Nickie had no regrets. Everything she had been through, every lesson she had learned along the way…
None of it mattered.
Her crew was safe.
That mattered.
The lack of oxygen was causing Nickie to hallucinate. She thought she smelled the combination of old leather, sandalwood, and gun oil as the final breaths left her body. That wasn’t possible, though, since she was here alone.
The tentacles suddenly relaxed.
Her lungs dragged in burning gulps of air as the constriction was replaced by that familiar scent again.
Just as quickly it was gone, and her brain was too fragged for anything except keeping her broken body ticking over.
She heard a voice in her head, fearful and full of grief.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Fight, Nickie. Live.
Nickie. Was that her name? If she had a name, and someone to call it, then she had something to fight for.
She obeyed the voice, holding on to it while she fluttered in and out of consciousness, battling against being sucked into oblivion.
A shadow passed over her, unnoticed, and she was picked up. She let it happen, too weak to struggle even if she knew how to make herself move to defend herself.
The scent returned, calming her with its feeling of home.
Nickie’s mind relaxed.
“Let’s get you out of here,” a deep voice murmured against her hair as she succumbed to the darkness.
When Nickie woke up, she found herself in a featureless landscape. She turned a half-circle, looking around for anything that would give her a clue as to where she was. Nothing but mist for as far as she could see. “Anyone here?”
Nothing.
She glanced at her hands, realizing she could sort of see through them if she moved a certain way.
Fuck it. I’m dead?
Grandma Jean would be so disappointed if she knew that the afterlife was pitchfork-free.
Funny sort of afterlife, huh? she remarked to Meredith.
She waited for Meredith’s reply, her heart falling when none came. Oh, yeah. Dead. No EI.
“Turn around, Nickie,” Bethany Anne instructed.
Nickie spun around and found Bethany Anne lounging in an armchair that seemed to be made from the mist.
“Where are we?” Nickie asked, narrowing her eyes. “Are you God? Bethany Anne would be thrilled to know you borrowed her image.” Not.
Bethany Anne waved a hand and another chair appeared facing hers. “You’re not dead, Nickie. This is the Etheric. Take a seat. You and I are long overdue a discussion.”
Nickie hesitated before trusting the misty construction with her weight. “Can I start?”
Bethany Anne tapped her fingers on the chair arm. “As long as you don’t intend to open your mouth and say something that gets you exiled for another seven years. That shit could become tiresome.”
Nickie snorted, wishing she had a footrest. She lifted her feet in surprise when Bethany Anne flicked a finger and the mist beneath her feet rose up and coalesced into a solid cube. “Neat trick. I want to apologize. I owe you and everyone else for the way I acted. I can’t take it back, but I can do better, and I have been for a long time now.”
Bethany Anne smiled. “I know. Which is why we’re having a pleasant conversation instead of the ass-whupping you got the last time we met. You get what you earn, Nickie.”
Nickie sat back and put her feet up. “I get that now. Grim and the kid are okay, right?”
Bethany Anne nodded. “They are. John and Eric picked them up just after they found you.”
Nickie frowned as a snatch of memory whisked past before she could grasp it. “Fuck. Grandad was the one who rescued me? Am I gonna be okay? My body is in a Pod-doc, yeah?”
Bethany Anne made a see-saw motion with her hand. “You were pretty chewed up.” She grinned at Nickie’s scowl. “You deserved that. What were you thinking? You died, Nickie.”
Nickie’s eyes widened. “For real?”
Bethany Anne nodded. “Just as John got you to his ship. He’s been sitting by your side, giving you blood.”
Nickie blinked back tears. “Shit.”
“Shit indeed,” Bethany Anne agreed. “I have to admit, I had a very different vision of how this would play out when I sent you out there all those years ago.”
“What did you expect?” Nickie asked.
Bethany Anne scrutinized her for a moment. “I don’t know. Definitely not that you would die for someone else. You always had so much potential, and I guess I got sick of watching you fritter it away.” She slid her eyes away for a moment, then pinned Nickie with her gaze. “What do you think you’ve gained from your experiences?”
