Lost Star

by Rebecca Royce

  “You’ve already thanked me. There’s no need to—”

  I wasn’t sure what he would have said, because Wade tore into the room. I looked up. The poor man seemed like he did a lot of running around. “Are you okay?”

  Still practically running, he slid into the chair next to me, scooting it over so he was close. “Don’t eat too much of that. We’re not sure how long you were in cryogenic sleep, but it was certainly long enough that you’re going to want to take that slow.”

  I set down my fork. He was right, I was already really full. I wiped at my lips. “I’m…I’m fine.” I would be at least, once I had some answers. “What’s wrong with me?”

  He visibly swallowed. “A lot of things. Our best guess is that Evander injected you with a lot of different engineered viruses to try to force you to work with them. Now we understand why. They want to exploit your abilities.”

  I pointed to my arm. I hadn’t asked enough questions earlier, but my head was clearer now. “This will fix me?”

  He shook his head. “This will keep the virus numbers low. Look.” Wade had soft hands, and when he touched my arm, warmth flooded me. “See right here?” He ran his finger over the side of the strange device in my arm. I looked down where he indicated. “There are three sets of numbers. The first two are really for me, or whoever is doing your medical care. It tells us various things about the viruses you’re fighting. The drug dosages. But here, this third one? That’s for you to see.”

  There was a number 1 indicated where he pointed. “What does it mean?”

  “That’s your virus number, simplified, so you can see it and monitor yourself, if you want to. Basically, one is a very good place for you to be. Zero would be better. That would mean you were cured. Wouldn’t we love that? But one is the lowest number I can see here without it being zero, so I’m very happy with one. You are safe to be around, and relatively healthy, at one. The lower the number the better.”

  I caught my breath. “I might not be safe to be around for others?”

  “There is a threshold where some of the viruses in your body become contagious to others. Yes. In that case, we have to get the numbers down again or place you in a quarantine situation.”

  “Or it kills her, right?” Trenton had his back to us as he washed dishes at the sink. “Don’t sugarcoat it, Wade. She’s a grown up. She gets to know the current state of her life. That number goes up too high, and she is also at risk for dying.”

  I’d already worked that out myself. I’d spent my life in what a lot of people called The Dark Planets section of the universe. We got very little help, almost no medical care. People died from illness all the time. More times than not, in fact, if someone got very sick, they didn’t come back from it.

  “What’s the number where I…where I’m at risk either personally or against others?” That was key to know. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me, but I wouldn’t—couldn’t—let anyone else have to go through this because of me.

  Wade squeezed my wrist before he let go. “Ten. You’re good as long as you’re under ten. But if it starts to rise, like one day you’re at one and then next at five, and then the next eight, we need to know that. So make sure you tell me. There could be variants. Like you might be at two tomorrow and then back to one the same day. That’s fine.” Wade touched my forehead. “When you do that thing you did with the zapping, does it hurt? Are you okay?”

  I sighed. “I need to apologize to Kellan.”

  “No.” Corbin leaned in the doorway, watching us. How long had he been there? “Don’t do that. He won’t know what to do with an apology, particularly because he was being such an asshole.” He strode into the room. “Besides, he just heard you say that, I guarantee it, so yeah, you made your apology. Now, what is this that you’re eating in here?”

  Trenton groaned. “No.”

  “I haven’t asked yet.” Corbin nudged Trenton. “And you know you want to make it for me. You know you do. You have this skill set, and you are just refusing to share it with me? Why? I would never deny you something like this if it was mine to give.”

  Trenton leaned his head back, a smirk showing on his face as he turned around. “You want French toast, Corbin?”

  “I do.” He pulled up a chair and sat down. “I really, really need to know what this French toast is and how it tastes.”

  Trenton nodded. “And you’ll do what for me in return?”

  Corbin drummed his fingers on the table. “Not tell Blaze how…”

  “Okay,” Trenton cut him off. “Fine. French toast it is. Now of course Blaze knows there’s something he doesn’t know. He’s going to be like a dog with a bone about this.”

