CHAPTER 36

Bromm

T his was the weirdest dream I’d ever had. Firstly, I was aware that I was dreaming, and secondly I had no idea what I was dreaming about. There was an entire, webbed system of glowing lines that I seemed to be zipping through at a speed that was making me queasy even in my unconscious state. Flashes of images and bursts of sound echoed throughout the cavernous space, but I was moving too fast along one specific line to truly catch any of them.

I focused my attention on the line I was travelling down, doing my best to remind myself that I was asleep and my stomach wasn’t actually being left behind. It was an odd sensation, my brain believing me to be moving at high speeds when in reality I was prone in my bed.

No, not my bed. The sofa. I had fallen asleep on the sofa after Arty had played my body like no other ever had.

I wasn’t able to reminisce, however, because I was suddenly halted on the glowing line. There seemed to be some sort of hologram asking for a passcode that blocked the path, and I could see the line continuing on behind it. Numbers and letters from multiple languages flashed by too quickly for me to grasp, until eventually the passcode was correct and I was suddenly moving again. It was still fast, but I was slowed down by more and more of the passcode holograms blocking the path.

But each and every one was solved like a puzzle in record time, and I appreciated the frequency of the small stops that gave me a break to recalibrate.

It was like I was in some sort of computer system, travelling along the lines of data and hacking into information I wasn’t supposed to have access to. It was odd, since I wasn’t the most technologically savvy guy, and I wondered why my subconscious was imagining something like being inside a computer.

I suddenly came to a screeching halt. I whizzed back up the line and paused at a holographic video already playing in front of me. I didn’t know why I would dream of the captain, but there he was with a stranger dressed in all black, moving through a metallic city, and the timestamp read yesterday afternoon. Was that Nova Station? And then they were outside a rusted, derelict building, a woman they referred to as the colonel allowing them entry, and the video feed cut out.

The travelling continued again, until another sound stopped me. This time I hopped over the seemingly endless abyss beneath me, surging through the void and onto another line where I immediately stopped. There, another holographic video began to play. The setting looked familiar, and I studied it until I recognised it as surveillance footage of the Entario Waystation, specifically the port. It seemed to be following a woman that was hunched over. Something about her struck a chord within me, as if my subconscious was screaming at me that I was supposed to know her. She did seem remarkably familiar, but I couldn’t place where or how I knew her. She entered the bathroom, choosing the male’s over the female’s for some strange reason. Perhaps she had simply misread the signs.

And then someone exited. For a moment it looked like Arty, but then the video cut off and I was moving back along the lines again. I wondered what the connection was that my brain was trying to make. Arty and a random woman that looked familiar but I couldn’t place… Why? Was this my subconscious’s way of telling me something I should have already figured out? Because nothing was making a lick of sense.

I thought back to his behaviours over the brief time I had known him. Always dressed and ready for the day before everyone else. Didn’t like to be touched. Wouldn’t allow me or anyone else to see him undressed, and he panicked when I tried to explore his body. Did this woman have something to do with that? Was he already in a relationship and he was feeling guilty over his connection with me? Or was she somehow connected to his secret mission.

I recalled the conversation between Arty and Brin that Reece and I had overheard… The CWO must know a lot more about what was going on. Was this what my subconscious was trying to tell me?

All the weird behaviours, all the secrecy, and now this woman… they were all pieces of a puzzle I had yet to fit together. It didn’t add up, not yet. Something was still missing…

I wondered if I should mention this weird dream to Arty, but quickly decided against it. He was clearly keeping too many secrets that he didn’t want me to know about. What I needed to do was watch him for more clues. Perhaps he would inadvertently give something away without realising or say something he assumed people would find ambiguous but would make things make sense.

I already knew he was undercover and was surprisingly okay with it, Whatever it was he was looking into was surely of significant importance if he would go to such lengths. Despite his secrets, his personality was an open book and I trusted him. Unless I discovered he was a spy from a neighbouring union sent to gather intel to take down the IU, I could forgive him his secrets.

