Grimspace (22 page)

We're not going where I thought we were.

As March and I emerge from quarters, we find Doc and Dina waiting for us in the hub. To my surprise, neither looks like they want to kill me, although Saul's expression gives me pause. He sighs and powers up the comm station. I avoid touching it whenever possible because Loras is supposed to be sitting there.

“I think you'd better take a look at this.”

When I lean forward, I see an old holo-newsfeed, dated almost two months back. A dark-haired woman with a small mouth and a perfect coif smiles without showing teeth. This is notable only because she manages to speak without showing them, either. I think she mistakes this facial immobility for a proper “grave business” expression.

“Citizens of the Conglomerate, we urge you to be on your guard. Although we've tried to contain this matter internally, we of Farwan Corporation cannot in good conscience”—I snort at that—“continue our search without revealing the inherent danger we all face. This woman, Sirantha Jax…”

Here, an unflattering picture of me flashes in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. “A former employee has escaped from our secure facility on Perlas Station, where she was awaiting trial for her involvement in the death of eighty-two souls aboard the
Sargasso
. We do not know the names or identities of her accomplices, but we speculate they may be the terrorists responsible for the strike against the conference on Matins IV. Their reign of terror continues unabated. Our operatives tracked them to DuPont Station, where for reasons known only to themselves, they—”

My breath hisses out of me in a rush. “We didn't blow the station!”

“No, we most certainly did not,” Doc agrees with a sigh. “But so far as the rest of the Conglomerate is concerned, we
did
.”

“Why would they do that?” My knees feel shaky as I keep seeing the explosion, time and again. “And how did they even know we were there?”

Dina finally speaks but she sounds matter-of-fact. “My guess is, Hon contacted them, intending to cut a deal. Maybe he was tired of playing mad scientist with Farr and wanted recognition from the Conglomerate. Maybe he was tired of worrying about them showing up to evict him if he ever became a threat instead of an annoyance. But he wouldn't have been able to negotiate without you, Jax.”

“He didn't want to kill us, just stall us until they arrived,” March agrees.

I feel his hand light in the small of my back, a proprietary gesture. The other two make note of it, but they don't comment, which had to cost Dina. She even smiles at me. Just what the hell is going on?

“We don't know exactly what transpired,” Doc says, “but they've clearly pinned the blame on us. And that's not the worst of it.”

“There's more?”

“Indirectly.” He picks up the device he was showing Dina when we emerged from quarters and starts indicating readings that don't mean anything to me. “The problem is, they've closed the doors to us that we need most.”

“You don't need me for this,” March interjects. “I'm getting us off this rock while you bring her up to speed.”

I guess he already knows this stuff. And yeah, maybe I'm a
little
disappointed when he walks off without looking back, but I redirect my attention without being obvious. I already knew March is practical. He's never going to sit at my feet and write me poems, which is good because I hate poetry, except dirty ones that rhyme.

“Anyway,” Doc says pointedly, and I roll my eyes. Sometimes he reminds me of my professors. “I've been studying your scans, comparing them with the sample I took from the Mareq.” I flinch, but he seems not to notice. “Your DNA isn't entirely…human. I alluded to it back at your flat, but the truth is, in all my case studies, I've never seen the L-gene append to the J-gene, as it has in you. I was hoping to
achieve
that through years of engineering, but it appears that our work has been done for us, either by nature or design.”

“You're saying—”

“I don't know. I don't even know how this is possible.” He bites the words off. “What we need to do is retrace your steps, dig into your early life and try to discover how this happened, so we can duplicate it. That may be the best shortcut available; otherwise, we'll spend months gathering samples before I can even begin work.”

The
Folly
trembles, powering up, and Dina pushes away from the console. I think she doesn't want to look at it anymore, and I can't blame her.

“By making us infamous, they've shut the door on us,” she mutters. “We can't use official ports, and you grew up on New Terra, right?
That's
where we need to be.”

“The three of you can go. They said they don't know who my accomplices are. I can wait on the
Folly
. Maybe you can find something out.”

She shakes her head. “That's bullshit, Jax. We registered on Perlas. They know the name of the ship, and they have our sequence codes. How else did they send this?”

Saul fires up the terminal again, saying only, “What I showed you before, that was just the attachment. This is the message.”

A man with sea-blue eyes and elegant, chiseled features comes on-screen. I drop down hard in Loras's chair because I recognize him. For several moments I see his lips moving but no sound registers, and Dina touches my shoulder.

“You all right?” At my mute nod, she says to Doc, “I think you better replay it.”

