shirt had some kind of grease stain on it.
Maybe my illness did affect him. Or he’s upset about something else. He’s never let me in before, not really. Why would he change now? “Again, not telling me anything I don’t already know.”
“I wish I could explain. I wish I could say I was afraid of commitment or something, not that that would be an excuse, but it might be a reason. But the truth is, I had forever. We had forever, and I didn’t see the point of settling down when I could have everything.” Her eyes had adjusted to the light, and the look he gave her was the saddest thing she’d ever seen. “But I can’t have everything, can I?”
I will not cry. I will not. “No, you can’t.”
He started tugging at something inside his shirt. “I’ve realized it doesn’t matter, though, because all I want is you.”
The tears she had begged not to come welled in her eyes anyway. “You realize that’s hard for me to believe, right?”
“Right. Right. I know. And that’s why…” He dropped onto one knee and held something out to her. “I’m asking you to marry me, Rosie.”
Tears stopped forming in Roslyn’s eyes as her jaw dropped open. I… What? A million questions popped into her head. Ha. Popping questions. But seriously, where did he get a ring on this deserted rock? Does Cobalt know anything about this? Does Gavin? And most importantly… “Are you insane?”
Jack gave her a half grin, and for the first time that day, he looked like himself. “Maybe. But you knew that.”
Roslyn shook her head, unable to cope with all the thoughts and feelings flooding through it. “Transients don’t get married. Demitrius made that very clear. For us, it’s not ‘till death do us part.’ It’s till permadeath do us part. And you don’t want that.”
“I do. I’m done with all the other girls. I only want you. In this lifetime and in every other one.” He looked up at her, and that time it was his eyes that had tears in the corners. “Don’t you want that too?”
Yes. Oh Cronos, yes. But she couldn’t say it, because she didn’t believe he could change. He was upset about almost losing her, but that feeling would fade, and he would go back to the way he was. Right?
“I don’t know, Jack,” she said. “I—I need to think about it. Can I have a little time?”
Jack stood up and took her hands, closing her grip around the ring, and gave her a light kiss. “Of course. Take all the time you need. I’m not going anywhere. Not ever again.”
Present Day
Roslyn lay in her bed in the psychiatric hospital. She was supposed to get up and join in the day’s activities, but she couldn’t make herself do it. Her head was foggy and numb from the medications.
“You clearly need something stronger than what we’ve been giving you, if you’re still having delusions,” the nice brown-eyed doctor had said. “Don’t worry, Roslyn. We want to help you here.” She looked so understanding that Roslyn wanted to believe her.
But it wasn’t working. The memories—delusions, she corrected herself—were still coming, and she didn’t know how to make them stop.
“Roslyn? Sweetie? It’s time to get up.” Roslyn’s favorite orderly, the kind one with the smooth caramel skin, came in and opened her curtains. “You’ve got art therapy this morning. Don’t you want to finish that lovely painting you started of your dog?”
Snookems isn’t my dog, and it’s not a lovely painting. For someone who knows as much as I do about art history, I can’t draw for crap. That was what the old Roslyn would have said, the one from twenty years ago and the one from before the psychiatric hospital, but she didn’t want to be either of those Roslyns anymore. One of those Roslyns was sick and delusional, and the other wasn’t real. Maybe the good, healthy Roslyn liked painting pictures of dogs.
“Yes, okay.” She got out of bed, ready to face another day.
Chapter 32
Present Day
Jack jumped out of the ship as soon as the gangway descended enough for him to slip through. He took a deep breath, inhaling the cold, stale air of Eurydice, and smiled. He had thought he would never leave Daedalus, and in the course of just a few weeks, he’d been to almost every moon in the system.
Every moon if you don’t count Arachne, which is fair, because only government scientists go there. Once, he had thought his life would be the humdrum existence of a repair shop owner, and he had made it into a constant adventure. Stealing those diamonds was the best decision he had ever made.
Cobalt waited until the gangway descended all the way before walking down it. Jack still didn’t know what was up with his brother. Cobalt was jumpy all the time lately. Jumpy and grumpy, which isn’t nearly as cute as it sounds. He seemed to know the woman who was after them, and Jack thought they knew all the same people. He had hounded his brother for a bit but eventually decided if Cobalt wanted to keep his secrets, he could.
“Let’s go buy some guns!” Jack practically skipped with excitement toward the settlement.
“Do I have to say again that this is a bad idea?” Cobalt followed along, carrying the remaining diamonds in a case.
“I mean, that’s up to you,” Jack said. “Personally, I think that would be a waste of time.”
“This settlement is filled with people who trained as Bellerophon soldiers and munitions experts then chose to go rogue. They’re lawless mercenaries. No sane person deals with them.”
“Wouldn’t it be cool to be a lawless mercenary?” Jack asked. “I wonder if they’re recruiting.”
“Jack!” Cobalt grabbed his brother’s arm and turned him around. “Is this going to be our life from now on? Always on the run from people who want to kill or arrest us? I don’t want that!”
Exasperated, Jack let out a breath. They were back to that again. “What do you want? Our boring old life on Daedalus?”
“Yes! Yes, that is exactly what I want!”
“But, Blue…” Jack trailed off. He almost launched in at his brother about how it was too late for a simple life since they were wanted criminals, but he realized he was being selfish. He had dragged Cobalt along on his theft because he wanted his brother with him—and because he needed Cobalt’s expertise—but he shouldn’t for
ce him into a life he didn’t want. “Okay.”
“Okay, we can go home?”
“Okay, after we buy the guns, you can go home.” Jack could find another partner. Maybe that Roslyn girl wanted a life of adventure. She was a server, but if he didn’t buy the guns, he would have enough money to buy her freedom. “Or maybe we don’t need to—”
Jack broke off when he heard the whirr of a laser rifle behind him. He looked over his shoulder and found that not one but three people had managed to sneak up on him and Cobalt. All three held the largest laser pistols Jack had ever seen. They must have aimed them in perfect sync. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was impressed.
“Did I hear you say you were here to buy guns?” the man in front asked. He had spiky blond hair and a robotic eye that seemed to be trained on both twins at the same time.
Jack gave an easy smile that belied the riotous butterflies in his stomach. “That’s right. Our ship could use some. I’m Jack, and this is Cobalt.”
“His uniform says Blue,” the only woman among the three, a tall, thin brunette with three piercings in her nose, said.
“Yeah, well…” Jack shrugged. “We were hiding out before. Did you want us to use code names?”
“The smart ones do,” the man in back with tattoos covering his bald head muttered.
Jack pulled out every ounce of bravado he had ever mustered to keep his tone nonchalant. “I figured you would do your own version of background checks before selling us anything. Thought I’d save you some trouble.”
“I’ve heard of these guys.” The woman popped something she was chewing. It looked like gum, but it could have been one of those new designer chewing drugs. “They stole diamonds from ZimmerCorp and haven’t been caught yet.”
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