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  An alarm sounded, and I jumped. Blaze shook his head on his way out the door. “It’s just Trenton bringing Brienne back to her safe ship. And picking up Kellan. Everybody get back to work.”

  “Um, what should I do?”

  He was halfway out the door with my question, but stopped as I said it. “Do?”

  “Yes, what should I do? I can’t really sit around for the next few days. I’m not used to doing nothing. At home, I did a lot of things.” In between visits, but the less said about that the better. “I cleaned. I organized. I didn’t cook, someone else did that. I sometimes built things. I’ve never painted, but if you had some, I could get going on your walls.”

  Wade examined the read out on the med machine. “We have paint somewhere. I know I saw it.”

  “We do, and you’re lucky because I almost dumped it.” Anders smiled. “Seemed pointless. I mean, I’ve never cared what the ship looked like.”

  Really? I couldn’t fathom not caring about my living space. “Home matters. I mean this won’t be my home, obviously, but it’s yours for however long it is. There is something to be said for feeling like you care about that place. Then it takes as good care of you as you do of it.” That was why I’d spent such an incredible amount of time fixing up my room back at home. It was the only space that was mine, but it mattered. At least to me. “Maybe it sounds dumb.”

  Blaze threw his hands in the air. “I don’t understand human females. Sure, by all means, paint the ship over the next few days. If it makes you happy. Not one of us will notice.”

  He stormed from the room. Wow. Had I said something to upset him? It was the two Blazes again.

  Wade smiled. “I’ll notice. Thanks. That would be great.”

  Corbin nodded. “Sure, now that I know you’re doing it. Plus, I’m sure that it’ll really smell. We tend to notice that really strongly. The senses things. Let me know if you need help.”

  With that statement, he left, following Blaze through the door.

  Anders squeezed my shoulder. “It’ll really brighten the place up. Be good for the eyes to have something new to look at, even if it’s just color. Got to go. It’s a full-time job keeping up Artemis. Welcome to the fun of it.”

  I swallowed. They’d hear me anyway if they were listening, and yet I had to ask Wade some questions. “I feel like I’m in a minefield. People come to me, they talk to me. I don’t make social mistakes. I made Blaze mad. Why and how?”

  “You want me to explain the psyche of a Super Soldier? Not going to happen. I have no idea most of the time. Now? Maybe he’s mad because he didn’t consider that you’d need a job. Or he’s annoyed that we’re going to be on the ship another day and a half to get to Mars.” He smiled. “Maybe he doesn’t want the ship painted.”

  That didn’t help me at all. “I don’t have to paint. I could clean and organize or construct shelving or something.”

  Wade winced. “No shelving. Just another thing to fall when we’re attacked. Want to help me?”

  I looked around. “As long as there is no blood or vomit.”

  He threw his head back, laughing, which surprised me. “Good thing you said that to me. I do have a habit of being around blood and vomit. Okay, nothing that will be gross for you.” He pointed to a shelving unit. “I think I need to get these medicines labeled. Could really use some help.”

  That I was pretty sure I could do. “Show me what to do, and I’ll get it done.”

  He was so quiet, I wondered if something was wrong. “I miss it. Strange as that sounds. You talking in my mind.”

  I forced myself to swallow as I sent him the word. Wade…

  He sighed. “And there it is. How do you do that? How do you talk in my head? How do you do whatever you do that made that woman want to hug you like that? It was weird. I mean, I’m not a hugger. Not by nature. Even I could tell that was off. That’s reserved for people who we know.”

  “She thinks she knows me.” How many times could I put off telling this? “The psychic abilities we’re born with on our planet haven’t been studied. Who would study them? But I am rather strong at it. I’ve never been tested. We go, we live at the temple, and someone decided that we would be good at helping people because I can sort of feel what other people feel if I let myself. It’s rather painful. Awful, actually. But I do it, and then people feel better after I speak to them about it. That’s what she wanted. For me to make her feel better.”

