by Lucas, Naomi
“It’s about a lot more than that! You couldn’t get away fast enough. The bedding was soaked with sweat. I need to know…” He hadn’t found any trace of his poison, and she seemed fine, but he had to be certain. “Do you feel lightheaded at all? Do you ache anywhere besides there?” He indicated her middle region. “It’s important, Alexa. Do you feel strange, in any way?”
She looked down at her body, confusion flitting over her face. “I feel…”
He strode forward, closing the distance between them, and kneeled before her. “Tell me.”
“I feel fine.”
“I didn’t hurt you?”
She shook her head. “Not in any way that I didn’t want.”
The air expelled from his lungs. He didn’t know how much he needed her to tell him that. “Good.”
“Why did you wear that…black suit?”
He knew she would be curious. He was surprised she hadn’t brought it up sooner. His gaze roved over her. She looked fine. She was acting normal if a little weary. She wasn’t sick.
“That first day, when I caught you and Raul in the storage talking? He told you I was defective.” Fuck, he hated saying the word out loud. It was a fucking travesty that countless billions had been put into him, only to be unable to control his systems as well as he should. Hysterian waited for her to nod. “I have a skin issue.”
It was more than that, but he didn’t need to explain all the gritty details. She wouldn’t understand anyway.
“You”—she licked her lips, checking him out—“have a skin issue? A Cyborg?”
Hysterian straightened. “Yes.”
“Does it have something to do with your animal?”
He stilled. “My what?”
“Your animal? You’re a shifter.”
“How do you know that?” That information was private, like almost all information on his kind. Only the people closest to him knew his vendor number—and even then, they didn’t know what he could and couldn’t do.
“Raul told me,” she said a little too quickly for his liking.
Of course, Raul told her. Somehow that guy knew more than he should about Hysterian. Raul had been a recommendation from Nightheart, and a previous crewmember of Cypher’s before being transferred to Hysterian’s ship. Raul might have had access to classified information at some point. They had been on Cypher’s ship at the same time for a short period—though had not spoken more than a simple greeting while traveling together to Earth.
Hysterian was even happier now that he’d gotten rid of Raul. But he also didn’t believe Alexa.
He didn’t believe that she wasn’t sick, either.
She’s lying to me.
A lot.
He hated liars.
“Yes,” he growled. “It has to do with the kind of animal I am. I’m dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
He rose to his feet. “It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with. As long as there’s a barrier between us, you’re safe.”
“So…you wore a body suit to be able to have sex with me? You…planned this?”
Her expression was curious, concerned, and he didn’t like it. “I wore a suit so I could touch you. I bought a suit tonight so I could give myself a little damned hope that it would happen. Do you know how badly I want to touch you, Alexa? It’s insanity. I’m mad with it, having you right here, right in front of me, not able to lay my hands on you and feel your skin. I licked our goddamned bedding so I could have a taste, just a taste of what I was missing. And you know what I found?”
Her eyes had gone wide. “You licked the—the bedding?”
“I want another taste, right fucking now. You’re sweet. Too sweet, and nothing about you is sweet, why is that? Why the fuck are you so sweet?”
Annoyance flicked across her face. “How am I supposed to answer that?” she whispered.
“You’re hiding something.”
Alexa pushed off the sofa and stormed to the door.
“Oh no you don’t!” Hysterian jumped in front of her. “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me everything.”
“Then we’re going to be here forever because I have nothing to tell you!”
“Lies.”
Her face hardened.
“I know a lie when I hear one, Dear. I’m a damned master at it.”
“So threatening me to tell you what you want makes you an expert? I’m tired. It’s been a really long night, as you know.” She tried to get past him, but he wouldn’t let her.
He grabbed her arms. “I want to know who hurt you, Alexa.”
She went rigid. Fear—no, terror—fell across her features, sending his systems into overdrive. His need to hurt whoever made her this way grew.
“Tell me who.”
“I—”
“I’m going to fucking kill them.”
Alexa startled, jerking out of his hold. His hands fell, and he fisted them.
She parted her lips and shook her head. He saw her eyes glaze over, going distant. Her flesh lost any remaining color it had.
He hadn’t realized how easy it would be to break her. How delicate she was. Gone was the walled-off subordinate he knew—the one he wanted to shake and warm up. She’d been replaced with a girl. A lost girl.
Had he known Alexa Dear at all?
“I...” Her voice shook, enraging him further. “I can’t tell you that.”
“I’m going to find out. One way or another, I will find out who hurt you and I’m going to destroy them,” he warned. “I’ll make sure they never get a chance to hurt you again.”
Her eyes shot from his to stare at the wall. She swayed. He was losing her.
“Tell me,” he ordered.
He needed to know. He needed to know as if his life depended on it.
“Alexa, make this easier on both of us. I’m going to find out eventually,” Hysterian urged.
Her face only grew whiter. When she finally spoke, it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. It was his worst nightmare.
She wobbled on her feet, breathing suddenly labored. “Captain, I’m tired. Really tired, and raw. Maybe…I don’t feel right.” Her eyes hooded.
