He’d wanted this—to be needed, to matter. And what he was about to do couldn’t matter more. Saving-the-universe-level shit. So why did he want to be anywhere but here right now?
He took a breath and told himself it was a natural reaction. Utter annihilation from space and time rolled toward him, a slow wave of ultimate destruction. Who wouldn’t be flustered?
But what scared him even more was what it probably really was—weakness. He wasn’t cut out for this kind of shit. He could have an all but perfect memory, a ridiculous capacity to learn, maybe even some creative ingenuity, but that didn’t give him any guts.
Thoughts of guts made his real guts throb in pain, reminding him yet again of his bruised and beaten midsection. He’d been too weak to fight against that too.
Another onslaught of flashes startled him, and he craned his neck to look outward. They were getting closer. It was getting closer. He could feel it in his core.
“I did flirt with that recruitment officer,” Rake said suddenly.
Cavalon turned to gape at her.
“Nothing happened,” she assured. “But I did flirt. A little.”
He scoffed a laugh. “I knew it. How’d that go? I want details.”
“It was incredibly awkward, actually.” She turned away, and he carefully removed the recoil paneling strapped to her back.
“Really? Kid Rake wasn’t a smooth talker?”
“Well, no, not really. But it wasn’t that.” She turned back around, and he passed her one panel, then laid the other down across half of the vent opening. “He just wasn’t interested in flirting with a beat-up kid.”
“But he helped you anyway?” he asked as Rake passed him the plasma torch. “Despite the awkwardness?”
“Yeah. We became friends, actually.”
She kept the panel in place while Cavalon held the plasma torch to the seam, then clicked the ignition to light it. The arc caught in a rush of blue flame.
“We kept in touch for a long time,” she continued, “but he went MIA in the Resurgence.”
“Oh. Sorry to hear that.” He began to drag the tool along the first seam. “What was his name?”
She let out a heavy breath. “Circitor Hudson Rake. Though, he eventually became a centurion.”
“Uh … wait, what?”
“It was the only way it could work.”
“To get married?”
She laughed. “Void, Mercer. No. He told them I was his niece. ‘My papers got lost when my refugee ship got hijacked by Drudgers on its way from the IE.’ I don’t even know all the details of the story he told.”
Holy shit. He couldn’t believe she was telling him this.
Rake passed him the second panel, and he lined it up beside the first.
“You’re not just making all this up, right?” he asked, then started welding again. “You’re being for real?”
“I’m being for real.”
“So what’s your actual—” But he could no longer form words. His chest constricted, his throat closed, his bruised gut heaved. Without moving a centimeter, he felt like he’d been thrown off a three-meter ledge and slammed into the ground. His head spun from lack of air, then in an instant, the wave ebbed and the pressure ceased. His vision reeled as he gasped for breath to fill his lungs again.
“Cav?” Rake breathed, voice weak.
“What, the fuck, was that?” he managed, breath equally labored.