13. Pippa

"He just leftin the middle of the night?" Drex was sitting on our couch and reading the note Zyrus had sent him. Ryklin was gone without a trace, and the only evidence that he"d ever existed was his pissed off boss and the note he"d left.

A note he had not included Drex on.

Maybe I was a hypocrite to be angry about that, but Drex and Ryklin had been roommates for nearly five years. Surely that meant he should tell my mate something.

Drex set his communicator down, his expression serious. He was still getting used to feeling after so many years without, and his expressions were either so minute they were nearly impossible to read or so broad they seemed like a joke. "I think he was worried about his mental state."

"Worried?" Ryklin was as soulless as they came.

He gave me a look. "You know what I mean."

Yes, I did. The soulless didn"t have emotion, true, but they operated in a language full of it, and sometimes there was no better way to say something than to use a word that wasn"t exactly precise to their condition but conveyed the meaning. "Why do you think he was worried?"

"I saw him the other day, and it looked like he was about to throw himself out the airlock. We spoke briefly and parted. And then there"s Noelle. Do you think she knows?"

"I haven"t seen her." It wasn"t strange, exactly. Sure, we were best friends and neighbors and worked for the same department, but days could go by without a word between us. And she was off working in Sector J, which was so far off that she wasn"t bothering to stop in the changing room before or after her shift.

It wasn"t weird. But with Ryklin gone, something felt off.

"Where are you going?" Drex asked as I slipped on my shoes.

"To ask Noelle." Obviously.

My mate didn"t follow. He was probably exchanging messages with Zyrus to try and find out whatever he could about Ryklin. Drex wasn"t soulless anymore, but he still felt responsible for his men.

One of the many loveable things about him.

I pounded on Noelle"s door and tried not to think of a time two months ago when I"d pounded on another woman"s door. Fran couldn"t answer because she was dead, because a madman had been stalking the station and had murdered her in a desperate bid for his own survival.

Now he was rotting on a prison colony. It didn"t feel like justice, but at least it was over.

Noelle didn"t answer.

There was a trick to opening these doors as long as the mechanical lock wasn"t engaged, and I was tempted to do it, something urging me to believe that something was wrong with Noelle. What if she was sick? What if she"d fallen in the shower and hit her head?

Drex joined me and covered my hand with his own when I tried to knock again. I"d probably knock until I was bloody if he didn"t stop me. "She"s clearly not in her room," he said.

"Then where is she?" It came out a little more ragged than I wanted.

He wrapped his arms around me and held me tight. "I"m sure she"s fine. Send her a message. Invite her over for dinner. We"ll tell her about Ryklin together. It will all be okay."

I wanted to believe that.

I sent the message and waited for a response. But I didn"t get one.

And she didn"t show up for dinner.