  Wade stared at me a long time. “Sounds like hell, Sienna.”

  I covered my mouth, the tears springing to my eyes surprising me. I wiped them away. “Sometimes, it really is.”

  And he was the first person to ever say that.

  8 A Long Stretch of Dark Space

  I spent most of the rest of the day sorting through things for Wade in the sickbay. It was busy work, but organization was something I’d always excelled at, and I was glad for a task that kept me busy. Sometime during the afternoon, the alarm signaling the patient was awake went off, and I exited quickly. It was cowardly of me, but I didn’t want to see anyone else from my home planet until I figured some things out.

  It would be my job to give and give to him if he needed it—and people who saw me always did. I wasn’t sure I had a drop of empathy left inside me. Maybe the cryogenic sleep coupled with my illness bled me dry of what had made me a good person previously. Maybe I was just…temporarily done. I hoped it wasn’t permanent. What use would I be to the universe if I wasn’t available to help soothe the emotional wounds of those who needed it? That, at least, had been a noble calling.

  With nowhere to go except to my room, I headed in that direction, stopping instead in the kitchen on my way. My stomach grumbled, reminding me it was time to eat. I didn’t want to have to ask people to feed me. Maybe I could figure this out. At home, I’d at least been able to prepare myself a snack when required, even if I hadn’t done the heavy-duty cooking for the temple. We’d had staff for that, and sometimes Joy helped out because she liked it. My heart clenched. What had happened to her and the others?

  I chewed on my lip. I had to find out. Who would know? Maybe I had to go back and see the place with my own eyes, get answers. Blaze didn’t want to take me, but there had to be others that would. I could figure out how to pay for it. I kept going back to the same issue. Being dependent was a problem, and my only discernible skill was so currently repulsive to me that I was hiding from people who might need my help.

  I was just going to have to get over myself and do it.

  And charge for it.

  How would that even work?

  I stared in the freezer and fridge area. None of the food was labeled, but that didn’t mean it didn’t belong to people. I was their guest, for now, and I didn’t want to overdo things by stealing food that might be specified for someone else on this ship.

  “Hungry?” Kellan entered quickly.

  I looked over my shoulder at him. He didn’t look worse for wear, having put out fires and repaired a ship. “Are you okay?”

  “Never mind, I was trying the small talk thing. I know you’re hungry. I heard your stomach.”

  I might always find that really, really weird. But then again, I was totally off, so we fit right in with one another in an odd, out there kind of a way. “I didn’t hear the alarm signaling you’d returned.”

  “Really?” He furrowed his brow. “Must be broken again. Everything breaks on this ship.” His smile surprised me. “Just gives me lots of things to fix. Makes the days pass. If you’re hungry, why aren’t you eating?”

  I pointed at the fridge. “Is it just okay to take things? I don’t want to steal food.”

  “Oh yes, all of it belongs to all of us. Communal. Trenton and Wade are both incredibly rich. They pay for everything. After we’re done playing cat and mouse with Evander, we’ll have to figure out jobs for ourselves. Right now, they seem to just be handling it. I’ll pay them back someday. All the food is everyone’s.”

  That was good to know. Look
ed like I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know exactly how to function outside of my own little world. Getting a job was so foreign. I’d hated the temple, but at least my path had been set.

  I pulled out some dehydrated food that looked from the label like it was going to be meat and veggies. Their dehydrating unit was familiar enough, and I quickly managed the task without blowing anything up. Now, if I’d had to turn on a light, I might have stumbled.

  I didn’t suppose Corbin could label the whole ship.

  When I turned around to sit down, Kellan took the seat across from me. I pointed to my food. “Do you want some?”

  “No.” He paused. “Thank you.”

  I nodded. “You’re welcome. You guys don’t have to eat much?”

  “We need large quantities of food but not to eat all that often. We’re all trying to adjust to a more human schedule, so that we can fit in for social occasions should those occur.”

