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CHAPTER SEVEN

“Tell me you have good news,” I say to Clayton, wedging the datapad under one arm as I grip the handlebar. He throws a hairy, burly arm over my stiff shoulders. I fight the urge to bat him off.

My shoulders are tenser than the thread holding that Italian kid’s vest together. I don’t know what I’ll do if Alex–

No. She will get out of that room. I will get her out. I promised her – and myself. I won’t break that promise.

I will not return home without her. I refuse to go back to the veil of despair that’s haunted me these past few years. Ever since I watched her walk out the door, without even attempting to stop her. I was weak . Afraid.

I watch over my shoulder, as Clayton steers me further away from the others, and clench my jaw at the sight of this Gigolo , with his disheveled blonde hair and baby-smooth chin, hovering by the window and throwing soft eyes at my Alex . Mein Herz.

When I saw his wandering hands all over her ear lier, I saw red, and I had to bite back the urge to throw him out the nearest airlock.

“How are you holding up, Matty?” Clayton interrupts my internal spiral.

“Alex needs me.” I assert.

I didn’t come up here expecting her to run back into my open arms. Too much time has passed for that. Too much hurt. However, this was not a contingency I had foreseen, nor planned for.

I was foolish to think she would have remained unattached.

I just wasn’t expecting him . It’s not Luca specifically – I have never met the kid before.

It’s what he represents. Luca couldn’t be more my opposite if Alex had tried.

It's as if she used an algorithm to track him down. He’s everything I’m not, and I’m trying to ignore how much that thought hurts.

He’s in the heights of youth, and I’m…well, I’m finding a few too many greys peppering around the temples these days.

I’m still in decent enough shape, but he is a Shrank. His biceps have biceps. Who has that much muscle mass after four months spent in an absence of gravity? I wouldn’t be surprised if steroids were at play. Not sure how NASA or the ESA let that slip past them.

A warm, firm palm squeezes the nape of my neck, in a move overly familiar considering Clayton’s not spoken to me for the better part of the past three years.

Clearly long enough for me to forget how Americans have the inability to keep their hands to themselves.

No prizes for guessing whose side he took when Alex decided to leave.

And it was her choice to leave.

She left me, the space agency and the country. She couldn’t get away fast enough.

Then, like the Geist from Mutti’s stories from my childhood, she was gone without a trace. All evidence evaporating alongside her, to the point I started to question whether she was ever real. The only clues she ever existed are the remnants of the memories haunting my dreams.

And Alex haunts mine.

She haunts my very existence.

She has taken up residence in my mind.

The past three years have been hell without her. I couldn't think. I couldn’t work. All I had was sleep, to look forward to my dreams of better times, when she was in our bed, in my arms.

“Matty?” Clayton speaks.

Pulling my eyes from Alex, I point my narrowed glare at him. He loses the smile real quick, dropping his arm from my shoulder.

“Alex needs me.” I assert again.

At the mere mention of her name, my eyes dart back to her, and my gut clenches. My mind spirals with thoughts of how she is on the wrong side of a depressurising airlock .

I could lose her for good. I waited too long to come for her. Nausea churns in my gut, and for the first time in my life true terror runs through me. With a gulp, I push the sensation down, deep down. Deeper than hell down.

Clayton pats my shoulder again. “Com' on Kiddo. Talk to me.”

Despite everything, the time, the distance, he always did have a way to cut through the bullshit, as he calls it, and see right through to the heart of the matter. Something only he and Alex could manage.

I sigh. “I just wanted to talk to her.”

“You came all the way to space just to talk to her?” He shoots me a sceptical look. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. I’ve known you a long time, Kid, her too.” He quirks one of those thick black brows at me.

I shoot him an irritated look. That doesn’t stop him from being correct. He has known us since we were practically kids, fresh out of school and trying out for the space programme. At my silence, he continues.

“She came to run away. You came to chase her.” The silence lingers between us, exposing the truth. “Either way, she isn’t going anywhere. We’ll get her out of this, together .” He stresses together, giving me another pointed look.

I glance back over at Alex through the thin strip of glass. Dr Hadfield is walking her through the motions on how to treat Chelenko’s gut wound, and Luca is there to smile at her. She smiles back, and rage boils inside me. All of her smiles should be mine. She should be mine.

Instead, she’s slowly dying.

Running out of air. Trapped. And it’s my fault. My fault she left. My fault that I didn’t stop her and beg her to come back sooner. Mutti was right, I am a fool.

“This guy…” I start.

“Nespoli?” Clayton scratches his chin. “Yeah, figured you’d have something to say about that.

” He brushes the back of his hand against his stubble, tilting his head as if weighing his words.

“He’s a good kid. Been good to her, treats her right.

Didn’t think it was my place to say anything. Not your place either.”

I turn back to him, frowning. He chuckles, throwing his hands up in mock fear.

“Don’t shoot the messenger. Look, cornering her like a rat up a drainpipe, ain’t gonna make her come running back to your open arms.”

When he’s right, he's unfortunately, very right.

“Besides, we got bigger fish to fry.”

“Oh.” I raise a brow.

“Earth.”

“ Ja , lost contact.” I wave my hand at him dismissively. “Metal in the meteors, solar flare, could even be a problem with the TDRS. It’ll pass–.”

“No.” His fingers tighten around my arm, trimmed nails biting into the flesh as he pulls me further away from the others. His eyes dart about us before he drags them back to meet mine, leaning in conspiratorially.

“Earth’s gone.”

I frown. “What do you mean gone?”

“Shh, keep it down. This is. Need. To. Know. Until we decide how to deal with the Alex and Chelenko situation.”

As if I had forgotten, mein Herz is trapped and alone.

I clench my fist by my side, picturing Alex.

Whilst I’m here having my time wasted, she is with that Gigolo .

Who I doubt is competent enough to survive a single trip to the Behorde , let alone have any business being on this station, but let him prove me wrong, and I’ll continue to squash the violent urges his face is inciting in me.

I clench my jaw.

“You hearing me, Matty?” Clayton says.

Lowering my voice, I ask. “What do you mean gone?”

“Just gone. Poof.” He makes a comically poor attempt at an explosion with his hand. “Got Anderson and Aiko looking into it. But the general consensus so far ain't good.”

I grunt, my eyes flicking back to Alex, who’s ripping the sleeve of her blue flight suit to use the rags as bandages.

“Need you, Kid. ”

“Ok. Fine. Paragraf 32b, Section seven of the contingency guide?” He nods slowly at my words, understanding.

“Yeah, probably. At least until we make contact with home. I’ll get Anderson on it.”

“And Alex?” I ask.

“Got a crew meeting in ten to talk about that. Hadfield and Pesquet got an idea, but you ain't gonna like it.”

I give him a curt nod, watching Alex brush blood across her forehead as she wipes a few strands of sweat-slicked hair back and out of her face.

“You hear me, Kid?” Clayton says.

“ Ja , meeting in ten,” I wave my hand at him, absently, my mind drifting back to Alex.

If I can’t get her out of there, then I’m going in to get her. I don’t care if I take the whole station down with me. I’ve already endured three years without her, barely alive, just going through the motions of living.

I’m not staying in a universe without Alex.