Chapter 24

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FOUR

TRENCH

The windows are dark when I wake, but the clock tells me we’ve slept into the mid morning.

The storm outside feels like another blanket around us. I hold Jessica closer to me, luxuriating in the comfort I feel through her. The sleepy haze permeates us both and so does the irritation when an all-too familiar sound echoes overhead.

“Why?” She moans, turning in my arms to hold me closer.

“I haven’t told Drift yet. We’ll have to defer the honeymoon.” I kiss her softly, trying not to leave either of us in pain, and then I pull away from her, rolling out of bed and trying not to wince at the ache I know she’ll feel.

“It used to be seventy-two hours,” I tell her, pulling a suit out. “But Andrea convinced Drift that we’d need more time.”

“Remind me to thank Andrea… once I’ve gotten that extra time.” She pulls on her robe and goes to her knees at the edge of the mattress. “Come kiss me before you go, and come back to me as soon as you can.”

It’s a request, but I’ll follow it like a command.

Leaving is harder. I knew it would be.

Half way down to the incursion point, Risk comes up beside me.

“I was out looking for Arc when this one popped,” he says. “Did you notice where it is?”

“Yeah.” It’s why neither of us have to consult the other before we turn away from the inner caldera, and toward the pit instead.

The storm is thick, but I see the creature’s shadow a moment before it disappears. When our bikes slide to a stop beside the pit, I check the time.

Risk jumps straight in.

“You’ve got five minutes,” I say, wanting to yell, but the helmet comms will deliver the warning over the distance. “There’s no way to get to it and back out before the flow.”

“I know. I’ll get it in the cross tunnel and have Shock come get me out when it’s dead.”

I look down after him, but I don’t follow.

I stay put for the same reasons I sent Drift back to the vent station. If I hurt, she hurts.

“What do you see down there?” I ask, wishing—not for the first time—that he could share what he sees across our visors.

“An ugly tunnel.”

“You know what I meant.”

“Claw marks in the cold lava. But otherwise, nothing.”

I wait, scanning the dark horizon and the swirling snow. It’s like static to my ears. The sensors on the far ridge chatter in a polyrhythm to Risk’s breathing.

“There you are,” Risk says, a moment before the comm feed cuts out.

Shit.

I can’t jump down after him. I wouldn’t make it to the cross tunnel in time, much less get back out.

I wrench my helmet off so I can hear better and drop to my stomach, listening.

The scrapes and scuffs are faint, but familiar. Risk laughs at the cavrinskh and a moment later, stillness.

“Do you want the body?”

I look at my helmet, discarded in the snow, where Risk’s voice comes across the line with a crackle. A half moment later, the fainter version of the source comes to me, bounced through the tunnel.

I pull my helmet back on. “What condition is it in?”

He pauses. “I kinda took it apart. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Any way you can get them down, right?”

He makes a sound like an agreement. “We were right, though, this one tried to get out through the cross tunnel. It didn’t even consider heading for the station.”

“How close was it?” I ask.

“It found out we blocked their escape.”

The grate Drift had installed over the cross tunnel exit has a locked door, but who knew if they could get through it.

“Scratched the metal up, threw its weight at it, but otherwise,” there’s a pause, and then he continues, “Looks like you and Jessica were right. This one has the same implosion you’ve noted in others.”

“That’s not a surprise.”

“Didn’t happen until after I killed it though. Maybe it’s linked to their heart? Once that stops… boom?”

“Maybe.” Who the hell knows? “Are you going to be good until Shock gets there?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fantastic. Go home to your pretty scientist. See if she has any ideas.”

I hesitate, glancing at his bike and the beginnings of this flow one more time before I get on mine and head back to my outpost and Jess.

JESSICA

I stretch out sore muscles, trying to determine whether the fatigue is my own, or his.

There’s a faint prickle of chill across my skin and I assume it’s the storm outside.

Looking out the window, I cannot see a thing through the static swirl of the snow. But I also can’t feel anything like stress or fear or haste. Nothing about what he’s doing concerns him, so it doesn’t concern me either.

I pull on clothes and head to the lab. There’s no reason to stay in bed if he’s not there.

As I pull on my gloves, I feel a different kind of urgency through our bond.

He’s coming home.

I wonder how he feels the relief that washes over me.

Based on the warmth in the bond, he’ll be back as soon as possible.

Pushing my glasses up with my knuckle, I smile down at the tray of coronal brain slices I had prepared before. I am on limited time with them, and even “as fast as possible” doesn’t give me a clue how long it’s actually going to take him to get back.

Neuroanatomy was one of my favorite subjects in school.

Dissecting brains might have made others squeamish, but—once outside of a body—they’re just organs like any other inside the body.

The door opens as I’m using one of the cameras to document a dark line that travels along the monster’s longitudinal fissure to its brain stem, so I don’t look up.

Sian brain structures are fascinating, why would the cavrinskh be any different?

I’m used to Trench being here, I just thought I’d feel him more when he was closer.

Sian brains have different fold shapes. Interesting.

“Did you deal with that one so quickly?” I ask, knowing that, for once, I haven’t been sucked into my work for hours.

But no response comes.

I look up from the slice of brain in my hand and flinch back at the pale green man standing in the doorway to the lab.