  I chewed and swallowed, trying not to grimace at the taste of my rehydrated meal. This was pretty disgusting. Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers. I was glad for the food and determined to let it take care of my hunger.

  “Do it again.” Kellan spoke after moments of silence.

  I supposed I could play dumb and act like I didn’t know what he was talking about, but that would just insult us both. “No, I’m not going to zap you again. I can’t figure out why you would want me to. From all accounts, it really hurts.”

  “It did.” He leaned forward. “And I want you to do it again. I’m going to work on learning how to do it myself, and I think several repeat performances would allow my brain to figure it out faster.”

  I reached behind me and pulled out a small can of water. It looked like someone had filled it manually and that this hadn’t come prepackaged. Who took the time to do this? “You can’t learn to do it.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “You don’t know me yet, so you haven’t realized that I am actually the smartest person on this ship. Among the smartest ever created in the Super Soldiers. There is nothing that you can do that I can’t learn how to do.”

  I almost scoffed at the ego of that statement, until I realized he hadn’t meant it to be that way. For Kellan, that was a statement of fact. In his world, they were all ranked that way. Who was best at what and when?

  “How did that translate for what you did for Evander?” I tapped my head. “Your super brain?”

  He smirked. “Well, we don’t really call it that.” Kellan shifted in his seat. This wasn’t what he wanted to talk about. I didn’t even have to have my empathy open to know that. It was written all over his face, the slope of his mouth, the way he’d made his eyes jump around, looking everywhere but me. Finally, he spoke. “I planned missions. Figured out the best ways to eliminate enemies. Generally, Blaze would send me someplace by myself on solo missions. I would take out the target, and we wouldn’t have to bring in a full-on attack.”

  I took another bite. “Would you have been like the one they brought to me? Devil? To get me off the planet? And make me sick?”

  He didn’t answer right away. “Probably not, actually. Devil was higher up the chain of command. He was a planet killer. If they brought him to you, it was only in the midst of thinking they had no use for any of the people he encountered. They didn’t care if he ended up destroying the whole place. I was more strategic.”

  My worry for Joy and the others quadrupled, and my appetite went with it. I pushed aside the meal. He stared down at it. “Pretty gross. I was shocked you were eating it. I think Trenton meant to throw those out.”

  I smirked at him. Kellan was amusing. He absolutely did not always say the right thing or make any attempt to. Yet, he also said thank you and put out fires on a stranger’s ship before fixing it. “You could have mentioned that. Like hey, don’t eat that one.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t want to argue with your choice.”

  “I wouldn’t call that arguing with my choice as much as I might think that was warning me not to make a bad one. I don’t mind being instructed in things I don’t know.” I sipped my water.

  Kellan took my hand. “Sienna, please. Let’s talk about the zapping. I explained why I can do it. I’ve asked you to do it. It’s not a punishment. It’s a request.”

  I hadn’t avoided this conversation with distraction. I squeezed his fingers back. They were tough, like he worked with them and had damaged them enough that he had a lot of calluses on them. “Kellan, I need to explain. The reason no one knows that these abilities exist is that they only come from those born on our planet. There are things people can do there. We like to say we can hear our ancestors in the wind. But it’s just the women born with the chance to do what I can do. Even then, it’s rare. It’s not something that all people can do and just learn how to do it. I… It’s like having blue eyes. I just can. It’s always women. Men can’t do it at all. I’m not being stingy with my knowledge. If I could teach you, I would. But you have two strikes. You weren’t born there and you’re male.”

  For a second, he looked like he was going to argue. “What is it genetically that happens on your planet?”

  “Beats me. Sorry.”

  He laughed and squeezed my fingers back. “All right then, don’t zap me again. Unless I deserve it. Which I might, because I can be really obnoxious.”

  “Surely someone with as big a brain as yours can figure out how not to be rude.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “You’re so pretty, Sienna.”

