Page 5

Roslyn

My heartbeat pounds in my ears as the guard steps out of the shadows.

He’s even more intimidating in the dark, barely making a sound as he materializes behind me. Without the Eritin moons shining above, I’m not sure I’d even be able to see him, the grey of his skin and the dark clothes he’s wearing blending seamlessly into the night.

He stops just a handful of feet away from me on the beach—legs braced wide, arms crossed over his chest—and I make myself hold my ground. I mirror his posture and hope to hell I come across as more self-assured than I feel right now.

“Good evening, Roslyn.”

“How do you know my name?”

The guard’s arrogant smirk reappears, the same one he was wearing earlier today, back on the landing strip. “Is it supposed to be a secret? You’ve been the talk of production, it would have been hard for me to miss it.”

My stomach twists. Like I needed the reminder of just how many eyes have been on me.

“And they’ve got you on my security detail?”

“No, they don’t.”

He doesn’t elaborate, and my defenses raise another few inches.

“So… what? Stalking is just a hobby of yours?”

The guard shakes his head and rolls his shoulders, smile widening like all of this is some big fucking joke.

“I can’t say it is, no.”

My molars grind together with the epithets and accusations I barely keep myself from hurling at him.

It’s what he wants. I’m sure it’s what he wants.

Me losing my cool would be a confirmation of whatever the hell made him fix his attention on me in the first place. Whatever suspicions he’s harboring would be all the more justified by me flipping out on him.

“Fine.” I shrug, trying to play every bit as casual and cool as he is. “Well, then, have a good night.”

Turning on my heel, I continue down the beach toward the safety of my bungalow. I desperately need some distance and a locked door between me and this guard and the hovercams… which are strangely all gone at the moment.

They’ve been swarming like insects since the moment I got off the cruiser, and the still of the night air without their incessant humming sends a pulse of warning through me.

“I’m Zandrel, by the way,” the guard says, keeping right on my heels, still sounding so damn casual.

I don’t reply, the silence and the darkness and the beat of my heart in my ears making it impossible to come up with any way to get this asshole off my back.

“I’m a part of the show’s security team,” Zandrel goes on. “Which means I’m responsible for seeing to the safety of the cast and crew, and for ensuring all the rules contestants agreed to as a part of their participation are upheld. Specifically, those concerning Mate Match’s security measures and the perimeter of the production zone, which contestants are strictly prohibited from—”

“Great.” I round on him, and he’s there, right there, black eyes widening a fraction before he stops walking and assumes the same posture he had before.

God damn it, he’s big. Tall, broad, muscled. Probably fast, too, with the way his fitted trousers do nothing to hide the powerfully corded muscles in his legs.

And I’m a pilot, not trained in combat.

Nevermind the fact that I’m not here to get into any physical altercations or do anything but break the fuck out of the production zone, there’s no chance in hell I could ever outrun or out-fight this male.

“I’m sure your job preventing drunken brawls or whatever is fascinating,” I drawl, doing my damndest not to let him see the way the sand feels like it’s shifting under my feet, opening up the chasm of dread that’s been living in the back of my mind for more than half a year, threatening to swallow me whole.

Something about the words must strike a nerve, because Zandrel’s eyes narrow, all that swirling silver rippling, agitated.

It trips me up for a second, watching those galaxies form and reform, completely at a loss for how to read his reaction, but unwillingly mesmerized by the strange sight of it, nonetheless.

“It is fascinating,” he says quietly. “Especially when I’m monitoring one particular contestant who seems to have a preoccupation with the show’s crew and defenses.”

He didn’t miss it, then. The study I was making of the production right after I got off the ship, or the brief examination I made of the perimeter fence when I was walking with Rhevar.

Those same alarm bells start ringing again. A flashing red light signaling danger, bad, run .

I force a laugh. “Sounds like you’ve got an overactive imagination.”

“Do I?”

He holds his ground. I hold mine.

A few meters away, waves break against the shore. Overhead, the night sky is a tapestry of stars, two luminous moons casting their white light over the whole beach.

A beautiful place. A beautiful night.

