sense. How do you not have the marks, girl? Speak to me.”
I yanked my arm back and stumbled in the process. I might have gone straight backwards into the table with all the vials if he hadn’t caught me.
I breathed heavily, which was not a great sign for me.
“Easy.” Nox was on his feet and rushing over to us. “He isn’t going to hurt you.”
After a long beat, Astor spoke again. “Are you okay?”
I stepped back, pulling my arm free. I was great at pretending to be fine. “I…I don’t have whatever mark you want to see because I’m not from here. I need to get back to my people. Okay? Can you help me do that?”
They exchanged a look.
“I’m not crazy,” I repeated. “I’m just lost and hurt and tired and confused and…hungry.” Somewhere in the middle of that litany, I started crying again. This day was turning out to be an unending nightmare, and I just wanted to wake up. Enough trying to make the best out of every hellish thing the cosmos threw my way. I was done, so done. So…pissed.
Suddenly, I was also sitting down. Where had the chair come from? A cup of something cool and refreshing was offered—clearly from the same magical place—and held to my mouth so I wouldn’t have to grasp it with my injured hands. It smelled vaguely minty, and although drinking strange things proffered by men was generally on my nope-not-ever list, I did it anyway. I leaned forward and gulped down the better-than-water—and how’d they even do that?—stuff, hiccupped, and kept right on sobbing.
Someone touched my shoulder blade, and when I didn’t flinch away, the slight pinpoint of pressure became a soothing circle, working calm into my sore back.
“So you see, we’ve something of a conundrum,” Nox said.
“Tell me something that isn’t blazingly obvious,” Astor replied. Oddly, he was the one stroking my back. Not Nox. Huh. Nox paced distractedly around the laboratory-like room, and Astor went on, “Torrin will assume she’s some kind of Reamer trap, and he will be right to think it. Protecting us, that’s what leaders do.”
“I know, but she literally fell out of the sky.”
“Did you see it? The crash? Tell me everything.”
“I saw only from a distance at first. As you know, I had the watch while we were preparing for the battle, and I spotted Reamer scouts swarming in that area. A fire lit up the horizon, and I went to investigate, but the Reamers got there first. I waited for them to clear out and then approached. They had picked over the wreckage and took everything of value, all the larger pieces of metal and material—and all of the wires and such, because I know you will ask—and then apparently, they set fire to the rest.” He looked at me when he said that last bit.
Because that was me. The stuff of no value left behind. The stuff good only to be burned.
Nox met my eyes with his gentle brown gaze. “I am thankful they thought you dead. I only wish I had gotten to the site sooner—before you woke to such horror.”
The circles on my back widened, became slower. My panic had lessened, too. Was I also thankful? Being captured by Reamers still sounded terrifying, and I hadn’t forgotten the “deplorable uses” comment. But if they hadn’t discarded me, maybe they wouldn’t have burnt me, either. Maybe I would be whole and safe. I wondered if the Reamers had better technology or understanding of the universe. The fact that they took electronics from the wreckage implied some level of tech. Could they get me home? But did I sincerely want to throw in my lot with violent unknown aliens on the off chance they could contact Brent and the Union?
Or just stay here in this cool, simple place with its cool, minty water and let these two take care of me?
“Hmm.” Astor was still drawing comforting patterns on my back, but he didn’t sound convinced.
“We have been tracking them for a season, and they have shown no sign of having flying units,” said Nox.
“What if this was the first, albeit unsuccessful, test of one?”
“That makes no sense. Why would they have left her behind? A female, unclaimed, unnumbered?”
“Dead,” I reminded them. “I must have looked dead. Before my ship crashed, I strapped myself into impact webbing, which is probably the only reason I survived. But whoever found me first disentangled me from it, and when I didn’t respond or wake