Authors: Jess Granger
Beyond the Rain (5 page)
“You have to pull though this,” she whispered, her voice raw and choked. “Please, Soren.” After everything he had suffered, he didn’t deserve a slow and tortured death. The others she had lost had been swift; she couldn’t think before she knew they were already gone. This was too slow, teasing her with time, tormenting her with the need to do something to save him.
She felt the tension drain out of his muscles as his body slowly relaxed. With a low moan, his breathing eased, though it rattled in his chest.
Cyani shook all over, feeling weak and battered as she brushed his hair from his face and tried to wipe the saliva from his mouth.
His throat swallowed, and he tried to lift his head then relaxed against her thigh. His breathing sputtered in his chest as he fell into a deep sleep. He snored. She let out a choked laugh through her clenching fear.
She sat with him for what seemed like hours, helpless, exposed. The Garulen could come at any minute. She prayed more desperately than she ever had in her life, but his life, his death, was no longer in her hands.
She needed control. She needed more information. Was this part of his withdrawal?
“Com, find source files for the general information on species Byralen,” she said, desperate for something to focus on.
Six files identified.
“Com, list files . . .” Cyani stroked his hair, smoothing his brow with her palm. The Elite and their rules could go suck on it. In the dark, alone and terrified, the girl she had been resurfaced. In the ground cities, you cared for one another or you died.
She chose to listen to a log entry from a Union Army lieutenant regarding a freed Byralen captive. The rest were medical reports, and would be harder to follow.
Accessing file: During a raid on a Krona shipping colony, our team discovered a strange specimen among the slave population. He had been separated from the others, fitted with severe-blinders and immobilized. The com was unable to give us any information on the captive. I filed his physical descriptions during the medical examination. The captive displayed extreme aggression at first, but soon succumbed to feverlike symptoms.
After forty-eight standard hours, the captive suffered from fainting spells. He seemed weak, in spite of medical efforts to stabilize his condition. The captive was either unwilling or unable to communicate. During his quarantine he often destroyed the objects in his room, focusing most of his aggression on the bed. After seventy-two hours had passed in observation, the subject’s fainting spells progressed to seizures.
Fifty-four hours after the seizures began, the subject died in quarantine. Medical examinations were inconclusive as to cause of death, but determined this species as the source of the Passion drugs filtering into the illegal market.
Cyani felt her heart drop into her stomach. The prisoner had died. No, she shouldn’t jump to conclusions. The Byralen could have died of anything.
“Com, project medical reports on holo-screen.” Cyani quickly scanned the reports, three different Byralen, two males, one female, the same symptoms, different time lines, fevers, fainting, seizures, death . . .
Cyani’s hands started shaking uncontrollably. She crossed her arms, pinching her hands in her armpits, but the tremor just spread to her whole body. This was all for nothing. He was going to die, and there was nothing she could do to save him.
And he knew it.
Why didn’t he tell her?
Cyani swallowed convulsively.
Finally his eyes blinked open, his irises pure white. He stared at her, his gaze bleary and confused.
“Cyani?” he whispered.
She felt a tear slip over her cheek as she tucked an inky lock of hair behind his ear. “I’m here. You’re safe now.”
He pulled away from her, struggling to his hands and knees. She let him go, unsure of what to do. He heaved, vomiting on the floor, then swayed. She pulled him back away from the mess and let him rest his head on her lap.
Reaching his hand around her side, he clung to her waist, his whole body trembling. She smoothed his hair and sang, a silly lullaby her father used to sing to her when she was a little girl and suffering from nightmares.
She could barely force the tune out of her constricting throat, the words a jumble of half syllables she didn’t have the strength to speak. Her voice sounded raw, felt torn, as she did her best to comfort him.
Slowly the shudders ceased, and he fell asleep in her lap. She let him rest, grateful for the quiet peace after such stark terror. Vicca whined as she licked his face, then curled up against his chest. Cyani rubbed her fox’s ears.
“I know, girl,” she whispered. “He scared me, too. Now I need you to guard us.” Vicca gave Soren’s hand a final lick then scampered off.
How long did he have?
The beginning of the seizures was the beginning of the end.
For the first time, she looked up at the room. The light of the overturned flare lamp flickered against the dusty rubble.
A strange machine stood untouched by the disaster all around them. It had to be some sort of medical table. It was large enough for a full-grown man to lie inside, and two doors closed over the body. One of the doors hung open, revealing shackles on the table beneath, and a sort of harness for the hips.
“Mercy of the Matriarchs,” she whispered, realizing admitted. The bitter irony of the situation was almost as bad as the sour taste in his mouth.
Cyani leapt from his side. She ripped off the top of the crate and plunged her hands into the white foam inside. Slowly she extracted a small metal case. She walked back over to him and opened the case. Inside were four tiny vials of amber liquid. He knew how they were used. He had heard the Garulen guards talk about rubbing it on themselves, then raping slave after slave. His mouth began to water, and he had to take several deep breaths to settle his churning stomach.
Cyani’s enormous blue eyes reached up to his in hope. He put his hand over hers and shut the case.
“I can’t use those.”
“Why not?”
“You wouldn’t understand.” He stumbled as he tried to walk to the far side of the chamber toward the small tunnel under the collapsed roof. What if he became aggressive? What if he hurt her?
“Soren,” Cyani shouted at him. “These could save your life.”
He turned back around and looked at her. Sure, they could prolong his suffering, but for how long? Could he make it home? Perhaps it was all hopeless, and even his death would be a waste.
“Cyani,” he said, his voice coming clearer now. “I think it’s best if you leave here without me.”
