Chapter 35
Her name on his lips hit her like shrapnel: fast, sharp and impossible to ignore.
She flinched.
It was that or kiss him again. There was no middle ground.
He saw the motion—clearly misunderstood it. “Sorry. I know. Wraith.”
She couldn’t tell him it was okay. Because it wasn’t.
Even though in that moment, it was all she wanted.
She just couldn’t trust why.
“I think we… need a minute,” she told him.
His laugh was so stricken, it was like being cut, “Maybe more than just one.”
She nodded. Closed her eyes and knuckled away a tear that had somehow escaped.
She couldn’t feel Phantom or Seori.
Thank the Void.
Phantom’s feelings were about the last thing she needed to add to the mix right now.
But she needed calm in the worst way. And with sparring categorically off the table, she’d have to find another outlet.
“Just… ignore me for a bit, yeah?”
She took his silence as assent.
Kael watched, slightly awed, as Wraith worked her way through a slow, smooth physical routine. She moved with her eyes closed—part gymnastics, part calisthenics, part war on gravity itself.
He was ragged.
Wrecked in the worst possible way.
And heading towards numb.
He knew if he could just close his eyes, he could get there. Could sink below the pain and the ghosts into the well of cold silence that lived at the bottom of his soul.
Instead, he clung to the shape of her. The motion. The hushed noise of not being alone.
When had she stopped being the mission and become his mission?
He was very much afraid it was before he’d even opened the door to her prison cell.
Which meant that his aunt—insane as she was—had been right.
And he was screwed.
When Wraith opened her eyes, she was calm again. Not as calm as she wanted to be. But calm enough.
It would have to do.
Kael—Helios, damn it—was sitting where she’d left him. Watching her. Eyes and presence unreadable.
She wanted off this fucking ship. It was hard enough managing her own shit without others—and Others—leaking into her head. At this rate she was going to have a Void-damned breakdown.
She paused, considered the last two days.
A bigger Void-damned breakdown.
Why hadn’t she just stayed in that cell?
She let herself take a slow, cleansing breath.
First order of business, make sure that Helios didn’t kill Seori.
Second, stop Elijah from killing Helios.
Third… third she’d have to make up if and when they got there.
“So, funny thing,” she told him, “it turns out the Others aren’t aliens like we thought. They’re human.”
Kael stared at her, jaw hanging open.
“I’m sorry, what?!”
She spread her hands wide, sat on the edge of the bed.
“I know, right? Who knew?”
She stilled suddenly, and her eyes bore into him, “Did you know?”
“Wraith, fuck knowing. I don’t even think I believe you.”
She regarded him. Every line of her body was calm, and her face was so relaxed, she could have been talking about the fucking weather.
“Yes, you do,” she told him. “You just don’t want to.”
Don’t want to believe her, she meant.
No, I fucking don’t. It’s not fucking possible.
That was when something inside him opened; a window slammed wide. And people came flooding in. Dissonant. Shouting. And—
He blinked.
He was lying on the floor. Wraith was kneeling next to him, her hand hot on his skin under the collar of his shirt.
What? How—?
“We need to talk to Seori,” she muttered. “The sooner, the better.”
She met his gaze, and he could see, could feel her concern. And not just for him. Which kind of sucked.
Her eyes narrowed like she’d heard him.
“Okay, stop,” she told him. “Stop thinking. Stop feeling. Stop emitting! This fucking feedback loop is driving me crazy.”
“I don’t understand.”
Believed her. But didn’t understand.
She bent closer and looked him in the eye.
Not too close. Not close enough.
“I said, that’s enough!” She seemed to push him away, even though she didn’t move.
“Now, I’m going to speak, and you’re going to listen. Got it?”
He nodded.
“One, Seori is Other, yes. She is also human. Somehow. If you don’t try to kill her again, then maybe we can ask about it. Yes?”
He considered. Nodding seemed the safest course of action, so he did. Just one sharp tilt of his head.
“Two, she is Elijah’s wife. Threaten her again and he’ll kill you. Which will kill me. And none of us, including Elijah, want that.”
He could agree with that, even if—
“Three, we are on an Other Ship, near the bottom of the damned Void. So, even if you do manage to kill both Seori and Elijah, we’re still fucked. And I will kill you if you do that. Got it?”
They were where?!
Also yes. Yes, he did.
“And four, something is happening to you. I don’t know what,” she looked away, “but I’m the one that triggered it.”
“How?”
She shrugged, looked back at him. “By trying to save you. And now, we need to fix you, Major. Fast.”
Wraith stood up, hand tingling where it had lain on Helios’s chest. She held it out to help him up and he hesitated, just for a moment, before he took it.
“They’re human.”
Not a question.
She pulled him to his feet. Answered anyway.
“Yes.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah,” she said. “That was pretty much my reaction too.”