These Broken Stars (29 page)

I hear whispers of sound at the edge of my hearing, rising like rain hissing across the grass toward me. There’s an urgency in the voices that moan in my ear, pleading, pained. They’re always coming from the station itself—we’re not the only ones who desperately want to find a way to get the station open. The whispers have been leading us here all along, and now they’re beseeching us to come inside.

Eventually, as dusk approaches, we give up and return to our cave to 
rekindle the fire and reassemble our bed, which, over the course of last night, got scattered about the place. As I’m rebuilding pillows and settling blankets, Tarver’s crouched by the fire. Tonight he’s building it up high. Easier to be naked, he says, when you’re not freezing.

“Slumming it’s not so bad, is it, Miss LaRoux?” he teases, flopping 
onto our makeshift bed and pulling me down on top of him.

Frustration flares, despite the urge to let it slide under the circumstances. “Do you really have to do that, after everything? Act like you’re beneath me?”

He smiles again, shrugging, dismissive. “The whole universe knows 
I’m beneath you, Miss LaRoux. It doesn’t bother me.”

“Fifty thousand people on that ship, give or take.” I choose my words carefully. “Three thousand of them soldiers. At least a dozen decorated war heroes. I looked at
you
.”

He starts to speak, but I run my hand along his arm, and this is enough to make him hesitate, voice catching in his throat at my touch. This newfound power is intoxicating.

“Do you think I like you just because you saved my life? Because you know what to do and I don’t, because you make sure I eat enough and you keep me from losing my mind? Because you’re the only man on the planet?”

He protests, but I see it in his face. I’m not completely wrong.

“It is,” I whisper. “It’s because of all those things. It’s because of your strength, but it’s because of your goodness too, and your softness. You act like you inherited nothing from your mother, but that’s not true. There’s—there’s poetry in you.”

He inhales sharply, the arm around me tightening and his fingers twisting into my hair, tugging at it, tugging me close. I can’t breathe—I don’t want to. When he speaks his voice shakes a little, the way it did right before he kissed me for the first time.

“Sometimes you take all my words away from me.” He leans back onto his elbow, then pulls me down to him so he can stop me answering with the press of his lips. When he breaks the kiss I end up blinking down at him, breathless.

“I’m still not sure you’re right,” he murmurs. “I
am
beneath you.”

It takes me a few seconds to see the spark of amusement in his eyes as 
he looks up at me. I realize he’s laughing, in his way, not at my expense but because he’s happy too. So I blurt one of the words I learned from him in his fever, and reach for the laundry bag that serves as our pillow to swing it at his head.

He catches my wrist before I come close, moving with such speed that I’m left gasping, laughing as he pulls me back down into our nest. He stops my laughter with his mouth, sending electricity crackling down my spine, like sparks resting in my belly.

Tarver tilts his head to kiss me behind my ear, teasing. I lift my chin and he makes his way down my throat, the softness of his mouth at a sharp contrast to the roughness of the stubble on his face.

Sparks
, I think, something in the back of my mind stirring. The seed of an idea, the one I’ve been trying to ignore, leaps into a fully fledged plan.

“We should blow the doors off the station.”

Tarver stops mid-kiss, lifting his head and looking absolutely baffled.

“We should what now?”

“The doors! They’re too thick to break open with any battering ram 
we could lift, but an explosion? That would do it, wouldn’t it?”

He’s blinking at me, half confused, half cranky. He doesn’t like being interrupted. “You’re being even more bewildering than usual.”

I laugh, reaching up to run my fingers through his hair. “The hovercraft, in the shed? There are fuel tanks in the back. Stack a few of those up against the door, make a fuse out of some string, and we’ve got ourselves a party.”

His expression is shifting from cranky to cautiously impressed, and I can’t help but feel a thrill of excitement that he’s impressed with
me
. Genuinely, without sympathy or surprise. Like equals.

“Who are you,” he says eventually, “and what have you done with my 
Lilac?”

