Wade sighed, some of his anger deflating. “That’s not entirely true. I don’t have all the details, but I know that Ari and some of the others found a cure for Waverly once on a random ship. They must have gotten smarter since then and removed the stuff. I’m sure that was true, once, Blaze, the way you knew it.”
“Then what do we do?” Kellan looked around, making eye contact with everyone but me.
I’d had enough. I pounded on the glass. “Maybe we die.” I rolled my eyes. Yes, I’d become the brat I never was, but it was as though I couldn’t get all of the pain out of my head. There was nothing but anger and sadness deep inside of me. I was lost to it. I might never find my way out. “Sorry, I meant I. Since I’m the only one here who will be dying.”
Kellan shook his head. “Make no mistake, sweetheart, if you die, I’m going with you. Maybe in a big fucking explosion where I take out some fucker who deserves to die, but I’m not doing any of this without you.”
Well… that was quite a statement. “Kellan.”
“You should believe that true from all of us.” Trenton nodded his head. “Okay. You heard what he just said. It’s true.”
Wade turned his back. “I can’t do that. My brother and sister need me until they’re eighteen. Even if they don’t see me, they need a guardian on the books. It’s better they don’t see me. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to, Sienna. I would just have to delay.”
This was all too awful for me to digest. “Guys, the sad truth here is that I’m sitting at a nine.” I checked my wrist to make sure that it still said that. It absolutely did. Would I have preferred an eight? Yes. Was I glad it wasn’t a ten? Fuck yes, I was. “I am probably going to…”
Kellan shook his head. “Don’t say it, Sienna. Don’t utter the words, because I’m not sure I will be able to restrain from breaking this glass and hauling you through the black hole if you do.”
Wade spun around. “What?”
“Breaking the glass…”
The doctor waved his hand. “Not that. No, the other part. Hauling her through the black hole. That’s a great idea.”
Was it? I got to my feet, and Corbin came to stand right next to me. Kellan had caught all our attention. Could we actually go through the black hole? It was closed. They’d told me that on Mars Station. It had been shut down to stop Evander from coming back through. Could we just open it because we wanted to?
“Can you get it open?”
Kellan nodded. “I can get it open. I know how Wes closed it. He’d been trying for years. This last attempt worked. But, yes, I could break through.” He pointed at his head. “Remember? I’m really smart.”
I smiled. It was the first time I’d felt like it since I’d woken up. Kellan had lots of insecurities but not about his rather impressive IQ. “Oh, yes, I’d never forget.”
He rocked back on his heels. “Good.”
My amusement faded fast, and a headache in the center of my forehead took its place. That couldn’t be a good sign. Or maybe it was about the emotions still. If the numbers on my arm were any indication, they were all related. My stress levels raised my viral load, and in turn I got sicker, which made me more stressed. It was really fun. Sarcasm in my own mind was never a healthy thing.
“So you could do it.” Wade nodded. “And Trenton could navigate the hole. Blaze, do you think you could use your connection with Sterling, Canyon, or Rohan to get hooked up to however it is that they control time?” Wade held up his hand. “Yes, I know more about that than I’m letting on because I don’t want to deal with it right now.”
“What does that mean?” They might all understand what they were talking about, but I certainly didn’t.
“Time travel.” Corbin shrugged. “Worst kept secret lately. No one knows. But we do. Because we can hear things. Seems like Wade knows.” He looked at Trenton. “Did you?”
He sighed. “I did. They have this secret building on The Farm. Ari was always running in and out of it. Never mind. Yes, I knew.”
Time travel? That seemed as foreign a concept as I could perceive, but then again it had been days—weeks? who knew anymore—since they’d woken me, and I couldn’t use the lights on Artemis. So perhaps this wasn’t such a strange thing as I thought it was. Okay, I was putting that in a box to deal with later in the back of my mind. Everything was awful. I couldn’t fathom time travel. It was probably a world ending disaster.
I hated my own internal thoughts. It was as though my mind lied to me. How long was this going to last? I couldn’t focus on things, and they involved me. I had to try to stay present. Why was that so hard?
“We get through the black hole back to when they made the diseases she’s sick with. The ones that were meant to make us sick. Of the same ilk as the device they used to take us down on the planet. And we cure her.” Blaze spoke, and all eyes were on him. He was quiet, but there was never any question that he was in charge. It was like he listened thoroughly before he made any decisions, and he spoke only when he’d made one. He also had a temper, but he’d yanked it back so that I never saw it anymore. I was glad to be off his I-don’t-trust-her list. That hadn’t been a fun place to be.
Of course, I was in such a dour place he might put me back on it just because he couldn’t stand to have me around. I pressed my forehead against the glass and closed my eyes. Maybe I could sleep through this whole thing. Was that possible? But not in cryo because that could go on indefinitely, and I could wake up when these guys were all dead and I had to talk to their grandsons. I groaned. No, please, not that. That meant they all had lives, and I had…
Corbin touched my arm. “Sienna? You okay?”
“Not even a little bit.”
He drew me to him, his warmth nice even though I knew I might be killing him. “You have to let me go.”
When he didn’t answer, Blaze finally tilted his head. Some sort of silent communication must have happened because Corbin let go and stepped toward the door. “Only because they’ll need me to keep you alive. If I’m sick, I’m draining resources from you. I don’t want that.”
Whatever it took for him to stay safe. Blaze shifted his stance, regarding Kellan again. “They closed it down to keep this side of the universe safe. I have no problem sacrificing everyone for Sienna, but she hasn’t even been willing to let us put ourselves at risk to help her. Hated every second of it, and I’m not going to lose her when this is over because we’ve done something she considers unforgivable.”
Trenton smirked. “Blaze, I think your EQ is rising.”
The leader ignored him. I should be feeling grateful and relieved. I knew that. But there was the whole pit-of-blackness-around-my-soul problem at the moment.
Blaze rolled his eyes and spoke again to Kellan. “We need to time this so there is no chance of Evander coming with us or getting out.”
Kellan spoke up. “That’s where I come in. Well, Corbin and me. We can see to that happening.”
“We’re not ready.” Dev spoke slowly. “Can’t do it in this monstrosity of a ship. We have to drop off the sleeping beauties to Mars Station. Pick up supplies for Artemis. If I recall the specs correctly from my time with the Chen Empire, they were trying to make it work for Tommy Sandler’s ships and not having a great time of it. The only ship that has ever successfully hooked up Wes’ time controller is Artemis.”