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That was a good question. I needed to think for a second. “I’m either nineteen or twenty. We don’t keep track of time. Wait…I know the fall passed into winter. So, I’m twenty. That’s right. Twenty.”
“Twenty,” he whispered after I said it. “What was I doing at twenty?”
“Nothing good,” Crew answered him. “You were probably battling on the other side of the galaxy. That timing is probably about right. How did Amias die? Let’s just get to that. How did he die?”
I closed my eyes for a second. Too cold still to sleep, the jitters hadn’t left my body, and I wasn’t a fainter. That meant I would actually have to answer them, which meant talking about the terrible time that would live with me forever.
“Stone got the flu. It swept through the housing units, and it seemed like everyone got sick. I don’t know why I didn’t catch it. I just didn’t. I took care of everyone with it, so presumably I was really exposed. But Stone got it. Clarke made sure that the higher ups didn’t get sick, or if they did, he put them in the med machine. The real money makers are too important to lose.” I was on my way to becoming a money maker, but I wasn’t one yet. He wouldn’t have spared the power for me. If I got sick, I would’ve been on my own. “I tried to take care of him. I did. Amias did, too. You guys obviously don’t get sick, so he wasn’t at risk. We stayed up for days, trying to get that fever down. It just wouldn’t budge. He got so weak. Then he was gone. They took him right away. They didn’t even let us say goodbye, his body just disappeared.” I swallowed. They were not moments I cared to remember.
“Take a second if you need one,” Mace whispered.
“I’d rather rush through it, if it were me.” Crew’s hand was on my hip, as if he intended to anchor me to the present—to where we were and not where my head wanted to go. That was, however, impossible, if I was going to tell the rest of it.
I caught my breath, and then I spoke quickly, shoving the words out past my heartache and shivers. “I should have realized what was going to happen, but I was lost to my grief. I couldn’t think, could hardly put sentences together. There were still so many people to take care of, but Amias was so quiet. He sat down and started writing things. I already told you I can’t read. None of us who were under five when Clarke came can at all. It didn’t occur to me to ask what he was doing, but he was…”
“Making plans,” Mace supplied. “That’s what he did when he made plans. When there was strategy to create, he’d sit down and start writing.”
“Yes. He was doing that. He was furious. You have to understand, when Amias showed up on our planet, it wasn’t to fall in love. He was there to work for Clarke, like all of the other enhanced that live there. It takes a lot of enhanced to make Clarke’s empire work.”
Mace sat up on his elbow. “Why would he do that? Why would he have gone and done that?”
“I don’t know. It’s not something we ever discussed. I just knew he left his team—you guys—because he sometimes spoke of you. Regardless of all of that, he went to Clarke. Those of us who aren’t like you? We tended to avoid the enhanced. Don’t be offended. It’s just a lot, and they can really hurt us, if they so choose. I guess, the same way you could hurt me if you wanted.”
Crew shook his head. “No one will hurt you.”
“Amias was assigned to us, to watch our grouping and make sure we behaved. His job was to see to it we followed orders without complaint. That our clients were satisfied when they left. But he and Stone made eye contact, and that was that. They both fell off the cliff into loving each other. I couldn’t believe it. That kind of love, marriage? That’s not part of our life, but that was it for them. Boom. Clarke’s people knew about it. Amias worked harder than anyone, so that they could stay as they were, with him living with us. For the most part, the whole housing area made sure to behave, because everyone loved Stone, and no one wanted to hurt him by having Amias taken away.”
The room was so silent, I could practically hear my still thudding pulse in my ears. Crew spoke quietly. “It’s totally foreign to me to imagine such a thing. Love, what did your brother do for Clarke?”
“The same as me. All women and men are given out sexually on request to Clarke’s business associates, although some also perform other functions. I did my best to be a healer, although clearly, I’m not a very good one.” A better one would have saved Stone. That was on me, something I would have to live with, despite my constant guilt. Somehow. I didn’t know how, but maybe I’d figure it out in time. Tears threatened again, so I blinked them away fast. No crying. Not here. Not yet. “Amias came to me on day three. He had made his plans, so he handed me the note to give to you. He took the time to detail everything, including instructions on how to get here. Everything was drawn out, so I just needed to match what he’d drawn with what I’d see. He asked me to do this for him.” My voice shook, but it had nothing to do with my chill. “I begged him not to, got down on my knees, but he was set on his course. If they just opened the med machines up, Stone wouldn’t have died. They let a hundred people die, and they didn’t blink, but he didn’t want to live without Stone. So, he decided to make them pay for taking him.”
I let out a breath. “I didn’t get to see it. He set up people to sneak me off planet—all of those plans, while I had no idea.” One tear slipped past my guard, and I brushed it away roughly with a shaking hand. “My best friend, but he didn’t let us grieve together. He took himself from me, too. Sorry, that’s selfish of me to say. That’s not my best.”
“Don’t apologize.” Mace put a hand in my tangled hair. “He went after Clarke.”
I nodded. “Took out three of the other enhanced, damaged Clarke, but in the end, they sliced him in two. That’s what I’ve been told, anyway. I wasn’t there, but he’s gone. They’re both gone.” I rubbed another tear away in irritation before I blew out a breath. “And now you’re stuck with me. I can’t get off the planet, and the people who helped me will be hurt when whoever replaced Amias reports my absence. The only thing I can hope for is they might assume I’m dead, too. Best case scenario, I could get really, really lucky and hope they don’t have a good count of all the bodies.”
Mace pushed my head against his chest. “We’ve got to get you warmer.” His arms wrapped around me like a hug. Crew scooted closer, hugging me against him from behind me.
They didn’t ask me any more questions, and if I was honest, I was grateful for the quiet. Eventually, I became warmer. That thought crossed my mind about two seconds before my eyes closed. Not that I intended to go to sleep or anything, but because my eyelids felt so very heavy…
My brief respite from consciousness didn’t last long. The door swung open to bang against the wall, awakening me just in time to see Gunnar run into the room. “Fixed! The water is fixed,” he crowed in pride.
I jolted awake when he entered, if my brief rest could be called sleep. “Sorry. Sorry,” I sputtered, shoving myself up onto my elbows.
Mace pulled me back down, snuggling me into the curve of his body with an easy familiarity that soothed my jangled nerves from the abrupt awakening. “Why are you sorry? You’ve been through an ordeal. You’re cold. Your body likely needed the rest, which you were getting before someone ran in like a freight train and woke you up.”
Gunnar held up his hands. “Sorry, Raven. Sorry. I listened to your story. I’m sorry about your brother. What Amias did? That’s just what he would do. He went out as he would have wished to go, though I’m sorry you had to lose both of them. Thank you for bringing us his note, and the news. We never would’ve known, not ever, if you hadn’t taken the time to come to us.”
Crew got out of the bed. Immediately, the cold air hit my back, and I shivered. “Trade with me, Gunnar. I need to go find Ransom. We’ve all lost him, everyone in this room has. He needs to be here. I’m going to bring him home. Come on, lie down.”
Gunnar kicked off his shoes before he took off his shirt and pants. He slipped easily into the position Crew abandoned, but his energy felt strangely different than Crew. We sort of fell into a cozy easiness as we lay there, despite the topic of conversation.
But Gunnar was wide awake.
My lethargy vanished, too, surprising me, but I’ve always been good at going without sleep. Sometimes men wanted to stay days with me, yet I never dared sleep in the same room with one of Clarke’s associates. They might wake up themselves, see me asleep, and get angry about the lack of attention.
“The water is warm now. I bet that would help you feel warmer.”