Maybe in another life I’d actually get to enjoy it.

“Look, I don’t know what exactly it is you think you’re—”

“Don’t you?” He tilts his head. “Tell me why you’re really here, Roslyn.”

God, does he think that’s going to work?

Like he can just be all big and muscled and intimidating and I’m immediately going to fold?

I’m sure he does.

I’m sure whatever life he led before he came here gave him ample proof of that. Of his strength. Of his ability to get what he wants through sheer force of will.

I’m sure this really does feel like a damn game to him.

“I’m here for the same reason everyone else is,” I say, and he shakes his head.

“You and I both know that’s not true.”

“Look,” I say, taking a half-step toward him. His eyes widen slightly, like he didn’t expect me to have enough courage to defend myself. “Just because you’re bored and obsessive doesn’t give you the right to—”

“On the contrary, my position here absolutely gives me the right to investigate any suspected wrongdoing amongst the contestants.”

“Then you might want to start with the Aventri who was already stumbling drunk when he showed up to the party. Or the two Jurvians who were about to trade fists over who got to escort Ansalla down the beach. You know, put all that training of yours to good use. Since you’ve obviously worked very, very hard to earn your position here.”

I look him up and down while I offer that last little dig.

If I’m right, he’s not here by choice.

If I’m right, he’s got an ego on him like all warriors do. And though it might make me an idiot, I can’t help but poke that ego with a sharp stick.

Zandrel’s eyes darken, the silver threads within hardening to diamond-sharp fragments. His mouth opens slightly, like he means to say something, but he must decide it’s not worth it.

He composes himself in a moment, drawing himself up to his full height and smirking down at me. His muscles flex in an obvious display of his physical superiority, and my stomach sinks.

Idiot.

I’m an idiot.

Sure, landing an insult felt good for all of about three milliseconds, but if I had a brain in my head, I would have kept my damn mouth shut.

Antagonizing the most lethal guard on this beach might just be the stupidest thing I’ve done since I got here.

How could I have forgotten?

How could I have let my temper get this far over on me with everything on the line?

“I have worked hard,” he says, low and serious. “And I do intend to put my training to good use.”

“Great.” The last of my bravery is quickly melting away, gone as fast as sand swept away by a wave. “Good luck with that.”

Turning again, I start walking toward my bungalow. It’s not far, and this time, Zandrel doesn’t follow.

“I’ve never put much faith in luck,” he calls after me. “Never found that I needed it. But I thank you for the well-wishes. Have a good night, Roslyn.”

The brand of those deep black eyes follows me all the way to my bungalow and up the front stairs, where I fumble with the keypad. All the cracks in the armor I’ve been trying to keep in place grow wider by the second. All my bravado and every scrap of false courage drift further and further from my grasp, the chasm of panic wide and bottomless and reaching up for me with clawing fingers.

Somehow, I manage not to shatter completely as I let myself inside.

As soon as the door closes behind me, I dart for my suitcase.

Breath fast and tight in my chest, I dig through until I find what I’m looking for—a small piece of creased, worn paper tucked away in the very bottom of the case, below the lining.

Two smiling faces stare up at me as I pull it out.

Two heads of brown hair, two sets of green eyes. But while my face is round, cheeks full, the other is long and narrow, always just a little bit sad-looking, even with her smile.

Savannah.

My little sister. My best friend. The other half of my soul.

We’re just six and four in the photo, taken during the last month of our journey on the Bravo, the ship that carried us off Earth and to our new life on Severin.

I’m not sure who took it. Mom, probably, or maybe one of the other passengers, but it’s the last photo I have of me and Savvie.

There wasn’t a great argument to be made for extravagances like cameras when we barely had enough to eat on the hot, miserable desert world we were sent to after we left Earth, so this is all I have.

And it’s all I might ever have if I don’t find her.

It’s why I’m here. She’s why I’m here.

Somewhere, hidden away on this beautiful planet, I’m going to find my sister.

I close my eyes for a few moments, replaying all the twisted, tangled events that brought me here.

