“I just—” I break off as Ian stiffens against me. I start to ask him what’s wrong, but before I can, across the bridge, Max screams and falls to his knees.
Chapter 63
Ian
A shrill scream pierces my skull.
At first, I think it’s coming from Rain or Beckett—it’s definitely female, and Kali’s right in front of me, perfectly fine—but then I realize it can’t be them. Because the sound is coming from inside my head.
The pain is unbearable, slicing along my every nerve ending and taking over my entire body until it feels like I’m being ripped apart. I’ve never felt anything like this before, never even imagined anything like this could exist, and I try to fight it as I struggle to understand what’s happening.
“Ian?” Kali’s eyes go wide, and she stands in a rush, her hands moving to my shoulders. “Ian, what’s wrong?”
I try to answer her, but I can’t. I can’t talk, I can’t think, I can’t do anything but endure. The agony is overwhelming, all-consuming, utterly devastating.
I fall to my knees, nearly taking Kali out with me, and through the red haze of agony I see Max on his knees a few feet behind me, his hands clamped on the sides of his head like he can somehow shut out the pain.
And I know what’s happening.
Milla.
I call out to her in my mind, yelling her name over and over again. Seconds later, Max joins me, his voice hoarse and pained as he, too, screams for her.
At first, there’s nothing—only the yawning blackness that’s been there for months every time we try to reach for her. But then I hear it, so faint that I can’t be sure my mind isn’t playing tricks on me.
“Help me. Please help me. Please, please, please. Help me.”
“Milla!” I scream.
“Ian, please.” The impression of tears pouring down gaunt cheeks. “Please help me.”
“I’m coming, Milla! I’m coming right now!”
But it’s too late. The pain—and with it, my connection to Milla—vanishes as quickly as it came.
I turn to Max, who—like me—is still on his knees. He’s staring back, eyes wide with horror.
“You heard?” I ask. Even in my head, my voice sounds hoarse.
“I heard.” If possible, he sounds even worse than I feel.
“Ian, what’s the matter?” Kali drops to her knees beside me. She’s searching my face, panic filling her eyes as her hands race over my head and chest like she’s looking for a wound. “What hurts?”
I don’t even know where to start.
I’ve been wanting to talk to her about this for a few days now, but this isn’t how I’d planned to do it.
“You okay?” I ask Max.
“Are you?” he shoots back.
Not even close. After what I just heard, I’m not sure I’ll ever be okay again.
“What’s going on?” Merrick asks as he strides onto the bridge, Rain right behind him and Gage after her. “We heard screams.”
Max doesn’t answer, just shakes his head as he stumbles to his feet.
He’s a better man than me, because I don’t think I can get up yet. I’m shaking too badly, and all I can hear—all I can think about—is Milla.
Max crosses the room on unsteady legs before collapsing into a chair along the right wall. Then he pulls out a half-empty bottle of gerjgin from underneath it and takes a long drink before holding it out to me.
I take it with hands that are still trembling like an amateur’s, but I’m still too fucked up to be embarrassed. I take a couple of long swallows and feel the alcohol do its work. My heart rate slows, and I finally stop shaking enough to drag myself up and into the captain’s chair.
I blow out a breath and take another swallow before handing the bottle back to Max. What the fuck just happened—and more importantly, what does it mean?
“How could we have heard her?” he asks. “Do you think she’s close?”
That makes the most sense—usually we can only transmit our thoughts to each other over short distances—but I shake my head. “We’re nowhere near the Wilds yet.”
“You sure that’s where she is?”
I think back to my conversation with that bastard on Glacea. I’d bet everything I have—which isn’t much, but it’s the thought that counts—that he was telling me the truth. “Yeah.”
“She’s got to be in agony, then.” Max runs a still-unsteady hand down his face.
Pain ups the range we can transmit, but we’re talking about an impossible distance here. We’re still way far out from the Wilds, in deep space, but maybe that means we’re moving in the right direction? This is only the second time we’ve sensed her since she disappeared, and the first time was right after—when she was, presumably, still close.
It wasn’t as intense as this, though. To be fair, nothing’s ever been this intense before. Which means Milla’s going through hell.
“But at least she’s still alive,” I tell him. “She has to be.” Because we’re still here.
“Does someone want to explain what the fuck just happened?” Kali says in a tone that isn’t actually a question. She looks from Max to me. Everyone is staring at the both of us in confusion. “And by someone, I mean you.” She gives me a pointed look.
“Tell them,” Max says in my head.
“We’ve never told anyone,” I reply. “I never thought we would.”
“That’s because we’ve never had anyone to tell before. It’s different now.”
He’s right. And for a moment, the thought scares the shit out of me. I take another swig of gerjgin and look around the group. Merrick and Rain, Kali, Gage, Beckett. They’re all watching us with varying levels of concern. We might have our differences, and in other circumstances we might have actively tried to kill one another, but it’s obvious that here—now—they really do care.
The trouble is, we’re not actually that easy to explain. In fact, we’re fucking unbelievable. Hell, sometimes I don’t believe it.
I look at Max. He gives a one-shouldered shrug.
I take a deep breath. Then hesitate.
“Come on, Ian,” Beckett says. “Spit it out. How hard can it be?”
“Really fucking hard, actually.”
“Yeah, well, I’m making up my own stories about what just happened, and most of them end with us having to toss you out of an airlock because of homicidal psychosis, so it’s probably better than that, right?” She gives me the same pointed look Kali did a few minutes ago, and it almost makes me laugh. Those two have more in common than either would ever want to admit.
I run a hand through my hair, trying to figure out what words to use to explain something that can’t be explained.
“Fuck it, I’ll tell them,” Max says. “You’re going to hurt yourself over there.”
I flip him off. “Feel free.”
I don’t want to be the one to tell Kali anyway. I don’t want to be looking at her when everything changes—and it will. How could it not?
“I know some of you are wondering about the relationship between Ian, Milla, and me,” Max starts.