by Sophie Stern
“Stay away from my man!” She finally hisses.
“Your man?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Blake,” I roll my eyes. “Obviously.” I keep staring down at her and I don’t move my boot. Somehow, I like this position of dominance over another woman. Perhaps this is why dominant females always seem so put-together. Maybe having this much control over another person is really an incredible feeling.
Maybe it’s something you can’t turn back from once you start.
“He’s mine,” Lizzie insists, and I’m not quite sure how she’s still talking. Her scrawny body is wiggling, and I realize suddenly that Liz has almost no muscle strength. In fact, for an Extrinsic team member, there really shouldn’t be any way I could have gotten her pinned so easily.
“Have you been faking your physical evaluations?” I ask her suddenly. Everyone who is a part of Extrinsic’s exploration and extraction teams has to undergo regular physical training and exams, including blood work.
“What?” She blushes brightly. “What the hell, Sarah? Why would you ask me that?”
“Get up,” I move my leg and release her. Then I reach for Lizzie and pull her to her feet. I grab my scanner and run it up and over her arms.
“What are you doing?” She says, trying to sound mean. All she sounds is afraid.
“Fuck!” I growl when I look at my scanner results, but it’s too late. Lizzie’s already flushed and sweating, and if I don’t hurry. I won’t be in time to save her. “Tami!” I call just as Lizzie collapses into my arms. “I’m going to need a little help!”
Chapter 6
Blake
When I found out Lizzie had essentially sabotaged our mission, I knew I didn’t have a choice: I had to report her to the higher-ups. Our supervisors stay out of our way most of the time, but this is different. This is the kind of thing that gets you tossed out of Extrinsic and into jail.
This is the kind of thing people go mad over.
I spent the entire night going over my notes from the mission and pouring through holographic photos I took while we were on Eola. As I went through them, I noticed a lot of different things that didn’t add up. At the time, we were busy searching for our fallen comrades, so I wrote off a lot of things as coincidences that I shouldn’t have.
And now three of our people are dead.
When I find Max in his office the next morning, he doesn’t look too pleased to see me.
“What can I do for you, asshole?” He looks up and folds his hands on his desk, as if he’s prepping for a fight, as if he’s gearing up for me to be the jerk I am inside.
Well, he’s going to be disappointed.
“I messed up,” I tell him.
A look of relief crosses his face as he stands up and walks over to me. “Oh, thank dragons,” he says, wrapping his arms around me and bringing me in for a hug. The gesture is a comfortable one, and it’s one of my favorite things about my brothers and sisters at Extrinsic. Life is short, so we hug.
I pull back and sit at Max’s desk. He joins me and pushes a glass of something toward me.
“What is it?”
“Just drink it. You look like you could use it.”
I down the nasty-smelling green drink and slam the glass back on the desk. It was disgusting, but I instantly start to feel more awake and alert.
“Good, right?” Max smiles at me.
“Not really.”
“You were saying you’re an idiot?” He leans back in his chair and pushes his feet up on the desk.
“A complete idiot.”
“Have you apologized to her yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Blake! You need to go to Sarah and grovel. You need to tell her how stupid you are. You need to promise her never to make that mistake again and you need to beg for her forgiveness. For fuck’s sake, man, I thought I taught you better than this.”
“It’s not about Sarah,” I tell him. “It’s about Lizzie.”
“Oh,” a look of disappointment covers his face, and I realize I’m not doing this right.
“Yes, I will grovel for Sarah,” I clarify. “But first, there’s something we need to do about Lizzie.” I fill him in on what happened the night prior: how she basically confessed to derailing the mission so she could get together with me and how she sabotaged most of our chances to locate our missing people early on.
“Damn it,” he groans. “I should have seen it. She was really weird on the mission, brother. You both were, but I thought it was just stress, so I ignored it.” I know he regrets trusting his instincts. There have been times in our lives when we’ve both trusted our instincts and it’s gotten us in trouble.
“It’s not your fault.”
“Well, I was the group leader on Eola. I should have sent you both back as soon as I became aware of your blossoming relationship.” Max hates people hooking up on missions just as much as I do, but Max is also an old married guy with a kid now. He’s forgotten what it’s like to be young and infatuated.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I repeat. “Nothing that happened is either of our faults.”
I look at him sharply, and I know he gets what I’m not saying. Max was there for me when I was in prison. He came and saw me on a regular basis: as often as the guards would let him in. He’d sit with me and just tell me stories. Most of them were made up, I’m sure, but it got me through some of the darkest years of my life.
Sarah came, too.
Both of them would visit with me and keep me company, making promises that soon, everything would be okay.
And it was.
There was never enough evidence to convict me, so after sitting in a jail for two years while they sorted their business, I was released and allowed to leave. I was a free man. I was my own person. Finally.
And that’s when I got really, really lost.
My brothers were both in jail for other crimes by that point. I hadn’t heard, and when I went to confront them about what they’d done to me, they just laughed. They both laughed and told me I was stupid. They told me I was an idiot and they were ashamed to have me for a brother.
