Flame (19 page)

“We’re conducting a search,” said a deep male voice that sounded familiar to Seth. It was the big guard, the man named Thomas, the one who had arrested Maya and Anthony. Seth tried to make himself small. Few people frightened Seth, but that man did.

“Did anyone come in here?” Thomas asked.

This was it, then. Seth tried to keep his breathing under control. He put his bag on the floor in case he needed to fight.

“No,” the scientist said. “It’s just me here.”

“Mind if we look?”

Seth heard footsteps approaching and made a fist as the shower curtain was yanked aside. He almost punched the guy, but stopped when he found himself face to face with Don, Maya’s friend. Seth closed his eyes in relief.

Don blinked at him once, twice, before recovering enough to say, “All clear back here, Thomas.”

“Thanks for your time,” Thomas said.

“No trouble,” the scientist said, sounding intimidated.

The front door of the lab opened and closed, and the two guards were gone. Maybe Don would come back later when the scientist went home.

Seth rested his head against the damp wall, trying to breathe calmly. He was so thirsty he could barely think, but running the shower to drink would make too much noise. He’d have to wait until the scientist left. He put his thirst out of his mind, trying to remember that moment just before he and Waverly had been interrupted. He’d held her close, she’d relaxed for just a moment, but on her face there’d been … He replayed the scene over and over in his mind, rewriting it until he could believe she’d smiled a little before she left, like she might forgive him, like she might even let him kiss her again …

He woke up trembling in darkness several hours later, soaked by the dripping showerhead. The lab was completely still and quiet. Seth stood to drink directly from the shower. Water ran down his face, soaking his shirt, but it felt heavenly.

Once he’d had all he could drink, he sneaked out of the shower stall and made a careful once-over of the laboratory. In some lockers at the back of the room he found clean lab coats. He slipped into one of them. The material was scratchy and irritating, but it was better than a wet sweatshirt. Next he looked for food. In the refrigerator he found half a container of some kind of soup that smelled okay, so he ate it cold. There was an apple on the desk, and Seth bit into it, licking juice from his fingers as he looked through the drawers for what he’d need for his next graffiti project.

He found some scissors in the middle drawer and a large piece of cardboard that he ripped from a box of test tubes stacked in the corner of the room. He went back to the shower stall and sat back down to wait for Don.

While he waited, he worked on a new stencil.

Waverly’s smart,
he reminded himself, trying to quell his worry.
She won’t let that guy do anything to her.
He couldn’t stop himself from adding,
if she doesn’t want him to.

NEBULA

Waverly’s blood whistled like high-pressure steam through her veins as Jared pushed the elevator button, and her stomach lurched when the floor dropped beneath her. Her conversation with Seth bounced around in her brain, and she searched her memory, trying to find some hint of where he planned to go, what he planned to do, or if he’d ever come see her again, but there’d been nothing she could latch on to.

“Where are we going?” she finally asked Jared.

“First to the doctor. Then,” he said with a teasing tug at her sleeve, “I have a surprise!”

The elevator doors opened to the administrative level. Jared led her to the office where she’d first met the doctor and opened the door to the darkened room. The old man sat behind his enormous wooden desk, just as he had before, swathed in shadows, surrounded by his priceless books from Earth. She had the feeling as Jared closed the door behind her that she’d entered a kind of sepulcher. She lowered herself onto the chair in front of his desk and waited.

“We’ve fixed a trial date, you’ll be pleased to know.” The doctor attempted a grin, but it only made him look menacing. “Next week, on Monday, we will begin Anne Mather’s impeachment proceedings in the granary bay in front of the entire crew.”

She breathed a huge sigh of relief. “What about Mather’s charge of mutiny against us?”

He smiled grimly. “Our charges were brought first. So the trial decides two things at once: Is Mather a war criminal, or are we mutineers? It all depends on our linchpin.”

“Which is?” she asked through a constricting throat.

“You,” he said with a smile. “If you’re willing to work hard to prepare for your cross-examination.”

The chair beneath her felt suddenly insubstantial. “I thought you were keeping me off the witness stand.”