Nickie considered the question carefully. “Can I be honest? I didn’t learn anything you and the rest of the family hadn’t already taught me.” She paused. “Maybe…I learned to listen after a few years of bitching about how you all rejected me. I had to let people in and trust them to not hurt me.” She wrinkled her nose. “That all sounded like touchy-feely bistok shit before.”
Bethany Anne lifted a shoulder, her impassive face softening at Nickie’s confession. “We all have to deal with the touchy-feely bistok shit every now and then. How does it sound to you now?”
Nickie dropped her head, shaking it slowly as the ridiculousness of her childish attitude fully hit home. “It was beyond stupid to tell myself I was okay on my own, or that I didn’t have a responsibility to people in a worse position than me.” She straightened in her chair, adjusting her feet. “But it happened, and I can’t change what I was in the past. What I can do is work every minute of the rest of my life to make up for the damage I caused.”
Bethany Anne’s black eyes pierced Nickie’s soul. She got to her feet and held out her hands, smiling at Nickie. “You already have.”
Nickie stood, completely confused. “I don’t get it.”
Bethany Anne walked the two steps to Nickie and enveloped her in a warm embrace. “You came home to us.”
Bethany Anne disappeared as the mist dissolved around Nickie.
“Here we go again,” she grumbled as her vision faded to black.
Nickie forced her eyelids apart, the gargantuan effort almost enough to make her go back to sleep.
A blurry face peered through the viewing window, then the Pod-doc lid clicked open.
Nickie drifted off again as she was scooped up in strong arms her body remembered as the most secure location in existence.
Devon, First City, The Hexagon, Penthouse Apartment
John paced the living area, his unusual action the only testament to the depth of his emotions as he waited for Nickie to wake up.
Tabitha came out of the hallway leading to the bedrooms. “She’s still asleep. Meredith says she’s fine, just weak.”
John frowned, pausing by the window to stare out at nothing. “She’d be less weak if she woke up and ate the steak Grim brought her.”
Tabitha pressed her lips together, patting John’s back as she passed. “I’m not arguing. Emergency enhancement is a shot in the dark. She’s lucky you were there to be the donor.”
“Yeah. Can you imagine if it had been you, and I got your ass as well as your nanos?”
John and Tabitha whirled.
Nickie let go of the wall and staggered toward them. “Don’t look so shocked. It looks like you didn’t know I was here.”
John was by her side in an instant. “What are you doing out of bed?” he demanded softly, wrapping his arm around her for support.
“Over here,” Tabitha ordered, pulling out two huge pillows and an overstuffed duvet from the ottoman between the couch and the coffee table.
Nickie slung an arm around John’s waist and allowed him to guide her to the makeshift bed. “It’s good to see you both.”
Tabitha tucked her in while John hovered nearby. “We’ll talk later, chica. Sleep.” She leaned over and kissed Nickie’s forehead. “Heal. I
’ll be home in the morning, and I expect you to still be sleeping when I get back.” She raised an eyebrow at John. “Don’t keep her awake, you hear?”
John held up a hand. “No intention of it. Bitches’ honor.”
Tabitha jerked her chin at him, waving a finger in a circle as she turned to leave. “I have eyes all over this place, so I’ll know if you lied.”
John sat on the edge of the ottoman after Tabitha swept out of the apartment. “We’re all going to be a hell of a lot happier once Tabitha has the uh, ‘diplomatics’ in hand.”
Nickie snickered, settling back into the pillows with her eyes closed. “She still working on the thing with the royal aliens, or whatever?”
John nodded, a sliver of a smile cracking his serious exterior. “Yeah.” He chuckled dryly. “More than seven years, and the first thing we do is avoid having a real conversation. Your Grandma is right, we’re too alike. I just decided.”
“Shit, don’t tell her. You’ll never hear the end of it.” Nickie peeked out of one eye when he didn’t laugh at her joke. “I’m so sorry, Grandad. For everything.”
