Trenton grinned. “Then I guess it’s a good thing we have Artemis. I’ll get going fixing her.”
“We’ll need help on Mars Station, but that’s too risky. How close are we to The Farm?” Blaze asked.
Dev picked up his tablet. “Closer. Hours.”
“Great. That’s where we’ll go. We’ll drop off the Evander prisoners at The Farm. Diana can deal with her mother if they want them on Mars Station. That’s not our problem.” He snapped his fingers. “Wade, I know you want other doctors to look at her. Ari is there. Cash. And what’s his face?”
Wade smiled. “Picking up expressions, too. The other doctor is Lewis. I might like Amber and Dane, too, but we’ll never get all of them. So, yes. The Farm will work to get this done. We’ll steal the device from The Farm. Devil?”
He nodded. “That’s my job.”
Blaze seemed settled in his decision. “Okay, then we have to understand that we’re all lying. Every single one of us will be lying when we get there. We get Artemis fixed. Pick up supplies. Without anyone there hearing a single thing of truth. We don’t say a word. There are three Super Soldiers who are just as good at it as we are. They tried to hide this, and we still found out. Not one word.” He spun around to regard me. “Can you do that, love?”
“I don’t know any of them. I’m not sure why I would ever consider telling them anything. But I don’t want anyone hurt.” I was like a constant repeated recording with that subject, but there it was. “So we can’t open it if anyone gets hurt.”
Anders cleared his throat. “You can trust us to manage that. We won’t put this quadrant in danger. I promise you that. And I’ll even shoot Wes a message on our way through, telling him he doesn’t have to let us back in if he doesn’t want to.”
I had a pretty good idea that wasn’t going to happen. There was a small chance this was going to work. I knew that, and I didn’t have the smallest idea of battle strategy or anything related. What were the chances that I was even going to make it to the other side of the galaxy? How long of a trip was it?
“Wade? Do I make it that far?” I needed the truth from him, and I wished I were a Super Soldier who could hear his heartbeat and somehow know what that meant. Was he lying? Appeasing me? I might be able to read his face if I was in better shape. But now they all just looked and seemed angry and sad. “Tell me.”
Maybe I was better than I thought, because I was actually able to watch the emotions cross over his face. A million of them. He might have lied to me, and then he thought better of it. Wade cleared his throat. “You might have to go under cryo, my love.”
Okay. They kept bringing it up, and I was going to have to deal with it. I couldn’t continue to say “no, no, no” just because I didn’t like the idea. I was either telling him to let me die, or I was telling him to put me under and try to fix me again, however long it took. Or maybe there was a tweak to that.
“There has to be an end date.”
He understood me, because he nodded, but Trenton looked between us. “Explain?”
“I’m not living endlessly in cryo. There’s a date when enough is enough.” If I had to live in a glass cage or in cryogenic sleep, I wasn’t going to do it forever.
He snorted. “Well, obviously. The end date is that we get the cure. We cure you. There is a very close end date. A year, maybe. You can hold out that long or go in cryo. There’s a not so distant end date.”
Enough. “Really? You want to do it?” I snapped. It was beneath me, but I’d been selfless, and now I was paying the price for it mentally. I’d apologize later when I actually felt sorry.
“I would do it, Sienna, if I could. I would gladly take it from you in a heartbeat.”
Yep, I was the worst. Sorry didn’t take long to feel. “I’m… Trenton you didn’t deserve that. I’m not right.”
“We know that.” He knocked on the glass. “We’re all in love with you. Hands down done without you. And I know pain and loss. I’m not doing it again. I had revenge to fuel me before. This time, I’m with Kellan. If you’re out, I’m out. So try to hang on as long as you can. We’re not going to let this be endless for any of us.”
The responsibility of this was staggering. It stole my breath and rendered my already confused thoughts silent. I didn’t want anyone hurt and that included them all deciding to go on some blaze of righteous glory on my behalf. I had been raised to help people. How would I live with myself if it all went wrong for those I actually loved?
Well, I guessed I wouldn’t live with myself. I’d actually be dead.
Darkness was this life. I closed my eyes. There it went again. Other people’s crap crowding out my own thoughts as though all the goodness everywhere had been sucked away.
“Okay. I’ll trust you.”
Blaze smiled. “Good. We’re going to move a bed in there and make sure you’re all comfortable. It’s not a jail cell. It’s a temporary holding until we get that number down just a little.” He turned and then stopped. “Sienna, thank you for what you did.”
I swallowed, tears threatening my eyes. “You’re welcome. Of course.”
“If you do something like that again, I’m going to let Devil paddle your ass.”
Dev jolted. “How did I become the one to paddle her ass? You want to do that, have at it. I’m not the one dishing out punishments. You’re the leader, oh masterful one.”
Blaze threw his head back and laughed. It was a bright, delighted sound that I wished I could appreciate. I wished I could feel the humor in this moment, to even know what was funny anymore. Laughing was one of those things that made life worth living. Without it, what was the use of any of it?
“I don’t get it either.” Anders shrugged and winked at me. “If anyone is going to be paddling your ass, you know it’s going to be Trenton.”
He held up his hands. “You boys keep your kinky to yourselves. I’ve got my own set of happy. And I promise you, if I did that, she wouldn’t think of it as a punishment.”
All of this was lost on me. It was a damned shame.
5 The Phoenix
Things were pretty quiet after that. The guys scampered off, and eventually I drifted off to sleep on the bed that Anders dragged in. It was quiet in the med bay, and I slept very well until I heard footsteps approaching. I sat up, my heart in my throat. I’d assumed the ship was safe, but what if it weren’t. What if…
My fears proved to be for naught. It was Kellan. He walked toward the glass and sat down on the other side of it, smiling at me. Smiling wasn’t Kellan’s natural facial expression. I was touched that he made the effort for me or that he even wanted to. Maybe my mood was slightly better.
“Hey,” I whispered. We were alone, and I wasn’t sure it was the middle of the night, but it felt like it was on my body clock, so I treated it that way.
He tapped on the glass. “I was hoping not to wake you.”
“I’m a light sleeper.”
Kellan nodded. “I can see that.” He actually yawned. “Sorry, cryo throws me off. I’m going to be on and off tired for a bit. Not great for a Super Soldier when we’re expected to wake up and fight like nothing happened to us.”