9
My night vision was fading with the predawn light, and so was Tide. The guys hadn’t shown up on the horizon. Hell, they wouldn’t know where to look even if they did come back. There was only one option. I had to get to them. Tide was knocked out, but his breathing was even. I needed to wake him, but first I needed to find the compass. It was tucked in his pack. There it was. Okay, got it. In my pocket now. North, he’d said.
Okay. “We can do this. Tide, wake up.”
Wait … He was completely still beneath the thermo-blanket, and there was no sound of him breathing. I ripped the blanket off him. “Tide!” I grabbed him and pulled him down flat onto the ground. “Come on, stay with me.”
CPR classes felt like light years away, but I tilted his head and gave him mouth to mouth in between chest compressions. Please let his heart be in the same place as a human’s.
Please, please, do not die. My eyes pricked and grew hot. Not again. Not another one. Please.
He sucked in a sharp breath.
Oh, God. Oh, thank God. His pulse was weak and fluttery. “Tide!”
He groaned.
I slapped him.
He opened an eye. “Ouch.”
My laugh was part sob. “Fucking hell, you scared the shit out of me.”
“Trying to die quietly here.”
Had he just made a joke? At a time like this? “Help me get you up. We’re leaving.”
“I can’t. My limbs are too weak.”
“Then I’ll carry you.”
“Rogue, you can’t.”
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.”
The blanket would make a sling. Grunting and groaning, I wrapped it around his back and under his butt. “Come on, crouch for me.”
He obliged, moaning in pain as he raised his frame. I braced my back to his chest and then looped the ends of the blanket over my shoulder and under my arms before tying them at my waist.
His weight settled against me. “Hold on, best you can.”
He was a head taller than me, weighed fuck knows how much, and we were going to have to climb down a fucking rock face again. My body ached, my brain felt fuzzy, but there was no other choice.
I backed out of the cave with his weight on my back, swung my legs over the ledge, and began the descent.
* * *
We hit the ground hard. I lost my balance and fell backwards onto Tide. He cushioned me with a grunt.
“Sorry.” Oh, shit, shit, shit.
He groaned softly. He was slipping into unconsciousness again. I rolled onto all fours with him dangling on my back and then used the wall to pull myself up, eyes filling with tears at the strain.
He was heavier now that he was unconscious. A dead weight but not dead. I wouldn’t … Couldn’t let that happen. He was a stickler for protocol, a stick up the butt as we would have called him back home in England, but he played a mean game of chase the lady, and when he relaxed and talked of Athion, there was no denying how attractive he was. He’d been forced to grow up fast and raise his siblings. He’d put his dreams on hold for those he cared about.
He deserved to live.
But how far would I get with him?
Far enough for the guys to find me? The predawn was turning to full dawn, and the world was brightening rapidly, and that would mean heat too.
Move, Rogue. Keep moving. One foot in front of the other, stagger, stumble, do not fucking fall. One foot at a time. Tide was silent, but his erratic heartbeat fluttered against my back, and his breath puffed out to caress my cheek.
Alive.
I could do this.
I could.
Minutes crawled—every one an eternity—and then the heat started to intensify. It beat down on my head, insistent and unyielding. Sweat pooled beneath my clothes. The thermo-blanket was a furnace against my back. Shit, it would roast Tide. I had to move faster. Faster.
Was I going faster?
A sharp pain bit into my heel. I looked down to see something scuttle away. A big bug.
Burning up my leg.
No. No fucking way.
Faster.
My leg gave way, and my knee hit the ground.
No, no. No. Fucking insect.
I braced my hand on the ground and exerted force trying to get back on my feet, but I was done. Tapped out. Tears blurred my vision. So fucking unfair.
“There! Over there!”
My head whipped up to see three figures rushing toward me, and then the world tilted and went dark.
10
VEX
The med bay is filled with bodies. Tide and Rogue lie side by side on two gurneys, both unconscious, while Xavier and I watch Lore work. Although all he’s done so far is look at blood samples.
My gums hurt from clenching my teeth and biting back words to spur him on, but I lose my battle. “Do something. Fix her.” I stare at the woman who has my heart. Pale and listless, lips tinged blue. She’s slipping away, and the knowledge is a visceral tug on my soul. “Lore.”
The Athion moves about the med lab gathering equipment, but he’s too slow. Why is he so slow? My chest rumbles in a warning growl, and Xavier shoots me a calm-down look. I bare my teeth at him, wishing this were the arena. In the arena, I was in control, and if this were the arena and Rogue was in trouble, I’d be able to help her. But this is a medical lab, this is the outside world, and it’s been so long since I lived in it that everything is new and strange.
Death, however, is all too familiar, and it hovers over the woman I love.
“Can you save her?” Xavier asks Lore.
But Lore is moving to Tide first; he’s administering to Tide while Rogue lies dying. After everything she did for Tide? For us? He’d put his Athion commander first?
“Lore? What about Rogue?” Xavier sounds panicked now, but it’s no consolation.
“Rogue can wait,” Lore says tightly. He injects Tide with whatever concoction he’s cooked up.
