“The speed. How fast can you get us to our destination? You must have read the logs,” I said, searching the maps for our final stop.
Talis paced the room. Lifting his gaze toward the coordinate systems, he sighed. “Like I said, it’s better than this trap. We must leave this talk for later.”
He wasn’t behaving in the usual fashion. I sensed something else was wrong. It was something he had known this
entire time, something he kept hidden from me.
“There is no life where we are headed,” I said, half amazed at my level of stupidity. I threw my bag off of my shoulder, grabbed the emergency pistol, and I started toward the cafeteria.
“Mia, wait.”
I cocked the weapon and picked up the pace. I could hardly see straight, but I suddenly had the courage to destroy everyone in sight. If Cade was to ambush me, he’d taste the lead of my bullets. “We were sent on a suicide mission!” I screamed.
Astonishment. I didn’t want to believe it. What I wanted was for Talis to be dead wrong, but it explained so much. Cade’s anger. Juliana’s disappearance. She had caught him once in the control center, messing around on the computer. We locked the place down, but it was possible he saw the mapping systems and put everything together.
“Oh, Jesus.” I stopped, dead in my tracks. “Why would they do it? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“My planet was your destination,” Talis muttered. “It took some creative work to get into the captain’s logs, but when I did, I saw my planet. Trust me, you wouldn’t have been welcomed there.”
“Why won’t you answer my question? Why us?” I asked.
Talis took my hand and lowered the weapon. “I can’t be certain. Because you signed up, maybe. They knew you would follow orders,” he said.
“There are other ships,” I said.
“They hedged their bets. I am certain you’re the only ones still alive.”
“There is no final destination.” I choked on my words; it made me sick.
“There is, but it’s not a place of life. It died weeks ago. Now, it will be used for storage. Weapons. Bodies. It is nothing but a pile of trash,” he said.
It took a second to sink in, but I wasn’t going to let myself fall to weakness. Now that I knew we had both been betrayed, we had to make a plan. “So, what do we do? We can’t die out here.”
“I’m going to do what I said I’d do from the beginning. Protect you.”
Tenderly, he kissed my forehead.
I was his treasure. Until the bitter end.
10
Talis
The fetus would be growing by now. I had never felt my knot before, but the feeling was stronger than anticipated. Never in my life had I expelled so much seed in one woman. I had no idea how her body would take it, which meant that I needed to stick by her throughout the process.
I could sense Mia’s fear. The harsh reluctance she had felt for days was only growing. This wasn’t a good sign, especially now that she was bearing child. It was in my DNA to make sure she was safe, but we were stuck in this godforsaken ship. Luckily, I had a plan that would not only save her life but save mine in the process. It would get us out of here, and we could start anew in a place that was free.
“We can find a new home,” I said.
“We’ll talk later,” she said.
Her reluctance was contagious. It was written all over her face. This place was a ticking time bomb, a space shuttle that had slowly turned into its own wilderness or strange metallic habitat. It was time to witness the fracture, the break between two leaders, Cade and Juliana.
I saw the screens showing the extreme bloodshed. The process of unfolding had already begun.
I didn’t want to think of the mess we were walking into, but space madness was like a virus that spread throughout a crew. One person flips. Then another. More follow until the whole line finds their own set of manic habits. I couldn’t let her fall into it like the others.
I took Mia’s shoulders and forced her to understand. From above, the screams had started. For a while, we didn’t acknowledge them. Along with the pounding against glass, they grew even louder. Some of the inmates were trying to escape. Did she understand how dark this was yet?