Page 12

Lisa

Day 10

M ost of the night, I am restless. While Katie sleeps soundly huddled against one wall, her spot from before we were rescued by the pack, I toss and turn.

Before too long, the moons are waning and I am up long before the sun. Katie is asleep, or at least pretends to be while I quietly strip the rest of the ship.

I don’t know what I’m grabbing but I take as much as I can. Small chips and pieces of metal that could be useful. Somewhere there must be a piece of value, something that will help us be rescued from this frozen wilderness. Something to help us get back to Gragon 6.

I’m positive between the wreckage here and Briley’s pod, we’ll be able to put something together. I grip the thought tightly, needing the hope it brings more than I breathe air.

There’s a tentative knock on the door. I look over my shoulder, black strands falling into my face before I push them back. I expect to see Juk, my heart leaping momentarily at the thought, but instead it’s Evie. I ignore the disappointment that quietly hits my stomach, and file it away with the rest of the grief and tumble of emotions I plan to deal with later.

“We’ll be leaving in about thirty minutes,” Evie says. No good-morning, no other form of greeting. Not that I would have given her one in return. “I hope you two are ready for a long day of travel.”

“We are.”

I spin back around to find Katie awake and sitting up right. She smiles at Evie and nods her head.

“There’s some tea on the fire right now, and some travel rations,” Evie says directly to Katie this time.

Katie nods her thanks, and then Evie leaves. I look back over at her, watching as she murmurs something to the alpha and they both glance my way. Juk appears next to them and the three wander off to prepare the sleds, presumably.

“Don’t give her the cold shoulder, Lisa,” Katie suddenly says quietly.

I sigh and continue to strip the circuit in front of me. I’ve left the main motherboard intact, in case we need to take parts from the pod back here and use this for communication. “I’m not.”

Katie scoffs and stands. I glance up at her as she places her hands on her hips. Without her black miner’s outfit, she looks like she belongs in the pack. Covered in leather leggings and furs, she has the same warrior princess vibe as Evie. Something pangs in me, but I won’t label it as jealousy. Her suit was ruined. There was no other option for her.

“What are you going to do if we’re stuck here, Lisa?” she asks. Katie is normally quiet. Allison has always had enough gumption for both of them, enough spice to overpower them both. But Katie keeps to herself. She is quiet and observant, and that makes her the wiser of the twins more often than not.

“We’re getting off this planet,” I give as an answer. Circuit stripped, I shove the small metal pieces into my bag, careful not to crack any. With any luck, Katie will know how to put something together, or maybe we’ll find out Meg is still alive...

“Lisa,” she says with that tone that tells me I’m not about to like what she has to say, “you know the odds are not in our favour. This planet is uncharted.”

“You’ve mentioned that a few times,” I say.

“What Evie does with her life is up to her, not you,” she says softly. “Is it really so bad she’s happened to find happiness in this dire situation?”

“In seven days? Yes, a little,” I snap. “Things don’t happen that quickly in real life. This isn’t a fairytale. For all we know, one of the astrostingents you scanned in the air is an aphrodisiac and none of what she feels is real.”

A heartbeat passes between us before she says quietly, “And is that so bad?”

I groan as I finally meet her eyes. They’re bright in the soft sunlight that comes through the cracked windshield. The rising sun’s rays streak across her face, like a divine sign.

“Don’t tell me you’re falling for one of them too.”

“Would that really be so bad?” she whispers. She then smirks, trying to lighten the tone. “You can’t deny that they’re not bad to look at.”

I just scoff again, ignoring the increase in my heartbeat as an image of teal skin and muscles flashes before my eyes.

“Staying isn’t an option,” I say. “We’re going to find the others and get off here, just you wait.”

“And what if we don’t? What if they’re dead, Lisa?” Something in her throat catches as she says the words. Katie isn’t often without Allison, and I know this is eating her up inside. “Or what if they’re with that enemy pack they mentioned?”

“And what of our families back at home?” I snap. “Are you telling me you can so easily give them up, not fight to get back to them simply because we’ve stumbled across some attractive, primitive aliens?”

Katie is quiet. There is another knock on the doorway and my shoulders tense. Katie looks over my shoulder and then averts her eyes from the knocker.

It’s Hazen. “I have come to collect your sleeping furs to put them back in the sled,” he says in a quiet, deep voice. While Juk is normally reserved, Hazen is quiet. I don’t know why I make the comparison, only that it comes fleetingly.

“We’ll roll them up and bring them in a moment,” I say dismissively. Hazen nods at me and glances over at Katie before returning outside. I spot the others around the fire, half in human form, half as wolves. I don’t spot Juk.

“All of my family is here on this planet,” Katie says in that quiet tone again. There’s a somberness to it this time. “There is nothing for me to go back to on Gragon 6.”