Xavier sucks in a breath. “Shit, she’s not breathing. She’s not fucking breathing, Lore.”
Not breathing.
Dying.
No.
Not again.
The dangerous red haze that I’ve kept under control for so long rears its head, exerting pressure in my brain. And then the world bleeds red.
XAVIER
I didn’t think a Trad could move so fast, but this one is in half-shift mode, tail ripped through pants and sweeping the floor, face ridged with scales as he lunges for Lore.
My body ceases up, frozen, motionless, stunned by the sudden attack but on some level expecting it, but then Lore hits the ground clutching his face, and the paralysis breaks, because Lore is like a brother to me, and no one hurts him on my watch.
Vex is big and powerful, with a decade of fighting experience under his belt, but I’ve taken down bigger in the field. My lighter body mass is deceiving, and I’ve used this to my advantage against opponents on several occasions. I move whip-fast and grab Vex from behind in a grip that should be unrelenting, but that damn tail smashes into me, propelling me back into a tray of implements and on my ass.
“Fuck!” Vex has gone insane. “Stop. Do you want her to die?”
The Trad pauses, fist pulled back, ready to lay another blow on Lore.
Lore, the nerd, the brain. Not a fighter, although he can defend if he wants to, but right now, he’s stunned and staring at Vex dumbly.
“Back off, Vex.” I stand, hands splayed. “Back off and get the fuck out. Lore’s the only one that can save her. You hurt him, she dies. Get it. And if she dies, it’s on you.”
The Trad stumbles back, his face a picture of torment as he stares at Rogue, and then he barrels out of the room.
Lore stares at me from the floor, and anger surges up my throat. What the fuck is he doing? Why the fuck is he just sitting there?
“Fix her. Fix them both, or I swear, Lore, it’ll be my fist in your face next.”
He opens his mouth to speak, but I’m already
turning away. Fuck this helplessness. Fuck my lack of science knowledge. Kicking ass won’t save her now. Only medical intervention can. I take a heaving breath, and then haul my friend off the floor.
“Tell me what I can do to help?”
11
“Oh, crap, my head.” I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling.
Ceiling?
Tide? The fucking bug that bit me and then the figures running towards me. The guys had found me. I sat up and then yelped as pain lanced through my head.
“Shit, Rogue, lie back down.” Xavier appeared at my side, his familiar sweet scent washing over me. The bed depressed as he scooted on beside me. “You’re safe now.”
“Tide?” I scanned his face for the bad news, and his expression clouded then became stern.
“He’s alive, thanks to you. Lore managed to detox him, and he’s recovering in the med bay under surveillance. That was some nasty poison in the claws of whatever sliced him. But Lore managed to concoct a detox cocktail with the meds we have here.”
I lay back against his shoulder. “What bit me?”
He shrugged. “We have no idea. But it was venomous.” His grip on me tightened. “You’re lucky the anti-venom we had here worked or …” His voice cracked. “Tide said you carried him up a rock face?”
I nodded. “He was hurt.”
“So, then you must have carried him down it again.”
“Yes.”
He peered down at me in wonder. “You saved his life, Rogue. You’re … I can’t even begin to tell you how much that means.”
“I wasn’t leaving him to die, Xavier. That isn’t who I am. That isn’t what teammates do.”
He opened and then closed his mouth firmly. “Get some sleep. I’ll be back in a little while with some food.” He kissed the top of my head and then slipped off the bed and out of the room.
I lay back and stared at the ceiling, but the lethargy was gone from my body, burned away by the anti-venom. I swung my legs off the bed, and the world tilted. One moment … There, all good. It was a nice room, clean and sparse. Bed, dresser, door to what must be a washroom, but a shower could wait.
I pulled on my boots.
I’d never been one to play the invalid.
* * *
I opened the door as another wave of dizziness hit me, and Vex’s chest met my face. He smelled fresh and totally him. I gripped his shirt and inhaled. He grasped my shoulders to steady me, and then hauled me up into his arms and carried me straight back into the room.
I peered up at his chiseled profile. He needed a shave, but it looked good on him. “Are you really going to go all I am man, you are woman on me?”
“You can barely stand, Rogue. You need to rest.”
He was right. The world refused to stay stationary when I tried the upright position. “Fine. But only until the dizziness fades.”
He pulled the covers up around me and then perched on the edge of the mattress. His hair was damp at the ends, his amethyst eyes bloodshot, and the clothes he was wearing looked new. The T-shirt was also probably a size too small. It hugged him like a second skin so he may as well have been naked. Shit, I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
“Rogue?” His voice was husky.
I tore my attention from his abs and back to his face. “What’s it like out there?”
“Seriously? You want to talk about the layout of the station. You almost died out there.”
“But I didn’t. None of us did. My plan worked.”
“And if we hadn’t found you?”
“Then at least you guys would have lived.”
He framed my face with his hands. “Rogue, you’re strong. You’re fucking amazing, but you don’t have to be the savior all the time.”
“It was logic, Vex. I did what was logical at the time.”
“You risked your life for us. You saved Tide, and you could have died doing it.” He ran his thumbs across my cheekbones. “I can’t lose you too.”
Too? I searched his face.