John nodded, his chest tight with relief. “I know, sweetheart. It’s in the past now, where it belongs. I wanted to tell you how much it means to have you home. You pulled yourself out of the shit you got yourself into without any of us around to wipe your ass, like a true fucking Grimes. I couldn’t be prouder, Nickie.”
“You know, that might be the most words you have ever said to me in one go,” Nickie teased through her tears, unable to resist. She sat up to wipe her face. “Thank you for still being here,” she managed through the lump in her throat. “I couldn’t have survived half the disasters I ended up getting into without your training.”
“Or my ship,” John told her, smirking. “You made quite an impression on Sayomi.”
Nickie glared at him. “I knew that AI wasn’t nearly psycho enough. What did you do to her, put a child lock on her destructive tendencies?”
John shook his head. “Nope. She just took a shine to you. Truth be told, I’m a little annoyed. She does nothing but give me shit the whole time I’m aboard. Thank fuck I don’t have to carry her around in my head, right?”
Nickie’s eyes widened. “Meredith.” She scrambled to her feet, searching her mind for her EI’s presence.
I’m here, Meredith assured her.
The crew was Nickie’s next thought.
The crew is fine. They’re here on Devon. Sleep. You need to rest your brain.
The flash of panic faded. Okay. I’m too tired to argue with you. Nickie yawned, lying back down as exhaustion washed over her again.
John got to his feet to tuck her back in, then pressed a hand to her hair, rubbing her forehead with his thumb. “I guess there are uses for an onboard EI. Sleep. There will be plenty of time to talk when you’re rested.”
Nickie looked up at John, her eyes closing despite her effort to keep them open a moment longer. “Will you stay with me until Tabitha gets back?”
John dropped to the floor beside her and sat with his back against the couch. “I’ll be right here for as long as you need me.”
The next day
Nickie woke to a small, curious face just inches from hers. She smiled at the messy-haired boy who had her aunt’s eyes as she slowly sat up to stretch. “Hey, you must be Todd. I’m Nickie.”
The boy tilted his head. “How do you know my name? You look like Aunt Lillian, but not so grumpy.” He narrowed his eyes at her and took a step back. “Are you going to kiss me?”
Nickie looked at him in confusion. “Um, no?”
“This is your Aunt Nickie, Trouble.” Tabitha chuckled and scooped her son out of Nickie’s space. “Your mom doesn’t think anything of trying to smother my boy’s adorable face in lipstick every time she sees him,” she explained. “How did you sleep?”
Nickie blinked as her brain clicked into place. “Yeah, good. Are you going to let me get off this couch today?”
Tabitha rolled her eyes, releasing a squirming Todd to play. “That depends. Are you gonna collapse and ruin my good rug?”
Nickie smirked, throwing off the duvet. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.”
“About as much as I’ve missed having my partner in crime around? I almost missed you forever, Nickie.” Tabitha wiped her eyes and held out her hands to pull Nickie to her feet. She didn’t hesitate to throw her arms around her niece. “All the time I spent worrying about you dying somewhere we couldn’t get to you, and you decide to make a statement right on our doorstep.”
Nickie sank into Tabitha’s hug. “You know how I love to make a statement.”
The only sounds in the apartment for the next few minutes were Todd’s pew-pew noises. He ignored the adults hugging in the middle of the room and continued to run around with his toy spaceship.
Tabitha released Nickie eventually. She headed to the kitchen, waving a hand over her shoulder at Nickie. “I hate to be the one to tell you, but Grim got it into his head he had to throw you a ‘congratulations for not dying horribly’ party. I can make him cancel if you don’t want to go.”
Nickie followed Tabitha into the kitchen and leaned on the counter as her aunt chatted about what everyone had been doing while she was out cold. She didn’t recognize many of the names, but a couple sounded familiar.
It shook Nickie to realize how normal it felt to be there in the thick of her family again. How much she’d missed just…belonging. She might belong out there on the edge, but she had regained the right to call her family her anchor.