“Don’t,” she responded, shaking her head as her bright eyes narrowed in anger. “I’m not going to let you give up.”
“Do you know what that person suffered?” he yelled, pointing at the case in her hands. “Do you know how many days they had to be strapped in that thing and tortured to create that much?” He didn’t lower his voice as he pointed at the extractor. “I can’t use it!” He let the tension fall out of his shoulders and lowered his eyes to the floor as another wave of nausea hit him and his head began pounding with a sharp ache. “It might make me dangerous to you . . .”
“These probably came from you,” she reasoned. “It’s only right they should save your life. And even if they didn’t come from you, wouldn’t it have been easier to endure knowing the end result helped one of your kind live to see your home once more?”
He looked at her again, her beautiful eyes shining in the darkness. A lock of her hair fell over her brow, making her seem small and alone. How could he leave her?
In the last three days, he felt like he had lived a whole life. Just being free, comfortable, clean—they were such little things, and she would never know how much she had given him. In that short time, she reminded him of a broad-wing coming out of a long sleep in a chrysalis. When they would talk, he caught glimpses of the woman she tried to hide beneath the mask of a soldier. She was warm, mischievous, driven, competitive, and intelligent. He couldn’t leave her alone, not when he could help her get out of this pit.
“I said it before,” she murmured, her voice low. “I’m not leaving here without you.”
He stepped up to her and cradled her cheek in his palm.
For the very first time, she didn’t pull away. She turned her face into his palm, her long lashes feathering over the sensitive skin on the pad of his thumb.
“I don’t want you to have another seizure, Soren,” she whispered, her breath caressing his palm. “It was awful, and I don’t want you to die.”
“I’ve activated the minimal functions of the ship’s computers. I don’t think that will draw attention, but it might. Can you take Vicca and stand guard? I’ve got a bad feeling.” She ripped off a panel on the wall and stared down at the fuel input connectors. One of them was fried to a crisp.
“About the Garulen, or me?” His voice sounded dark.
“I’m going to have to retrieve a part from the other ship. I need you to watch my back,” she countered, avoiding his question. “Are you able to handle this?” she asked, staring him in the eye for the first time. The intensity of the emotions that burned there nearly stopped her heart—anger, desire, guilt, and pv width="1em">
Soren glanced at the bodies scattered around him. “I killed them,” he choked out of his parched throat.
Soren glanced at the bodies scattered around him. “I killed them,” he choked out of his parched throat.
“I see that,” Cyani responded. “You are going to have to get up on your own, because I’m
not
kissing you.”
not
kissing you.”
“Rot. Are you okay?” he asked, pulling himself to his feet. He bent over, resting his hands on his knees to fight the swelling nausea in his sore abdomen. He knew she was only teasing, but even the thought of her lips touching his made his blood flow white-hot in his veins. As soon as they were safe and the drugs waned, he’d find a way to kiss her until he couldn’t breathe, and he wouldn’t let her back away.
“I’m fine, a little bruised. I need more time to remove the fuel indicator, or we’ll have no way of knowing how much power the ship has.”
“We don’t have time. This scout group is supposed to get the ship linked and enter a damage report in just a few minutes. If they don’t answer, this place will be crawling with half the Garulen army.”
Cyani kicked a small rock, sending it skipping across the bay. She pinched her eyes closed and rubbed her palm on her shirt.
Even under such intense pressure, he found her enthralling. He felt the sudden rush of arousal and stilled, knowing he needed it to live, but worried that his attraction would distract him, or threaten her. A blight on the drugs for making him so aware of her at a time like this.
“This is a huge risk,” she commented.
“I’m willing to take it if you are.”
Cyani turned to the ship. It was their only hope. She’d have to depend on her faith in the Creator. Her fate was in his hands.
Hand.
Inspiration struck suddenly as she looked at the dead Garulen soldiers.
“Soren, do you speak Garu well enough to convince them you’re one of them?”
“I believe I do,” he answered with a puzzled expression.
“Good.” Cyani pulled her knife from its sheath. “Which one was the leader?”
“Soren pointed to the body farthest from them. She bent down next to it, removed the forearm shield, and with one smooth strike, chopped off the body’s hand at the wrist.
“What are you doing?!” Soren shouted. “You can’t defile a body like that. It’s unholy.”
“We can ask for forgiveness later.” Cyani tested the flexibility in the fingers. “He doesn’t need it anymore, and we do. Come on, I have an idea.”
7
“HOLD THIS.” CYANI TOSSED SOREN THE HAND AS THEY CLIMBED INTO THE cramped cockpit. He fumbled trying to catch it and flung blood across the display screen.
“What am I supposed to do with this thing?” Soren scolded, holding it out by the tip of one pasty finger.
She threw herself into the pilot’s seat and reached for the controls, checked her com sensors and the ship’s diagnostics, then looked for anything she might have missed. As soon as they powered up the ship, they’d have no time for anything b. the hand to that panel over there and pretend to be the hand’s former owner. Are you with me?”
Cyani swung around in the chair. Soren dropped his gaze to the hand, looked over at the communications panel in front of him, then a slow smile sp
read over his face. “I’m with you.”
read over his face. “I’m with you.”
“Good. Whatever you say to the central command, I need you to get two things from them. We cannot leave this rock without the code to the atmosphere shield. Tell them the gravitation generators have been damaged and we must take the ship out of the range of the asteroid’s generators to assess the nature of the damage.”
Cyani turned the chair and tried to reach each of the five control pedals for her feet, but the seat was set for the stocky legs of a Garulen pilot, not her long limbs. Her knees banged into the control panel each time she tried to reach the high pedals.
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