I was also on my feet before I realized I’d moved. A massive surge of fury-driven hate had lifted me like a monstrous ocean breaker. People like the Treznors would take my twisted family inheritance and use it to kill more people? How could they?
Nev was trying to hold me back with his free arm, but he might as well have been shoving against the wall with all this darkness and new light swirling in my vision to lend me strength.
She wanted to see what I could do? I would happily demonstrate. On her.
I reached for the Shadow again…and everything went completely, bottomlessly black. No tinted windowpane. Just total darkness.
I heard my name from far away. Heard it again.
“Qole!”
Nev was shouting my name.
“I’m here.” My voice was so faint, it was a wonder he could hear me over the wailing alarms.
I opened my eyes. Nev’s arms were around me to keep me from falling. The blunt back edge of the sword pressed a cold line into my shoulder where he still gripped it in his hand, but his arms were incredibly warm. They also felt strong and stable and…nice.
Suddenly embarrassed, I tried to shove away from him. I blinked when I realized I was too weak. The darkness had lifted from my vision. The overhead lights had dimmed when the emergency power generators kicked on, but everything was still brighter than it had been.
The red-alert lights continued to flash, but the sparks no longer danced in my eyes and nothing was cracking apart anymore. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I didn’t have time to think about it. I hadn’t yet lost myself, though who knew for how long. I shoved at Nev a second time, glaring so he would get the message.
“Apologies,” he said, letting go of me. “You would have—”
His arms caught me again as I almost did what I would have done before: fallen flat on my face. My legs were shaking, knees buckling, and it wasn’t because of the shudders vibrating through the ship that I hadn’t noticed moments earlier. I was completely exhausted. I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever felt so depleted, not even after fishing for days, or even weeks straight.
Either I’d simply touched too much Shadow and tired myself out, or…
“Qole, are you all right?” Nev asked, a sharp tone of worry cutting into his voice. “Your eyes are better, so I thought…”
My eyes. Better. The blackness definitely disturbed him, but I couldn’t really blame him, not after what I’d done.
“I…I can’t do anything else. I’m tired. We need to go.” I didn’t like how frail my voice was, but, as with my legs, I couldn’t force any strength into it. I was on empty.
He seemed to adjust to the news quickly. His bright silvery gaze swept the dim, red-flashing room. The woman was down on the ground and as unmoving as everyone else. Nev must have knocked her out. I didn’t know how, and I didn’t have the energy to care.
“I don’t think you ruptured the hull with the explosion, so life support will sustain everyone on board—including those who might want to keep us on board. Let’s take advantage of the chaos, gather what we need, and get out of here.” He hesitated then. “Do you…um…want some better covering?”
He tried to avert his eyes, even as he held me upright against him.
I glanced down. I was barefoot, in my softest, thinnest pair of leather leggings that I usually wore under a pair of fur-lined pants, and my tank top was slit nearly up to my chest, exposing my stomach. I tried to pinch the gap closed with one hand, and brushed my embarrassment aside for practicality’s sake. I wished my blush could have gone with it, but my cheeks were still hot as I answered, “I’m fine. Let’s just go.”
“We should get to a starfighter. Think you can pilot it?” He grimaced. “You look like you can barely walk, but we don’t have many other options. I’ve trained, but my skills aren’t anything like—”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Even if I couldn’t walk, I could still fly.” I took a hesitant step away from him. “And I think I can walk, too.”
His hands lingered for a moment to make sure I could stand without help, then fell away from me. My skin suddenly missed their warmth. I was just cold, that was all. And tired, so tired.
Nev dove to gather his bag, sliding my fur slippers toward me. At least I had those to keep my bare feet from the chilly floor. My robe was in tatters, and I couldn’t help shivering as I looked at it in its ragged pile. This ship’s ambient temperature was way warmer than the Kaitan’s, but my body didn’t even have the energy to heat itself. It was like I was sick.
And dying, maybe.
“Here,” Nev said. Before I could grab a scrap of my robe to use as a shawl, he shrugged off his jacket—a deep charcoal gray that looked nice with his eyes, I realized—and wrapped it around my shoulders.
I didn’t even have the energy to protest as he zipped it up for me. And by then I didn’t want to. The jacket was so charged with his body heat I practically melted into it. It also smelled good. Maybe I should look into synthetic gear for the crew, I thought sleepily, cost be damned.
Nev slung his bag over one shoulder, muscles cording in his bare arms, and gripped his blade in one hand and the plasma pistol in the other. The pale skin of his biceps was splotched with the remnants of bruises that the medi-kit hadn’t quite healed—gifts from Eton. If I hadn’t felt equally bruised inside and out, I would have felt sorrier for him.
Never mind that he’d been trying to hijack my ship when Eton had beaten him up. And here I was, trusting him to help me out of here?
Again, it wasn’t like I had any other options, especially now that I’d run myself dry. Besides, he’d fought for me. He was trying to keep me alive. He didn’t want to hurt me. He wanted to use me, somehow, but maybe I could use him in return. Or, if I wanted to be less utilitarian about it: he needed me, and right now I needed him.
And his jacket was so warm.
He cleared his throat. “I can’t keep ahold of you, because I need my attention forward. But hang on to my shirt so I know you’re keeping up, or if you fall.”
He turned and gestured at his lower back, where his black undershirt fell to the top of his pants.
My blush threatened to flare up again. “I don’t need—”
“Just humor me,” he said with a touch of impatience. “Besides, you can keep an eye out behind me. In fact, take this.” He forced the pistol into my half-willing hand and pulled another—yes, another plasma XR-Whatever-Force—from the front of his pants. Which meant, between us, we were now holding the worth of my ship in guns, never mind what his blade cost. Those blades were rarer than any gun, so we probably held twice the worth of my ship.
“But remember to hold on to me with your other hand,” he said, and then waited.
Feeling like an idiot child, I snatched a handful of his warm shirt, trying to touch him as little as possible.
He jumped. “Great Collapse, your hands are cold.”
I almost let go, and I felt my blush creep back up my earlobes. “I don’t have to—”