“You’ve got to be—” Axel’s protest of annoyance cut off as I shot him a withering glare.
“You still have that fluorlite on you?” I asked as my fingers tapped rhythmically against the stone’s surface.
“One step ahead of you,” Axel replied as he pulled a small light from his pocket before tossing the device to me. Flipping the device in my hand, I hit the switch, waiting a moment before a soft blue hue of light began flickering from the other end.
Holding the fluorlite over the keypad, I watched as the faint outline of fingerprints began to emerge across four digits.
“I’m so glad she neglected to tell us the code before we left,” Axel stated as I began calculating the variations of the code in my mind, intent on getting access to the keypad on the first go.
I didn’t.
It took twenty tries and three rounds of arguing with the damn keypad before the stars-damned device finally lit up and a door magically slid open in the middle of the stars-forsaken desert.
SCOUTING DAY 16 (9 days since last contact with Guild)
“Two days,” Axel muttered as we lay back on the singular couch in the cave we’d been hiding out in. “Do you think she was serious about us staying here three whole days?”
“Fuck if I know,” I replied as I took a drink of whiskey from the bottle we’d found stashed in the cave.
“This has been the longest two days of my entire life.” His voice was a drawl as he gestured toward me. “Stuck here . . . with nothing to do . . . and no one but you to keep me company.”
“It’s not like I got the better end of this deal. I’m stuck here with you as well.”
“I guarantee I’m better company, just ask Eleana.”
I checked my phone for the twentieth time today. And just like every other stars-damned time I checked, it still said the exact same thing.No service.
“I don’t know why you keep checking,” Axel said as he took a drink of whiskey. “It hasn’t changed since we’ve been here.”
“Well,” I drawled as I looked toward him. “I keep hoping it will. Shoot me.”
He huffed a laugh. “What . . . are you expecting a text from someone? Maybe a certain brown-haired?—”
“I’m a bit more focused on touching base with the Guild. You know . . . the mission we’re supposed to be on?”
“What mission?” He gestured around the room (cave) we were currently hiding out in. “We’ve been here for two entire days with nothing to do.”
“Still,” I replied, “we should stay alert. We never know if someone may stop by unexpectedly.”
“First of all,” Pierce stated as he took another drink. “Evenif someone did stop by—and that’s a long shot—we’ve already assessed that this cave system is run by the Remnant, based on everything we’ve found in the caves. So nothing to worry about there. And secondly, we’ve been hiding in this stars-damned room for two days, and you have not once mentioned your new mark.”
I cut a glance at him, opening my mouth to say something when he cut me off.
“Nope, no. I don’t want to hear it,” he insisted. “You can stay in denial for as long as you want, but it’s clear you’re attracted to her.”
Running my hand against the back of my neck, I looked at him. “Why are you so confident I am?”
He laughed. “Don’t give me that, Blackwood. I’ve known you for three centuries, and you’ve never once so much as looked at a female during a mission, much less risked getting caught for one.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, okay? It just . . . feels different.Shefeels different.”
“Maybe that’s because she’s, you know, your starbound. If you weren’t in such denial over it, you’d realize that.”
“I’m not in denial about it,” I insisted.
“Oh?” he replied. “My bad. You look like someone in denial over it. You talk like someone in denial too.”
“It’s not denial,” I stated, my tone rising with agitation. “It’s me being focused on the mission at hand.”