“Sirantha, this message has been bounced off all public relays. I implore you, surrender now. Turn yourself in at the nearest Corp outpost, and we will tend to your treatment. You're confused, unwell, and perhaps do not realize that your actions are wrong.”

Shit.

Simon always was a persuasive bastard. On-screen, he's the image of a concerned husband. I haven't seen him in years, but now they've got him acting as the face of Farwan, hoping to entice me back? They must really think I
am
crazy. I don't understand why they've painted me as an interstellar terrorist, though. Is it spin, covering up their negligence on Matins IV, or are they using me to hide something else entirely? Whichever the case, I suspect they're widening the net.

“The only place we're safe is in here in the Outskirts.” Both Dina and Doc nod, waiting to see where I'm going by stating the obvious, I guess. “But you think something in my past could provide answers?”

“It's our best hope,” Saul replies, stroking his goatee with two fingers. “Also the most dangerous course for obvious reasons.”

I glance at Dina, but she picks today to begin keeping her mouth shut. “Then that's where we need to go.”

Can't imagine what my parents are going to say after all this time. Assuming we can find a place to dock. After all, New Terra is a Conglomerate world, firmly in the clutches of Farwan Corporation. It's going to take all our combined ingenuity to keep from winding up in a cell.

The ship lifts, a subtle jolt. We steady ourselves on the console as March guides us through the locks that will liberate us from Gehenna. Now that I've tried flying this damn thing, I can't help but feel impressed. Consider how rusty he must've been on Perlas, and yet he's taking us out of the atmosphere so smoothly we can scarcely register the shifts in altitude. He's really, really good.

“I'm sorry,” I say to Dina.

“For what?”

I don't see a scar on her wrist or even a bandage. The surgeon must have been first-rate.
Rare in a black-market doctor.

“Leaving.”

She cocks a brow at me. “I don't blame you for wanting some leave, Jax. It's been a pretty fragged-up run, hasn't it? And we could scarcely have found a safer port.”

I narrow my eyes at Saul. “You lied to me.”

He turns, offering me a layered smile. “Dina never doubted you were coming back. So I had to make that happen, didn't I?”

They never told her I left for good?

Doc's ice blue eyes tell me things I never knew about him: He'll lie, cheat, or steal to unearth this truth. On the surface, he's the model of chivalry, courtesy, and kindness, a gentleman scholar. But he analyzed the situation and told me exactly what would get me back on board. And here I am.

“What's going on?” Dina glances between us, interested but wary. And so I fill her in. By the time I've finished, she can't get her breath for laughing. “Just how stupid do you think I am? If you took off, we'd stay till we found someone. Like hell do I see myself as a jumper; I had fun with Clary. Wouldn't have minded hanging around another couple of weeks, but Saul said you were ready to get back to it.”

Beneath his intellectual exterior lies a ruthless bastard. And this is the first time I've seen it. I experience a frisson of unease, as if I've been sailing along a smooth sea, unaware of dangers that lurk unseen.

Between March and Doc, I have been
handled
.

We bitch at each other throughout the entire jump.

I've never done that before, didn't even know it was possible. We're lucky we didn't wind up past the Polaris system, halfway to Old Terra. I unplug and bounce out of the nav chair, glaring at March, hands on hips.

“I can't believe I bought into this again. You and Doc, you two would say anything to keep me here. What about the stuff you said in my quarters? Was that bullshit, too?”

“No,” he answers, setting our cruise course for New Terra. “He said he'd figure something out, but I have never lied to you.”

“No, you have lackeys do that for you.”

“Are you
looking
for a reason to fight with me?” He unstraps and pushes to his feet. “I can't fake anything with you. I had no fragging clue how he meant to get you back here. And when you said that about Dina dying, I almost said, ‘Huh?'”

“So why didn't you?”

“I wanted to find out what he told you.” March cups my shoulders gently. “Look at me and swear you honestly don't believe I thought you were never coming back.”

It's true, he looks like shit, but I don't want to be persuaded. I want to argue. “I don't know.” Both my hands curl into fists at my sides. “I'm tired of having nobody I can trust. Tired of people keeping secrets from me, tired of not being sure whether I'm even working for the
good
guys.”

“Jax, I can't promise we're squeaky clean, but look at the opposition. They killed eighty-two people on the
Sargasso
for unknown reasons. They blew up DuPont Station with two hundred souls living there, not counting the unborn.” He breathes like merely thinking of it hurts him. “But I'm solid, right?”

“I guess so,” I mutter.

