“Anyway, holler if you need extra hands. I think we’re just five ships ahead of you. I’m sure they’d stop for a medical emergency.”
“Thanks.” But I don’t want to stop. Our best cover is our group and the security teams with us. “Elix out.”
I end the call and attend to Zariah, who mumbles something in her sleep. I lean closer but can’t decipher it. She shivers, so I run my fingers over her forehead. She feels cold, and I wager it’s from blood loss.
I don’t have fresh blood supplies on hand, just serum and nutrient feeds. When I’ve given her everything I can until my gland is taxed, I cover her with a blanket, and confirm the nutrient tube is feeding her optimally.
My core urges me to climb onto her bed to keep her warm. She is mine. She has to be. It begs me to warm her with my body heat, but it’s an archaic practice, and I don’t have permission. So Instead, I switch on the bed heater, take her hand in mine, and rest my head on the side of her bed.
“I’m here, Zariah. I’ll always be here.”
I hope what I did was enough.
16: Zariah
My mind is a hot soup of heavy shadows that strain to pull me under. Inky threads leach into my mind, encapsulate me with chilling fingers, and squeeze my body until I cannot breathe. My lungs move, but no air enters. I am drowning in their grasp while eyes black as the voids between the stars watch me with sickening delight.
A pulse ripples through the darkness, then another, carrying a hint of glitter on its tidal wave. Gold light breaks above me. The watching eyes shy away. Something rattles in my chest. Pressure eases into something new.
Warm. Wet. Soft.
The jabbing in my right lung becomes noticeable again. But it slowly fades and is replaced by the comfort of a mysterious fizzy sensation.
My body convulses. I feel it now. Something is inside my mouth, my throat. Then I feel nothing and see only bright light beyond my eyelids that won’t open.
I’m left hanging in a strange high, like the first long nap after two days without rest. Fear of drowning slips away. A new electricity tingles beneath my skin. It won’t let me have enough peace in the silence to sleep, not completely. My entire body throbs like it has taken one big punch and then been dropped in some gigantic bath of soda.
“Zariah.”
My guard says my name now and then. It is a gentle sound, yet it still thunders through my thoughts. I can’t find him in the swirls of light.
Gold eyes. Hard muscles.
My guard is an alien.
Hours pass, or days, I can’t tell.
What does he want with me?
A damp, plush texture glides over a pulsing spot on my shoulder. It cools, and the pressure dissipates. The soft fizzling sensation finally registers as my consciousness comes back in longer stretches. I’m certain almost all of my flesh has been under the same healing remedy.
Heat rises beneath me from the bed. It blazes down on me from overhead. Fingers curl around mine. Warm breath grazes the back of my hand in gentle bursts.
I blink and find my vision nearly useless.
“I’m here,” he says.
I try to move, but I’m weak and stiff. Straps hold me in place. Questions race through my thoughts, but only a groan escapes me.
“Hang on.” He rattles through a nearby drawer, then opens each of my eyes and drips a liquid into them that clears my vision.
He shuts the drawer, then unstraps me. “You’re going to have a cough for a while. But you’re going to be fine, otherwise.”
I turn my aching neck so I can track him as he moves around the medical bed, unstrapping me. He looks like hell: dirty with dried blood and splits on his green face and his armor.
Wait—
From beneath his black ball cap, he steals a glance back at me, and I know exactly who he is.
