His head snaps up, and he yanks the leads out of his lapscreen, ducking in underneath the console—there’s no time to make a dash for the other side. I slide in after him on my knees, grabbing at handfuls of my layered skirts, shoving them into the free space around me to keep them out of sight. It’s like the dress has a life of its own, fighting me, trying to slither free. My heart thumps in time with the footsteps hurrying down the same metal stairs we took from the elevator.
“Son of a…” It’s a girl’s voice, rough and irritated. Her boots are visible as she reaches the bottom of the stairs, and then she’s in view. She’s tall, with dark skin and eyes, only a few years older than me.
She’s in a security uniform, and though her stance is casual, her right arm is just inches from a holster on her thigh containing some sort of weapon. It’s not an LRI uniform—she’s one of the security officers with the visiting planetary delegations. The very ambassadors we came here to protect. Or at least, that Gideon came here to protect. She turns before I can see the crest on her jacket, looking back at the stairs, where her companion must still be.
“It’s not here,” she calls over her shoulder. “There’s nothing. You’d better call them and say it’s safe for her to come down here. They need to see this.”
My mind’s racing, confusion tangling with excuses. Is she here for the rift? For the engine? Will that matter, if she hauls us out from underneath the console? Already my instincts are kicking in, stringing together a story. My hair is mussed, Gideon’s askew. I can say we snuck away from the party. I can say engines do it for me, and I wanted an adventure in engineering.
“Done, I just buzzed him.” The guy up on the stairs speaks, and his voice goes straight through me, electrifying. I know that voice. Instantly, it summons a pair of laughing green eyes, a tumble of dark curls. That voice is home.
My body takes over without even an instant for me to think better of it, and I go scrambling out from underneath the console, tangled for a moment in my dress, bursting to my feet. “Flynn!”
He’s standing on the staircase, his mouth open, still as a statue—in his black suit, he couldn’t be further from the boy I grew up with, but at the same time, nothing about him has changed at all.
A click to my left snaps me out of it, and I realize the girl beside me has drawn her weapon.
That sound jerks Flynn out of his shock and sends him scrambling down the stairs. “No, no, don’t touch her!” He opens his arms and I throw myself into them, closing my eyes as he wraps me up tight. To my horror, I feel my eyes starting to burn with tears. This is what trust feels like—I’d thought I’d begun to find it with Gideon, but now that bond, battered and broken by his lies and mine, pales in comparison to this.
The girl speaks again, her tone dry. “I guess you’re sure, then.”
“I’m sure, a ghrá,” he tells her as he releases me. “This is Sofia. She’s the one who hid me, in town, when…” He doesn’t need to finish the sentence. She knows. I can see it in her eyes—who I am, my place in their story on Avon. My father.
“I had no idea you were here with the Avon delegation,” I say, fully aware that I’m babbling. “Oh God, Flynn, I can’t believe—you have no idea how much I—” I ease away from him to see the girl standing and watching the pair of us. Gideon’s crawled out from under the console—he doesn’t look pleased to see me in Flynn’s arms. Whereas Flynn’s girlfriend doesn’t look even remotely threatened.
Because that’s who she is. Though I left Avon before we had an official flag, I recognize the crest on her jacket: a Celtic knot around a single star. And now that I have context—not to mention Flynn beside me calling her my love—I recognize who she is. Captain Lee Chase, scourge of Avon. Protector of Avon, if you listen to Flynn’s version of it.
Flynn’s shaking his head. “I thought they were taking you to Paradisa. What the hell are you doing here?”
My breath tangles in my throat. I’m here to end Roderick LaRoux, my thoughts scream. But Flynn’s never been one for violence, and Gideon would try to stop me if he knew I still wanted LaRoux dead. So I swallow the tangle of emotions and say, instead, “I’m guessing we’re here for the same reason you are.”
Flynn’s gaze flickers over toward Gideon, brows lifting. “Who’s your friend?”
To anyone else, the rapid subject change would be a non sequitur. But I know why Flynn’s asking. “Someone with reason to believe the Avon Broadcast was true,” I say carefully.
“You trust him?” Flynn’s eyes go back to meet mine.
I have no answer for him. No, I don’t trust him. No, he’s the monster who terrorized me for the last year. No, and you can shove him out the nearest airlock. No, but he’s my only ally.
“We’re here together,” Gideon says, when my continued silence begins to stretch uncomfortably.