Saema glanced at him. “Can you give us a moment?”

  He gave her a sneer and stood. Catching Atana’s head bob, he contentiously paced away a few meters, his hands squeezing the rubber grips of his SIs, vigilant in his post.

  Placing a hand on Atana’s upper back, Saema calmed the ache.

  Atana let out a forced breath. “I hear so many voices, like in my sleep but exponential in volume. Why can’t I suppress this? My serum, I need…”

  “Control.”

  “It’s my job.” Atana groaned, pressing her fingers to her forehead. “Was that you? ‘I cannot fight what I am’?”

  Saema hummed. “My species is telepathic. We can communicate to open minds. Some have the ability to block and control what others hear, like Ari.” Like the silver eyes she knew were watching.

  In the distance, opposite Bennett, the tall man, who had been studying Atana in the yard, peered between the trees in the growing darkness. He stood, concealed by the deepening shadows, burning with interest in the newcomers, particularly the tall female.

  “Is that why you know so much about the Suanoa?” Atana rose to her feet.

  “No. We have to be close to one another for the connection to be strong enough. It is information passed down.”

  “And myself? Are you that voice I’ve been hearing?”

  “Yes and no. Your escape is well known among our sectors. You are thought to have fought and killed three Suanoa and survived. We can discuss details later.” Saema glanced back at Bennett.

  “I want to finish this first thing tomorrow,” Atana insisted.

  “You have questions that need answers. I know.” Saema gave her a sedate smile and headed for the yard, leaving the sergeant with a few last words for the night. Your mind is open. Is your heart? It holds the key to what you truly seek.

  Her thoughts rattled between Atana’s temples.

  Bennett approached, wondering if she was burning out. “Are you all right?” I know you’re not.

  Pondering Saema’s comments, Atana returned her focus to the fading light, rubbing the sides of her head, ignoring Bennett’s question. I cannot fight what I am? She’s implying I’m hiding something. The breeze whispered through the trees. From something.

  In the silence, he studied the profile of her glossy eyes. As stable as their frozen colors seemed, she hid behind them.

  “I apologize for Panton. It won’t happen again.” The ‘daylight’ disappeared. Small lights began to shine overhead, resembling stars. Knowing what was at stake, Bennett did the best he could to hold his personal desires inside. “Their synthetic sky is intriguing. I’m curious how they make the stars look so real. Some are even twinkling.”

  “It’s the atmosphere,” she said, without moving. “Refraction of light.” When Bennett didn’t respond, she glanced at him and found his expression blank. He doesn’t know what I’m talking about. “What do you want from me?”

  “I don’t want anything from you. I just want to be…” He paused, considering his words. He wasn’t used to how an attractive woman affected his confidence or focus. “I want you to know I’m here if you need anything. I would like to know what happened to you, since we are on the same team.” When dealing with the single remaining rescue survivor up close, the words of others fell away. “I need to know why you had to be put on this assignment, why you’re special—from you. Otherwise, I’m running through a maze without a map.”

  “Right—special,” she grumbled. Others called her a one-of-a-kind, the Independent one, an assassination machine, or her favorite: a Rogue. It had taken years for her to compile, condense, and make any sense of her night visions. To tell something so personal to anyone was not a task so easily or readily accomplished. She sighed, contemplating the benefits and consequences of her story on the current situation, and the necessity of explaining it, to anyone, especially someone so uncontrolled.

  A few moments passed. Her lips parted then pursed.

  “No pressure, if you don’t want to tell me. I’ll try to understand and promise I won’t ask again,” he offered.

  He’s asked twice, his team once. Concerned they might consider her an unequal leader and not respond to her orders, she took a deep breath, knowing what needed to be done. Her eyes flicked up at his with the seriousness of her words. “You can never talk of what I am about to tell you, to anyone else, including Rio.”

  “Understood.” He realized she had secrets not even Rio knew about, ones she carried alone. And in that sense, they were the same.

