tilted her head. “You’re aware that no signal travels past the force field of the Anomaly?”
I inhaled deeply.
“The plan was for us to leave here.”
“I see.” She pressed her lips into a slim line.
“Our landing was harder than expected,” I hurried to explain. “Some of the equipment might’ve gotten damaged. I don’t have the necessary knowledge to accurately assess the damage. However, I believe the escape capsule is salvageable.”
“Is it the one with the hole cut in the door?”
“Right.” I nodded. “Nocc did that...”
Svetlana sat quiet for a moment, gazing at me with compassion.
“Vrateus told me about the murders of your crew. I’m really sorry about your friends and colleagues.” She frowned again. “What else did Nocc do?”
“Nothing good,” I said, my reply clipped.
She waited for a second or two, but I didn’t elaborate. Recounting the details of that day felt like it would release too much hurt at once. I wasn’t sure I could deal with all that pain yet.
She nodded somberly, as if she understood even without me saying anything.
“I’m really sorry about all of it, Nadia.” Her chest rose with a sigh. “Vrateus didn’t tell me about you right away. He means well and strives to do the right thing, but his understanding of what’s right is still a bit skewed. He thought he was protecting me by keeping your arrival a secret from me. On your landing day, he didn’t tell me that your ship had a crew on board or that it came from Earth. I had no idea there was another woman on the Anomaly until I saw you with Wyck.”
“When?” I had no memory of ever seeing her until today.
“A week ago. You seemed to be asleep or unconscious. Wyck took you away before I could stop him.”
“That must’ve happened when the newest crash destroyed the glass room where I’d been kept,” I explained. “I passed out from lack of oxygen.”
“I made Vrateus tell me everything, right then and there. He didn’t know where Wyck took you, but he assured me you were safe. I’ve been searching for you ever since.” She gave me a long look. “Are you okay, Nadia? Have you been hurt? Is there anything I can do?”
Nothing about this place had been okay. However, Wyck had managed to keep the worst of it away from me.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I haven’t been hurt. Thanks to Wyck.”
“Wyck?” A note of surprise rang in her voice. “He’s been difficult for me to figure out. However, as a protector, he’d be my first choice over the rest. Not that the rest are any good at all. I believe Wyck severely dislikes me, though. Has he been treating you well?”
“Yes.” I quickly lowered my gaze to the coffee cup in my hands, hoping she wouldn’t notice the blush that heated my cheeks. “Wyck has been very nice to me,” I mumbled, before raising my eyes back to hers. “He’s a good man. Why do you think he doesn’t like you?”
“He has good reason to dislike me. I killed one of his kind,” she said simply. “I shot an errock—Crux.”
“You did?” I stared at her in shock.
“It was self-defence, but I’m afraid that’s not how Wyck sees it.”
“Crux was the closest Wyck had to a father growing up,” I said softly.
Her slim dark eyebrows knotted into a deep frown. “I didn’t know that.”
“From what I’ve learned, Crux sucked at parenting,” I pointed out.
“That doesn’t surprise me. The Dark Anomaly is not a nice place. It’s filled with brutal people. The fact that Wyck has managed to grow into a ‘good man,’ as you say, is a miracle.”
It was a miracle. If nurture were a hundred percent responsible for the kind of a person he’d become, he wouldn’t be what he was. From what I’d heard, Wyck’s biological father hadn’t been much different than Crux. I wondered if everything that was good and wholesome in Wyck had come from his mother. He didn’t talk about her, and I believed it might be because he didn’t remember much of her and didn’t want to repeat what the others had told him about her.
“It definitely is not the best place to grow up,” I agreed then added tentatively, “Would you consider leaving here?”
She nearly spilled her coffee at the question.
“Consider?” she laughed. “I’d die for a chance to get off the Dark Anomaly. In fact, if it wasn’t for Vrateus, I would’ve died already, trying to leave.”