Stormbreak (Seafire #3) - Natalie C. Parker Page 0,58

Cepheus went still, her eyes tracking Pisces. Oran made no sound, but Caledonia could feel his frustration.

“Do we have a deal?” Caledonia asked.

Tassos stuck out his hand. “We have a deal. We’ll work together to take the Holster and in return, you deliver your soiltech and a blueprint for replication.”

Caledonia thrust her hand into his, feeling new bruises where he’d gripped her just moments ago. They pinched less painfully than the guilt she felt when she said, “Deal.”

With a quick jerk of his hand, Tassos tugged her close, putting his face so near to hers she could smell the too-sweet notes of Silt on his skin. “And after that,” he said. “I’ll gun you down if you so much as blink in my direction.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“Soiltech?” Pisces snapped as Hime ushered Oran to an exam bed. “What were you thinking? We’re meant to get that tech into the hands of the colonists, not Bullet warlords in the making. That wasn’t part of the plan, Cala.”

Pine, Sledge, and Pisces stepped inside the med bay, sealing the hatch behind them. Caledonia remained halfway between Oran and the door. She watched as Hime carefully manipulated his fingers, as Oran breathed intentionally through his nose. Pain etched itself into the shadows of his jaw, the lines around his eyes, and Caledonia stood rooted in place, guilt stacked on her shoulders like massive boulders. She hadn’t done this to him, but she’d let it happen. She’d needed it to happen.

She felt sick.

“Or maybe it was.” Pine kept his voice light as he crossed the room and stretched out on an empty exam bed. “And she didn’t tell us because she knew we wouldn’t agree.”

Pisces rounded on Caledonia. “Is that true?”

“It’s true.” Caledonia had never been good at lying, and especially not to Pisces.

“Do you know what you’ve done?!” Sledge burst forward, striding across the room in three terrifying steps. “Do you have any idea?! You’re making the next Aric Athair.”

She recognized the fear in his eyes, but she didn’t share it. “Only if he gets everything he wants.”

“If?” Pine asked, crossing his legs at the ankle and tucking his arms behind his head.

“If,” she repeated. “I didn’t promise him baleflowers or seeds. Only that they would be his for the taking.”

“You want us to find them first?” Pisces asked, incredulous. “Get rid of them before they claim them? That’s a hell of a gamble.”

“Everything we do is a gamble,” Caledonia countered. “We can’t contain soiltech. In fact, our goal is not to contain it, which means at some point, it will end up in the hands of Tassos or someone just as terrible. The point is, we can make more. We can make sure it gets into the hands of colonists, Slaggers, and whoever else needs it. That’s how we keep him from becoming Aric. By making sure the only thing he controls is Silt. Not food.”

The room was quiet but for the humming of machines and Oran’s harsh breath. Everyone knew there was truth in Caledonia’s argument, but it wasn’t the clean kind of truth they wanted. It settled between them awkwardly, a bomb waiting to go off.

I’m going to set his bones now. Hime’s signs were decisive.

Oran sat completely still, eyes locked on the small girl in front of him as she reached for one of his fingers and pulled. The tip of Oran’s left trigger finger was drawn outward, the skin stretching like fabric before Hime guided the bone back into place. Oran exhaled sharply and fresh beads of sweat appeared on his brow.

No one spoke as one by one Hime repeated the same motions on the other two fingers. Oran breathed deeply through it all, never complaining, never asking Hime to pause. And though his muscles seemed to quiver as Hime tugged on the third finger, he never gave in.

If he only would have let himself pass out, he’d have woken to bound fingers never knowing the pain his body endured in his absence. But Oran clung stubbornly to consciousness as though part of him felt that he deserved to feel every bit of this agony.

Caledonia couldn’t help but think that maybe he did. And she couldn’t help but feel that she did, too.

When Hime was done, she wrapped Oran’s fingers in gauze, then produced two gloves. They were made of black clothtech, supple and gleaming in the blue light. She set them on the table between his hands.

“Gloves,” Oran said, a laugh threatening behind the word. “Are you telling me that