by Erin Bowman
Coen and Thea were bonded in the truest sense of the word.
Thea’s head throbbed.
She rolled over on the cot, burying her face in the pillow. It was the worst headache of her life, and there was nothing she could do to banish it.
Coen had pulled a blanket to the floor. He wasn’t facing her and hadn’t said a word in hours, but she’d heard plenty.
He felt regret at kissing her when they should have been plotting an escape.
He wanted to kiss her again.
His brain was simultaneously replaying the moment their lips had met and trying to push the thought away.
There were memories too: the day Gina had been diagnosed; visits to a man named Rin to purchase black market medications for his sister; stepping aboard Celestial Envoy with a fake ID, hope pounding in his chest for the first time in months. This was the turning point, the money their family needed.
The memories were mundane after that: stasis and bunks, meals in the mess hall, construction of what would soon become Black Quarry’s drilling base. He was reporting to a drilling shift when Pitch Evans grabbed him by the bicep, tugging him into an elevator, muttering that they needed to run. Things went dark, wild, rabid.
Blood and fluids.
Chaos.
A war among the Black Quarry crew.
He was clawed by a friend outside the Witch Hazel bunker. He was hiding in an air vent. He was fast, strong, never hungry, rarely tired. He was standing over Thea near the air lock, wondering if he should revive her.
Thea saw herself as he did. Smooth skin, narrow nose, brows thick and defined. Ebony hair that framed a striking face. Thea had never thought of herself as beautiful—cute, sure; maybe even pretty on a good day—but the girl in Coen’s memories could only be described as stunning. He removed her helmet, starting CPR, and suddenly they were back in the space station’s research lab, Thea wet from the tank. There was CPR again, which led to a kiss, which led to Coen battling away the memory and returning to Gina.
The loop continued.
The space between Thea’s eyes burned. Her temples ached. Her brain felt like it would explode.
“Get out of my head!” she snapped suddenly.
“You think what I’m getting is a treat?” he retorted. “The car you called home? A mother you can’t even picture—just a shapeless ghost? This obsession to find her when she’s probably been dead for years!”
“There’s no proof of that!”
“What about how you didn’t trust me on Achlys?” he went on. “Or how you thought about betraying me multiple times? Or when you finally did? You told Burke I was infected seconds after you came aboard Paramount!”
“I had to! He didn’t know what he was dealing with. They could have unleashed the contagion on the ship and we’d have had Black Quarry all over again.”
He glared at her, eyes narrow. “I would never have given you up like that, Thea. Never.”
“No, you just used me instead. Every moment until now. You thought of letting me die when I was electrocuted in the Witch Hazel bunker. You only revived me because you thought I’d help you escape. You kept the truth from me constantly.”
“And you used me right back. Do you think you’d have escaped Achlys without my abilities as a defense?”
“Those abilities ruined me, Coen! You made me into this thing. And now I’m stuck on this fucking space station with you rattling around my head—all of these hopeless looping thoughts that aren’t mine. I have enough problems—enough worries and fears and regrets. I don’t need yours, too. My head feels like it’s going to split open, and it’s entirely your fault.” I hate what you did to me!
The fact that the last part was a thought didn’t matter. He heard it. He heard everything now. There was nothing she could hide from him.
“I saved you,” Coen said quietly. “Would it have been better if I let you die?”
“Maybe,” she said.
“You don’t mean that.”
She didn’t, and of course, he knew.
Thea looked at him there, sitting on the floor. His arms were draped over his knees. There were bags beneath his dark eyes. He’d never looked tired before.
It’s because of you, he said silently. You’re exhausting, Thea. The thought of losing you kills me. The thought of never having you out of my head is just as depressing. I can’t win.
She sighed, rolling away from him and facing the wall. She couldn’t look at him anymore, and yet her head felt slightly better when they were talking because their words had purpose. It was one focused conversation instead of a million thoughts and memories battling for attention.
“Do you think the headaches will get better?” he asked.
“I hope so. Maybe it’s like syncing two hard drives. So many of the memories we’re getting from each other are new, but maybe once the histories download, the noise will fade and we’ll just . . .”
“Be,” he finished.
She wondered how long it would take to adjust to this new normal, and if it would ever be easy.
“I don’t think so,” Coen said. “How could sharing everything with someone be easy? My parents have been married for almost twenty years and I know they have their secrets. Everyone does. But there won’t be any between us.”
Thea hated the idea. She didn’t have anything to hide, but that didn’t mean she wanted to share everything. Her thoughts drifted to Mel, who used to get a far-off look in his eyes when their conversations stalled. Thea would ask, What are you thinking? and he’d always respond, Nothing, even when she was certain something lurked there. There’d been times when she wondered if Mel wasn’t happy, if he was cheating on her, if their relationship bored him. These fears happened most frequently in the months before their breakup. It was possible Mel had simply been zoning out and his responses were honest. Whatever the answer, Thea would never know his secrets.
But with Coen, for better or worse, she would know everything.
“I’m not Mel,” he reminded her.
