and swallowed hard. I would lay down my life to protect Starway 8 and everyone in it, but I recognized that my deepest attachment to the orphanage could be drawn in the portraits of four faces: Mareeka, Surral, Gabe, and Coltin.
I had no idea what had happened to Gabe, or whether he was even alive. I would not lose Coltin.
I left the bridge, my heart a tight, aching knot, and turned right, rubbing my chest as I headed for the spacewalk gear in the utility room at the end of the corridor.
My mind whirred, even though I wanted to shut it off. Shade. Hunters. Coltin. Shade. I couldn’t stop myself; my thoughts kept jumping back to the man I’d believed I could trust.
What had he been doing? With me? With the ship? Why?
The Endeavor did work. The starboard door closed and locked. We were flying. Shade didn’t appear to have sabotaged anything. And the fact that he was surely tracking us right now hardly mattered, considering I was the idiot who’d told him exactly where we were going next.
I slammed my palm into the cold metal wall beside me, punishing myself for my stupidity. The sharp pain in my hand only helped for a second before hurt and betrayal and fear came roaring back.
Our choices stank. Actually, we had none. We were going to Starway 8. The kids there needed us. Coltin needed me, and I would go to him, even if it meant falling into a trap.
But that didn’t mean we had to make things easy for those bounty hunters—or for Bridgebane, if he was behind all this. First, I had to get rid of any tracking devices before that pair of hunters found us again and shot to kill. Then, we’d head straight to Starway 8.
As for Shade, I’d worry about him when he showed up, set on a live capture and looking to get the most out of his prize.
I growled so loudly it hurt my throat. He’d already gotten more than enough from me, parts of myself I should never have given up.
I threw open the door with every bit of the violence I wanted to unleash and stalked toward the spacewalk gear.
I had no doubt that Shade would come. He didn’t strike me as the type of man who gave up, and I was worth a lot. Sooner or later, he’d find me—along with a swift kick in the balls.
Chapter 22
Zero G didn’t bother me, but I hated the space suit. It was hot and heavy and confining, a mass of bulk around me, some of it hard, some of it flexible, but all of it necessary, right down to the thick, movement-impairing gloves and the titanium-soled, integrated boots. It felt like a coffin to me every time I put it on, only it was encasing me alive instead of dead. The damn thing was my nemesis—or one of them.
My own breathing echoed back to me, loud in the confines of my helmet, a constant reminder that I had limited air and time and that even with a forty-five-pound suit on me, I was about to be weightless, and that one cut through the tether could leave me floating off into the Dark. The suit didn’t have any integrated propulsion, no handy button to set off mini thrusters or little joystick to steer me around. We didn’t have the money for that, only for the basic, standard suit. I would have to crawl all over my ship with a rope clipped to my waist. If I drifted away, I’d have to reel myself in from the void of space.
Fun times. The last twenty-four hours had been great.
My heart clenched, and heat blasted through me, followed by a quick shot of cold. I’d actually thought the last day had been pretty freaking fantastic—before.
“Fuck you, Shade Ganavan,” I muttered as I pressed my gloved index finger down on the seven-digit code to the air lock control. A palm swipe would have been easier, but that would have required undressing, so…no.
“What’s that?” Jax asked.
“Nothing, partner,” I answered into the com.
The inner safety entrance to the Endeavor was already sealed up behind me, and I kept my arm firmly hooked around the handle next to the new starboard door. The moment it opened, space claimed the air between the two doors. The powerful pull sucked at me, and I held on, waiting for equilibrium to settle over the entrance once more.
Calm came quickly, along with silence. The slight magnetism