I didn’t fully understand my reaction to all the information I was slowly uncovering about him… If I had discovered that Foryk, for example, had been lying to me about something as big as this I didn’t think I could have forgiven him, but Arty was different somehow. For some unknown reason, I didn’t care about the external things. I knew who Arty was on the inside and that was what I was falling for. It helped that he was pretty to look at, but it was who he had shown me he was as a person that really drew me in . Mysterious, kind and compassionate, protective, intelligent… the list could go on.

I had never been in love before, but was that what this was? Was I in love with Arty, secrets and all?

The answer was a resounding yes that was a slap in the face from the force of my answer. It had snuck up on me hard and fast, but there was no doubt in my mind. I was in love with Arthur Mercer.

But if he was in a relationship with that woman, did I even stand a chance?

???

The wake-up call buzzed through the speakers and jolted me awake. I felt something on the top of my head and looked up to see a hand resting against my scalp. A hand that was attached to Arty as he sat propped up and unmoving on the armchair beside the sofa. A hand that was glowing blue from under his skin.

What the…?

Arty’s hand suddenly snapped back towards his body as he blinked away the same blue glow in his eyes. I rubbed my own, wondering if it was just sleep that had caused me to see things that weren’t there, but it finished dimming only after I reopened them. I had definitely seen what I thought I saw, but what was it?

I recalled the way his hand was touching my head and the strange dream I still remembered in vivid detail. There was no way they were connected… right?

‘I’m going to see if Adara’s awake,’ he said suddenly, jumping up and practically running from the room. I stared in shock at the door he had just exited. It wasn’t possible, but how could I deny what my own eyes had witnessed? Was it all real? My dream, that glow, my epiphany…

I needed to let it all out, to talk to someone so I could either confirm or deny that I was going insane, but who? I couldn’t bring this up with Foryk. His moral compass was rigid and he would inform the captain immediately. That was why I had kept the conversation I had overheard from him, too.

Reece, on the other hand, had heard it alongside me. He knew there was something different about Arty and that he was undercover. Could I bring this to him as well? Could I trust him with this information? He’d kept the interaction between Arty and Brin a secret so far.

When he came out of the main bedroom, sleep-rumpled hair in disarray and not yet braided, I waited for him to finish yawning before I dragged him into the bathroom. I made sure the door was locked and the shower was on and ignored his protests.

‘Shh,’ I reprimanded. ‘Something happened. It’s about Arty.’

He shut up immediately and listened to what I had to say. I told him about the dream, every detail that I could recall. I told him about the surveillance footage from the Entario Waystation docking port, and when I verbalised my suspicions for the first time I knew I sounded absolutely insane, but there was so much relief to hear it spoken aloud and it felt right. I knew I was right.

‘None of that makes any sense,’ he said after mulling over my words. ‘It would explain a lot, but not everything. You said he… glowed? ’

‘Blue. Under his skin and behind his eyes. It was definitely there.’

‘But the dream… you don’t honestly believe that’s possible, do you? That he was feeding you information while you were asleep?’

I exhaled roughly through my nose. ‘I don’t know. I don’t have an explanation. I don’t understand what happened, but I do know that it did happen. I know what I saw, and he bolted as soon as he realised.’

‘I can’t believe I’m actually entertaining this…’ he mumbled. I had clearly blown his mind with the information overload, but th ere was still a scepticism underneath his acceptance. ‘We should get confirmation before we come to any concrete conclusions. I don’t want to throw out outlandish accusations without evidence.’

‘I don’t think I’m wrong, but I can see your point. Let’s keep an eye out for anything unusual, see if we can catch him doing it again,’ I told him.

He sighed, clearly torn, but eventually acquiesced. ‘It’s a plan,’ he confirmed. ‘But now I need to actually shower, so get out.’

I stuck out my bottom lip in a pout, the cool air caressing my lip as it poked out from beneath my beard. ‘You sure I can’t stay for the show?’ I teased, but I was only half kidding. I would definitely enjoy it if he said yes, though I knew he wouldn’t before he rejected the offer.

