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“Far…” was her answer.
His tail thumped against the chair he’d been standing in front of. He turned to pace.
“No one’s warned you?” he asked.
“Warned me about what?”
Stars… she was genuinely in the dark. It was almost enough to make him drop his task just to figure out—why? Why didn’t Lucca know what everyone knew? Why did he have thisfeeling?
Before he knew what he was doing, his mouth was moving, blurting painful truths out in an unstoppable stream. “Humans are the most deceptive—murderous—vile conniving creatures you’ll ever have the ill fortune of meeting. Nothing good has happened since they arrived. The only way to save yourself adecade’s-worthof heartache is to kill them on sight.”
“Caligher—holy shit!”
“I’m not joking. They kill unprovoked. They lie. They’ve been known to befriend a person for years before showing their motives.”
“So y-your answer is to kill them all?” she sputtered.
“Youhaveto kill them.”
Caligher’s windows reflected too much light, bathing him in a hellish radiance. He had started running hot. Too hot. This conversation wasn’t cooling his agitation.
“Just stay here, will you? I’ll be back when I can.”
“Wait, please, this ship—or ships? How big?” she asked.
“Maybe the size of mine,” he said.
She seemed to deflate on the other end.
Once again it was almost enough to make him pause—to make him shut down his engines and ask her where she’d been living.Yes,he knew she was from the Outskirts, but she would have had to be truly isolated to have missedthis.
His engines were ready, however, and it was time to decide—stay or go?
His spark was too mutinous, and his shell was on a touch too tight. The sensations under his exoskeleton made the decision for him. The pain did that too much, these days.
“Don’t leave this place, Lucca.”
If she hadn’t thought him rude before, she would now. He expected she would get what she needed and leave—but he took off before she could sputter her reply.
* * *
For days he found nothing.
With each passing day, he sank deeper into desolation. Not only was he losing his mind recalling pure white walls or those disturbingly porous monsters, but he was certain he’d pissed Lucca off beyond repair.
It occurred to him as he flew around the sun for the fifth time that he liked her.
Obviously, he liked her, but now that he’d ruined it—and he was certain he’d ruined it—that was when that nagging, shifting electricity in his veins made itself loud. The spark in his body was trying to link itself to Lucca—and Lucca wasn’t there. Caligher felt the black spot where she was absent—felt it like a hole in his chest—with the same visceral awareness he held ofupanddownand where the sun was at any given moment.
Too many days raced by before he limped back to the Astral Reef, burdened by his failures. He was tempted to fly his whole ship into the sun just to see whether he would burn brighter.
He slowed his descent into the city. Caligher’s heart was preemptively broken so that the shards would fit together with the sight of a missing Lucca.
It was going to kill him, but he was ready to be emotionally dead, to stop feeling, and do the ugly work that needed doing. It wasn’t like it would have developed into a healthy relationship—him and Lucca. It was better if she left.
Except… she was still there.
Caligher stared at her pink ship in a fog of confusion. Was she only there because she didn’t know how to fly?