He waited for her to say more. She stared at the door.
“Alexa?”
Her eyes were filmy now.
“Alexa?” he said again, louder this time. His soul quaked. “What’s wrong?”
She slowly brought her hand to her face. “I don’t—”
He caught her against him as she fell. Her head rolled to the side, and she vomited all over his floor. He shifted her in his arms, grabbing her hair to keep it out of her face.
She fainted.
“Alexa?” he shouted, turning her over. “Wake up!” He hauled her into his arms. She was so much lighter than she should be, so small.
No...
He sprinted to medical. “Alexa, wake up. Wake up, damn it!” he ordered again as he laid her on the pallet, programming the ship’s AI to scan her body.
Hysterian’s systems blared, his eyes bright teal, lighting up the medical devices around him. His thoughts came to a halt as he stared at Alexa. Wake up.
“Questor!” he screamed. “Find Pigeon and get him here, now!”
Robotic arms shot from the wall to take Alexa’s vitals. Her eyelids fluttered, lips turned blue.
She was overdosing.
She was overdosing, and it was because of him.
Nineteen
Her body felt heavy. Her heart, weak. She was weighed down, trapped by a blanket of molasses. Her thoughts spun. Sometimes they made sense, but most of the time they didn’t. Not at first, at least.
But whether they did or not, she didn’t care. She knew she was going to forget them anyway.
When she finally managed to open her eyes, it was to a room so bright that it made her head burst with pain. Beside her stood Pigeon and Hysterian, and she managed to smile before she lost consciousness. If Pigeon was here, she was safe.
The next time she op
ened her eyes, the room was dim, and it was Hysterian alone next to her. She tried to speak, and he shot over her, said her name, but that was all she heard before the pain in her head returned and she fell back under.
The only constant was the heaviness and the forgetfulness. Besides that, she didn’t know what was happening, except that when her head wasn’t throbbing, time was passing, and she was comfortable. Someone was keeping her that way.
Bit by bit, things returned. Thoughts stuck.
Her conversation with Hysterian returned.
His skin? He said it was dangerous…
Alexa stared at the ceiling of the lab. She knew someone was beside her bed, but she didn’t turn her head to see who it was. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to go back to sleep yet or not.
If she needed to pretend.
Because she had needles in her arms, and her medical charts—though unclear—were on the wall opposite of her.
If Hysterian and the crew hadn’t known she wasn’t fully human, they did now. They had to know now. She’d been to the doctor before in her youth, and with one vial of her blood, they knew she wasn’t fully human.
So why am I not dead?
Hysterian was a Cyborg, and Cyborgs had been created for one thing only, and that was to destroy Trentians, the same thing she was…a little. She knew that ‘little’ was still a lot to a Cyborg, who’d been programmed since creation to kill her kind without mercy. Though they hadn’t waged war in nearly seventy years now, there were still skirmishes that happened between Cyborgs and Trentians frequently enough to keep the animosity alive.
She always thought that maybe Hysterian killed her dad because he married a half-breed. But then she’d shoot it down, knowing that wouldn’t make her father a target of a Cyborg. It wasn’t humans they were programmed to destroy after all. Just aliens. Her dad had been human.
And try as she might, she couldn’t figure out how she got into the medical lab at all. One minute she’d been in Hysterian’s bathroom, and the next? It was all a blur.
We talked. She knew they talked.
Alexa closed her eyes and tried to focus, but the more she tried, the harder her head throbbed. She whimpered.
It hurts. It hurts so much.
She raised her arms so she could bring her hands to her face, but they were too heavy to lift, they remained at her sides. Her pulse raced from the effort, and before she could sink back into stasis and stop her anxiety from building, a beeping sounded in her ears.
“Alexa?”
Pigeon appeared above her. The beeping stopped.
“You’re awake!” he exclaimed, glancing over his shoulder. “How are you feeling?”
“My head...” she croaked.
“Right,” he said, shuffling away. Something happened with the pallet she was on, and the IVs were changed by the robotic arms attached to it. Pigeon returned. “That should help, I hope.”
Pigeon glanced over his shoulder again. She tried to see what he was looking at, but there was only the closed door of the medical lab and some equipment.
He faced her. “I need to talk to you if you can manage it. It’s important, and we don’t have much time. Do you understand?”
She thought she did. She at least could tell Pigeon was worried about something, and since the pain in her skull kept her thoughts blurry, maybe whatever he had to say would jar them back into place.
“Yes,” she wheezed.
“Good. Try to stay awake and listen. I know you’re not human.”
Her eyes closed. There it was. Her stomach churned.
The words had been uttered aloud.
It’s over. If I’m not dead by the end of the day, I’ll never see Hysterian again. He’ll hate me as much as I should be hating him. She didn’t know why that made her miserable.
“I don’t know how much longer I can keep it from the captain.” Pigeon kept talking.
“He doesn’t know?”
“He probably suspects something isn’t right, but I’ve been manipulating and destroying your data as it comes. I’m not running the tests you need to help you heal. It’s why you’re still here. He’s been believing my excuses, but I don’t know how long I can keep it up before he finds out. He’s…not well. We need to get you off this ship. Now.”
