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“You did?!”
“She lived with us for over a year. She was fearless. Her first jump was under the star of the warrior. Everyone insists that humanscan’tjump, but this one did without a second thought.” He paused. “Baade married this human—”
“Oh…” she interrupted, pitch dropping. “Oh no. This story doesn’t have a happy ending, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t… This story ended when her mothership came to pick her up and she turned us over as prisoners.”
She gasped.
“I couldn’t believe it either,” he said. “I trusted my back to her. Hemarriedher. One word from her captain and we were turned in as if none of that year had happened. We werenothingto her. She looked right through us.”
“Cal—I am so sorry—”
He could see the human’s face, clearly framed in his mind. Her indifferent expression haunted him.
“They separated us. I lost track of how long I was kept in a cell. All it took was one of their scientists making a mistake. He didn’t know I could electrocute him… I killed every human on that ship.
“I didn’t find my friend, or her. I continued through the next human ship. And the next, finding others of us they’d taken. He was gone. And—I never just up and lose track of people, Lucca. I just… don’t.”
Was she crying? It briefly broke him out of his memories.
“Sorry, Lucca, I’m drunk and talking about a terrible subject.”
“You can talk about sad subjects.” Her words had a ragged edge of emotion. “Please tell me the rest.”
The brightness of his flares danced on every surface in his room, turning the window white.
Too bright.
He focused on cutting them down, breathing more easily once the room was as dark as the sky outside. Lucca’s steady presence helped him find the equilibrium he needed to continue.
“When I made it back to the outpost, the same news was everywhere. We were turned over to human ships. They took every opportunity to abduct us. I believe they were trying to take us to their planet.”
Maybe they’d taken his friend to that horrid planet they’d spawned from. He had no answers. For all he knew, Baade was dead.
A creaking noise and a few quiet, muttered curses drew him out of his dark ruminations. He heard her pacing angrily. “What you went through is horrible,” she said. “That lying fucking bitch. Who the fuck does that?”
“Her,” was his only answer.
Exhaustion enveloped him. He began to roll under the covers, trying to let his thoughts wander to happier skies, but it was a fantasy. A dream. He wanted to tell himself that he could find some solace in the small pleasures—especially if those pleasures included Lucca.
But a nagging piece of him knew better.
“It’s understandable if you’re not able to sit in one place after that. I…” She stopped herself from voicing whatever was on her mind. His skin buzzed.
“I’m still worried about how beat up you are,” she said. “Maybe there’s something that could keep you busy enough to let yourself heal. Something that’s not… fist fighting in bars. You know? There has to be something.”
His options were to get lured in by the temptation to self-annihilate—or find solace where it was offered. Dark thoughts teased his mind, offering brief glimpses of sanctuary.
“We’ll just have to think of a distraction for a while,” she reasoned, unaware of his mental fictions.
“A distraction?” he asked. The question was—would she share his feelings?
“Yeah… There has to be something,” she said.
Sanctuary.
Sanctuary it was.
