CHAPTER 37

Artemis

T hey knew.

My mind whirled at warped speeds as I worked to out the pieces together.

I had walked through the Entario Waystation’s space port fully aware of the risks. It would have brought too much attention if I’d cut out all surveillance feeds, so I had kept my head down and tried to remain inconspicuous. I thought I had gotten away with it, but if someone had that video footage then The Program no doubt did, too.

Everything was coming together, the puzzle pieces slotting into place. I watched as the captain was escorted to a secret meeting with the colonel. The very same colonel that had accessed the Entario Waystation’s surveillance footage. He and Markus were friends, which meant that the corruption within the IU’s military was even greater than I had previously assumed.

Markus flagging me as a potential candidate for The Program’s ‘recruitment’ process suddenly took on a whole different light. They were trying to lure me back in, to avoid scaring me off. They knew who I was and were trying to keep me complacent until they could get their filthy hands on me again, and I didn’t know if I should allow it to happen or not. On the one hand, my goal was to get back to them and Libby, but there was no guarantee that they would take me to the same facility they were keeping her. On the other hand, my plans had been to find a way back in through a position of power, like one of the guards. I had assumed that was where my conversation with Markus was leading, but now…

And then there was Adara. She was so close with the captain but seemed to dislike Markus on a personal level. Was it an act? Or was it simply an irrelevant coincidence? Either way, her relationship with Captain Hironimus was an obvious red flag, and I never should have put so much trust in her.

There was only one thing for me to do now, and that was to make a decision: stay and let them catch me or run and find a different way back.

I contemplated the options as I sat in the captain’s quarters. I was internally kicking myself for running straight to Adara when Bromm had almost caught me using my unique cybernetic abilities. She had been the first person I thought of when I needed a safe place to lay low, but that reaction was clearly a mistake. I didn’t want to sit here and wait. I didn’t know how I could face her again knowing she was working against me this entire time.

How many others were in on it? Was that why the captain had placed Dorian and his team as our bodyguards? Was that a cover for their real instructions, and they were sent to keep a watch over me and report back to their precious leaders? And what of Foryk, Reece and Bromm?

Foryk and I weren’t close so a betrayal from him would have hurt but not caused me any lasting damage. Reece and Bromm, however… I had placed not only a level of trust in them I hadn’t managed since Libby and T, by had started to give away a part of myself I never realised I was so eager to give away. I had sheltered my heart after everything went down two solars ago, and I couldn’t believe I had allowed myself to bring those walls down even the smallest amount to let them in. And after last night with Bromm…

Selfishness had never gotten me anywhere before, and I should have known better than to let myself try to have even the smallest moment of happiness. I was here for Libby, not for me. She needed me, not Bromm, or Reece, or Adara, or anyone else.

I had already broken my vow not to let anyone distract me from my mission, and I had done just that without a single care for the consequences. Stupid, stupid girl. Well, I wasn’t going to let them distract me anymore.

Keeping all that in mind, my next move was going to have to be discrete. If I had already been caught then I couldn’t let on that I was aware. I needed everyone to believe that things were normal, so I would behave as such. And when The Program eventually came to take me away, they wouldn’t find me. I would find them , sneak onto their ship, and take it from there. I couldn’t allow myself to get caught, but I also couldn’t allow them to get away, so the only other option was to let them come to me and turn the tables on them instead.

The sounds of shuffling drifted through both closed doors. Urman and Dorian were the ones occupying the spare room, but I only heard one person in the main bedroom which meant the captain hadn’t yet returned from his excursion. Good. I didn’t want to face him just yet.

I didn’t particularly want to face Adara, either, or the others if they were also watching me, but I reminded myself I needed to act like nothing had changed. I couldn’t run.

The mere idea of leaving this room and facing the rest of the crew, because let’s face it, if the captain was aware of who I was then I didn’t doubt there were many others, made me want to crawl into a hole and hide. I had spent far too long hiding and I hated it, but that didn’t mean it was over yet. And sometimes, the best hiding place was in plain sight. What they didn’t know I could use to my benefit, and I intended to keep them in the dark for as long as possible.

Adara emerged first, shooting me a smile in greeting when she saw me sitting on the couch. She dragged her feet as she made her way into the kitchen and started rifling through the cabinets for something to eat, and then paused. She looked back at me as if she were shocked to see me.

‘Uh, hey. How did you get in here, Arty?’ she asked.

I wanted to kick myself. I had used my abilities without thinking to pick the electronic lock and let myself in, but I didn’t want her to know what I was capable of, so I lied. ‘Dorian let me in last night. I couldn’t sleep with Foryk’s snoring so I slept on the couch.’

I hoped she bought it.

My answer appeased her, however, and my only wish was that no one would say anything to counteract my lie and cause her to ask questions. I really needed to be more careful. I hadn’t been thinking earlier, allowing my emotions to cloud my logic. That was not something I could let happen again.

‘Poor thing,’ she said in response. ‘Want some breakfast?’

‘Sure,’ I said. I almost said no, but that would have been out of character for our relationship.

She made up a quick plate of toast and eggs, demolishing hers in seconds because she was running behind schedule. She was usually up and hard at work before the buzzer, and I wondered if her later rising this morning was due to the captain’s absence.

I took her plate and mine to the kitchen and started washing them up, which was where Dorian and Urman found me when they emerged from the spare room, fully dressed and ready for the day.

‘Hey, wasn’t expecting you here this morning. Did you already eat?’ asked Dorian while Urman yawned and scratched at his head. He pulled a few pale strands out from his braid but ignored them after tucking them back behind his ear.

‘Yeah, Adara and I had breakfast. She just left.’

