Escape (66 page)

Jilly nodded. “Okay, but I still want to ask if Ferrel knows anything about it.”

“He won't.”

Jilly held his gaze. “Even so. I'll sleep better once we've heard it from him. Not to mention once he explains what he was doing out of his room.”

Kieran shrugged and turned to find the missing cover panel. He snapped the panel back into place and then stood up. “So let's go ask him, then.”

“Where do we look?”

Kieran shrugged. “We haven't seen him wandering around the ship. Chances are he's back in his quarters. We must have just missed him when we went to check the holo logs.”

* * *

Jilly stood outside Ferrel's room with her arms crossed over her chest. She watched Kieran knocking on the door for the third time in as many minutes.

Knock, knock, knock, knock.
“Open up Ferrel!”

No answer.

Kieran swore under his breath, then turned to her and shook his head. “He's not here.”

Jilly arched an eyebrow at him. “So where is he? We passed the mess hall twice, and both times it was empty. We went to the cockpit. He wasn't there either. We've been over half the ship already. Where else would he be?”

“I don't know, maybe
—
”

“Where else would who be?”

Kieran's eyebrows shot up, and Jilly spun around. “Ferrel!”

Kieran snorted. “Told you.”

Ferrel was aproaching them with a broad grin and a tray stacked high with food. “Want some?” He stopped in front of Jilly and nodded to a giant pile of fresh-baked bread that was slathered in butter and different colored fruit jellies. “Just came out of the oven
 
.
 
.
 
.
”

Jilly was regarding him with an unamused frown. “Where were you?”

Ferrel met her frown with a puzzled look. “In the mess hall.”

“This whole time.”

Ferrel arched one eyebrow at her. “What whole time?” His expression grew amused. “Have you been worried about me?”

Kieran started chuckling behind her, and Jilly's lips thinned and then spread into a taut, bloodless smile. “A little. We went by the mess hall looking for you. Twice. But you weren't there, and the lights were off.”

Ferrel shook his head. “I've been there for the past hour. I guess the lights in the hall turned off when they sensed no one was there, but the kitchen lights were on the whole time. How else could I see to bake my bread?”

“Why didn't you just use the dispenser? Would have been a lot faster.”

“Yeah, but not as fresh. Anyway, unless you want to join me for some
 
.
 
.
 
.
I think I'm going to eat it before it gets cold.” Ferrel brushed by her and walked up to the door controls, where Kieran was still standing. Jilly turned and saw Kieran grab a slice of the bread off the tray as Ferrel waved his hand and the door
swished
open.

“Goodnight all,” he said, stepping into his room. “See you in the morning!”

“See you,” Jilly replied.

“ 'night,” Kieran added, his voice muffled by a mouth full of bread.

Swish.

Kieran turned a dry look her way. “Satisfied?”

Jilly frowned. “You didn't ask him about the conduit.”

“Niether did you. Seems kind of silly to throw accusations around when the man's standing there with a plateful of fresh bread.”

“Yeah
 
.
 
.
 
.
”

Kieran smiled smugly and took another bite of the slice he'd snatched. He started toward her, heading back to the room they shared. “Pretty good. You should have taken some.”

“You can say I told you so, if it makes you feel better,” she said, waiting for Kieran to open their door.
Swish.
She walked in behind him.

He shrugged. “Let's just get some sleep, okay?”

Jilly nodded wearily and began stripping out of her clothes again. She stopped with her pants, remembering Kieran's innapropriate fantasy. A little less comfortable to sleep in her pants, maybe, but at least she wouldn't be giving him the wrong idea. Now was no time for them to test the boundaries of their friendship.

Jilly peeled back the covers and crawled into bed. Kieran lay down in front of her, and she turned away from him so their backs were facing. Much more appropriate.

She could almost feel Kieran's frown. Telepathy.

“Jilly?” he whispered.

She steeled herself. “Yes?”

“Why did it never work?”

She bit her lip, and felt her heart begin racing again. “What do you mean?”

“Was it that awful? I mean, maybe I'm imagining things, but when we
 
.
 
.
 
.
well, it was pretty good, wasn't it?”

Able to fill in the gaps by reading his mind, Jilly sighed. “Yes. It was good. It was great, Kieran.”

“So? Why then?”

Jilly gave the covers a tug and pretended to yawn. “Can we talk about this some other time? I'm pretty tired.”

“No.” Kieran rolled over so that he was laying on his back, and turned his head to face her. Jilly could almost feel his eyes boring into her back as he waited for her to answer.

“Because you're my best friend, Kieran! That's why!”

“That sounds like a reason for, not against.”

“Okay, my turn. What do you care? Seriously? We got drunk a few times, we slipped up. It was nice, I'm not going to pretend it wasn't, but each time we went back to being friends. You can't tell me that it meant more to you, because if so, then you're a cretitch!”

“Excuse me?”

Jilly turned over now, too, and her red eyes blazed into his. “You never once fought back. You never tried to hold on, to make me choose between being your friend or your lover, so why should I risk our friendship for that? If you'd had any romantic feelings for me at all, you would have been so hurt by the reversal that our friendship would have been lost. But it wasn't. We stayed friends.
Best
friends. So what does that tell you? It tells me a whole maledicted lot, Kieran. It tells me that I was right to push you away. And you were right to let me.”