  She rested her hands on the grips of the SIs in her thigh holsters, attempting to relieve some of the building tension in her spine. Her lungs filled deep, preparing for the unknown, hoping he wouldn’t ask too many questions.

  “The stars are a symbol of hope for most. To me, they are a symbol of suffering.” She cleared her throat. “I have only bits of memories from my time before the crash. They come to me in disorganized nightmares. Sensei taught me meditation to help me consolidate the few I acquired, over the years. When he passed, I couldn’t focus enough, haven’t been able to since.” She shook her head. “Now they come and go in no order and never progress in detail or context.”

  Bennett thought of his own nightmare, the memory of his mother and brother, the house in flames. He could understand that but not the concept of never knowing the context, remembering where it fit into your past timeline.

  “What I do remember, the pieces, are all I have left of who and what I was before UP. My earliest memories are from a mountain with a cabin and a creek. Then a green light, and I awoke in a room packed with bodies, some humans, most were not. Some alive, most not. Large creatures, like those Warruks, dragged me to a cell. I could kneel, couldn’t stand up. I think I was around five.”

  Her mind retraced the memories like a game of connect the dots. One at a time, the events unfolded, playing forward once again.

  “My skin was constantly covered in this red, gritty sludge, occasionally it was other colors. Eventually, I got used to the cold and stopped shivering. But, the stench was unbearable. I didn’t get much light through the bars of my cage.” She stared, unfocussed at the distant end of the fields. “Took me a few years to adjust to the sun, back on Earth. Still prefer the shadows, night.”

  Her eyes glinting in his flashlight came to mind. Adapted to the darkness. Such a shame when she’s so beautiful in the light. His throat tensed. Knock it off, Jameson. Pay attention. She’s finally opening to you.

  She paused, making a quick scan behind them. With a twitch of her head, she continued. “These thinner beings, with a sort of white, marble skin, went through cycles of testing on me, on us. They implanted devices along my spine, my joints, and in my brain, that, when connected to the harness, caused involuntary movements of my body. They took control of my arms, my legs, my lungs, never got to my eyes.”

  Bennett cringed. Some alien’s puppet?

  Her shoulders tensed and relaxed. She twisted her neck, remnants of the sensations creeping their way through her nervous system. “I was in the muscular and neural test group. The people with their internal organs and other tissues studied didn’t survive the first day.”

  Bennett listened to Atana’s deep breath and the abysmal dolor its heavy release indicated. His nerves prickled, wondering what she’d actually seen.

  “One session, they adjusted a node they had rammed in my brain. It created such a racket I couldn’t think straight. I covered my ears instinctively, though I was born without the ability to hear.” Her voice quieted. She gave her wristband a slight twist as if its positioning was off. “The testing kept us in this cycle of unconsciousness and consciousness. It messes with your sense of reality. Was a little more than a decade ago, now.”

  She glanced askance at him. His hands slid into his pockets. He didn’t quite know what to say; she could tell. But it was better than too many questions. Studying the hazel irises scanning the needles beneath his boots, oddly hued despite the darkness, she saw the internalized ache and howling loneliness that was so familiar.

  “The workers abused and mutilated the life forms, alive and dead, to see how they would hold up. They got a kick out of it, thought it was fun to poke and prod us to see who would crack, who would fight, and who would die.” She was to the toughest part. “I saw bodies chopped in pieces. There were hides, people and other forms skinned and stretched out on the walls like they were art: prizes of a hunt. I watched Warruks fight over a cold one. It was gray and thin, somewhat like Teek…”

  She trailed off. Her jaw muscles tensed. The serum was losing its ability to suppress the amount of adrenaline and cortisol pulsing through her veins, the wretched visions flooding her mind.

  “They tore limbs off and fought one another for who got which part.” Choking down a gag, she waved a loose-fingered hand over her face. “Why their breath smells like iron.”

  Bennett’s stomach turned, thinking back to the fight in the hallway, the rot-black teeth. His upper lip curled as he tamped down his disgust.

