It’s over.
Because I light up like a sun.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE – JIMMY
I want to save her from this humiliation. I want to protect her. I want to hold her, and caress her, and kiss her mouth and tell her things like, I love you. It will be OK. I will take you away from all this.
But I can’t.
Half of the borgs in this room are surrounding me. Rifle barrels pushed up against my head, and my back and my stomach. They won’t kill me, they’ll just overwhelmingly stun me the way they did with Delphi.
Veila made me watch on the screen as they took her down. Delphi looked majestic wearing Xyla’s exoskeleton. Like a true warrior princess. And that stupid bot. My stupid rewards bot from Mighty Minions. How the hell did he get here?
Doesn’t even matter anymore. He was in the path of the plasma beams. He fell to the floor in a lifeless heap two seconds into that fight.
But Delphi… Delphi was magnificent. They streamed her with plasma pulses for almost a whole minute before she fell.
Veila is wrong about Delphi in every way I can think of.
She is not weak. She is not naive. She is not stupid.
She is strong, and pure, and smart.
And she is mine. No matter what her DNA signature says.
There are so many warrior borgs around me that I can’t even see Delphi anymore.
But I don’t need to see her to see what happens next. The light comes bursting out of her in a way that never happened between us.
My heart dies a little in this moment. Just fades, and shrinks, and I drop to my knees in defeat.
“Take them out of here,” Veila commands. “Jimmy and I need some privacy. Put them in the breeding room and let nature take its course.”
“No,” I say, bending over to place my forehead on the cold, metal floor. “No.”
But what I want doesn’t matter. Maybe it never has.
No. Do not fall for her lies, Jimmy. Don’t believe anything she’s told you. Not about Crux, not about Draden, not about ALCOR, not about Delphi.
But… there’s this little voice inside me that knows better. This little hidden thing inside me that has always suspected that ALCOR was up to something. That we were part of some bigger plan that had nothing to do with a station filled with outlaws or a harem filled with runaway princesses.
Seconds pass. Maybe a whole minute. Delphi is released from the wall and dragged across the room, kicking and screaming. Doling out threats like streams of plasma.
And then she’s gone. Taken away to breed with that Akeelian boy.
The borgs surrounding me back off and take up their original positions along the perimeter of the room.
I raise my head off the ground and look up at Veila. She is smug and smiling. Hands clasped in front of her long silver and white gown.
“I fucking hate you,” I say.
She sighs a little. Shakes her head slowly. “No, you don’t. You can’t hate me, Jimmy. You know this. You know that no matter what I do, you will always be on my side. Because you can’t erase the fact that deep inside our DNA is woven some special magic that makes us soulmates. We are one and the same. Forever.”
“Fuck. That.” I get to my feet and say it again. “Fuck. That.”
Veila closes her eyes like she’s praying for patience. Then she opens them and says, “I haven’t told you everything yet.”
“No,” I say, putting up a hand. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“But you will hear it. You must hear it. Because it’s the truth. Don’t you realize who Delphi is yet?”
“What?”
“Can’t you see it? I see it. Granted, I’m her aunt and I knew her mother well.”
I squint my eyes, once again trying to make the pieces fit together before she tells me. I want to understand so bad. I want to figure it out before she shatters my world again, just to deny her that satisfaction.
But I don’t know. I don’t understand. My whole life is upside down.
“But you knew her father so… why are you pretending not to see it? Delphi is their daughter, Jimmy.”
Their daughter. The words ring in my head. Echoing like some call for help inside a deep, dark cave.
“She is Crux and Corla’s daughter. Tycho is their son. Do you have any idea what your brother would say if he found out you were fucking his daughter?”
“You’re insane,” I spit. “Fucking insane.”
“You can deny all you want, but you have to know this is true. Think about it, Jimmy. Just think about it. She is nineteen years old. And twenty years ago your brother bred with Corla in that ceremony back on Wayward Station. You know this. He told you this. She is his daughter and now you know she was never made for you. It’s just… hormones, my sweet.”