Kieran just blinked at her. “And you think
I'm
a cretitch.”

She caught a telepathic glimpse of what he intended just before his lips crashed into hers and she felt his tongue force its way in. For a dizzying moment, she let him kiss her, and she might have even started to kiss him back.

But then she pushed him away and scowled. “What the kefick, Kieran?”

He just grinned at her. “I can read your mind, remember?”

“So? I can read yours, too. What the infernal has that got to do with it?”

“Tell me what I'm thinking right now.”

She paused to check, and her eyes narrowed abuptly. “You're a horny little shakra.”

“And what does that tell you?”

“That you're a vacuous kefick.”

Kieran sighed. “Would you stop swearing long enough for me to explain? I wasn't just
listening
to your arguments earlier. I was also paying attention to what you wouldn't or couldn't say.”

“And what was that?”

“Your reasons were all about me. Not once did you mention that you didn't feel that way about me. You were just upset that I never made my feelings clearer. That I never fought back when you pusehd me away. Well, the truth is I never fought because I didn't think there was anything to fight for. I let you push me away because I thought that you didn't want to be more than friends.

“But I love you, Jilly Claassen. I've always loved you. And that love has never once been the love of a friend.”

Jilly just stared at him, her eyes blinking slowly, her jaw slack and her lips slightly parted. Her astonishment was written plainly all over her pretty face.
All this time,
she thought to herself, forgetting for a moment that Kieran could read her thoughts.
All this time, and he was holding back because of me.

Kieran nodded. “Better to be your friend than nothing at all.”

A slow smile spread accross Jilly's lips. “I guess being able to read each other's minds isn't all bad.”

“I guess not.”

“Can you tell what I'm thinking now?”

Before he could answer, her lips found his, and her hands slipped beneath the covers. His breath hitched in his throat, and she smiled through their kiss. “Obviously you haven't been in a lot of women's heads.”

Kieran matched her smile. “
How can you even think about sex at a time like this?
”

Now's all we've got left. It's time we made the most of it.

Chapter 45

J
illy woke up with a new appreciation for how good life could be. She blinked her eyes open and saw Kieran's ruggedly handsome face bare micenté-astroms from hers; his gold-stubbled cheeks and chin, his matching sleep-touseled hair; his face free of the worry lines and frowns that he wore while awake. She smiled and spent a moment just watching him sleep. The galaxy might be in ruins
—
everything she knew gone forever
—
but in here, at this moment, everything felt right, and she knew
her
galaxy was spinning the right way around for a change. Instead of feeling guilty and ashamed, she felt
whole,
for the first time in a long time. Maybe it had something to do with not being on the rebound from another guy, with not having gotten so thoroughly drunk that she could scarcely remember what had happened, or what she'd been thinking. No, this time she'd been in her right mind and so had he. They'd been together because it
was
right, not just because it had
felt
right at the time. And that made all the difference in the galaxy.

Jilly watched Kieran a moment longer, delaying the inevitable, not wanting to ever leave their bed, but as much as she wanted to pretend everything was okay, it really wasn't. They had to disable the virus and then warn the nearest uninfected world. They also had to find some way to verify their situation, to see whether or not Ferrel's theory was correct. Maybe Da Shon was one of a very few worlds that had been so thoroughly overcome by the virus. Maybe the others had caught the virus early or discovered the cure. Until they cured themselves and got offworld, they'd never know.

Her smile flickered, then faded, and she reached out to cup Kieran's cheek. He stirred, and his eyelids fluttered but didn't open.

“Wake up, Kieran,” she said, stroking his cheek.

His eyes cracked open, and he gazed at her through slitted lids for a long moment, then his eyes abruptly widened and he smiled. “So it wasn't just a dream.”

“No. Not just a dream. Better than that. A dream come true.”

Kieran took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “You have no idea how good it feels to hear you say that.”

“I think I do.”

They spent a moment just gazing into each other's eyes, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, they didn't even notice the sinister color of their irises.

“I guess we'd better get up,” Kieran said, but made no move to leave the bed or break eye contact with Jilly.

“Yeah,” she said, and she didn't move either.

“On three?”

“On three.”

They indulged in a quick steam shower together before they dressed and left their room, each with the telltale smiles of the perfectly satisfied. Then they went to knock on Ferrel's door, but there was no answer. Kieran turned to her with eyebrows raised.

“Mess hall?”

She snorted. “Probably.”

“Let's not forget to check the kitchen this time.” He nudged her shoulder playfully as they walked.

“Yeah
 
.
 
.
 
.
” Jilly frowned to herself, remembering her suspicions from last night. Ferrel still hadn't adequately answered for himself as far as she was concerned. It all made perfect sense
—
he was in the kitchen baking a bread. But what was he doing while he waited for it to come out of the oven? Just twiddling his thumbs? Maybe. She'd check the holo logs later, just for her peace of mind. It wasn't an invasion of privacy, really, just a good precaution
—
why else would ships have internal security systems? And at least she'd feel more comfortable trusting Ferrel in the future. That was a good thing, right?

Jilly shot Kieran a glance as they walked down the corridor toward the mess hall, wondering if he'd been reading her suspicious thoughts. But his expression remained blithe and blissful.