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CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

-Clay-

I OPENED MY eyes to find myself on the couch, alone. I groaned and sat up, my body aching from the odd position I’d somehow managed to fall asleep in. As I wiped drool from my cheek, I looked around. No sign of Arcay. The bond told me he was awake, but not close. Not in our quarters.

I rolled off the seat with another groan. When I’d thrown myself down on the seating, I hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but I’d been so exhausted after everything.

I sighed and dropped my head into my hands. The last wisps of anger still clung to me, even though I knew what had happened wasn’t really Arcay’s fault. But it’s not like he was completely innocent either. Still, maybe I had been a little hard on him.

Now that I’d had time to cool off and clear my head, things came into focus. I’d lashed out so viciously because I felt bad about my crew, and my part in all this; he hadn’t checked on them, but neither had I. I’d redirected all of my guilt into a missile and fired it at Arcay instead. And it had exploded. Quite spectacularly.

Some of my words came back to me and I winced. Boy, I really knew how to napalm a relationship. For someone so afraid of being hurt, I sure did dish it out with a goddamn shovel. The irony wasn’t lost on me.

I had to talk to Arcay. Judging by what was coming through the bond, he’d calmed down too. The overwhelming hurt that’d been there before was replaced with a sort of quiet melancholy layered over an iron determination…which, now that I thought about it,felt odd. What was he doing?

He knew that I was awake now, and I knew he’d want to talk about what happened yesterday, so I stayed on the couch and waited for him to come to me.

And waited.

But he didn’t come. Was he giving me the silent treatment after I’d been such a dick yesterday? That didn’t seem like him, though. I got up and paced the room, searching our bond for clues. His emotions didn’t waver, and that determination held steady as a rock. Eventually, I got impatient and decided to go and find him instead. If he wasn’t going to come to me, then I’d go to him.

My clothes were rumpled from sleeping in them, but I didn’t bother getting changed. I wore the big, open shirt that Arcay had ordered for me when the lack of decent clothing was too much to handle. I was used to Aldar fashion now, but I still liked the shirt.

I left the room and followed the faint trace of him that tingled against my skin, passing through empty passages. What time was it anyway? The tingling shifted and I veered after it down another corridor.

I wasn’t going to apologize, I was just going to check on him. And maybe I would tell him that I hadn’t meant everything I said. But I wasn’t going to apologize. Unless he was really upset.

The tingling shifted again, going in the opposite direction, like he was constantly on the move. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was purposefully trying to avoid me. But he didn’t feel angry. What was going on?

My chest tightened. Fuck pride. I tried to send an apology through the bond so he’d know I was sorry and let me find him. Finally, the trace grew stronger, and my shoulders relaxed. I guess he just needed some reassurance. So why hadn’t the melancholy shifted?

Suddenly, I heard footsteps coming up behind me fast, and I whirled around to see Lendel with a hulking guard at his back. They headed for me with grim expressions.

“Do you know where Arcay is?” I asked, skipping the pleasantries. Uneasiness turned my stomach. Why wasn’t he coming to me? And why did he feel like that? Like he had made a decision that I wasn’t going to like.

Lendel bowed his head, and the guard followed suit.

“ Arani .” Lendel was wearing a long, flowing robe in deep blue that seemed more formal than usual, and there was something grave about him. “Please come with me, they are waiting for you.”

“Who is? Arcay?” I asked, looking between the two of them.

“Please,” Lendel said, and gestured for me to follow him back the way he had come. Away from Arcay. I tried to turn back and keep going, but the guard came and stood in front of me, blocking my path. He stood patiently and calmly, not making eye contact, but closing the way off as effectively as a concrete wall.

What the fuck was going on? It didn’t look like I had much choice than to go with them. I nodded warily and followed him, with the guard hemming me in from behind.

Lendel refused to answer any of my questions as we walked, until we reached the wide hangar doors that led to the flight deck. They both stopped.

“What are we–”

I was cut off by the noise of a ship’s engine roaring to life. Lendel motioned for me to enter.

Inside, a ship was preparing to launch; the walkway open, the engines warming. With a jolt, I realized it was the ISE Explorer. My mouth fell open. She was slightly dented, with scratches and impact marks littering her hull, but it seemed like she was still functional.

“What is this?” I said, turning back to Lendel, confused. “Where’s Arcay? What’s going on?”

“ Your crew is aboard. They are waiting for you ,” Lendel said.

I blinked at him. “What?”

“ Your crew are waiting for you inside the ship, they are ready to go, ” Lendel said. “ We have repaired it to the best of our capabilities. Your human engineering is primitive, so we made several improvements as well, although we could not do anything about the aesthetic. You should find it handles better than before, and can reach much higher speeds. We have also stocked it with everything you will need for the journey back to your planet .”

I couldn’t be hearing this right. “Back to my…” I stopped as the cogs whirred sluggishly in my head, trying to make sense of the nonsense I was hearing. “I’m leaving?”

“ Yes. You are free to go .”

“What?” I shook my head. This wasn’t right. This couldn’t be right. “But…Arcay…”

“ He gave me strict instructions that you were to join your crew when they were released .” He gestured towards the ship’s open walkway, inviting me to go in.

I didn’t move, my mouth opened and closed, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. Arcay wanted me to leave? He was letting me go? My emotions swirled in an incomprehensible storm.

All at once, the melancholy coming from Arcay swelled, ballooning out into a monstrous mushroom cloud of grief that made my breath catch. The next instant it was squashed, forced back into a tight, roiling ball by steel bars of resolution.