‘Out, Bromm,’ he chuckled.

I obeyed, sending him one last sad look over my shoulder before the door closed in my face. Oh, well. There was always my imagination.

I bumped into Foryk and Cadmus as soon as I re-entered the communal area, and both of them raised their brows at me. There was clearly someone still in the bathroom, the sounds of the shower travelling through the door, which meant they knew I was in there with someone.

‘Arty’s usually done by now,’ Cadmus stated.

‘He was done ages ago,’ I told them, knowing he had showered long before the buzzer went off to wake us up.

‘So who were you just in the shower with?’ he asked, confused.

‘Reece is in there right now,’ I informed them.

Foryk growled, the sound full of disapproval. ‘You won’t get far with Arty if you’re messing around with other guys, Bromm.’

I laughed at the insinuation. ‘Please, Reece is as straight as they come. We were just chatting.’

‘In the bathroom?’

I shrugged. ‘It was a private conversation. ’

‘You have private conversations with Reece?’ asked Cadmus at the same time the Foryk exclaimed, ‘Are you replacing me?’

‘Okay, first, why wouldn’t I have private conversations with Reece? We’re friends. And no, I’m not replacing you, Ryk. You’re still my number one.’

He grunted. ‘Good.’

He left to go pick out his clothes for his turn in the shower, and Cadmus took that opportunity to saddle up to me with a sly smile that immediately raised my hackles.

‘You slept on the couch, huh?’ he asked, tipping his chin at the blanket still on the sofa as evidence.

‘Uh, yeah?’

‘Naked?’

I looked down my body to see that I was, indeed, still lacking clothes. I hadn’t even noticed.

‘Uh, yeah.’

‘And where is our dear Arty this morning, Bromm?’

I didn’t know why as I had never really been ashamed of my sexual exploits before, but I felt my cheeks heat with a blush. ‘He went across the hall to see Brin.’

‘Ouch. Loved ya’ then left ya’.’

I scoffed, remembering how I found him this morning. He hadn’t left until I’d inadvertently scared him off, but the new information bouncing around in my brain gave me enough insecurities about our relationship – whatever that may be – that I all of a sudden wasn’t so sure it hadn’t been my fault. Had I pushed him too far?

‘Arty’s a work in progress,’ I told him with a nonchalant lift of my shoulder, even if I didn’t feel it. ‘But that’s between me and him.’ I gave him a pointed look that screamed back off .

He raised his hands in the gesture of surrender. ‘Okay, okay. I can take a hint, but just tell me one thing…’ He paused to see if I would deny him but continued when I made no protest. ‘Is he a go od lover?’

My lips stretched slowly into a smirk. ‘You’ll never know, bird boy.’

He gasped and reached over his shoulder to stroke the feathers beneath his shirt. ‘ Bird boy ? Like you can talk, squid man.’

‘At least my extra appendages are useful in bed. Or other furniture.’

‘All right you two, break it up,’ Henrik came to step between us, though his attempt to hold in his mirth was largely unsuccessful.

Reece chose that moment to join the rest of us, and Foryk took over the bathroom in his place. Our eyes connected from across the room, which seemed to set off Cadmus again. He jabbed me in the ribs with his elbow and wagged his eyebrows at me, then walked away cackling when Henrik physically shoved him away from me. I didn’t escape a silent ribbing from him, however, when he looked over his shoulder with a teasing smirk gracing his lips.

Normally when someone would look at me like that my reaction would have been to take them to bed, but this time I could only wish they were a different set of lips belonging to a certain alluring Terran.

Reece collected my clothes that were strewn about the room and handed them to me, then leant against the back of the sofa. Memories of what happened there last night assaulted me, and I tried to discreetly check for any stains left behind. He must have noticed because his face twisted with disgust as he leapt away from the piece of furniture.

‘Really, Bromm? We all use that couch, and it’s not even ours,’ he chastised, but I was too busy reminiscing over the way it felt to have Arty not only touch me but open up enough to do so.

I was determined to win him over, and his little girlfriend would just have to get used to sharing.