“You just saw Kieran Alden, about an hour ago.” He smiled grimly and swiveled his com screen so she could see it. Her mouth dropped open in horror. Before her was a frozen bird’s-eye image of Kieran Alden’s bedroom, with the both of them seated at the foot of his bed. With controlled rage, the doctor tapped a button, and Kieran’s voice filled the room. “If
you’re lying, you’re giving Mather a reason to come after you.
”

“
I’m. Not. Lying.
” Then her video self took a portable reader from Kieran and typed something. At this point, the video image froze and, to Waverly’s shock, zoomed into the reader’s screen. It said:
Mather is weak right now. This is our only chance to bring her down.

Waverly felt her heartbeat all the way down to her fingertips.

“Did Jared not tell you,” the doctor asked as he turned off the video, “I said not to talk to anyone?”

“Yes,” Waverly whispered, but she couldn’t look at him.

“
That is practically a confession!
” he screamed.

Waverly shook in her chair, her ears ringing. The doctor’s jowls trembled with rage. Kieran’s voice whispered through her mind,
You’re walking into a trap …

“It isn’t a confession,” Waverly said, small voiced. “I never admitted to lying.”

“That is what you’ll say when Mather countersues you for perjury and mutiny.”

“Mutiny,” Waverly whispered. She knew a mutiny charge could bring the death penalty. Then what would happen to her mother? She could feel the walls of her cage tightening around her. If she was going to help her mother and the rest of them, she had to do it now. “I’ve cooperated with you so you’d cure my mom…”

“I made no promises,” the doctor spat.

“What research have you done?” To this he said nothing. “Have you found my friends? Have you even been looking for them?”

“These things are delicate. They cannot be forced.”

“Well, neither can I.”

His face elongated into a condemning frown. “What are you saying?”

“I want to see my friends and make sure they’re safe, and I want my mother and all the Empyrean crew treated for their brain damage, or I’ll withdraw my testimony.” For the first time since she’d met him, the old man looked nervous, and this made her brave. “If you don’t, I’ll tell Anne Mather that you blackmailed me into giving false testimony.”

“I did no such thing.”

“Yes you did. You said you’d only help my mother if I did what you wanted.”

“Prove it.”

“Prove you didn’t.”

They glared at one another. Waverly’s pulse thrummed in her neck, insistent, warning. She was playing a dangerous game with a killer, she knew.
So you be a killer, too,
she told herself.

“Are you giving me an ultimatum?” the doctor finally asked quietly.

“Yes,” she said, refusing to allow even a hint of fear enter her voice, though her body buzzed with it.

The doctor wove his fingers together and looked at her over the mass of his fists. “All right, Waverly.”

She was taken aback. “You’ll do it?”

He typed briefly into his com station, and though she couldn’t see the characters, she guessed that he’d sent a text message. She was unsurprised to hear the office door whisper open just before Jared took his place at her side. He raised his eyebrows at the doctor, who waved them both away in disgust. She turned to leave the room, but she heard the doctor say as the door closed behind her, “Good-bye, Waverly.”

Her breath snagged in her throat as she started down the hallway with Jared. What had she done?

Jared scowled comically. “Somebody’s got his panties in a bunch.”

She tried to laugh, but she couldn’t find the breath for it.

They stepped onto the elevator once again, and Waverly noticed the basket Jared carried. “What’s in there?”

“Goodies,” he said teasingly. “Hungry?”

She couldn’t answer.

Jared started humming an old Earth song that she’d once heard played at the Harvest Cotillion back on the Empyrean. She remembered the adults flocking to the dance floor when the song started, and was delighted when Kieran had stood and held out a hand to her mother to lead her to the dance floor, twirling with her under the lights. She’d noticed Seth looking at her from across the room, half hidden in the shadows, always watching, never participating, but when she made eye contact with him he looked away quickly. That was when she first knew Seth wanted her. It was a lifetime ago, but Waverly could see it all so clearly she thought she could reach out a finger to find the thin membrane between this time and that one, and step through it.

She opened her eyes and was surprised to see the elevator had dropped below the biosphere levels. Where was Jared taking her?