  “A worker kicked the table over, yelling some sort of angry sounds in a language I didn’t understand. The body rolled onto the floor, and the worker—” Atana stopped, collecting the pieces of her heart crumbling to the ground. “It just left them there.” She gritted her teeth. “They left the body lying there on the floor for five more of my sessions before they dumped her with the other ‘failures,’ like she was garbage!” Her lips quivered. “They never sedated anyone in that room.”

  Jesus. He placed a hand timidly on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze, the edges of his eyes burning.

  Atana hid her mouth behind a hand. “I tried to help someone once. Another life form fell off his slab, too weak to stand on his own. I climbed down to help him up, but a hook went through beneath his collarbone. They slung him over his table, and he just slumped in a pool of blood. They hit me in the head, and the memory fades.”

  She looked away, trying to calm the rapid fire of the neural nukes in her brain.

  “They fed us this white, mushy composite, Izanot, and dirty water. I think whatever the mixture was is the reason I healed. No one should have been able to survive any of that.” Her cheeks scrunched. “Kept us alive to continue the torture.”

  “Oh God, Nakio, I’m so—”

  “God had nothing to do with this! Such beings of hope are lies, lies to cover the truth that people can’t handle!” A tear teetered on the edge of her lashes as she thought about the misery of all those who lived through such hell and didn’t make it out to the light.

  “Okay, I’m sorry.” He backed up, palms in the air. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Just an expression.”

  Her heart twisted. “I apologize for my outburst. That was uncalled for.”

  “Not uncalled for after what you’ve been through. I think you’re handling it better than most.”

  If only he knew better than most meant no one else is left. Her jaw flexed. Yet there were fragments of her missing. It was what kept her curious, pushed her to change the dock site, trust an unfamiliar woman at the risk of the team. And now Goss’s death hung over her head, karma’s punishment for her selfish decisions.

  Her brows knitted downward. A tear fell to the dirt underfoot. Her wristband sent out its warning signal.

  Command Threshold Met. Reporting Protocol Initiated.

  Insert Relief Vial or Tap: Inject Standard Dose Ahead of Schedule.

  “Damn it.”

  Swallowed in the gripping darkness of her past, she wasn’t aware of Bennett’s hand rubbing up and down her shoulder. Atana wiped the weakness from her eyes with shaking fingers and clumsily unclipped her wristband cover. “I don’t know how I got out of there. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Bennett took her hand, preventing her from removing the vial.

  “Here, let me help,” he offered, steadily taking the glass tube out of the storage slot. “No one wants to drop the only extra-high dose they’ve got.”

  She turned away from him, embarrassed about breaking down.

  “You don’t have to hide it from me.” He dipped his head, reconnecting with her eyes. “It was a traumatic time in your life. You have a reason for your emotions. Believe me; I know what it’s like to have to fight them.”

  Her gaze showed apprehension—an abused animal cornered by a stranger unknowing of her injuries.

  “Hey, it’s okay.” Taking her shoulders, he pulled her in close. “You made it out. That’s what matters.”

  His embrace was strangely soothing but confusing because it was incorrect by UP’s Code of Appropriate Actions. She pushed away, sniffling. “What are you doing?”

  “I thought that’s what people do when someone is…” Bennett stuttered nervously, searching for a distraction. He slipped the vial into the Emergency Injection slot with a click. “So you began to hear while you were in this place?”

  It seemed so wrong to be dosing her when he knew if he let her go, there was a chance she might feel the same as him. He had seen her eyes connect with his in S.S.O. She had studied him when they were in the private conference room. There was something there, between them. He just couldn’t place it. With a sigh, he snapped the cover shut and injected the dose.

  The needle pierced her skin, delivering the serum straight into her bloodstream. Her eyelids closed, basking in the warmth and silence. “I was born deaf. At some point after the second or third time I was on the table, I started to hear things.”

  Her first sounds were of people being tortured? Maybe that’s why she’s so cold.

  She had returned to a collected, unemotional state. “Well, now you know my story. So you got what you wanted, yes?”

  “Atana, I didn’t mean it that way.” He shoved his hands back in his pockets, ashamed of his impulsive action.