When he pulls me toward him, I lean my head against his chest, wondering if I can truly trust him. Wondering whether I can trust my own judgment. I've known from the beginning they intend to use me, and March is bound by so many debts and promises, none of them to me.

His hands play over my back. “I know you're mad. Did you yell at Doc?” Feeling sheepish, I shake my head. “Why not?”

“I'm afraid to provoke him,” I confess, low. “I don't know him like I thought I did.”

“You're afraid to provoke Saul,” he repeats, looking incredulous. “Who's a
pacifist
. So you take it out on me.” March shakes his head. “You're one of a kind, Jax. We've got eight hours before New Terra. Come on.”

Put that way, I know it doesn't make a lot of sense. I think about it, trying to quantify the feeling, but I can't. Maybe I'm mixing Doc up with the Unit Psychs or even Canton Farr. Do I really think he's capable of greater malice? I don't fucking know. At best he believes the end justifies the means, and I can't sort it out. So when March reaches for me, I take his hand and let him lead me to his quarters.

As he guides me to the bed, I whisper, “I thought you said it was too soon.”

He kisses my forehead. “Not for this. I'm tired, but I want you with me.” In an economy of movement he drops onto the mattress, then rolls to his side, back to the wall. “Unless you have somewhere else you'd rather be.” There's a certain vulnerability in his voice, and maybe I play on that while I gaze around his cabin, pretending to take in the bunk built out from the wall, the closet adjacent to the san facilities, and the personal sys-term on the opposite wall. “Jax?”

“I think I can clear my schedule for you.”

The bunk feels firm beneath my knees; it doesn't give as I slide down onto my side, facing him. One thing's sure; whoever designed the
Folly
didn't anticipate the crew sharing their sleep space, which seems a little shortsighted. Only centimeters separate us, then he drapes an arm over my waist, pulling me closer.

“Lights off.”

I'd know him in the dark. He always smells of citrus and a darker woodsy scent, like standing in a cedar forest at midnight. His heat washes over me, chin to shins, and my toes curl.

“Do you ever think about him?”

“Him who?” March sounds drowsy. He runs a hand over my head, knotting his fingers in the coarse curls. But gently, like I have silken princess hair.

“Baby-Z.”

We've never really talked about that night. It's about time we did if we intend to move on from it.

He stirs then, pushing up on one elbow. “You feel guilty.”

“Yeah.” That seems inadequate, but I don't have words to translate that moment where we knelt, mutually awed by the small miracle unfolding at our feet to how I felt when I realized I had splattered a helpless, living creature along with Canton Farr.

I don't know anything about what his life might've been like, or how his parents may have felt when they awoke to find one of their young missing with no explanation. I don't even have the framework to grieve properly.

I squirm, sick with remembrance of my casual brutality. Beneath the guilt, I suffer the certainty I wouldn't have shot so fast if it had been a human child in Farr's arms. Deep down I'm another thoughtless bigot who believes in human skin privilege. My life is worth more because I have a particular biochemistry? The realization repulses me.

And it devalues the heroism of someone who gave his life for me.

“I can't absolve you,” he says quietly. “All I know is, if it had been you on the ground, I'd have done the same thing.”

“You feel this way a lot? Like nothing you do could be enough to make up for it.”

In the half-light, his eyes go strange and distant, fringed in those impossible lashes. “You get used to it. And occasionally you run across something you can do to try to brighten up the dark places.”

March doesn't say it, but I know that's why he feels like he needs to try twice as hard as anyone else. If he lets down his guard, he might go skidding down that slippery slope again. And maybe I won't recognize what comes out the other side.

“Thus you play the hero.”

With a nod, he brushes his lips against my ear. Sparks just shimmer down my spine. This man's pure narcotic, delicious and addictive. Don't know how I thought I could walk away from him for good.

“Jax, I can't think about what I'd do if something happened to you, if it
had
been you on that floor.” His mouth compresses into a thin white line, and a shudder runs through him. “You just don't know…the things I've done. What I'm capable of. I hope you never do.”

When he gets like this, he scares me a little. I run my fingers along his jaw, feeling the tension thrumming through him. That would be why he still keeps certain things partitioned when we're jacked in. I hope he trusts me enough to let me in, someday.

“Let it go,” I say quietly.

And realize the suggestion applies to me as well, but it's easier said than done. I can't just write off the guilt or stop wishing things were different. Neither can he. March acknowledges the rightness of my thought with a half smile.

Mary, I've never had this kind of connection with anyone. How does he bear being part of me? Sometimes I can't stand
myself
.