I make no comment at that. My siblings and I are not close. Most do not live on Gragon 6 anymore. I was the only one to withhold the family trade, to not break tradition. It made my grandfather proud, but he is about the only one left. And on his last legs at that. I don’t remember the last time I visited him.

“People go missing in across the galaxy all the time, Lisa,” she continues. “Whether they’re taken or get lost.. It’s a vast universe with many unknowns. But what I do know is that we happened to fall into friendly quarters. We’ve found a people who are not only willing to help us, but willing to accept us into their folds. I’d call that pretty lucky.”

“Then you can cuddle up to one of them like Evie and stay here,” I say. “But I’m going back home.”

Katie groans in frustration. It’s uncommon for her to argue with me, but I guess on this planet, everybody argues against me.

“Why, Lisa,” she says, her voice rising as she waves her arms around her, “why is staying here such a terrible thing?”

“Because it means failure!” I shout. My heart rattles in my chest as the air catches in my lungs. Chunhua’s neck snaps somewhere, and Delphine screams for help. “I failed Delphine and Chunhua, I’m not failing the rest of you!”

My legs feel like they’re about to buckle, but I refuse to let them. Katie steps towards me, placing her hand on my shoulder.

“It’s not your fault, Lisa,” she says. Tears brim in her eyes, but she holds them in. “You can’t fix what others have broken. None of this is your fault. Our lives were interrupted, taken from us. But none of it is your fault.”

“Of course it is,” I say. “I’m the foreman. I’m the leader of our crew. If I hadn’t insisted on staying to finish that load—”

Katie cuts me off. “None of us would leave a score that big behind. It was an amazing find, and we’d have been foolish to leave it for another crew to finish excavating. It was just... bad luck.”

“I should have been more careful,” I continue, her words falling into the cracks of my reason, feeding my guilt instead. “More protocols in check. I thought being the only female crew was something to celebrate, but... but I didn’t think about how dangerous it would be. How vulnerable we’d be to a situation like this.”

“Lisa,” she says as she grips my shoulder. More sunlight starts to filter into the room, and I hear the bones snap as one of the Celetans outside shifts. “We don’t know for certain the Skulchers were targeting women. It would have just been a coincidence. Maybe they were grabbing whatever humans they could. Maybe not. But we’ll never know. And dwelling on it now won’t help us rescue the others. Won’t help us move on to the next steps of our life.”

“But I’m your leader,” I whisper, almost in defeat. The guilt and grief I hold pushes hard against Katie’s words, against the rationale she is trying to instill in me. It tries to wash away the darkness of guilt, and bring light to the situation. But I can’t let it.

“That was on Gragon 6,” she says softly. “Here, you’re just another lost human, wanting to survive. We’re all in this together. Including Evie.”

With one more squeeze on my shoulder, she turns back around and starts to roll up her blankets. I grip the strap of my bag, the fragments of chips and computer inside. Her words ring true, but I can’t let go of the failure that haunts me. I can’t let more of them die at my hands.

The day is long and cold. The Celetans run for hours on end, only stopping when absolute necessary. We stop only twice, once for lunch and once to relieve ourselves again, before we find a campsite for the night.

Axyll has planned the route based on how many shelters we can hit. It’s clear once we approach the first shelter for the night, everyone is exhausted. My legs and back are cramped and stiff from sitting so long in the sled. Evie rode with us for most of the day, the alpha out at the front of the pack.

My spine cracks as I stand. The sound is thankfully brief enough that the haunting of Chunhua’s death leaves me alone for once.

We climb out of the sled ourselves as the Celetans go shift. Tabros, Baz, and Kalpa stay in their wolf form. They run off to find something fresh to eat.

Evie gets the fire going outside of the cave. Katie helps her while I find fresh snow to boil for water.

Axyll is unsurprisingly the first to return in human form. He is the fastest at shifting, but Juk is not long behind him. My heart stutters at the sight of him, his towering height, and bright teal skin. He sweeps his hair back up into a bun on his head, and I turn back to getting the water boiling.

The green leather bag I have packed with snow keeps twisting above the fire. I try to steady it, but it refuses to cooperate.

“Let me help you,” Juk’s voice says from behind me. His hand nearly grazes the side of my head as he reaches out to adjust the water pouch. His arm is corded with muscle. The sight of it makes my insides burn with a longing I haven’t felt in a long time.

Juk finishes adjusting the bag, where it sits perfectly above the fire now, and he then retreats to go ensure the inside of the cave is empty.

I watch after him, bewildered at the feelings I am fighting at bay. There are plenty of well-muscled men and women on Gragon 6, some of whom I have had the pleasure of spending the night with, but none of them have ever made me feel this way. The astrostingents in the air must be making me feel this way I think. There’s no way it’s natural. Not this fast. Not without knowing him at all.