He took a shuddering breath. “I had a wife once. A daughter. A family. When the virus swept across my region of Tradacyh and they got sick, I went crazy. They were offering experimental treatment but only to those who could pay. Obviously, no one knew there was no cure. No one knew that no matter how many credits they threw at these facilities, they’d still lose their loved ones. If I’d known, I may have spent those final hours with them instead of buying an illegal firearm, putting them into my hovercar, and forcing entry into the nearest medical facility offering treatment. I held the doctors hostage, demanding that they treat my family. The enforcers came, and they took me down. They locked me up for three nights, and when I returned, my wife and child were dead.”
“Oh, God. Vex …”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Wait. Just … You don’t know what I did.” There was deep-rooted torment in his voice.
“Tell me?”
He swallowed hard. “I burned the facility to the ground. I burned it not caring that there were people inside. Hundreds lost their lives, but I didn’t care because my loved ones were dead. I didn’t care.” He took a deep breath and exhaled. “When I finally surfaced from the grief, the guilt was crushing, like a rock on my chest. I couldn’t absolve myself, and why should I? I’d killed innocent people. I abandoned myself to the pits because I deserved it, but then I saw you and everything changed. For the first time since that awful night when I’d lost everything, I wanted to live again, to know you. And now … I can’t lose you, Rogue, because I’m not sure what atrocity I might commit if I do.”
His words hovered between us like a thick mist, and the way he looked at me now, wary and resolute all at the same time, as if preparing for rejection … Like hell would I reject him. He’d done an awful thing, but he’d paid the price with ten years of his life. Ten years of guilt and remorse and loneliness. Ten years of being a puppet. There was nothing more he could do to erase the past. His punishment was to live with it.
He was still framing my face, and I pressed my palms to the backs of his hands. “I’m so sorry for your loss. I can’t even begin to imagine what you must have gone through, but I know you now. I know you would never make the same mistake twice. If something does happen to me, then you grieve, and you move on. It’s what I’d want you to do.”
A breath exploded from his lips, and then he pressed those lips to mine in a soft kiss. “Thank you.”
“For what.”
“For accepting me.”
“You’re a good man, Vex, and you’re mine.” I threaded my fingers through his hair and parted his mouth with mine again. This time we wouldn’t be coming up for air for a while.
* * *
The station kitchen was a cozy space with a bolted-down metal table and built-in cupboards. It was situated on the second level of the station, which was built like a square with a courtyard in the center where shuttles could land. The whole structure was surrounded by high, sturdy walls with two watchtowers on either side of it. The satellite dish and other communication equipment were at the back of the structure high up on a sturdy tower.
The first floor was on stilts with space beneath, probably for shuttle buggies to be parked. There was a mech area too, but that was as far as I’d got in my explorations before being summoned to supper.
Xavier stirred something on the hob that smelled delicious, and Lore sipped water from a metal mug. A dark blue bruise stood out starkly against the pale-blue skin under his right eye. He kept his gaze downcast, index finger tapping on the rim of the mug.
Vex and I sat side by side on the opposite side of the table. The silence remained thick and pregnant. I’d just polished off an Athion energy bar, which, apparently, would give me the nutrients I needed to keep functioning. The soup Xavier was making was more for us to feel like we’d tasted something, because the bars were like cardboard.
Come on, someone say something. It looked like I’d have to break the ice myself.
I
blew out a breath. “Did something happen while I was unconscious?” I waved a finger toward Lore’s face. “How did you get that?”
Lore’s gaze flicked to Vex.
Oh, boy.
“There was an altercation in the med lab,” Xavier said from his position at the hob. “You and Tide were both unconscious, and Vex thought Lore was neglecting your treatment.”
I glanced at Vex, at the tightness of his jaw and the dark shadows his lashes made on his cheeks as he stared at the table. He was ashamed of his actions, that much was obvious.
“But,” Xavier continued, “it turned out Lore had completed an assessment, and Tide’s condition was worse, so he treated him first.”
Vex cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Lore.”
Lore shook his head. “It’s all right. I would have done the same in your position.”
Xavier dropped the spoon he’d been using to stir the pot with and turned to Lore. “You would have?”
Lore fixed his eyes on me and then slow blinked. “You saved my brother’s life?”
It took a minute to click who he was talking about. Tide? Tide had said Lore and he were like brothers.
I shrugged. “He would have done the same for me.”
Lore smiled wryly. “Probably. But not for altruistic reasons.”
A shiver of apprehension skittered up my spine. “What do you mean?”
Xavier pushed away from the hob and took a step closer to the table. The tension was back, but now, it was more expectant.
Lore sighed heavily and opened his mouth to speak.
“Thank you for saving my life,” Tide said from the doorway.
I tore my attention from Lore and turned to Tide. “It was the right thing to do.”
Xavier crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes, Tide, she did the right thing.”
What was he needling at?
Tide looked pale and drawn, and there were dark smudges beneath his silver eyes, and he stood braced against the frame to stay upright. “I went to check on the signal feed in the tower. I saw neither of you had sent one, so I did the honors.”
Rebel: Survivors Heart book 2: Planet Athion Page 5