  My cheeks heated. Was I? No one ever talked about that with me. I wasn’t valued for what I could bring to a husband since I wouldn’t have one, and no one ever talked about pretty unless it related to what a woman could give a man in marriage. I didn’t think Kellan was thinking along those lines. It was more like he just gave me the compliment.

  It seemed so much more important because he had. Was he handsome? He was. And deadly. Yet, he held my hand gently, and I liked him even though he was, admittedly, very rude. But sometimes not.

  “Thank you.”

  He smiled, not the smirk I usually got, but a tantalizing perusal that made my body flush. My breath caught in my throat.

  “You don’t have to be afraid of me.” His voice was low.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think I am. As you know, I can take care of myself.”

  “That is the truth. I’m more beat up than the others. I’ve been through more fire, more explosions. My body is a scarred mess.”

  I blinked. He didn’t look like a mess to me. I’d seen him and Anders both shirtless. They had been huge, overwhelmingly beautiful in their strength and power. Kellan and I hadn’t started off well. But this slightly softer version of him I could probably talk to forever, even with the slight nudges into his being rude in what he said.

  “I think you’re,” I might as well just use the word, “beautiful.”

  He sucked in a long, audible breath. “I’d like to kiss you.”

  Wow. This was happening. I hadn’t… This was new. “I’ve never been kissed.”

  “How is that possible?” He tilted his head when he asked me the question. “Are all the men on your planet blind?”

  His words made me giggle. Not something I generally did, ever. “I…I’m kind of a figurehead of sorts. Off limits.”

  “Well…fuck that. Sorry, language.” He shook his head. “So can I not kiss you? I’ve never kissed anyone either. Not in real life. There used to be these machines they put us in to give us fake experiences that would control our…never mind, I don’t want to talk about that right now. Or ever.”

  I leaned forward to meet him halfway. “You can kiss me.”

  Was I really doing this? As he rose, he never let go of my hand. Kellan moved closer, taking the seat right next to me. “I want to be closer.”

  That was the last thing he said before his mouth met mine. I expected a strong pressure of mouth-on-mouth, considering how Kellan threw himself into conversation. But he was gentle, barely touching
me.

  I caught my breath and closed my eyes. With my free hand, I touched his cheek, drawing him closer than he already was. His cheeks felt rough against the pads of my fingers, stubble providing a rough contrast to his sweet lips.

  He pressed slightly harder, and heat surged through me, finding its way to my face where I was sure my cheeks were bright red. We were both new to this and, I was sure, not quite getting it right. But we stumbled through until kissing him seemed to make more sense. My mouth met his and then his would meet mine.

  Kellan pulled back slightly, but only to run his tongue over my bottom lip. My ears rang, and I needed to press my body closer to his. That move, the thing he had done with his tongue, it spurred the thought in my mind. What could I do with my tongue?

  I pushed it through his lips. He moaned against me, grabbing me by the back of my neck and yanking me closer. It was rough, but I loved it.

  Our tongues danced. That was what it seemed like. I never could have imagined it, and then he abruptly stopped. Panting like we’d both been running, he stared into my eyes. “Trenton is moments away.”

  “What?” His words didn’t want to penetrate the fog surrounding my brain.

  He smiled, running a hand down my cheek. “Trenton will be here shortly. I don’t mind, but I think kissing is the kind of thing that people do privately.” He paused. “Right?”

  Was it? “My mind has shut down.”

  His smile was huge. That I noticed. But a thought dawned on me that pushed all good feelings away. “Kellan…” Utter horror made tears rush to my eyes. “I’m carrying all kinds of sickness. I could have made you very unwell.”

  He stroked his hand over my wrist. “It says one. You’re not contagious, and even if you were above your threshold, I’m not going to get sick. Super Soldier genetics. Better immune systems.”

  That was all very interesting. “Even for sticking my tongue in your mouth?”

  “Even for then. You can’t make anyone sick right now in any capacity. Wade went over it with us before he woke you up and…”