Arc looks… the wrong color green somehow, and his eyes are as round as saucers. Chest heaving, he barks a dozen questions—or maybe accusations—at me in Sianese.

“I can’t understand you.” Setting the slice down, I go to stand. Arc physically recoils from me.

He really does look ill. Maybe it’s the tint on my face shield? Or maybe the blue blockers in my lenses have made him a little more yellow?

“If you’re going to throw up, please aim for the trash can.” I point toward the one closest to him.

He glances at it, but doesn’t move.

“I don’t want your vomit contaminating any of the samples.”

His expression turns to one of disgust, and he spins on his heel, pushing through the sanitizer and heading back into the house.

There was a flash of something in his eyes. I don’t trust whatever he’s about to do.

Stripping off my gloves, I follow him.

But he doesn’t get far into the hallway before Trench stands on the other side of him.

“What are you doing here?”

I stop well behind Arc. His hands are fisted at his sides. Even with his suit on, I can see his back is nothing but tensely coiled muscles, as though he’s trying to hold himself immobile.

Trench on the other hand… just looks tired. He feels tired.

I move around Arc’s side, and he flinches away from me again.

But Trench answers the question I couldn’t understand.

“She’s a biologist, what did you expect?”

“What did I expect?” Eyes wide, Arc looks at me and grimaces. “I didn’t expect you to actually be a butcher.”

I freeze. Arc’s particular brand of bravado has never been appealing, but this disgust or horror… Whatever it is in his eyes, it makes me feel inhuman.

That’s when I realize the problem.

“Arc.” I say his name in as commanding of a tone as I can manage.

It’s enough to get him to stop. Enough to make him turn and—though he clearly doesn’t want to—look at me.

“They’re from the cavrinskh . They’re not Sian brains.”

Trench is the one who turns on his brother this time. “What the actual hell?”

If Trench was tired before, he isn’t anymore. He’s gotten a pure shot of adrenaline. His muscles tense, and from the look on his face and the feeling coursing through me, I might have to step between them. I don’t know if I’d survive that, but if it came to it and I didn’t, one of them wouldn’t be walking away.

“What,” Trench repeats. “And I cannot begin to fathom what a good answer to this would be, the actual fuck ?”

Face flushed, Arc only gets tenser. “She’s here to study us. What else was I supposed to think?”

“And where, exactly, would you expect her to get her hands on a Sian brain?” Trench’s face blanks, and his disgust almost knocks me to the floor. “You thought I went out and murdered someone?”

Arc’s face shifts, logic probably finally catching up with his panic.

“I think you’d do just about anything for her.”

He says it so matter-of-factly.

Anger flares in the bond. “Get out.”

Arc flinches like he’s been hit.

Something deep inside of me freezes. Locks in place as though it’s broken.

“Get out of our outpost. Don’t come back. I don’t want to see you again unless it’s at Drift’s, and even then, be somewhere else.” Trench moves out of the way, taking me with him. “You don’t need to worry about what I would or wouldn’t do for anyone anymore.”

Arc hesitates, glancing first at me, and then back to his brother.

“Don’t make me physically throw you out.”

Clenching his jaw, Arc goes to the door. But he stops with his hand on the latch. “What wouldn’t you do for her?”

He looks at us both, one eye twitching. And even though Trench doesn’t say anything, he nods. “I thought so.”

The outpost door closes behind him and the lock cycles again.

I stare at it for another three heartbeats before I struggle out of my pullover, throwing it on the floor before taking Trench’s hand to drag him to the actual house.

He feels cold in a way that he didn’t when he was out in the Zone, and I hug him as tightly as I can.

I’m grateful when his arms wrap around me, pressing me even more tightly to him.

“Are you okay?” I look up, and he’s still glaring toward the door. “Arc was just startled. I think most people would be freaked out if they walked in and saw someone with a piece of a brain in their hand.”

He looks down at me, brows furrowed, confusion tumbling across the bond.

“I mean, it can be grotesque even when you’re prepared for it. I’m sure Arc doesn’t actually think you’re a murderer.”

Trench’s grip on me loosens, just enough that he can pull back. Just enough so his hand can travel up my neck, that his thumb can trace my jaw, pressing my face upward so I can’t look anywhere but at him.

“That’s not what this is about,” he says, the words softer than I expect.

“Then what is it?” I can still feel the simmering sensation of betrayal.

“He thought you would ask me to kill someone.”

I have to pause, have to swallow back the smart ass comment that was the first to come to mind.

Instead, I kiss him.

Just once.

A light touch of lips.

“Arc doesn’t seem to know anything, does he?”

Trench lets out a low laugh. “I guess not.”

I shove him down onto the couch and he goes willingly. We lay there until his heartbeat finds a calm and steady rhythm.

“Even if,” Trench says, pausing as though he’s not certain he wants to say what comes next. “Even if he has no idea who you are, to jump to that kind of conclusion out of the blue…” He feels unsettled, and I don’t enjoy the way it prickles against my skin.

“What is his thing, again?”

“He, Risk, and Shock aren’t affected by temperatures.”

I look back to the door no one has the code for and the lab where I’d been thinking about Sian brains, and I’m not quite sure.