Alexa’s heart raced. She couldn’t leave. How would she manage that? She could barely think straight, let alone walk off this ship without Hysterian noticing.
“I have a guy outside waiting who will take you and hide you, at least long enough for you to get on your feet, but we have to leave now, if possible.”
She tried to nod, but her head decided to split open instead.
Pigeon glanced at the door again. She wanted to tell him that Hysterian had access to security feeds, and just saying the words out loud was enough to fuck everything up, but it was too late.
Pigeon put his arm under her back and helped her sit up. She clutched the edge of the pallet, trying not to faint as he pulled out her IVs. When he was done, he helped her into her jacket, covering up her arms. He kneeled and put on her boots.
“You’ll…have to come with me,” she managed, slurring. “Not safe for you either anymore.”
Pigeon nodded.
It broke her heart. “I’m sorry.”
He stood, grabbing her hands. “Don’t be. I don’t know why you put yourself in this situation, to begin with, but I’m sure you have your reasons. I know you’re careful and cautious. So I’m sure you knew the risks. I just wish… I wish you would have told me.”
“Couldn’t risk it,” she swallowed. “I care about you.”
Pigeon’s face fell. “I care about you too, Dear. You remind me of my daughters.”
Her heart flooded with emotion, and her chin fell to her chest. It was too painful to hear, to cry even.
“None of that now,” he said, curling his arm under her shoulder. “Time to get you to safety.”
He hauled her against his frame and guided her to the exit. He checked the corridor twice before leaving the medical lab.
She tried not to faint.
They managed to make it to the stairs, and from there she had to work up the strength to bear down on her feet and use the wall while Pigeon kept her upright. By the time they made it to the bottom, they were both sagging. Alexa peered down the long hallway ahead of them and the hatch at the other end.
They were never going to make it.
But it wasn’t about her anymore, it was about Pigeon’s safety too. Hysterian might have told her he’d never harm her, but he never said such words to any of the other crew… Not that she knew of.
Hobbling along the wall, she and Pigeon made it to the armory, the menagerie. She looked into her work space for the last time as they drifted by. Her eyes landed on the male locust curled up sleeping in his enclosure on the other side. Alexa turned away. They made it to the hatch.
Pigeon set her against the wall, and she slid down as he moved the panel to type in the ship’s security code. She tried to catch her breath.
We’re going to make it. Hope and fear, and another dose of misery, filled her.
The hatch opened.
Hysterian was on the other side.
“Captain...” Pigeon said, straightening.
Alexa’s eyes fell on the Cyborg blocking their path. Tall and decked, with his white hair once again perfectly held away from his face—she didn’t need to see his mouth to know he wasn’t happy.
“What’s going on here?” Hysterian said cooly. “What in the ever-living hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I was taking— That is— Alexa needed some air—”
“We’re leaving,” she whispered. She wasn’t going to let Pigeon take the fall. This wasn’t his battle. It was much too late for lies.
The next thing she knew, she was in Hysterian’s arms, and he was carrying her back into the ship. “Like fucking hell you are.”
“Captain!” Pigeon chased after them. “Please.”
Alexa
wrenched her eyes closed when Hysterian spun to face him. Sweat poured from her brow.
“You’re fired, Pigeon. Get off my ship.”
“But—”
“Now!” Hysterian roared. Teal light burst forth. “Unless you want to spend the next few months in the brig!”
Alexa gripped him weakly. “You hurt him, and I’ll never forgive you,” she gasped, catching his glowing eyes. She held them through the pain.
Something in his gaze shifted. Frustration?
“Get out of my sight,” he warned Pigeon though he stared at her while he said it. Hysterian swiveled and took her back to medical. He laid her back down on the pallet, and the machine hooked her up. Tears rushed from her eyes, knowing what was about to happen.
She caught sight of Pigeon in the doorway, watching on in horror.
“Why the fuck were you trying to leave?” Hysterian demanded, pulling off her boots. There was a heavy thud when they hit the floor. “What’s possessed you? You need to rest. Do you know how close you came to dying?”
“Hysterian,” she tried to stop him.
“I’m this close, Alexa, this close”—he put his fingers together—“to ripping off every head on Libra, and you’re trying to take a fucking stroll?”
“Stop—”
He leaned over her as the needles slipped back into her arms. Her chest constricted.
“You can’t die,” Hysterian said. “I won’t allow it. If I have to rip my skin off and give it to you for that to happen, I will.”
“I’m not human…”
Alexa fainted.
Twenty
Hysterian paced the bridge, examining Alexa’s medical records. He had the medical equipment rerun all its scans for him, take her blood, all while he denied what she’d uttered. Then he had them all deleted and removed from his systems, only to do it all again.
It was all right there.
The abnormalities. She had T-positive genes, and her blood type? Nothing any full-blooded human could ever have.
He scanned the records he had on file for her and the ones from his lab. If he could convince himself it was impossible, maybe he could convince the systems inside him that urged him to waste her. For a split-second, he’d nearly touched her.
