I’d do anything to find a way to lock him up. I would push him into a stasis pod without a moment’s hesitation, just so I never had to think about him again. I wouldn’t even feel guilty about it.
I start looking through his drawers, searching for anything I can use as a weapon. I need a way to defend myself while I work out how to end this.
If I can just get him back to The Infinity and trap him in a pod, this will all go away. He wouldn’t even see it coming. Not from needy, gullible Romy, desperate for affection. Not from the little mouse caught between his claws.
I know it’s a desperate plan, with barely a chance of success, but I need to try.
I find a pair of scissors in the desk and test the blade against the pad of my thumb. When I press it into the skin, it leaves a white line behind. It’s not sharp, but if I use enough force, it might work. Either way, it’s going to have to do. If I press it against his back, he won’t be able to tell the difference between scissors and a knife.
When I’ve searched the whole room and failed to find anything else that could be useful, I go over to the computer and say, “Locate Jeremy Shoreditch.”
I need to do this now, before I start second-guessing myself. Before he has the chance to persuade me to trust him again.
A map appears on the screen, with a glowing orange symbol showing J’s location. He’s just down the corridor from the helm. It looks like he’s waiting to ambush me. He must have found the door locked and decided to wait for me to come out. I can’t even imagine how he plans for all of this to end.
I wonder if he would admit that he’s right outside the room if I called him now. Not that I care. Whatever he says, I’m not going to listen.
I prepare myself, wrapping my fist around the scissors and putting a blank expression on my face. I take a deep breath, telling myself that I’m strong and brave and I can handle this. I have no other choice.
“Open the door.”
As soon as it begins to open, I start running.
J is standing in the centre of the hallway waiting for me. I sprint at him, fist clenched around the pair of scissors, out of sight behind my back.
“Romy!” he says, feigning surprise, but that’s as far as he gets before I run straight at him. I’m picturing driving the blade into the flesh of his stomach when he grabs me by the arms and lifts me up, pushing me back against the wall. I flail and kick, dropping the scissors as I try to get free. He holds me in mid-air like I weigh nothing, and knocks back my blows without even trying.
“Let go!” I shout, horrified that he managed to stop me so easily.
“Don’t even try,” he growls. “You’re coming with me.”
He roughly twists my wrists behind my back, holding them with one hand even as I struggle to break free. He wraps his other arm around my throat from behind.
“If you fight, I’ll break your neck,” he whispers into my ear.
I immediately go still, waiting to see what he’s going to do next. I bare my teeth but don’t risk replying.
He takes a step forward, forcing me to march in front of him, away from the scissors, which are lying on the floor.
We walk down three corridors, turning right and left and right again. I rack my brain for some way I can get free, and what else I could use as a weapon, but I’m so frightened that my mind has gone completely blank. It’s all I can do to take step after step.
Finally, J stops outside a door, his arm tightening on my throat like he’s pulling on a horse’s reins.
The door slides open. I see a hospital bed in the middle of the room and realize he’s brought me to this ship’s sick bay. I wonder if this is where he brought Isaac. Is he going to kill me the same way he must have killed him?
The bed is hooked up to an IV. I’m imagining what he’s going to do to me – if he’s going to cut me up or knock me out cold, or worse – when I notice that … there’s someone in the bed, chest rising and falling in the steady rhythm of sleep.
J pushes me towards them.
It’s my mother. She’s not in stasis any more. She’s alive.
After all this time, she’s still alive.
HOURS SINCE THE ETERNITY CAUGHT UP:
40
When I see my mother, I start struggling in J’s grip.
“No! NO! NO!” I scream. “Stop!”
“Shh,” J murmurs. “You don’t want to wake her up, do you?”
I stop fighting. No. I don’t want that. Not in a million years.
J loosens his arm, but pulls me in closer so that my back is pressed up against his front.
My mother is alive. I can’t deal with this. I want desperately to disappear inside my head like she used to do, so I don’t have to process what’s happening, but I can’t.
“What are you doing?” I say in a desperate, quiet voice. “She’s dangerous! She killed my dad!”
He snorts. “She can barely move. She’s been in stasis – she’s got reduced muscle strength. How is your mother still alive, by the way?” he asks, curious and calm. “You told NASA that both of your parents died in an oxygen tank explosion almost six years ago.”
“I lied,” I gasp. I can’t let him wake her up. I need to keep him talking, to distract him. “I couldn’t tell NASA the truth about what she did.”
He hisses through his teeth. “I had everything planned out so neatly, thinking you were alone. This has changed everything. But I can work with it. I can’t believe that after everything she did, she’s still alive.”
“Please don’t. Whatever you’re doing, stop. I thought we had a connection,” I add, half to delay him by talking, half because I still don’t understand, not even a little bit. “I thought you liked me.”
“I do like you,” he says, confused. Once again, he sounds genuine. How did he get so good at lying? “You’re sweet, Romy.”
“Then why are you doing this?” I say.
“Why don’t we ask your mother to explain?”
“No!” I cry, but it’s too late. He’s already shouting.
“GOOD MORNING, TALIA!”
Time freezes around us for a second. Then my mother stirs, half-opening her eyes. She looks woozy.
“Over here!” he trills to her. My mother blinks, her gaze wandering the room until she spots us. Her expression sharpens from hazy to awake in seconds.
Without warning, I throw up, chunks of mac and cheese forcing their way past J’s arm on my throat, spraying down the front of my top and onto the floor.
J makes a disgusted noise in my ear and moves away from me, leaving a space between our bodies. “Jesus Christ.”
I draw in a deep gasp of air, trying not to choke.
“You should never have woken her up!” I tell him, spitting bile onto the floor.
He doesn’t know what happened to Dad. He has no idea what she’s capable of.
My mother is wide awake now. She’s watching us carefully. She coughs quietly, testing her throat.
“Don’t worry,” J says into my ear. “I’ll look after you.”
The words echo what J always said in my daydreams, when we first met and fell in love. I fight back another wave of vomit. The fiction I created about us feels like the naive nonsense of a child.
“Please,” I gasp. “Whatever you’re planning, you can’t— Don’t—”