  Corbin winked at me. “Yep. Oh, don’t worry about the numbers, Sienna. Wade won’t let you die. He’s a lot smarter than he thinks he is and good at this.”

  “Thanks.” Wade rolled his eyes.

  “I…I need to thank all of you for keeping me safe after what’s happened. You don’t know me. You’re under no obligation and…” I sighed. “When do you think I can go home?”

  Corbin furrowed his brow. “Probably not anytime soon. That’s very bad strategy. The Dark Planets have no real military to speak of. Outdated ships worse than this one.” He shrugged. “Bringing you home would get all those people killed, since Evander isn’t going to rest until they’ve acquired you. Yep, you’re not going home.”

  My heart sank. Not going home? My breath caught in my throat. “I have to go back. I’m important there. They need me. And that’s my family…”

  “Because you can zap people?” Corbin asked as Trenton set his French toast in front of him with a thunk.

  I shook my head. “No, the thing is that—”

  Kellan stormed into the room, grabbed a chair, and sat down right next to me. “Do it again.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “Do it again.” He pointed at his head. “Zap me.”

  Was it getting hot in here? I’d never been around so many men and rarely this many people at the same time. I’d always hated the solitary nature of my existence, the amount of time I spent alone, but right now, I wasn’t sure what I had been complaining about.

  “I’m sorry that I did that. It goes against my nature to do that, and it won’t happen again.”

  Corbin groaned, closing his eyes. “I told you not to apologize to him. It’s only going to confuse him. And fuck, this is good.”

  Wade whacked him in the arm. “Don’t curse in front of our guest.”

  “You don’t understand the intricacies of human behavior any more than I do,” Kellan shot back at Corbin. “What are you eating? Never mind. Sienna,” he leaned forward, “do it again.”

  Blaze entered looking left and right. “If you do that again, I’m locking you in your room for the remainder of the time you’re on this ship.”

  His declaration shut the room up. Everyone fell quiet.

  “I just apologized. It isn’t something that I do, ever. I’m not myself.” I didn’t want to be locked in a room. And for some reason, I absolutely believed that this man would do that and that no one in here would stop him. Blaze was in charge.

  And I was at his—and all of these strange men’s—mercy. Not just to keep me safe on this ship, but to keep me alive because I was sick and totally dependent on them making sure I didn’t die.

  This wasn’t…okay.

  I knew nothing about any of them. Trenton had been nice and cooked for me. Wade certainly seemed to have my best health intentions at heart, but I couldn’t understand the others. Just that they were foreign. Somehow different. What did they mean they didn’t understand human ways?

  Corbin lifted his gaze to look at Blaze. “You’ve frightened her.” He threw down his fork. “And ruined my appetite.”

  “She should be afraid,” Blaze countered, staying exactly where he was. “There are a lot of reasons for her to be frightened. Not to mention the fact that she is probably terrifying for people to have around. Th
at little zap she gave you, Kellan? How much worse could that have been?”

  Next to me, he nodded. “That’s what I’m hoping to find out. Do it again. I liked it. You’d be doing me a favor.”

  I ignored that, for now. Rising slowly, I decided the best thing for me to do was not to be in this room when I had a meltdown, even if they would be able to hear me have it whether I was with them or not.

  Blaze met my gaze. “I don’t know if your people scurried you away in cryogenic sleep because they wanted to save you, or because it was a relief to have someone who can do what you do off the planet. I personally can’t wait to get you off this ship. I have enough to worry about tracking down and beating Evander to submission without having to worry that my own men are going to be attacked from within. So I’m taking you to the people who should be in charge of you and getting you out of my hair. You want to go home? Take it up with the Chens. Or the Sandlers. Or Diana Mallory and her mother Melissa. I don’t care. One of them. We are not equipped for you.”