‘The captain still here?’ asked Urman.

‘No.’ I didn’t want to tell them he hadn’t come back last night. I wasn’t sure why I was keeping it a secret beyond not wanting to discuss the captain. I didn’t particularly want to be discussing anything with these two, but here I was.

They both hummed in response and the room devolved into an awkward silence. There was a tension in the atmosphere that hadn’t existed between us for a while, and as hard as I tried not to care I quietly mourned the loss of what had been. And what could have been.

‘We’re heading across the hall for breakfast. You coming?’ asked Dorian, his hesitation knocking me out of my head enough to realise I was already failing at pretending everything was okay.

Come on, A. You’re better than this .

‘No, I’m just gonna hang here for a bit,’ I said, surprising myself for wishing Bromm would spill what had happened between us last night. They had already witnessed the way I pulled back after the first time we had been intimate, so I hoped they would assume any weird behaviour from me was caused by that.

Or they could just assume I was a weird guy and that was that, but after what I’d discovered last night there was no way I was going to believe they wouldn’t get suspicious.

‘Oh, okay. Sure…’ They left the conversation at that, accepting my answer with mirroring expressions of confusion and concern, then they left me behind. I wondered how deep that concern went, and if it was nothing more than a shallow attempt to prove they were trustworthy when they were anything but.

I was well aware my paranoia was now out in full force, but there was no shoving it back down now. It no longer mattered who was involved and who wasn’t. Everyone was now a suspect. No one could be trusted. I was on my own, yet again.

???

The rest of the morning went eerily similar to the last time Bromm and I had gotten hot and heavy. He kept his distance in what seemed to be respect for my boundaries, and everyone glanced between us if they knew something they weren’t supposed to know, even if it was more like an open secret.

I kept my distance from everyone, afraid to let them get close. This time it wasn’t because I was afraid they would discover my secrets but because I feared they already had.

Combat training was great for my antisocial behaviour, my team choosing Corporal Hum’Rit and his stamina training. They chose a different type of exercise that involved a lot of bending and core strength, which Bromm particularly struggled with. I watched from the corner of my eye as I ran around the track, my instincts screaming at me to support him somehow. Whether that was moral support or help with his movements just like with the punching bag, it didn’t matter. I couldn’t let myself fall any deeper with him.

The idea of being betrayed by him hurt worse than the others, only rivalled by Reece and Adara. I wanted to open my heart to him fully, to show him who and what I was and pray to whatever deity would listen that he would accept me in all my abominable glory. These thoughts and feelings were compounded by the way he also kept stealing glances at me whenever I ran past, as if he were sad I was keeping my distance after what we’d shared.

But I didn’t know if it was real or not. Was he faking it to get close to me; to try and coax me into revealing all my secrets? I didn’t think I could handle it if he were.

So I kept running until it was time for lunch, ignoring the way my heart was already cracking inside my chest.

Lunch was another terribly uncomfortable endeavour, but I endured it. I sequestered myself away from the others by eating my meal in the kitchenette, then leaving for the afternoon class before the others were finished. I was still doing a terrible job of acting normal, but it was the best I could manage without breaking down in front of everyone.

When they eventually showed up, Reece sat on my left while Bromm took up my right, and while I sent them both a smile to try to prove we were okay, it was clear it hadn’t worked. So, I ignored them for the rest of class. I ignored the instructor, too, zoning out when I realised I wouldn’t be learning anything new or useful in today’s lesson.

Instead, I focused on the law enforcement officials that sat in on the class, examining us with a critical eye while they searched for the unsub. It didn’t escape my notice how their attention kept drifting back to Reece and it made me bristle, until I remembered that any connection I had felt with these men was either fake or couldn’t last, so there was no point in worrying myself over them.

Not anymore. I never should have allowed myself to care in the first place. It just made things all the more difficult now, which I had expected to some degree. I hadn’t expected to let myself care as much as I did, however, so despite my efforts to remain uncaring over the situation, I still found myself wanting to tear those officers apart for daring to believe the worst in my friend.

No . He wasn’t my friend. He couldn’t be.

My conflicted feelings must have shown in my stance or my expression, because both men suddenly gripped my hands tightly as if the action would anchor me to the present moment. What shocked me the most was that it actually worked. The sensation of skin against skin, the pressure of their fingers digging into mine, it succeeded in not only halting the thoughts running wild through my brain but gave me a sense of peace in their company, whether I wanted it or not. As they held onto my hands, the paranoia simply fell away as if it were insignificant and flimsy.

‘Are you okay?’ Reece leaned in close to whisper in my ear.

I sent him a weak smile that was surprisingly genuine. ‘No,’ I admitted. ‘But this is helping,’ I squeezed his hand to prove what I was referring to.

‘We’re talking after class,’ Bromm uttered into my other ear. With their faces so close to mine, a shiver coursed up my spine while a heat settled low in my stomach. I wanted to agree but knew I shouldn’t, so I didn’t say anything in response.

Fuck, I was weak. They made me weak. The last time anyone had made me feel like this was over two solars ago, and the mere thought of him had me pulling away. I had been hurt before and I wasn’t about to let it happen again.

But more than that, if either one of them was truly unaware of my secrets, the thought of hurting them by letting them believe anything real could happen, be that friendship or something more, was cruel. More than cruel. I wasn’t the type of woman to toy with someone’s feelings, but in my selfishness that was exactly what I had been doing. It didn’t matter if my feelings towards them were genuine, my lies unravelled it all.

I wanted to tell them everything, to bare my soul in front of them and beg for forgiveness. But Libby needed me more. She needed me to be strong and maintain my cover.

I had to let them go.