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“I used up all the water again,” she said when she emerged wrapped in a fluffy towel.
“Good.” Orion rose from the couch, cradling a steaming cup in his hands. He handed it to her. “For your throat.”
“Thanks.” Kaia accepted the offering. The cup warmed her palms, and the smell of its contents reminded her of that hint of mint he always carried.
It was peppermint, so that made sense, she realized when she took a tentative sip.
They ended up in bed like nothing had happened. Kaia sat with her back against the wall, the heavy blanket pulled up to her chest. Orion was next to her, crinkling papers strewn around the surface of the bedspread as he continued to study Peter’s father’s records.
It was comfortable, Kaia decided, sitting together like that, doing their own thing. Not talking was easy. What would in the past have been an awkward silence belied by an undercurrent of tension was now a warm stillness which neither felt the need to break. Kaia could live with that, as long as she didn’t get too complacent about it.
It hurt to swallow, but she was glad it happened. She needed to be reminded of how scary it could be, but more than that, she needed to be punished for what she was about to do. Because even more than the feeling of giving up a life she might actually want, what overwhelmed her at the fitting was the guilt of the betrayal she was about to commit. And the realization that she was about to atone for the guilt of her brother’s death only to adopt another… Well, that she couldn’t live with. Not here, and sure as hell not in Heaven. She needed Orion to be the monster she envisioned going into this, and she’d turned him into one.
Better still, now she had leverage.
“Hey, so…” She cleared her aching throat and turned to her fiancé. “Who will be invited to the wedding?”
Orion took a moment to finish scanning a crinkled physical report before turning his attention to her. “Colony leadership usually. Why?”
“Can I invite a friend?”
Orion smiled. “Of course. I’m sure Alina will be happy to attend.”
“I didn’t mean her,” Kaia muttered.
“Well, whoever. Send the names over to that planner. She can find their contact in the ship’s database. Anyone you want.”
Yeah…
Kaia had a feeling the planner would have trouble finding this one. But she’d leave it there for now—she wouldn’t want Orion thinking she’d done what she did back there in exchange for the huge favor of bringing an outsider toColossal. Plus she was suddenly feeling a little nauseous. Kaia took another sip of her tea and curled up in the bed.
CHAPTER55
ORION
“Tell me about your brother,” Orion said one evening as they sat together in the library.
He was poring over Peter’s father’s documents, and Kaia was curled in an armchair next to him, staring at her tablet. Orion had already thoroughly examined its contents, of course—a long time ago. He knew what she was watching, among other things. But she’d also grown less secretive about her activities, letting him catch glimpses of the videos on her screen. He wasn’t sure if it were because she’d grown to trust him more with it, or if she just got sloppy.
It took a while for her to acknowledge him, but he knew she heard him. Finally she turned to him. “What do you want to know?”
“How did he die?”
“He had cancer. You know that.”
“How did he get cancer?” Orion pressed. She never talked about her brother with him, but she kept watching this footage of them as kids. He hadn’t bothered asking before because it didn't matter. The kid was dead, and Kaia would have to move forward no matter how many old vids she watched. But as time went on, he realized this was an important part of her life to which he wasn’t privy. And he wanted to be.
He let her sit in her hesitation. Pushing too hard for answers would just make her shut him out. And unlike her body, he couldn’t quite force her mind to his will that easily. Well, hecould have, if the exorin had taken hold. But there was still no sign of it. No sign of dependence. No sign of craving. He’d gotten glimpses of that primal twilight in her eye, the one they’d shared. But that was all her. Orion had been too busy detangling the expedition to add this other thing to his plate, but if it was true… if shewasimmune… well, it was unheard of. He couldn’t even begin processing the possible consequences. To them. ToColossal. To humanity. How many others were there?
“The suns are dangerous on Artega Seven,” she began slowly. “It’s a desert planet, and you can’t be out in daylight when the primary sun is out. The atmosphere doesn’t filter out the radiation… It’s too dark at night to forage, and too cold. So we’d go out and do it at the end of the night, when the secondary sun was just about to set, before the primary rose.”
She took a beat, then continued: “He was seven, and I was twelve when one morning we came across a patch of succulents. They’re rare. The fruits are so sweet. We usually just got roots, you know? Dry things. Succulents had water. I was excited and impatient. Hungry. We ate a few there and then picked what we could. But there were so many… only a matter of time before someone else found them.”
Kaia’s eyes shone. “Ahton knew it was getting too early. He said we should leave, but I pushed to keep picking. I said… I told him not to be such a wimp. By the time I realized how late we were, we had to run home for cover. I made it. He tripped twenty feet from shelter. He… got hit with a blast. I… I wanted to run out and grab him, but my parents held me back. Said I’d kill myself. He had to run on his own. Local medicine man diagnosed him a week later, with the first tumor on his neck.”
“Shit, Kaia.” This was so far from what he was expecting. Orion had no idea how to deal with something like that. “You think it's your fault?”
“Itismy fault. I delayed us. I left him there. I don’t even know where my parents scraped up the chips to get him Uploaded.”