Tabitha snapped her fingers in front of Nickie’s face, disrupting her wandering thoughts. “The party. Should I tell Grim to cancel?”
Nickie shook her head. “Um, no. He’ll only get butt-hurt and throw an even bigger one as payback.”
Nickie smiled as Tabitha nodded and continued giving her a rundown of the city’s gossip as she turned away to open a cupboard.
She was home.
Epilogue
Devon, The Hexagon, Private Hangar, Aboard the Penitent Granddaughter
Nickie picked up her purse and took one last glance in the mirror before going to answer the insistent buzzing at her door. “All right, all right. I’m coming already!”
Adelaide's mouth fell open when Nickie opened the door, her impatience forgotten. “Wow. Nickie, you look...amazing!”
Nickie smirked, brushing her fingers over the red velvet dress she’d spent far too much on after her last argument with Barnabas. “You like?”
Adelaide gazed longingly at the detail on Nickie’s sandals. “Honey, everyone is going to like. I wish I could wear heels like those without tearing my feet to shreds.”
Nickie snorted, closing the door behind her. “You look perfect, Addie. Besides, I wouldn’t wear them either if I couldn’t heal the damage instantly.” She threaded her arm through Adelaide’s and ushered her along the corridor to the elevator. “The only downside is, I’m so out of practice we’re gonna have to keep moving, or I’m going ass over tits.”
Adelaide giggled. “We’d better make sure that doesn’t happen.”
They met Keen and Grim by the exit ramp, both of them dressed to the nines.
Nickie smiled fondly at Keen, looking handsome in his pressed dress uniform. “Looking good there, Marine.”
Keen sucked in his stomach another inch and grinned back. “Got to look my best. It’s not every day we get invited to party with the royal family.
Nickie narrowed her eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re a closet royalist?”
Keen tapped the side of his nose. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” He offered his arm to Adelaide. “Shall we?”
Adelaide curtseyed and took Keen’s arm. “Don’t mind if I do. Meet you down there,” she told Nickie.
“We’ll be along as soon as Durq and Missy are ready,” Nickie replied, wondering where the Skaine contingent of her crew was. “You should head down with them, Grim. This might take a while if Durq is feeling anxiou
s.”
“Good luck with him,” Grim told her. He waved as he hurried out the hatch before Adelaide and Keen left without him.
Nickie opened the ship’s comm system. “Durq, Missy, we’re going to be late.”
They appeared at the head of the corridor a few moments later, panting slightly.
“Sorry,” Durq gasped. “I couldn’t work out the human neck restraint.” He pointed to his loose tie when Nickie frowned in confusion. “I cannot see the reason for this garment.”
“I thought they were used to lead human males around,” Missy admitted with some embarrassment. “Like a leash?”
Nickie snorted, bending at the knee to fix Durq’s tie. “That’s…no. They’re just an accessory.”
Missy tilted her head. “Well, you learn something new all the time.”
They left the ship and made their way through the Hexagon to the outdoor arena.
“This place is fancy,” Missy remarked as they passed through the atrium. “How come you know where we’re going?”
Nickie indicated the signage posted on the walls. “You can access all that through your neural chip. The building’s EI, Winstanley, is giving me directions while we walk.” She paused in her explanation when she felt a presence at her back.
She drove her elbow back into a hard stomach, then turned to drop the person sneaking up on her.
Rickie groaned as the air was driven from his body. “Dammit, Nickie! Can’t you just say hi like a normal person?”
Nickie glared at him with her hands on her hips. “Serves you right, Rickie. What were you thinking, sneaking up on me like that?”
Durq stepped carefully around them, leading Missy by the hand. “We’ll see you inside.”
Nickie nodded, distracted by Rickie’s unexpected appearance. “Sure. Tell everyone I’ll be in in a minute.” She turned back to Rickie, lost for words for once. “You, um, look good.”
Rickie folded his arms, distracting her further with the play of muscle in his forearms. He said nothing for a moment, just looked at her oddly. “Hey, Nickie. I didn’t think you were ever gonna make it to Devon.”
Resolution Page 20