“I'm sorry about baby-Z…he's just one more weight on me. If we hadn't gone to Marekeq, he'd have hatched by now. Be living out his normal span. Instead, he's just a bunch of samples in Doc's database.”

“I did that.”

“Yeah. But a hundred turns from now, baby-Z will be remembered. He's making a contribution. Maybe that will help, someday, when the academy is more than a dream.”

I exhale against his throat in a long sigh and close my eyes. “I don't imagine that would console his parents much. I wish we could tell them. Somehow.”

“Maybe we can. Somehow. Get some sleep, Jax. We can't fix anything right now.”

March makes a good point. And I'm flat busted, so I take his good advice.

 

Don't know how much later it is when I stir, finding myself
wrapped tight in someone's arms.
March.
I'm on the
Folly
again. It all comes back to me although I'm not mad anymore. How can I be when I wanted this, deep down? I couldn't sleep for dreaming of him. To reassure myself that I'm awake, I run my hand across his waist, finding the gap between shirt and slacks. I delight in dragging my nails lightly over his lower back and feeling him shiver. Goose bumps spring up wherever I touch.

His eyes open to slits, dark choclaste, golden caramel flecks. “What're you doing?”

“Stroking you.” I pillow my cheek on my forearm and continue inscribing patterns on his spine.

“I'm not a pet,” he murmurs. “And you're making it hard to sleep.”

“Am I?” I smile and hook my thigh over his. The way I figure, it's time. Life-affirming ritual, seal unspoken promises to each other, and a lot of other psychobabble that boils down to wanting sex.

And I do. But it's more than that, this time. I needed the time away to reflect and heal, but I needed to come back, too, even if I would never have done it on my own.

“You know you are.”

He skates his palm from its innocuous resting place between my shoulder blades to curl around my hip. The heat feels good, but it pales in comparison to the tingles that sparkle through me when March slides his hand lower, cupping my thigh. Deftly, he searches out nerves on my inner thigh, caressing through the thin fabric of my trousers. I squirm against him a little, not an intentional tease; I just can't help it.

Then he looks into my eyes. I register the silent question and nod, but as he tilts his head against mine, I realize I haven't said yes to what I intended. Thought he was going to strip me naked, but instead he comes inside me another way. My head's full of him, awash in sensual images I only half process as they amplify my arousal. My breasts ache, as if he's sucking them, and I feel hot, damp, between my thighs, so ready. He hasn't even touched me.

“March…” At that he shifts his head away, leaving me lonely and shuddering. “Wh-what did you do to me?”

“I could bring you off that way,” he whispers. “Just me, inside your head.”

Instinctively I know that's not an idle boast. He left me so close, panting on the precipice, and if he moves, I might lose it, grinding myself against him like I'm in heat. The very idea wrenches a moan out of me.

“Have you done that often?” I'm surprised at my tone.

Oh Mary, I hate the thought of him making anyone else feel this way.

But he shakes his head, a faint smile pulling at his mouth. “Two things make this possible. Our theta waves are compatible, and you're wide-open to me. Even untutored minds have basic shields that prevent such intrusion, Jax; it's a fundamental human trait. With other people, I skim the surface and only see their superficial thoughts. I've never been…part of anyone before.” He cups my cheek in his palm, long fingers stroking my temple. “That's what I want without you running away afterward. I want to fall asleep and know there's no place you'd rather be.”

I tremble, afraid to envision it. Though I know some pilots and jumpers do it jacked in, I always dismissed it as a kink. March doesn't need wetware, though. I find myself unable to resist the mental images, our bodies straining as he saturates my senses completely, no sense of self, drowning in mutual pleasure.

“Yes.”

I seek his mouth in the artificial darkness, finding it first with my fingertips. His lips part, a flicker of heat as he licks my skin. And I replace my hand with my lips, starving for him. This time I'm the aggressor, nuzzling the tenderness of his mouth to taste him, explore the texture of a rough velvet tongue, the smooth bone of his teeth. His whiskers scrape my skin, contrasting to the softness of our mouths. I want to crawl inside him, devour him.

Can't remember feeling this way before.

With a muffled groan, he rolls me beneath him, and I know a moment of pure euphoria. He can't resist, no matter what he said about it being too soon. I want everything he described, everything—

Shakes.

So hard we tumble from the bunk and hit the floor, hard. March is good, but we're not even having sex yet, so I don't think I can claim the earth moved.
Of all the Mary-sucking luck.
I can't get my breath for a variety of reasons. He landed on top of me, and…I think he broke my rib.

“Shit, you okay?” he asks, crawling off me.

The ship's alarm sounds on cue.