My seven years of service with the Sol Alliance’s military. The blaze of an attack on some outpost moon deep in the Merixir System. A month of messages gone unanswered while I recovered.

After that, coming home to Severin to find the apartment I used to share with mom and Savvie empty. Mom had fucked off a few years earlier with some guy she met at Severin’s rundown spaceport, but Savvie had stayed.

She was supposed to be there.

Safe. Taking care of herself. Studying via a remote vidcomm institution to give her some skills she might leverage to get off-world. Using the money I made enlisted with the Sol Alliance to keep a roof over her head and food on the table.

She was supposed to be there.

But when I pushed the door open, shoulder screaming with my barely healed injury, the place was abandoned.

Everything else was still there. The furniture. Her clothes. Moldering food in the cupboards.

But Savvie was gone.

I spent my first weeks back on Severin searching everywhere for her, knocking on doors and looking up anyone she’d ever mentioned being friendly with. Dozens of dead ends led me to a friend of hers with nervous eyes and a smoke-raspy voice, who told me Savvie had gotten herself caught up in some bad shit. A bad male with ties to even worse company, mixed up in the kind of criminal underbelly that thrives in a hellhole like Severin.

Something had happened, something even the friend wouldn’t speak plainly about. After a few more weeks in taverns and alleys around the port, handing over credits I could barely afford to part with to get people to talk, I had as good of an answer as I was going to.

The male Savvie was tangled up with had been found dead a few weeks before I got back to Severin, a blaster shot directly to the center of his chest.

And Savvie had disappeared.

It might have swallowed me whole, the desperation of learning those horrible truths, if it weren’t for one more story. Told to me on a small landing strip just outside Severin’s capital city of Thervor, by a trader who’d seen a human woman climbing aboard a ship bound for Eritin II—a crime in and of itself given that no one but the small population who already lives here and the cast and crew of Mate Match are legally allowed on-world—it was the chance I needed.

It didn’t take a whole lot of thinking to figure out my next steps.

Apply for the show. Come to Eritin II. Break out of this place and find my sister.

A chance. Maybe my only chance.

I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, eyes locked on that picture, on Savvie.

I’ll find her.

Of course I’ll find her, and then all of this will have been worth it.

It’s been six excruciating months since getting the lead on where she might be and making my plan, and every single second that passes while I’m here and not actively searching for her digs itself into my gut like a knife.

But I’ve got to play this smart. Wait for my one best chance. I can’t make any rash decisions now, when I’m so close, even if I’ve got a goddamn warrior of a guard breathing down my neck.

I’ve studied and planned, learned the layout of the planet and the fastest route to the small settlement some fifty kilometers from here which houses Eritin’s only full-time population. If Savvie’s anywhere on this planet, that’s where she’ll be.

In through my nose, out through my mouth.

Once, twice, again.

Quell the panic, find my center, try not to think about all the ways this could go wrong.

Though I’ve been mentally framing this as my next mission for months, I can’t keep up the pretense. Not now. It’s been my way to keep some mental distance, to stop myself from falling into the spiraling trap of panic and dread that’s never far from the corners of my mind.

Breathe. I need to breathe.

It’s something one of the Sol Alliance shrinks tried to teach me how to do during the handful of appointments I had with her during my recovery.

She was nice, but always in a hurry, overseeing dozens upon dozens of patients in the crowded field hospital on the perpetually muggy jungle world it had been stationed on.

It’s not her fault I left there so broken, even though the doctors deemed me healed.

It’s not her fault that the worst thing I’d ever been through was happening to me right on the tail of the second-worst. There wasn’t time to examine the way I felt about my scars or about being discharged from the only life I’d known since turning eighteen and enlisting.

The only thing that mattered was finding Savvie.

In. Out. In. Out.

I’ve only made a little piss-poor progress in calming myself down when a cheerful metallic chime jolts me right back to the present.

Standing on shaky legs, I stumble back out into the main room. The small vidcomm screen mounted to the wall next to the front door blinks ominous green. I touch it, and a message pops up.

I read it once. Then again. And again.

Each time I do, my throat gets tighter and tighter.

I’m going on a date tomorrow.