CHAPTER 23

ALEXANDER

I had just kicked off my shoes and unbuttoned my shirt when there was a knock on my door. I eyed the bottle of alcohol resting untouched on my kitchen counter and the two glasses sitting beside it. Only one of them would have been used for the alcohol while the other would have contained juice for Addy, but now the only one that got any use was mine.

And today I was apparently not even getting that far.

With a weary sigh I trudged over to the door, pausing briefly to don my mask of professionalism before I opened it. Then proceeded to drop it again when I saw that my visitor was only Markus.

‘Hey, what are you doing here?’ I asked, opening the door wider and stepping aside to allow his entry.

He took the invitation, but instead of situating himself on the couch like he normally would he stayed by the door, worry lines etched into his face and a backpack secured over his shoulders.

‘I just got word from T. Artemis is gathering the group. Apparently the Forbidden Planet isn’t going to work as a rendezvous point so there’s been a change of plans. We need to mobilise now. The rest of them are on their way to the facility to break out Addy, Reece and the children.’

The breath left my lungs in a whoosh , and my legs felt unsteady at the news. I collapsed against the wall, using it to keep me upright when I could barely stand on my own as it was. Artemis was here. She was on her way to rescue Addy and Reece. We were leaving today.

‘What does she need from us?’ I asked when I finally found my voice. It still came out weak and croaky like I was talking around a ball stuck in my throat.

‘The message was to wait in the hangar bay until given further instructions,’ was his unhelpful answer.

‘So they just want us to sit around with our thumbs up our asses while they head into danger? I don’t think so,’ I snapped, the adrenaline coursing through me spurred on by the anger. I knew I wasn’t really angry, I just couldn’t stand not being useful while Addy needed me.

‘Xan, if we interrupt we could cause the whole operation to go south and we’ll lose our chance to get them all out,’ he appealed to me, hands raised as if he were readying himself to use them to restrain me from doing something reckless.

I released my anger with my next breath, knowing he was right. ‘Fine. We wait in the hangar bay.’

He scrutinised me before nodding once after finding whatever he was looking for. Probably compliance. His point was valid, and if they were heading in to rescue Addy and Reece now, then I’d be a fool to get in their way.

I brushed past him to get to my bedroom where I pulled open a loose wall panel. In it I’d stored Addy’s go-bag beside mine. I collected them both, slinging them over either shoulder, and met Markus where I’d left him by the front door.

‘All right, then. Let’s go.’

Despite the knowledge that I would likely never return to this home I still locked up behind us. It was bittersweet to say goodbye to the only place I’d truly considered my home. I’d made a lot of memories here throughout my time in the IU’s military, and I had hoped to one day turn it into a family home for me and Addy. Now I had to let it go, and all that I represented. Nova Station was no longer my safe haven. It was time to find a new one.

Markus and I walked side-by-side towards the hangar bay where we were met by none other than T’s mother. They hadn’t explicitly stated their relation to one another, but it wasn’t difficult to deduce from their mannerisms. Their expressions softened whenever they looked at one another, visible even from behind their signature gas masks.

She was a large woman, even for a Tornu, strength and resilience the very core of her being. The black spikes running along her head, spine and arms were long, sharp and deadly, and currently bristled with agitation that matched the flash behind her burgundy eyes.

‘Gentlemen,’ she greeted.

‘M,’ Markus and I responded in unison.

‘I think it’s safe for you all to call me by my real name, now,’ she offered her hand for us to shake. ‘I’m Morgrid.’

I took her proffered hand with a firm grip and shook it once, twice, then released her to allow Markus a turn.

‘Well, Morgrid, it seems we’ve been relegated to thumb-twiddling duty,’ he joked.

Her dark red lips, a natural colour on her that many pale-toned individuals paid good money to achieve, pursed at clear disapproval for her delegated task, but she gestured for us to follow her anyway. ‘Come. We will wait in the control room. It is likely we will be needed there.’

Relief scorched the tension inside me, allowing me to breathe deeper than I had since Addy had been taken. Morgrid was giving us a task, providing us a means with which to feel useful while we waited. I could’ve kissed her.

We followed behind her like she was the second coming – or at least I did. When I held the door open for Markus, he wasn’t right behind me like I thought.

‘Mark?’ I called out, but there was no answer.

‘Leave him. If he wants to run off on his own that’s his own choice, but we’ve been given our orders,’ Morgrid shrugged. She settled in behind one of the monitors, the others vacant.

I tried to call Markus back again but the result was the same. I had a feeling he was trying to get in one last search for Jorna before he’d be forced to leave her behind. She was still missing, and he was struggling in her absence. Truthfully, I hadn’t known if the two of them would last. Jorna was always a fun time but never the settling down type, and neither was Markus. That all changed when The Program killed her team three solars ago on a mission gone wrong, her bright and bubbly personality snuffed out alongside their lives. Her relationship with Markus had been new, but I’d seen a real shift in both of them in the short time they’d spent together, but that didn’t change the fact that I’d known both for a long time now, and neither one was the type to get serious with another individual.