I never looked back.
Oh, I struggled for a couple of years, but then I found Extrinsic and everything changed. Soon I was a part of an incredible team, and Max and Sarah came with me. They have always been there for me, but lately, I seem to be letting them down over and over again.
I don’t want to be that guy who lets people down.
That’s not who I want to be known as.
I don’t want to be the screw-up or the freak or the loser.
No, I want to be better than that.
I want to be more than that.
“Blake,” Max begins, but I cut him off.
“We’ve been friends forever, brother. That’s what you are to me: a brother. I fucked up on Eola. I shouldn’t have started something with Lizzie. I should have stayed focused on the mission. I lost my way a little bit. Sarah has never let me down and I should have treated her with more respect than I did. I felt ashamed of what I’d done to her, so I hooked up with Lizzie quickly. I just wanted to prove that I wasn’t in love with Sarah and that I didn’t really need her.
“But you do need her.”
“Yes,” I agree. “I do need her.”
“So what are you going to do about it, Blake? Are you going to run away again? Because let me tell you something. You’re a brother to me, too, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to hurt you if you’re a jerk to her again. She deserves better than that and I think you know it.
“Yeah,” I agree, swallowing hard. “I know it, and I’m going to make it up to her.”
Groveling.
Lots and lots of groveling: that’s what I foresee in my very near future.
“But first,” I tell Max. “We need to do something about Lizzie.”
“Time to talk to headquarters,” he groans, getting to his feet. “Come on, buddy. I’ll go with you. We’re in this together, Blake
.”
“Thanks, Max. It means a lot to me.”
He grunts something in reply and the two of us head down the hall to the command center. That’s where we’ll hold a hologram call with headquarters to find out what we need to do about Lizzie’s infraction and whether we need to return her to Orchid. The truth is that I’d rather not see another person sent to jail. Lizzie screwed up incredibly and she’s apparently a little bit evil, but jail is a dark place that twists you. It changes you, and I don’t want to see it change her for the worst.
We head into the command center and as I look around at the team standing there, I know that Max and I are going to have to make the call. Unfortunately, there’s a lot riding on this ship, on this group of heroes. One bad apple can ruin the entire harvest, and I know that Lizzie can’t stay. She’s too dangerous. If she destroyed one mission for “love,” what’s to stop her from doing it again?
“What’s wrong?” Jake steps forward and looks at us in confusion. “Isn’t the briefing in a couple of hours?”
“This isn’t about the briefing, boys,” I hold up a holodrive. “It’s about something else entirely.” The mood of the room instantly shifts as everyone begins to gather around to see what I’ve brought and what I’m about to do.
I look to Max, and he nods at me, silently encouraging me, and then I look back to the group.
“We need to talk to headquarters,” I tell them. “Apparently, the Eola mission was sabotaged.”
***
By the time Max and I leave the command center, two hours have passed and we’re both completely exhausted. Not only did we have to talk about Lizzie’s confession and her alleged crimes on Eola, but we had to talk about why Max and I didn’t notice there was a problem. It looks bad for both of us. I thought the blame would be placed sorely on me, but Max did something incredible.
“It was my fault, too.”
He took half of the blame.
It didn’t take all of it, but he also didn’t let me accept fault for something that wasn’t entirely my responsibility, and for the first time in my life, I’m realizing what it really means to have a brother. I’m realizing what it really means to have someone stand by your side.
Max doesn’t ask me for excuses. He doesn’t ask me to come up with a reason why I didn’t make different choices on Eola. He just stands by my side while we figure out what we’re going to do.
“Lizzie didn’t report for duty this morning,” Max says as we stride side-by-side down the busy halls of the ship. Everyone is rushing around, bustling. “And,” he glances at his communications device. “Falcon says she isn’t in her room. Where do we need to look for her, Blake? What do you know? Would she have fled the ship?”
It’s not likely, but there are ways to sneak off the ship without anyone noticing or finding out. It’s one of the first things new Extrinsic members discover when they board.
“I don’t know,” I tell him honestly. “There’s no reason for her not to go to work this morning.”
“Didn’t you say the two of you officially broke up last night?” He looks at me quizzically.
“Yeah, but that was nothing,” I say, realizing where he’s going with this. “She’ll be fine.” She’s not going to do anything crazy.
Is she?
“Blake, don’t be dumb again, brother. This is the woman who sabotaged an entire mission to spend time alone with you. Is there any chance she’d go after Sarah?”
I want to say no.
I want to say that he’s an idiot for asking, for suspecting, but he’s not.
There’s every chance in the world she’d go after Sarah, and if that’s where Lizzie is this morning, then we don’t have much time.
“Let’s go!” I shout, and I start to run down the hallway.
I should have come sooner.
I should have rushed to Sarah’s side as soon as I left Lizzie’s place, but I didn’t. Instead, I went home and poured over documents to figure out what happened on the mission. I went over every picture, every file, every note. I did all of that while I held the gift Sarah had brought me, and I did it while she was off thinking I didn’t care.
