“Come, then,” Taln says to Sten. “We might have to fight some Boreans off.”
I nod, watching both of them walk away from the cockpit. I’m hoping that they’re wrong. I don’t want to fight any Hyperboreans off.
I want to get the fuck out of here.
I realize that I don’t even care about telling Fiona that I was right, that this was stupid. I need her back here. I need her in my arms. I will never say ‘I-told-you-so’ if she’s safe.
And Nereus…fuck, I don’t even want to think about Nereus.
“Keep trying to get in touch with her,” I say to Gliss. “I need to interface with this ship so I can get us out of here.”
I put my hand on the control panel and immediately feel electricity flickering up my cybernetic arm. The ship hums under me as it comes alive, the floor vibrating underneath me. I can feel everything in the ship now. Taln and Sten’s footsteps as they walk up to the hatch, the gravitational pull of Borealis enough to make the Wrath feel like it’s tied down with rope.
This is how my mind felt when Lamia got inside of it.
I swat away the thought as I tell myself to focus—I need to get us airborne as soon as the rest of the crew tumbles in.Ifthey tumble in.
I glance at Gliss, but she’s staring at flickering static, and Fiona isn’t there. I tell myself that it’s okay—that Borealis is a series of glass and ice corridors, that the environment down there could easily interfere with communications.
Fiona has gotten out of worse scrapes than this. I just have to trust she’s able to do this.
From the control panel, I can feel the hatch to the Wrath being opened, and people walking inside. There’s screaming; voices echo loudly enough that I can hear them reverberate off the dashboard, but none I can discern.
“Fiona?” I ask, craning my head around as I desperately look for her behind me.
But there’s nothing behind me. The ship feels like it’s filling up, but there’s no one here. Why is there no one here?
“Nereus?” I ask, my voice thin, and it just echoes back at me, rioting through me like panic.
My gaze searches for Gliss, but even she’s not here. Where is everyone? Why can’t I get this fucking ship togo?
This is the Wrath, but I can’t move. The ropes—the fucking ropes—I can feel them tearing at my brain, the sound of frantic panic distant to the point where it sounds like it’s coming from a different room.
When I close my eyes, I’m not on the Wrath. I’m in my house. And the sound is my brother, trying to find a channel on the television in the living room while I’m doing my best to focus so I can read a book.
But the environment feels wrong—my house is too cold, it smells nothing like my mom’s cooking, I can’t hear the hum of traffic out the window.
This is comfortable. I know this space. I need to fight against it. I tell myself to break out of it, I tell myself that I’m not home. I say my name over and over again, a chant on my lips until it makes no sense, cold settling over my shoulders.
Then I feel arms wrapped around me, the soft tickle of long hair falling upon my bare skin. “Kye,” a female voice says in my ear. It’s familiar, deeply familiar, and comforting in a way none of the environment around me is. “Kye, get us out of here.”
Her name is on the tip of my tongue, ephemeral like a raindrop. I want to uncurl it from my mouth, but my lips are shut, and trying to open them at the same time as I open my eyes takes a monumental amount of effort.
It would be so much easier to rest. So much easier to lie back on my bed and forget about all this sweet voice, about what she might need from me.
“Kye,” she says again, her voice breaking. And the space around me crackles and melts, my bedroom a show of smoke and lights against a sleek chrome background. “Kye? I need you. I need you to get us out of here, please.”
She’s pleading. She needs me.
Fiona.
Her name is suddenly crisp, clear, far more important than anything else. I close my eyes, and when I open them again, her arms are wrapped around my neck and she’s holding me close, her breath hot in my ear. “We need to hurry,” she says. “I need you to get us away from the Hyperboreans.”
I look at her, but there isn’t much time to take in her features, or the way her hair is matted with dirty water and blood.
“Nereus?” I manage to make myself ask her, even though just talking takes me so much effort it makes me sweat.
“He’s here. We’re here,” she says. “We’re all here. Get us out, Kye.”