I let him go for now with the promise to try again in a little while and chose a seat beside Morgrid’s with a monitor that was already on. After a closer look, it seemed that she’d been using multiple to keep track of different areas. Without any words spoken, I knew I’d just volunteered myself for whatever task this monitor was being used for.

???

It turned out that I had inadvertently picked the most boring job on the entire station. My screen was monitoring a small section of the docking bay, the surveillance cameras pointed directly at a newly docked ship. A ship that was completely and utterly devoid of life.

I’d been staring at the same unmoving image for the past four turns getting increasingly frustrated and restless. I was entertaining myself with examining a logo on the side of the ship – a strand of DNA in the centre of a cog – but I was so wound up that my muscles kept twitching from the tension. My skin felt like it was crawling, and I wanted to tear right out of it.

Markus still had yet to return, and there was no sign of any of the others. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought the entirety of Nova Station was fast asleep. Just like I was about to be.

Morgrid wasn’t faring any better, either. She tried to mask it, but it was evident in the tense set of her shoulders and the way she ground her teeth that she was just as anxious as me. Perhaps even more so. She and her family had been guards for The Program for a long time now. Who knew what they’d been exposed to? I gathered they’d been forced into some rather… immoral positions, but I didn’t hold it against them. They may not have been subjects, but they may as well have been with the cage they’d found themselves trapped inside.

Her son and her mate were still out there, putting themselves in danger while we sat here staring at blank screens. No, she was not holding up well despite her efforts to appear so.

I also got the feeling that Morgrid considered Artemis a member of her family, too. T was strangely obsessed with the woman even if he never said so out loud. There was a history there that hadn’t been divulged, and whilst it wasn’t any of my business I wanted to know more. About how well they knew her. What she was really like.

After all, Addy was determined to maintain her friendship with Mercer. If that was even her last name.

Probably not.

I decided to break up the boredom by being nosy. ‘When did you meet Artemis?’

The question must have stunned her, because she stared at me with wide-eyed surprise for a solid few clicks before she answered. And her answer wasn’t at all what I expected of the infamously private woman.

‘Why don’t I start at the beginning so you can get the full story, hmm? Save you from asking all the questions.’

‘I… Please,’ I stammered. I wasn’t normally so nervous, but this whole situation had been grating on my nerves for over three solars, now. Getting any sort of new insight into The Program let alone one of its most dangerous subjects was going to undoubtedly be a lot to process.

‘It all started ten solars ago. Juffrik and I were approached by a Terran man and offered a well-paying opportunity. We’d just had a scandal in the family, and we were eager to mend our standing among our peers, so we didn’t notice how he left out some essential information.’

‘Like illegal experimentation of live, kidnapped subjects against their will,’ I surmised.

She nodded. ‘Right. Like that. We thought it was just a typical security job for a prestigious, highly classified government program, so the three of us signed up right away. At first we ignored the strange things they were doing. Our job wasn’t to question them or snoop into their top-secret work, so even when we noticed them treating their ‘patients’ a little too roughly we minded our own business.

‘Until Tormik discovered Artemis. He was smitten in a way I’d never seen in him before, but it was forbidden to get involved with the patients. When he started paying attention to what they were doing to her and her friend, Liberty, it was obvious that things were not as they seemed, but by that point we’d already signed a binding contract. We were stuck.’

‘T and Artemis? They were together?’ I asked, unable to picture it.

‘No, not quite. I don’t know how she felt about him, but his feelings for her grew over time, and what had once been an infatuation became something much, much more. Unfortunately, under the ever-watchful eyes of the other guards and the scientists, their relationship never got the opportunity to progress.’

‘Why not? She escaped, didn’t she?’

‘With our help, we were able to get her out. Liberty was sadly captured right as they reached the exit. It was heartbreaking to watch. Artemis fought valiantly, but Liberty was already being dragged back in. She was the one who told Artemis to leave her behind, but we all knew it wouldn’t last. Those two are soulmates. I’ve never seen such devotion before.’

‘So Artemis and Libby…?

It took her a beat to realise what I was asking, but when it clicked she threw her head back and released a loud, boisterous laugh. ‘Stars, no . They’re like sisters, not lovers. Family.’

I almost felt embarrassed for asking, but there was so much I didn’t understand. ‘Why didn’t T…’ I corrected myself now that I’d been given his true name. ‘Why didn’t Tormik go with her?’

Her smile was grim, her sadness over her son’s actions a palpable thing. ‘He has his reasons. That’s not my business to share.’

Before I could offer any sort of response, I noticed a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked closer at the motionless scene on the screen and wondered if I’d just imagined it, but then it happened again.

There was something on the other side of the ship’s closed hangar door that was banging against it so roughly it appeared to be trying to knock the damn thing down. I jumped to my feet when I saw the dents this thing was making, the door barely holding up under the barrage.

I shared a startled glance with Morgrid when the bottom corner of the door was pushed back enough to reveal a large, blood red eye gazing through the hole it had created.

‘What the fuck is that?’ she asked, the fear in her tone something I never thought I’d hear.

One thing I did know was that if the ever-stoic, dauntless Tornu warrior beside me was afraid, that thing was nothing less than a creature of nightmares.

We were fucked.