My Lilac.
I want to stop and revel in that, but I’m too excited by my idea. “Anna has older brothers, and when I was little we’d blow things up all the time on our tennis court. My father had to have it resurfaced
so
many times.” The memory causes a pang, my throat closing a little. For the loss of my cousin, for the loss of the way things were when we were 
children—for the loss of my own childhood.

Tarver’s eyes soften, seeing my face. “We’ll have to be careful. Clear the trees from the door, minimize the debris and the danger of a fire afterward.”

There’s an electricity in the air, a nearly tangible sense of purpose. We have a plan. I ignore the stab of pain than lances through me—now there’s a limit on our time together. A countdown clock, set to some finite amount I can’t see. Each moment is one we’ll never get together again.

“Could we use your gun to set it off ?”

His lips purse, thoughtful. “The Gleidel was designed to interact with organic matter—not metallic. Meant to prevent anyone dumb enough to fire it on a ship from breaching the hull. Wouldn’t so much as scratch the tank.” He reaches out to trace his fingers along my lips.

“A fuse, then. Like we used as kids.” I close my eyes and kiss his fingers as they wander across my mouth. “I’ve never used fuel as an explosive but the principle’s bound to be the same. A sudden impact like that should blow the doors right open, leave the rest of the station intact.”

Tarver makes a low sound in his throat, making me shiver. “Keep talking about blowing things up,” he suggests, bending his head to resume what he was doing before I interrupted him.

It takes nearly an entire day to clear the area in front of the station doors. The power tools have long since lost their charge, so we’re using rusty saws and a big pair of shears from the shed. We probably would have finished earlier, but I keep finding myself at his side without remembering the impulse to go to him. I keep demanding kisses, and he keeps dropping what he’s doing to oblige. We don’t make a very good team, distracting each other from what we’re meant to be doing. We cut down the young trees, clear away the brambles, stack four of the fuel tanks against the doors.

I look over the dents and damage on the tanks, and finger the uneven length of rope we’ve found for a fuse. Suddenly I’m not so sure this is as foolproof as I’d thought. There are so many ways it could go wrong.

As the sun slants through the trees, close to the horizon, Tarver drags 
the last of the fallen saplings away and then arches his back until it pops.

I move toward him and he lifts his arm without looking, knowing I’ll be there. I slip beneath it, wrap my arms around his waist.

“Do we do it now?” I rest my mouth against his chest, eyes turned up to look at him. Let him be the judge of when we start being rescued. I can’t see it objectively. I so badly want it and don’t—I’m caught so tightly between staying and going.

“Depends on what you mean by ‘it,’ ” he says, letting his fingers creep 
in against my arm under the edge of my T-shirt sleeve.

“Quit it,” I reply, though I doubt he’ll take me seriously with laughter in my voice.

“Not tonight,” he says before leaning down to kiss me. It’s a long moment before he speaks again. “We’ll wait until there’s good light, when we’re sure we’re ready. Tomorrow.”

“If people were stationed here, there could be food inside. Hot water, maybe, if there’s a generator inside. Beds too.” I grin at him. “Though I suppose not having a bed hasn’t really been a problem for us so far.”

Tarver lifts an eyebrow, shifting his weight and wrapping both arms around me. “No, but the ground
does
have its limitations.”

He leans down to kiss me again, his bandaged hand sliding up my side under my shirt, and that reminder of his injury—how close I came to losing him—sends a jolt through me. I can’t let him be the one to do this. We don’t know how volatile the fuel tanks are, or how fast the fuse will burn.

I let him kiss me for a while, wait until I feel him make the soft, growly noise he usually makes before he tries to remove some item of my clothing. Let him be as distracted as possible, before I try to do this. Because he’s not going to like it.

I pull my mouth away a fraction and murmur, “I’ll start testing fuses tomorrow morning. I don’t relish the idea of losing a hand lighting this thing.”

Tarver starts to lean in again, but then stops, frowning at me a little. “I don’t relish the idea of you losing a hand either. I like both of yours. I’ll do it.”

“Don’t be silly,” I say, trying out my best, most capable smile. I can’t let him see how desperately I need him to believe me. How much I need him to not get hurt if something goes wrong. “I did this all the time 
when I was a kid, my father never knew.”