The elevator doors opened to reveal the vast storage bay. This was where she’d been shot the first time she’d tried to rescue the parents. They’d been held in a livestock crate down here, and she’d been able to steal only a few words with her mother before she’d been discovered by the guards, chased, and shot in the leg. Her heart beat double time at the memory. With a smile, Jared took a light hold of her elbow, and she followed him with halting steps.

“You okay?” he asked with a puzzled expression.

She gave a slight nod, her mind spinning on a wheel. All her instincts told her that she was running out of time. She put a hand on Jared’s arm. “Do you think that Anne Mather is really going to jail?”

“That’s what we’re all betting on.”

“Can you get me in to see her, like you did the Captain?” Waverly asked. He heard the heaviness in her voice and looked at her searchingly. “I want to be alone with her.”

“What for?” he asked.

She tried to sound harmless. “I want to talk to her.”

He seemed to recognize something in her eyes and took a half step back. “You want to kill her.”

Waverly lowered her eyes. “Of course not.” It was a stupid idea anyway. They’d lock her up for good or execute her, and then what would happen to her mom?

They walked on, silently, side by side. She thought she’d shocked him, but then he looked at her sideways, a playful smirk on his face. “You’re a little tiger, aren’t you?”

She was too embarrassed to respond. He’d read her intentions so easily she felt totally unnerved, and his nonchalance about the whole idea confused her.

Jared led her to a large air lock at the end of the room, and she stopped dead in her tracks. “What are you doing?” she asked, her eyes on the air lock. That was how Anne Mather killed the Empyrean crew in the first attack. She’d blown out the air lock. And her father—that’s how Captain Jones killed him.

Without hesitation, Jared went to the air lock and opened it.

Waverly cowered, expecting an explosive decompression, but the door opened onto the cargo hold of a shuttle.

“I should’ve told you!” Jared laughed and reached out a calming hand. “This shuttle has been docked here since we left the nebula.”

“Why? Where are we going?” She took a deep breath to quiet her nerves.

“Don’t you trust me?” His eyes traveled over her tense body. “I just want to show you something. We’re not going anywhere. The shuttle will stay docked the entire time.”

She watched him, not moving, saying nothing.

“I’ll leave the air-lock doors open. I promise.”

“Then why are we going in there?”

“You’ll see as soon as we go up to the cockpit.” He held out a hand.

Arms folded over her middle, she scuffed onto the shuttle and moved through the empty cargo hold, which was sterile and metallic like any other empty shuttle. She followed Jared up the spiral stairs to the passenger level, then down the aisle between seats to the cockpit.

She gaped.

The nebula they’d left behind months ago stretched across the star-pricked sky, its spiral arms glowing pink and amber, flashing with lightning. It was shaped vaguely like a kind of fish that used to live in Earth’s oceans, a squid or an octopus, with tentacles that reached toward the ship.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Jared said from right behind her, close enough she could feel his breath against her hair. But this time instead of tingles, she felt her skin crawling, and the muscles of her back tensed in warning. “I thought you’d like it.”

She did not. She would always remember that nebula as a graveyard for so many of the crew of the Empyrean, people she’d known her whole life.
That’s where I died, too,
she thought.
Waverly Marshall the innocent is buried there.

Jared gently pushed her toward the copilot’s seat, then took the pilot’s seat for himself and started unwrapping the food he’d brought. He prattled as he laid out sliced fruit, soft white cheeses, smoked salmon, crusty bread, and a decanter of what smelled like ripe red wine. “It was Dr. Carver’s idea to park a shuttle here, facing aft so we can still see the nebula. People can reserve it for dates and…” He stumbled on the word, made hooded eye contact with her, continued as he spread white cheese on the soft bread. “Or whatever. You know. I’m the one who got to pilot it down here and dock it. It was the first time anyone had docked a shuttle with one of the air locks. I was honored to be the one to do it.”

“That’s … nice,” Waverly said.

“I was excited,” he was saying as he laid thin apple slices over the cheese and handed it to Waverly. “As the doctor’s assistant, I don’t often get much glory.”