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My feet stumble over the broken rock beneath them, but I keep going. I clutch the small piece of plastic pressed in my palm like it’s a lifeline as I jump over what once was a wall of this small convenience store.
“Fuck,” I cry between gritted teeth as something tears at my calf, but I don’t slow. Laughter bounces off the walls of a nearby street, and I know I have to get out of here before someone finds me.
I push myself faster, my breath already sawing at my ribs, and I dive through the overgrown city. I hope the trees cover me enough as I skirt around the edges of the mediocre civilization toward my dilapidated home.
Somehow, I make it without getting caught, and I run straight to the bathroom. Only there do I stop to take a deep breath and let the pregnancy test clatter out of my hand and onto the counter.
I’ve begged the gods. I’ve prayed to the universe. I’ve pleaded with everyone out there. But I haven’t bled in weeks, I can barely eat, and I wake up each morning dry heaving. It’s time to face this.
At least, that’s what I try to tell myself as I take the test and stand at the counter, staring down at it. As it scans the hormones, I watch the percentage rate go up, the numbers climbing higher and higher.
My breath catches in my throat as it finishes, the accuracy rate flashing in the air. The holographic numbers are practically a death sentence.
100%
I’m pregnant. The test says with 100% accuracy that I am pregnant.
I don’t even remember falling, but pain shoots up my legs as my knees crack against the ground. The tears fall quietly at first, but soon they are pouring. Broken gasps escape me, and I can’t even be bothered to care.
“Sophia?” A knock comes on the other side of the door and I fold forward, dropping my head. “What’s going on?”
When I don’t answer, letting the sobs wrack my body, Isa pushes the door open. She takes one look between me and the test still flashing on the counter before she’s on the ground next to me.
“Hey,” she says in a voice too soft and warm. I haven’t heard her like this with me in a while. “We’re going to get through this.”
“I’m pregnant,” I cry. “I’m pregnant and stupid. I fell for a soldier, and Drex isn’t coming back.” I look up at her face, which has hardened slightly. “He’s not coming back.”
She doesn’t disagree with me or try to comfort me at all. Instead, she just picks up my hand and whispers gently in my ear. “I’m here.”
And a new wave of misery threatens to crush me as I realize that I was right all along. I let a soldier walk into my life and in three months, he completely wrecked me.
16
DREX
My mind is numb as we clean the latrines again. There are only so many jobs twenty thousand troops can do on a small base like Syfer. The place is spotless. Everyone is on standby for the next big push, but who knows where or when that will be.
The troops may be resting up, but every day, my own internal war rages. It’s been four months since I saw Sophia. Armstrong is under Alliance rule so there is no way I can just jump on a ship and get back there. They’d shoot it out of the galaxy as soon as I got anywhere close.
Kyltic assures me he is doing everything he can to get me reunited with my mate, but I keep wondering if I should head out on my own to find her. How long should I wait for the bureaucratic process before I try to make my way there?
“Daydreaming again?” Freck says at my shoulder.
I realize I’ve been staring off into space.
“Come on, those latrines aren’t going to clean themselves,” he chides.
“I don’t know what to do, Freck,” I admit, although he’s heard it all before. “I can’t even get a message to her. All communications are blocked. They just come back unsent.”
“Could you send a handwritten note with a contingent who’s going there?” he suggests.
“According to Kyltic, there are no contingents going there at all. He says it’s too volatile.”
“They must be sending ships in, at least to pick up stragglers,” says Freck.
“You would have thought, wouldn’t you?” I’m utterly vexed. I can’t seem to get straight answers out of any of my superior officers. “And if it really is too volatile for anyone to go there at all, what does that mean for Sophia?” I had thought that once the Coalition pulled out, things would calm down on the surface of the planet, but the reports I’m hearing aren’t good.
“Sophia’s tough,” says Freck. “She survived working in that bar. A war’s nothing after that.”