  Trenton slammed down his dish in the sink. “That’s enough, Blaze. She didn’t ask for this or to be with us when it happened. Don’t talk to her like that.”

  Blaze ignored him. “Do we understand each other, Sienna?”

  His anger hit me hard, but it was only part of what I felt right now. My natural shields that I’d harnessed over the years to protect me were holding, or the second emotion that Blaze threw off would have been the harder one to take. He was pissed, but he was also overwhelmed.

  I certainly understood what that was like, and even though his words burned at my own insecurities like they might break me apart, I wouldn’t lose it in front of him.

  “If I was who you think I am, I’d zap you right now. Straight into oblivion. But I’m not. So if someone could point me to my room, I will stay in there until I can speak to someone who might be willing to let me go home. I really…don’t want to be any trouble.”

  Trenton opened his mouth, but it was Corbin who stood up first. “I will. Come with me. This whole day is fucked.”

  “Language,” Trenton and Wade called out almost simultaneously.

  I sighed. This would be funny if it wasn’t so…completely unamusing.

  3 Playing Games

  I’d spent most of my life walking the same five-mile stretch of land. I’d even been born within those five miles; my mother and father lived in the town closest to the temple where they’d worked as tailors. It had been amazing that my father had gotten my mother, considering the female shortage in the universe. I was told that on places like Earth, you had to be rich to get a wife. But on our planet, it had to do with what the temple elders decided. They’d decided he would have her.

  And I was lucky that they had.

  Not that I particularly knew them. The day they’d left me in the temple was really the last time I’d spent any real time with them outside of lunches and visits. They tried. I could see that. They’d never had more children. Maybe it had been too hard to lose me.

  As I walked through the room with Corbin, I felt like I’d woken up in a different existence. I didn’t know what any of the buttons on the wall did, or even how to turn off the lights. I wandered into the bathroom. The shower looked the same. There were knobs. That I was sure I could figure out.

  My shoulders felt too heavy. Had my numbers already gone up? I stared down. No, it still read number one.

  Corbin leaned in the doorway, watching me. “Everything look okay? We’re going to have to get you some clothes. But I think this is exactly the same room the rest of us have. We’ve all slowly acquired stuff, which is weird because I never had any, so there are some differences, but not much.”

  I sighed. They didn’t have stuff? “At some point, maybe you could explain to me how you guys are as you are. I don’t really understand it. But then again, I don’t really understand anything. I feel like a baby. I don’t know how anything works. The place where I grew up was sort of allergic to most electronics. We had most basic things. Don’t imagine us without a stove. But I don’t know any of this.”

  He nodded. “I actually one hundred percent understand how off putting that is. When I first woke up on a ship far from here and traveled to this side of the galaxy, following Blaze into the unknown, everything was new, everything was strange.”

  Maybe he did understand. “So…um, which one controls the lights?”

  He touched a button by the side of the door, and they went off. Although I couldn’t see it, he must have hit it again because the lights came back. He strode farther into the room. “Are you tired? I ask you because you don’t sound tired. I can usually tell because…never mind, I can just tell. It has to do with heart rates. Anyway, you don’t sound tired.”

  Now that was interesting. “You guys hear fear. You hear tired. You hear hearts. Must be exhausting to be so constantly surrounded by other people’s noises.”

  His smile was huge. “Well, we learned how to tune it out when needed, or to keep quiet about it when we were young or they put us down.”

  “Which one did you do? Tune it out or shut up about it?” I don’t know why I asked, except that I was so used to people telling me their stories, it seemed odd to not be given information like that. I looked down at the floor. Truth was, it was rude to ask questions of strangers. I had enough manners to understand that.

  Corbin stayed so quiet that eventually I had to lift my gaze to see what he was doing.