And suddenly, it all made sense. This was what I’d felt when I woke up, this was the determination radiating from him. He had decided to let me go.

Lendel was getting agitated. “ They’re waiting, please go. ” He motioned again, and I moved automatically towards the walkway that led up to the ship, taking one shaky step before I stopped.

“But…what about the bond?” I said.

Hadn’t Arcay said that it was uncomfortable to be too far apart? And that once a bond was formed, it was there for life?

“ Arcay said he would take care of it .”

His tone sent a cold shiver through me. What did he mean? I reached out through the bond, but Arcay was oddly dampened now. I could still feel the tight, quivering grief, but it was smothered by resolve that grew stronger by the second. Something wasn’t right. I grabbed Lendel by the shoulders.

“What’s he going to do?” I asked urgently. “Where is he? I need to see him. Now.”

“ I am sorry, Arani, but you must board the ship .” Lendel motioned quickly, and the guard stepped forward. He prised my hands off Lendel and propelled me towards the gangway, ignoring my indignant noises.

No. I had to see Arcay. I pushed back against him, but my feet skidded across the metal floor until the walkway thrummed under my feet, alive with the engine’s vibration.

“No, please, I need to find Arcay,” I begged as the guard maneuvered me toward the open door like a stubborn child.

“Clay!” A voice rang from inside the ship and I looked up. Caldwell stood just inside the opening, skinny and pale but dressed in his own clothes again. He waved frantically. “Come on, we have to go.”

“Caldwell,” I said, completely lost. “I can’t, I have to—”

“There’s no time, Clay. Get in here, now,” Caldwell shouted above the sound of the engines. “The wormhole is destabilizing fast. If we don’t go now, it might collapse before we get through.”

I shook my head as the guard let go of me and retreated, allowing me to make the last few steps to freedom on my own. I looked between Caldwell and the guard, my chest tearing apart.

“I—I can’t…”

If I didn’t get on the ship, would they leave without me? Or would I make them miss their last chance to get back home? I couldn’t leave like this after everything we’d been through. I needed to see Arcay. He was going to do something, and I didn’t know what, but I knew it wasn’t good. My head swam, spun like a hurricane with Arcay, solid and resolute, in the center of it.

I turned away from the ship.

Caldwell shouted behind me, almost lost in the noise of the engines. “Clay, what are you doing? Come on.”

I shot him one last look and shook my head, trying to communicate the roiling ocean inside me, because there was no way I’d be able to put it into words.

I wanted to go home, of course I did, but this was too sudden. There was too much left unsaid, too much hurt I needed to mend.

Turning away from him, my foot hit the hangar bay floor at the same time that a hand clamped down on my arm. I turned. Caldwell gripped me with a desperate expression on his drawn face, his eyes wide. He locked his other hand around me and pulled, tugging me towards the open door of the waiting ship.

“Hey,” I said, trying to shrug him off. “I’m sorry, Caldwell, but I have to go—”

Shouting from inside the ship, and before I knew what was happening, Captain Turner and two other crew members appeared, racing down the walkway. They grabbed me, dragging me back with them.

“No.” I struggled against their hold, trying desperately to free myself as I was forced up the walkway towards the ship. “Wait, stop.”

But there were too many of them, and before I could do anything, we were through the doors and inside. The captain let go and hit the control by the door, activating the closing system. With a smooth hiss, the walkway retracted, and the hatch lowered. I caught a glimpse of Lendel and the guard standing and watching in the bay, grim expressions on their faces, before, with a clang, the door sealed.

The rest of the crew let go of me as I struggled, backing away with their hands raised like I might try to attack them. I scrambled up off the floor, rushed to the door again and slammed on the release.

Nothing happened.

I looked around desperately, the vibration under my feet kicking up as the engines fired to full life. There had to be a way out, I had to get back. But there wasn’t. I slammed the release again, pounding on it with my fist. But I was too late. The sensation of movement turned my stomach. The doors were programmed not to open mid-flight, and we were already moving. Coldness sank into the pit of my stomach, taking my heart with it.

I spun to face my crew mates, only to see Caldwell running out. He had to get back to the controls; autopilot would only do so much. The rest of the crew members who had grabbed me kept their distance, and the captain stepped forward with his hands raised, signaling that he wasn’t going to try and grab me again.

“It’s ok, Clay, just calm down,” he said, speaking slowly and clearly. “I don’t know what they did to you, but you’re safe now. None of us are going to hurt you. We’re your friends.”

Did he think I was in some kind of trance? The way he spoke sounded like he was soothing a child, like I was going to wake up and realize the nightmare was over. But he didn’t understand. None of them did.

“I know who you are and nothing was done to me. But I have to go back,” I said.

They looked at each other, and then the captain nodded sympathetically. He was humoring me. “It’s alright, you just need some rest. This will all make sense soon.”

“No I have to—I can’t leave—I have to go back and see Arcay,” I said, desperate for them to understand.

But they just looked at me with pity in their eyes.

I threw one last look at the closed hangar door, as if it might open if only I wanted it enough, and I could jump back out and run to Arcay. But there was no getting out of here now. For a moment, I considered running to the controls, turning the ship around. But what if the wormhole closed? I couldn’t do that to them.

Numbness settled over me.

We were going home.

I supposed I should be happy, the crew was safe, and I was getting what I’d wanted ever since we’d crashed into the Aldar ship. I’d wanted out of the relationship—hadn’t I said that only yesterday?—and Arcay had granted my wish. I could already feel the bond stretching out between us, like a tug on my chest.

Please, Arcay, I thought. Don’t do anything stupid.

I was going home.

Far away from this place.

Far away from Arcay.