Page 16 of Monsters in Love: Lost in the Stars
Mary
Kade is awake, again, glaring at that screen and I’m finally ready to push.
“You’ve been lying to me.”
He flinches when I say it, turning back to me with pinched brows. “I have not.”
I wrap the sheet more tightly around me and wear it like a dress as I cross the space to him. “Okay, then you’re keeping something from me, and I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be a surprise I like.”
His lips twist and I catch his face in my hands, kissing him softly and not giving into the need I’ve barely learned to contain for him. “What is wrong?”
“I don’t want you to worry.”
“Well, this isn’t the way to keep me from worrying.” I sit on the couch and look up at him. “I know something is wrong, and I know you’re keeping it from me.
“I’ll take care of it.” He turns back to the panel, but I’m not having it.
“Hey. Stop. Look at me.” When he does, I as, “What is going on?”
There’s a moment of hesitation before he says, “There is no air in the other dome.”
“Okay… That sucks. Do we have access to the mechanism that would fix that?”
“Yes and no.” He looks out into the other dome. “It’s in there.”
“Alright. Where did the air go?”
“It’s in the tanks.”
“Do you wanna tell me what you’ve already tried and where you’re getting stuck?” I don’t explain how my programmer friend talks out her problems to a rubber duck to make them easier to figure out. Now doesn’t feel like the time for a fun anecdote.
He takes a deep breath, and says, “Something made the system think the other dome is open. The safety systems pulled all of the air back into the tanks so that it would not purge into the vacuum. But because the system thinks the dome is still open, it won’t accept my override, so I can’t tell the dome that it is not open and the system won’t release the air that’s currently in the tanks.”
“No air out there, no way to fix it in the system, got it.”
“It gets worse.”
I don’t like the sinking feeling in the bond. “Tell me.”
“A second glitch caused the airlock door on that side to jam open.”
“Two glitches.” I think about the timing. “Was it the storm?”
“I think so.”
“What happens if we force this door open?”
“If we open that airlock, the atmosphere will equalize between both domes, and that is not enough air for you to breathe.”
I hum, thinking. “I Can’t lock myself in the bathroom… no doors down there either.”
“No.”
“We should have an emergency suit or tank up here for me, shouldn’t we?”
“We do… there’s a suit in the airlock made specifically for you.”
“Ah.” I look at the closed airlock hatch. “That doesn’t help us, does it?”
“No, it does not.”
Kade
Sitting on the couch with the sheet wrapped around her, Mary asks me a dozen more questions. I hadn’t thought of half of them, but none of them are what we need to solve this.
Looking all around the room, her search stops at the foot of the bed and her packed suitcases.
She stares at them, blankly, but I can feel the idea she hasn’t yet voiced.
Sitting in front of her, I watch her face and I wait until she’s ready to tell me. When she is…
Her eyes narrow, not in suspicion, but with curiosity. “What about the drones?”
I don’t have to voice my confusion, she feels it. “Drones brought my bags up here. I assume that’s how we have food. Could drones bring up a suit, or a breathing apparatus so that we can open the airlock and get you out there to fix it?”
“You’re brilliant.”
“I thought you were going to tell me it was silly. It feels too simple.”
“It’s the answer to the problem. I was overthinking it.” I take her hand, kissing her knuckles. “Thank you for making me worry you.”
“We’re a team.” She leans forward, kissing me so sweetly it makes me want to melt into her.
“I love you,” I tell her. “I hoped I would love you with time, but I don’t need time. The Saints knew I would and they were kind enough to let me find you across the galaxies.”
“That is the one thing the Agency won’t guarantee,” she says, licking her lips and meeting my gaze. “The Saints were kind to us both, weren’t they?”
“Were they?”
She nods. “I love you too. And I plan to keep loving you for a very long time, but the only way we can make sure we’re both around to do that is if we agree to worry each other from time to time.”
“Okay.” She loves me.
I think I’d agree to anything right now.
She taps my oxygen regulator. “Order what we need, please, and then take me home?”
“Happily.”
Mary
Showered, dressed and sitting on the sofa with something that looks like a painter’s respirator without the filters—I had half expected a mini scuba tank, despite Kade’s unfamiliarity with them—I secure it to my face and let Kade check it.
When he’s satisfied, he kisses me on the forehead and goes to the airlock.
The process to manually open it takes a few minutes and I breathe as calmly as I can. My stress is his stress now.
There’s a whoosh of air that briefly tugs at me, but it equalizes and I shiver when the temperature drops.
He told me that would happen.
The air through the respirator has an odd flavor, but at least I can breathe.
Kade closes the other side of the airlock once he’s through, just in case, and I hear the ventilation system kick on, trying to correct itself.
Now that it’s closed, I can’t see him anymore. But that’s because of the plants.
Standing, I go to peer between them, watching as he opens the dome and closes it again.
All of the lights that were red turn green again.
So simple it’s silly.
When he comes back, everything is how it should be.
“Ready to take me home?” I ask.
“More than.”
My suitcases go into the drone compartment and are picked up so quickly it makes me blink.
The respirator goes in a drawer in the bed’s headboard, and Kade kisses me one more time before we go back to the ship and he zips us around the planet above us.
It’s strange to foil like we’re home when the landing gear finally touches solid ground again.
There’s a car that opens like a clamshell and that has no steering wheel waiting for us, and he holds my hand as he drives us through the city. I’ll learn to drive it while he’s gone.
While he’s here, I only want to learn about him.
I only want to learn about us.
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