Page 85 of Border Control

“Well,” Arra-bellah says, bright green eyes fixing on her friend. “What’d I miss?”

The next two Earth weeks,half a human month, are a blur of barn building to distract me from the gaping hole in the mind-sync. With Arra-bellah back, the plans come like a meteor shower, and Gara helps interpret them and program the lasers and machines we need. In the evenings he works on the shuttle, changing it with Ilia’s permission into something for his new mate.

I wish them well and throw myself into the work, because the alternative is feeling Law-rah’s pain. She left the farm without a word to me, and all I feel when she thinks of me is simmering recrimination.

She blames me. Perhaps she’s right. I don’t know anymore. All I know is she’s hurting, and she won’t let me help. I’ve failed as a Base.

Finally Ilia and Gara think the work is done and want to show their beloved mates the finished barn. Their auras shimmer with queasy greens and sharp scared blues, so I tear myself away and lay down in the lean-to.

Shade crawls toward me, fronds eagerly lapping up the tension pouring from me.

“Eat well, friend,” I tell them, closing my eyes. Their tendrils trail across my sweaty forehead as they feast. I only wish it eased the discomfort, but Law-rah’s walls are alternately impenetrable and then break like a dam, washing us with spiky anger and a cold drowning despair. I have to be ready to block Nevare andArik from the onslaught, and trudge up against the deluge to reach Law-rah to hold her above the devastation.

It’s draining. Not knowing what to do. The mental distance between me and my wave brothers. The distance between me and Law-rah.

“Law-rah, please.” We can’t exist like this. If I have to beg, I'll do it.

And then I feel it. Her cold, hard decision, as sure as a Selthiastock’s surgical knife.

She’s on her way.

I get up, arms and legs trembling, jittery with Law-rah’s new purpose. What’s she going to do? Whatever it is scares her, but she’s made her mind up.

And she’s coming closer. She’s almost here.

Shade leaps onto my shoulder, no doubt sucking away at the bloom of heat in my chest and the twist of nerves tangling my stomach.

‘Dom?’Nevare’s grave concern laces the mind-sync. He and Arik are at the lake, swimming with Arture.

I shut him out as much as I can.‘Stay back! Arik, protect him.’

‘From what?’

‘From me.’Because I feel I’m on the verge of losing control. I’ve been pushing, enduring, waiting, and now she’s coming, now she’s decided something that will change our fates forever.

And I can’t handle it.

I run through the courtyard into the garden. “Ilia? Gara!” I scream my frustration to the wind.

Gara comes out of the shuttle. He won’t be able to overpower me—no, I don’t want that, that’s Law-rah’s despair talking, we need to find her.

“Where is she?” I bellow.

My shipmate’s green scales glow as if preparing to treat me. It illuminates his tiny mate behind him, Arra-bellah. Law-rah’s friends don’t know how she’s feeling, she’s all alone out there.

I screw my eyes shut, yanking on the bond between us, a wall in the way.‘Law-rah. Where are you?’

“What’s going on out here?” she says.

It can’t be.

I spin and time seems to slow. There she is, wearing her red weaponized heels, not a single hair out of place, although thinner than ever.

How can she look so composed with all the grief and misery I can sense inside her? It shows in her lack of nutrition, yet she’s pulled the mask on one more time to come here, to confront me. She has incredible strength, but she’s faltering. Breaking.

Unraveling.

All I want to do is run to her, hold her in my arms, get her to smash the wall between us, and let me carry her burden for a while.