He’s still frowning, something lurking in his expression—fear? I can’t make it out. “I know how to take a hit,” he says. “How to drop and protect myself in an explosion.”

“But I won’t
need
to do that, because I know what I’m doing. I’m not trying to be a hero or anything. I’ll be perfectly safe. If something did go wrong, if something happened to you, I’d last a grand total of ten seconds out here by myself. But if something happened to me, you’d be just fine.”

He’s gazing at me like I’ve just offered to stab him in the gut. I can almost see him fighting with himself. But I’m right, and if nothing else he’ll have to see my conviction. I can see his fevered face in my mind’s eye, and my throat constricts just remembering how close I was to losing him. I can’t let that happen again.

“It’s a simple risk–reward analysis,” I murmur. “You taught me that.”

Tarver lifts one hand to touch my face, tracing the curve of my cheek. “Lilac, if something happened to you,” he murmurs, “I would be anything but fine.”

I reach up to take his hand, curl my fingers through his.

“Lilac, are you
sure
?”

I squeeze his hand, looking up at him, letting him see the confidence, the easy knowledge. I can do this. I will him to see it, with every fiber of my being. I can’t let him light the fuse. I can’t watch him put himself in danger again.

“Positive.”

His gaze searches mine for a few moments as I hold my breath. Then he ducks his head to kiss my forehead, and turns to lead the way back to the cave.

There aren’t many things my old life prepared me for. Not many skills developed in the world of society, of balls and dresses and intrigue, apply out here in the wild, with this man I would’ve never known but for this strange twist of fate.

But at least I’m still a good liar.

“You were found not far from the structure. Can you clarify 
what happened to it?”

“I was trying to get inside. Whoever left it last was 
inconsiderate enough to lock the doors, so we had to get 
creative.”

“And was Miss LaRoux involved in this act of vandalism?”

“Vandalism? We were trying to survive.”

“Shall I repeat the question?”

“Of course she wasn’t.”

“And yet you say you were together the entire time.”

“Miss LaRoux isn’t the kind of girl to get her hands dirty. She 
waited in the woods, out of harm’s way.”

“I wonder if the kitchen’s still working. Just think, real food could be on the other side of that door.” She wants to distract me that night, keep us from revisiting the conversation about the fuse. I’ve considered telling her that if she wants to distract me, all she has to do is take her shirt off.

“I hope so.” My head hurts with misgivings. I know it’s smarter to let 
her light it. She’s done it before. If she’s hurt, I can help her better. She’s less likely to
be
hurt.

And still.

“A bed too, no more sleeping on the ground.”

I squeeze her. “You do keep ending up back at the bed. You have a preoccupation, Miss LaRoux.”

“Any objections?” She’s arch, smug, running a hand up my arm. If I were wearing a shirt, she’d be tugging on my sleeve, summoning me for a kiss as though she can’t bear to be apart any longer. She’s noticed she can make me forget my words halfway through a sentence.

“Objections? Hell, no.” I’m so tempted to let her have her way, to just give in to her attempts to distract me. She can make my mind shut down faster than anyone I’ve ever met. But I’m still not sure. “Maybe we just leave the building,” I suggest quietly. “Let it stay as it is. Do we really need to get inside this badly?”

Her hand stops, and she pulls back far enough to look at me. “Are you serious?”

“I’m not an idiot, Lilac.” I trace her cheekbone with my fingertips, watch the color spring to her fair skin at my touch. “I know how dangerous this is.”

“It’s our only chance at being rescued. There has to be communications equipment inside, something we can use to send a distress signal.”

Maybe being rescued isn’t my top priority anymore.
The words are there, just 
not the courage to say them. Instead, I pull her closer, tightening my arm around her waist. “I hope so. We don’t even know why this place was abandoned. Something to do with the whispers, I suppose, but what exactly?”

“Secrets upon secrets,” Lilac murmurs. Before I can ask what she means, she draws in one of those slow, careful breaths that mean she’s organizing her thoughts before she speaks. “You said there were rumors about the military experimenting with mind control and telepathy. Maybe corporations are too. What if that’s what this is?”