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I couldn’t expect him to be well, or happy, or anything so good. Not when he was still in Crux’s control.
It was simple enough, circumventing the lock on the door—I’d been doing it since I was a child, when Crux had started locking me in my room at night. And some days, just to keep me out of the way.
When the lock disengaged and the flashing light turned purple, instead of just entering, I knocked. I would not steal his choices any more than others already had.
A moment later, the door whooshed open and he poked his head out. When he caught sight of me, my breath stopped moving in my chest. Would he blame me for his situation? It was almost certainly my fault, and then I had left him alone for two days, and—
The bright smile that filled his whole face made my heart start beating for what felt like the first time in those two days.
Beau.
“Hi,” he whispered. Then he glanced behind him, stepped backward, and motioned for me to follow. I was helpless to do anything but precisely what he asked.
CHAPTER13
BEAU
Ihad lost my mind. I mean, you try being kidnapped by aliens and dragged who knew how many parsecs across space, imprisoned in a lab on a planet full of beauty you couldn’t get close to, and staying sane. It wasn’t possible.
But there was one incredible thing I got to keep all to myself: Vorian. While he was free to come and go from the lab as he liked, and he couldn’t sneak in to see me without risking pissing off Crux, I didn’t doubt that he cared about me, that he was holding onto the idea of me every bit as much as I was holding onto him.
We both had jagged pieces, but they fit together. And yeah, maybe I was going crazy, but I needed to believe in him.
Each time he sneaked in, it was so easy to fall in his arms, to kiss him and promise him that I was fine. I even started to believe it. Sure, I was locked in a tiny room, but if I got to see him, everything was okay. I was warm and fed and Crux hadn’t asked me for another donation. Everythingwasokay.
Vorian even brought me some of that spiky Thorzan fruit. And, well, was I really going to be better off on a dangerous alien planet somewhere else, free but on my own? No, no. Vorian was looking after me, and I’d—I’d look after him too.
Because that phrase of Crux’s—“father of all Thorzan”—kept echoing in my head, and maybe it didn’t mean anything. But I couldn’t shake the idea that it did, and that if I weren’t attentive, my DNA was going to get all mashed up with Crux’s. I wasn’t any kind of actual father or anything, not yet, but that felt like a horrible violation, especially when—
When I was so attached to the idea of Vorian.
I asked him to check on Genevieve and make sure she was okay, and promised that I’d tell him if I weren’t fine. But I was. I was, because so long as Vorian cared, there wasn’t a thing Crux could do to me worse than anything else I’d already survived.
After days of waiting for Vorian, I didn’t expect him to show up so soon after his last visit, while I was eating dinner, but the door slid open anyway. No knock this time. I sat up, staring, ready to pull him in again and steal what time we could.
But it wasn’t him. It was—it was all the humans who’d come to Thorzan with me. Wesley and Monica and Genevieve and Kenosi and—and even Lucas. He’d come back with that guy from the attack on Crux’s ship, and another big hybrid warrior. The one who smiled a lot.
The first one, who stood with his hand on Lucas’s shoulder, was Kaelum, prince of Thorzan. He smiled at me by rote, trying, no doubt, to infuse calm into a crazy situation. “We’re here to free you.”
My breath escaped in a slow rush, and I glanced away from him. Genevieve stood there, tears shining in her eyes and a little smile on her face. She nodded at me.
But what she wanted wasn’t what I did. I was... attached. I couldn’t just leave Vorian without a word. Not even if it meant getting out of here. How would I ever get back to him?
“I’m so glad you’re taking them home if they want,” I said, looking between the eager, nervous faces of my friends, all waiting for me to get with the program while I sat at the edge of my small cot and fiddled with my tasteless ration bar.
Escape wasallGen had wanted since she’d woken up on the ship—to get back to her fiancé. Planning a wedding was hard. She’d wanted a break, but she hadn’t wanted to lose her life and love to a bunch of pushy aliens.
Me? I hadn’t lost enough when they’d grabbed me off the banks of the Mississippi to miss much. If I left with them, went back to Earth? I would lose all I had. I would lose Vorian.
I looked back up at Kaelum, dropped my hand on my lap. “But I’m fine here, thanks.”
Hiroki leaned in then, whispered something to Lucas that I couldn’t hear.
Nobody had really enjoyed Crux’s lab. They must all think I’d gone crazy, but since I did too—well, crazy people aren’t usually that self-aware, right? What meager comfort that was.
Lucas came partway into my little room then. He looked around at the bare walls, the tiny cot, my Styrofoam ration. “You could come back to the prince’s quarters. Ree’s staying here, and that’s where we’re dropping off anybody who wants to stay on Thorzan. For now.”
The prince’s quarters. That sounded pretty lavish.