I do care.
I care a lot.
I care much more than I should.
Reaching in my pocket, I touch the key that held my life for so long. When I was released from my cell for the last time, I asked one of the guards for a key to it as a memento. I don’t know why. Maybe it was to keep me grounded: to help me remember that I never wanted to end up in that place again.
When Sarah joined Extrinsic, she was scared and nervous, and I gave her the key to help her through her training. As a medical professional, she had intensive training to prepare her for anything she might encounter on the ship, but some of the training was really hard.
“Take it,” I tell her, pressing it into her hand.
“Blake, I can’t take this,” she shakes her head. “It’s so important to you. You said it was your most prized possession.”
“When you’re feeling scared, Sarah, I want you to hold the key and think of me. Pretend that we’re together and that I’m taking care of you.”
“Really?” She looks up at me like I’m her hero. I know I don’t deserve her admiration or her love, but I’ll take it because she’s perfect.
She’s sweet.
She’s wonderful.
And I’m no good for her.
Sarah deserves someone pure and kind and gentle.
She doesn’t need the monster, the bastard.
She doesn’t need the villain.
“Really,” I tell her. “No matter what happens, Sarah, I will always be there for you when you need me the most. I don’t care what life throws at us. We’ll get through it together.”
“This means the world to me, Blake.”
She kept the key in her pocket all through training and she doesn’t know that I know, but she kept it in her pocket each day at work until recently.
Until I screwed everything up.
Apparently, Sarah is a more forgiving person than I thought, though, because despite my treating her like she was unimportant when she kissed me, she brought the key to our homecoming, and she wrote me a note telling me that no matter what happens between us, she will always be there for me.
No matter what you’re going through, Blake, you can count on me.
I only hope I’m worthy of her trust.
I run a little faster.
Chapter 7
Sarah
Lizzie is sedated, hooked up to medication, and there’s a holographic scanner roaming her body every thirty-five seconds to make sure she’s still stable. She’s asleep, and she’s never looked so peaceful. She almost looks like a normal person and not a huge bitch.
“Thanks for the help getting her stabilized,” I tell Tami.
“Anytime,” Tami says. “Although, I’m not going to blame you if you tell me you’d rather just let this one…you know.”
“Let her what?”
“Oh, come on, Sarah! She was terrible to you! She’s always had a grudge against you and now she takes your man? I won’t blame you if you tell me you never want her to wake up.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say,” I insist, turning away from Tami.
“But it’s true,” she says.
I sigh and shake my head. It shouldn’t be true. I shouldn’t want anything bad to happen to Lizzie, and I don’t. I don’t. I want her to heal and to recover and to go on to live a normal, happy life. If that means she gets to be with Blake, that’s fine. I only hope she takes care of him in the way he deserves.
People don’t realize what a gentle guy Blake really is. He’s kind and good and sweet. He’s been through hell and back again and most of the time, you could never even tell. He’s got an easygoing smile and a friendly personality. Blake somehow manages to put everyone at ease, no matter who they are or where they’re from.
It’s one of the things I like most about him.
I li
ke that he’s so calm.
I like that he’s so caring and open.
Finally, I turn back around and look at Tami. She’s sitting next to Lizzie’s bed adjusting a couple of settings on the monitors.
“I don’t want her to die.”
“It’s okay if you do.”
“I don’t,” I tell her. “Even aside from everything the two of us have been through, I would never wish death on a patient.”
“So you’re telling me that you’re okay taking care of the woman who stole your man? You’re much more of a woman than me, Sarah. I don’t think I could handle seeing them together.”
“It has nothing to do with her,” I tell Tami, sitting down on the opposite side of the bed. “And it has everything to do with the fact that I love Blake. I always have. If he needs to be with Lizzie to be happy, then that’s fine. I’ll do everything in my power to support them.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because Blake is the best man I’ve ever met. He deserves to be happy.”
Tami is silent for a long time, and then she smiles slowly.
“You know, I’m glad I was assigned to work with you, Sarah. There are rumors that you’re kind of a softie when it comes to caring for your patients, and I’m pretty sure those are true, but beneath all that butter, you really do have a tough heart: a strong heart.”
“That means a lot to me, Tami.”
She smiles and turns back to Lizzie.
Lizzie is resting peacefully as I start making notations in her holographic file. From what I can tell, she hasn’t been doing her physical assessments with the sports trainer, or she’s been faking them somehow, because her strength has greatly deteriorated from our last exam. She skipped her profile analysis prior to leaving on her latest mission. If she hadn’t, I likely would have caught this issue and been able to treat her before she left.
Now things are much worse than they should be.
Oh, she’s not going to die or anything like that. She won’t be disabled. She will, however, be on bed rest for at least two weeks while we figure out a treatment regime for her illness. The lab work came back instantly that she has three different viruses: all contracted during missions. Left untreated, these can lead to a variety of problems, including anemia and low blood pressure and a bunch of other random things.