  “Everyone wants to know,” she stated flatly, scanning the trees, sensing another presence. “Rio had to give me serum before we left. Never needed it before.”

  Bennett stuttered, trying to come up with something to say to ease her discomfort. “He increased the doses for my team too. We’re all a little on edge. Hopefully, it proves useful for us.”

  “How could it?” Atana remarked indifferently. She had completely exposed her past to someone she had known for a day. She wondered if she had made a terrible mistake. “Do you trust me now?”

  “Yes, Nakio. My team has no secrets, no matter what they are. It’s a rule of mine, and because of this, we are strong, together.” His weak attempt to smile faltered, his attention yanked from her to the trees behind them, thinking he had heard footsteps.

  Atana remembered Saema’s words. Open my heart? Am I really harsh and unkind, like the rumors from Home Station?

  Being a shepherd was a confusing mix of preventing anger, lust, depression, and personal agendas from taking control—yet they were to be kind, polite, and understanding when working with one another and the public. It was too much for her to sort, so she shut everything out.

  This situation was different, this place extraordinary, warranting adaptation. Searching his face for a sign of his real intent, she opened every sense to her environment. Shifting toward him, closing in to where her nose almost touched his, she knew his scent could confirm or deny her suspicions. She detected the pheromones rising from his essence. Unaware of what specifically they indicated, she knew they were linked to hormones.

  Not good. Though he was giving off signs of an emotional condition, she could see his control and still smell the serum on his breath. Her brows scrunched. His last encounter with her, in such a position, had rendered undesirable results. He slipped his hands out of his pockets, lifting his palms. Back-stepping, he confirmed the whispers.

  “Why does your heart always beat so fast around me? Do I intimidate you?” she asked, veritably concerned.

  “In a way, I guess one could say that.” Bennett let out a short laugh, flustered with her sudden focus on him.

  “I do not prefer to be this way. Intimidating others is not an effective way to lead. It causes undue stress and puts the team members at higher risk for error.” Her words were too rational, not mollifying Bennett’s desires in the least. She lifted a hand over his heart, intending to subdue its rapid rhythm. Her fingers timidly contacted the warm leather. “Did I say too much?”

  With the weight of her hand against him, the muscle of his soul nearly hit its rev-limiter.

  “No.” That’s all you’ve got? No? Say something you idiot.

  His lips parted, his breathing rapid and hot, a burning fire pervading his gut. Her purposeful contact sent his thoughts spinning like a tornado.

  Despite everything, carrying those memories around, she’s remained collected, strong, and so… beautiful. What do I say? I can’t console her, but I should, shouldn’t I? He tried to imagine how she’d survived. There has to be a reason.

  Brushing the single wet streak from her cheek with the tips of his fingers, he was distracted by the heat of her soft skin. Her long lashes sparkled with human vulnerability, her plump lips like rosy pillows looking for a fight. He craved the feeling of them against his face. His spine tingled.

  Atana didn’t see it in time. His thoughts echoed through her brain, forcing her eyelids shut to focus. Her mind sorted and deciphered his mumblings a moment too late.

  Sliding his hand under the elastic band holding up her auburn waves and one arm around her waist, he delicately ensnared her in his licentious trap. Reaching his nose to hers, with fledgling tact, he hesitantly pressed his lips to the ones so delightedly taunting. Closing his eyes, he tasted the sweet nectar of her skin, the only drug in his veins.

  Chapter 20

  DIVERSION.

  Atana responded to Bennett on instinct, her mouth captured by his. Her world coated in a mask of glittering embers, a lifetime of pain and torment lifting in his embrace.

  His body curled around hers. His saporous lips, full and light, surprised her with their strength. The tips of his fingers dug tenderly into the skin of her neck, confident and driven by an unwavering fire inside.

  She was processing her serum too fast. Her hands lifted, bracing weakly against his muscled sides, her arms trembling, torn between pulling in and pushing back. The heat edging into her core made her want to never let the feeling slip away. She had suffered too long and too much.

 

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