  He smiled, flipping some of his long hair over his shoulder. Had he been waiting for me to look up to answer? “Depends on the day. I can tune it out when I have to. I’m one of the greatest killers ever produced by Evander Corporation. When I’m doing that, I don’t hear anything. The world goes silent. But when I’m not—and lately I’m not—then it is hard for me to not be fully aware of every noise I can hear, every sound anyone makes. Internally or externally. And I have the good sense, most of the time, to not mention it. Except that with you, I’d like to understand things I don’t, so I mentioned it.” He paused. “Does that make sense?”

  I shook my head. “No. But that’s probably more me than you. I don’t think I’ve ever spent time with a killer before. Not that I knew, anyway.”

  “Well, you’re on a ship with six of us. Yes, even Wade.” His smile fell. “But you’re perfectly safe. Maybe the most you’ve ever been. If you’re not tired, take a shower. And I’ll bring you some clothes you can change into. Then, maybe we can play a game.”

  Some of the anxiety in my chest loosened. Yes, a shower sounded wonderful. “A game?”

  “You’ll see. One of the benefits of being out of Evander is that we can do things like have fun. Although none of the rest of them seem to realize that, and no one will play with me. I get the feeling you might?”

  This might have been among the strangest conversations of my life. “I guess it depends on the game.”

  “You’ll like this.” He nodded toward me. “See you in a bit.”

  When he closed the door, leaving me in the room alone—the first time I’d been so since I’d woken up—I was almost not sure what to do. A brown blanket covered the bed. The sheets were white, as were the pillowcases.

  Otherwise, the walls were white, the floor was tan, and all of it felt like it might swallow me whole. I had to…I had to get it together. This was happening. Somehow, I was going to have to deal. I rushed toward the bathroom.

  The ship moved beneath my feet, and I stumbled, grabbing onto the bathroom counter. Okay. Other than when the ship had been darting around in space, I hadn’t been particularly cognizant of it moving. But now…oh yes. I could.

  My feet buzzed, and there was a constant sway. My stomach turned, and I breathed through my nose. No, I was not going to throw up all the food Trenton had fed me. That couldn’t be good for me, not in my current state. I turned on the water. It worked, and I thanked my luck for that. Laughing seemed like a strange thing to do, and yet I couldn’t help myself.

  This was my fault. I’d
had so many bad thoughts over the years, so many times I’d wished for more than I had. It was vile and low when I had so much more than everyone else. I’d had a future guaranteed to me.

  And now this.

  I took off my clothes. Where had I even gotten them? They were pants I’d never worn and a black shirt I’d never seen before. They weren’t the temple robes and certainly not any of my regular clothing. Who had dressed me in them?

  Wade? My cheeks heated up thinking of him seeing me naked. Had Corbin really meant it when he said Wade was a killer? Were they all that way?

  Kellan, yes. He had calculating eyes. Blaze, for sure. He’d practically murdered me with his words. But Anders seemed gentle. Corbin had a fun spirit. Trenton was helpful and kind. Wade was a healer. But then again, I knew we were all many, many things. Look at me. I was incredibly ungrateful and messed up.

  I turned on the water, and it was instantly hot. At home, it took minutes, sometimes up to twenty, to get to the point of hot water. I stepped under the water. My body instantly relaxed. There was nothing I liked better than warmth under the spray of water. I’d forgotten to ask Corbin how long I could stand under here, because surely there would be a shortage of this on the ship with seven of us having to use it.

  That just meant I couldn’t overindulge. I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Most things could be solved if I just counted to ten. Sometimes a few times. This was one of those times that it was going to take a few times.

  I had to get my bearings. I was on a ship called Artemis. There were six men with me. Blaze, he was in charge, and he didn’t like me because I’d zapped Kellan, who had challenged me, and I’d had no patience. Wade was a doctor; he’d told me I was sick. I had medicine on my arm, and I had to watch numbers and make sure they didn’t get above ten. Trenton with his kind manners but short temper with the others seemed a contrast. It seemed like he was hiding things. And Wade, who had put this medicine in my arm, who I had reached out to in my sleep, had the most tired eyes I’d ever seen.