“I know.” A pause. “And I don’t want you to be.”
His heart rate spiked. He liked the way that sounded. It was quiet for a long moment.
“I’m sorry I snapped earlier,” Thea said. “My head’s just killing me. I hate what’s happened to us, but I don’t hate you. And I don’t regret things, not really. Not the choices you made, or the things we decided to do together.”
“Like that kiss?”
“I was thinking about blowing up Celestial Envoy, trying to hide evidence of Psychrobacter achli.”
“But the kiss?”
“The result wasn’t ideal,” she admitted, still facing the wall, “but I don’t regret it. It was one of the only good things to happen to me in weeks. I just don’t know why it triggered the bond.”
“We’ve been relying on each other for weeks now. It’s not that surprising that an intense connection would result in something like this. Not when things like superhuman healing capabilities are considered normal for a host.”
But that wasn’t what Thea had meant. Not exactly.
“Ah,” he said, understanding. “The kiss after CPR.” He rubbed his jaw. “That was pretty one-sided. I kind of just threw myself at you. Maybe it had to be mutual, us both wanting it, both of us engaging. A bond wouldn’t make much sense if only one person felt strongly about the other.”
She nodded, working over the idea. She’d barely been able to process what had happened after he resuscitated her. But just earlier, in their shared cell . . . She’d wanted it. She might have been afraid to give herself to someone like that again, but she was a more than willing participant.
“You said it was one of the only good things to happen to you all week—the kiss,” Coen said. “What were the others?”
“Touching your hand through the glass of our rooms. You telling me about your tattoo. You teaching me to spar. They’re all about you, Coen. Every good memory I have from the recent past has you in it.”
His heart was pounding now, maybe as much as her own. Even facing away from him, Thea sensed how his eyes flicked to the shape of her back. He was considering coming back onto the cot, wondering if it would be okay.
“It would be,” she told him. But it won’t help us escape.
I know. But that’s a problem for tomorrow. There was a rustle behind her, and then he was sliding onto the cot. The noise in Thea’s head lessened as he pulled the blanket over both of them.
“Do you feel that?” she asked. “How it’s quieter when we’re close like this?”
Yes.
He lay down beside her, his chest to her back. He put his arm over her middle. She used to sleep this way with Mel, sneaking into his room after lights-out and curling into him. It was innocent enough, though it sometimes led to more.
A flurry of emotions passed through her: Fear of needing Coen. Fear of losing herself. Fear of being tied to someone, relying on them completely, growing too close.
“You want me to leave?” Coen asked, misunderstanding.
“No,” she said. “I want you to stay. And that scares me.”
Despite the fact that everything had changed, the next morning began as it always did.
The guards came. The collars and caps were secured and both Thea and Coen were led to the locker room.
It wasn’t until Thea was standing before the fogged mirror that she remembered the question she’d left for Amber. She scanned the edges of the mirror, searching for a scrap of paper. Tapped the wall, testing for loose tiles. Then she reached beneath the sink, feeling blindly. Her fingers brushed something.
She plucked the note free and unfolded it, hands trembling.
Nova is fine. Out of coma. Weak but healing.
Thea read the note again. A third time. A fourth. Her heart pounded.
You have contact with someone else? Coen asked, and Thea nearly cried out in shock. His thoughts were always with her now, humming, churning in the background, but she hadn’t been prepared for a direct question. It was louder than his private thoughts, sharper.
A medic named Amber, she told him. She’s an intern. Looks about our age. She always comes to the showers after we leave.
Can we trust her?
I can’t just ask outright. No one would ever say no to that question.
The guard called from the hall, giving the one-minute warning.
That’s good about Nova at least, Coen added. Does Amber know where we’re stationed? Can she help us escape?
I’ll find out.
Thea squared her shoulders and wrote another message in the fogged mirror: Where are we? Leave paper + pen pls.
Today, Amber came to the locker room prepared, paper and pen tucked in her bag. But nothing could have prepared her for how it would feel to answer the most recent set of questions.
You’re on Kanna7, she wrote, a space station in orbit just beyond the Lethe Belt, so technically back in the Trios, but still isolated. Security is dense. There’s nothing around for three hundred million kilometers. I’m so sorry. Would it help if you could talk to Nova? Maybe I can arrange a visit.
Amber reread the note, cringing. It was like telling someone they were dying and then offering them a cookie like sweets could make up for the horrible news.
She crossed off the bit about Nova and added, I’ve learned some things. It’s not safe for any of us here, but I also have no idea how to get out. You?
She slid the note into the hiding place, leaving another scrap of paper behind, plus the pen. She’d been foolish to not leave both originally. It would be much easier to communicate with Thea if she could write a non-mirror-length message.
Amber slipped from the locker room, dread coiling in her stomach.
She didn’t want herself or Nova to become Burke’s newest subject any more than she wanted Thea and Coen to continue enduring . . . whatever testing they were enduring. She couldn’t imagine it was better than being treated like lab rats, seeing as their living conditions were akin to being jailed criminals.
