Admittedly, it had been a while since I'd had sex. Loops, actually.
Every time I dreamed of her, real sleep never came. Each time my head hit the pillow she was there, Solace, hand tucked beneath her cheek, watching me—only to dissolve the moment I reached for her. My fingers brushingher hair, tucking it back from her face, and then nothing.
It was fucking cruel.
I missed her. More than I knew how to say, which was saying something, because I couldn't remember the last time I'd told anyone I loved them. But I'd tell her. I'd shout it until my lungs gave out and my throat ran raw if I had to.
I just hadn't realized it until she was gone—Solace had given me somewhere to go.
My viewport window never changed. It was a dark canvas scattered with white specks. It was cold. Empty. Void. Nothing like my dreams of her.
Missing her wouldn't bring her back, and beating off to the ghost of her wasn't going to help either. I stood, kicked my pants off, and climbed back into bed. Rolling over, I pulled the sheets higher and squeezed my eyes shut.
“Fuck off, Ransom,” I muttered. “Go to bed, you filthy bastard.”
When I opened my eyes again, she was there.
I groaned, wishing that I could find rest away from the dead; sleep not plagued by my past.
This time was different though.
Solace slept fitfully on a small cot in a dark space. It smelled like the room my dreams brought us to earlier, musty and stale. She wore an old holey sweatshirt that swallowed her frame, the hood pulled tight around her face. There was a heavy military green wool blanket draped over her waist. I stepped closer and drew it around her shoulders before kissing her forehead.
Sinking into the chair beside her, I watched.
I counted the slow rise and fall of her chest. The dark lashes brushing her cheeks. She looked fragile. A sleeping lamb. My fists clenched the armrests as I sat there, a red light blinking in the corner of my vision. The room was just a smaller version of the control center on Station Seven. It was dim, most of the systems dark, but a large screen spanned an entire wall while a console of buttons and switches stretched beneath it.
The light blinked again, bright, casting a soft crimson glow across the room.
Papers were stacked in uneven piles beside her cot, a few scattered across the floor like she’d dropped them in her sleep. They were covered with a music staff and notes strewn across the page. The sight of them tugged at my chest, then something skittered across them.
I slid out of the chair and crouched down, scooping it up before it could disappear.
Dreams were weird.
It was a gecko. The kind I’d had as a kid. Apparently the survivor’s guilt was getting creative tonight. Maybe my eighth-grade science teacher would walk through the door next.
The little thing was light in my palm and looked sick—like the time I’d left my gecko, Spike, out too long when I was twelve. Beside the control panel sat a small glass tank with a basking stone inside. The mesh cover had been pushed aside and the heat lamp above it hung dark.
“Guess you got loose, huh?” I murmured. I set the gecko back into the terrarium and replaced the mesh lid before reaching up to flick the lamp switch. Nothing. The plug ran into an extension cord that snaked along the wall, its tiny green light glowing steadily. Powershould’ve been running through it. I glanced back at the cot where Solace had rolled away from me, curling tighter beneath the blanket.
The gecko watched me with wary eyes.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m working on it.” I unscrewed the bulb and turned it in my fingers, checking the prongs before twisting it back into the socket. One had been a bit bent and loose.
Once I fixed it, the lamp glowed faintly. “There ya go,” I muttered, watching it crawl up onto the basking stone. Solace was sleeping just fine—the lizard too—and apparently so was I, as my dream continued.
Rolling the chair back to the control panel, I began poking at buttons.
12
No Signal
Solace
Dreaming of Jude was like standing in a desert. With desperation clenched around my heart, I watched the mirage fall apart before I could taste a single drop of water. Sometimes a screeching alarm shattered the dream. Other times it was a foul smell—like the time I hadn’t shut the door tothatroom tight enough. Most nights I woke to the dull ache of hunger clawing through my stomach. Once, it was to the sound of children singing in a different language. For a moment I thought I’d finally lost my mind, until I realized I’d forgotten to turn off the radio. The other Scourge survivors were celebrating something, their voices drifting through the bunker.
This time I woke to the bright glow of the monitor. The monitor that was previously not working.
