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Until he gets theknife…
He digs under his mattress for it, and when he finds it, when he drags the blade across the flesh of his upper, inner arm, that soft, tender flesh where it hurts the most, he can feel her again. He can smell her vanilla scent. He can practically taste her skin. She’s here with him, so vivid… and he comes harder than he has in weeks, his skull splitting down themiddle.
Then he’s sucked back down, into the undertow ofblack.
When he wakes again, the tablet is vibrating next to him. A message has comein.
He sits up and grabs for the tablet, fumbling, swiping the screen to wake it from standby. But it’s the same message he always gets when he comsLana.
Pain, jagged and fresh, claws its way up inside his chest as he reads the familiar words, as he struggles to find hisbreath.
Messageundeliverable.
He collapses on the bed, clenching his teeth in a silentscream.
Everyday.
Every day, he’s sent her a com. Every single fucking day since she left. One hundred and twenty-six days. Sometimes twice a day, sometimes ten fucking times. And every day, the sameresult.
Messageundeliverable.
He hurls the tablet across the room. It hits the wall. He doesn’t look to see if it’s broken. He doesn’t give onefuck.
She’sgone.
Lana’s fuckinggone, and she’s never comingback.
An alarm is sounding,shrill and all-pervading. It’s in Catch’s skull, behind his eyes, in the marrow of his bones,ringing.
He pulls the pillow over his head and ignoresit.
Then the voices start. Moments later, or hours. He doesn’t know which. But he knows thosevoices.
He rolls over, pushing away the pillow, his body aching. His lips sting, dry and cracked. His arm itches where he cut it lastnight.
He’s naked and there are men in hiscube.
He looks up at them with one cracked eye, the light overhead stabbing deep into the back of hisbrain.
It’s Hilt and…First?
“Turn off the goddamn light…” His voice is so dry, so weak, he doesn’t know if they hear him. They’re still talking, making too much noise. Their voices come in and out as Catch blinks his disorientation away, squinting, wincing into thelight.
“… like I told you,” Hilt is saying. They both have their hands on their hips as they look down at Catch like a couple of disapprovinggrannies.
“How long has itbeen…?”
“… got written up lastweek…”
“First?” Catch croaks, blinking at his best friend. He struggles to situp.
But First isn’there.
This is Station Seven. Catch and Hilt are on Station Seven. First is out in the deep, all three of them reassigned thisquarter.
First can’t behere.
Whichmeans…