If there was a way for them to all disappear—her and Nova and Thea and Coen—Amber would take it. But there wasn’t. No matter how many angles she looked at it from, she couldn’t find a single way out.
Amber prayed Thea would see a variable she hadn’t.
The testing continued.
Farraday confirmed that Coen was no better at holding his breath underwater than Thea, and pulled him out as static began to dance in his vision. But their telepathic abilities had amplified.
They could communicate across vast distances now. Opposite ends of a wing, different floors, from one end of the space station to the other. Coen stood near Docking one day, collared and capped, while Thea stood in a cargo hold at the opposite end of the station.
Her voice was still crystal clear in his head. He confirmed it to the guards. There was no hiding it—Farraday could see their brain activity jumping in sync on his Tab—but they used the opportunity to plan.
They made mental notes of each level: how many guards worked the halls, when rotations occurred, where air vents might be accessible and how they snaked through the station.
Amber had told them security was dense, and their observations confirmed it. While the medic had no idea how to escape, Thea and Coen had the makings of a plan. They’d escape Kanna7 just as they’d escaped from Achlys: using the air vents to reach a ship. The problem was that the guards they’d need to dodge weren’t mindless infected, and the only pilot they knew was Nova, who, according to Amber, was only just getting her feet back beneath her. If Nova couldn’t get herself to a ship, Coen and Thea reaching one wouldn’t matter. Wings were no good without a pilot.
When Coen wasn’t plotting an escape with Thea, he was training with her. Burke’s obsession with turning a host into the ultimate soldier became more obvious than ever. The drills grew more militant, tactical. Burke was giving them the very skills they’d need to escape: cardio and strength training, obstacle courses, hours logged in a shooting range. Their aim with both long-distance ray-rifles and standard stun guns was so precise, the only reason to practice was to quicken their reloading and aiming.
Sparring had also changed. Coen was still stronger than Thea, still more practiced, and yet she’d grown impossible to beat. She could see every blow he made coming, anticipate his moves. They’d dance around the ring for hours, punching, dodging, kicking. While he couldn’t land a blow on her, she couldn’t land one on him, either. Their minds battled, chattering.
“You’ve gotten exceptionally better,” Farraday said to Thea one day.
“Thanks.” She smiled at the doctor but said to Coen, He has no idea how unstoppable we’ll be when we fight together.
Sweat dripped from her brow. She wiped it away with her forearm, and Coen couldn’t help thinking that she was the most amazing person he’d ever met. That he’d do anything for her. That she was the sole reason he’d be able to get home.
Part of him wondered if these feelings were real or if they were just a product of their bond. He didn’t feel shame at these thoughts, because it was a question Thea routinely battled as well. They were both drawn to each other, yet both constantly torn as to whether this reality was, in fact, real. And still they found themselves wrapped together on the narrow cot each evening. It was the only way to quiet their shared thoughts enough to allow for sleeping.
Eight days after they’d bonded, the door to their cell burst open in the middle of the night. The noise was enough to wake Coen, but the sedative had already been pumping into the room and he was too far gone to fight the guards who descended on them. When he came to, the room was empty.
Thea? He sprang from the bed. Thea!
There was no answer. The cell was empty.
He ran to the door, searching on the other side. He could hear the pulse of guards, but not the heartbeat he craved. Thea’s matched his now, in exact beat. When he was exhausted after a day of training, their hearts heaved together. When they curled up on the cot, th
ey beat in steady, calm unison.
Each pulse on the opposite side of the door was unique. Foreign. They weren’t his, and so they weren’t hers.
If they put her back in that tank . . . if they drowned her.
His fingers curled into a fist. He paced the cell, calling out to her every few minutes. Maybe she was unconscious still. Maybe there was no reason to get upset. The logic was sound, yet Coen couldn’t calm his breathing.
Finally, without warning, she was in his head: I’m okay.
He sagged into the bed, nearly crying.
Coen, I said I’m fine.
They took you.
Only to a lab. They just finished drawing blood.
Why?
Not sure. I was unconscious during it and—hold on. I can hear them. They’re talking a room over.
Coen held his breath as Thea listened.
They ran out of blood samples from Celestial Envoy, the ones I took from Tarlow’s research on Achlys, she explained. They wanted more infected blood. I’m type O negative, a universal donor.
There was only one reason Burke would want more blood. He was ready to infect new hosts. Thea, if it gets out . . . If they lose control of it . . .
It’s just animal testing right now, according to Amber. Rats and rabbits.
That might still be able to pass it. And eventually it will be more than animals.
I know, but . . . Hang on. Maybe this will be easier if . . .
Her voice faded out and was replaced with Farraday and Burke’s conversation. It was the strangest sensation Coen had ever experienced, like listening in on a call without having initiated it. Thea wasn’t sending him her own thoughts anymore, she was sending him—in real time—what she, herself, was witnessing.
Burke: You said they’ve bonded; that it is the reason for their increased abilities. Why can’t we re-create that?
Farraday: I don’t think it can be forced. It has to happen naturally.
