JULIAN ROSS
BRISBANE UNIVERSITY, SOUTH BRISBANE, NEW TRITON
YEAR 465, SECOND QUARTER
THIRTEEN YEARS AGO
Julian exited the provost’s office holding the verified, recorded assurance that, in defiance of regulations, he would receive guardianship of his younger brother.
He’d done it. He’d walked in and confronted Provost Humphreys. And if she didn’t want news to go public about her drunken behavior, broken contract, and bigotry, she’d continue to cooperate. She’d keep her promise. And void take it, if she decided to reveal Julian’s methods, fight him, or try to take him down, he’d pull her with him as relentlessly as a singularity.
The point was Elliott would be safe, even if the cost was a sliver of Julian’s soul. No, that metaphysical rubbish of souls was an old-Earth relic of whatever religions the Founders had fled. The word didn’t even belong in modern society. Except it felt true. It felt like he’d betrayed himself and a part of what made him Julian was gone.
He hadn’t made it past the library, though, when the impact of what he’d done hit him like a city tram gone off its rails.
Blackmail.
A crime that would mark him—on the right cheekbone, like his father’s sentencing tattoo—as someone with a debt to society. Blackmail was a crime that would pack him off to the inner belt or even LaGrange clusters around Krios, where his father had been sentenced. And unlike his father, he’d be guilty.
He ducked behind the bushes to try to get his racing heart under control. With no Consortium spies watching, he pressed back the onslaught of nausea. He couldn’t be sick—wouldn’t. Not if any shred of willpower would prevent it.
Elliott was just a kid, he reminded himself. Julian knew what it felt like to have his world destroyed. So, he forced down the fear he’d be caught. Ignored the nagging voice telling him he should have found another way and the persistent whisper that Mum and Dad would be ashamed of what he’d done. But space it all, what else was he supposed to do? Let Children’s Services keep Elliott in some rotting dorm on the belt? He compacted those thoughts and fears deep inside, hid them with the tight ball of grief at Dad’s death.
But as Julian made his way across Albany City University’s campus, it didn’t feel the same. Or he didn’t.
The same dome soared overhead. The same mimosa trees littered the science quad with the same tiny leaflets. Other students rushed past him to lectures, while he watched—as detached as if from another planet, one with no connection to Ceres or New Triton. He sat through Molecular Genetics, but whatever Dr. Jimenez droned on about was as unintelligible as the opera he’d saved up credits to take Medea to last quarter.
After the lecture, he made his way toward the café near the gymnasium, where he and Medea had breakfast every ninth-day since their first date almost a year ago. The promise of spending time with her usually centered him, but this was different. He couldn’t flub this up. Medea was smart. He had to figure out how to convince her the provost had declared he could have custody of Elliott even though the university prohibited uncontracted, underage parenting and guardianship, but he also couldn’t let her get trapped in his—in criminal behavior.
She’d understand, though. She had to. She’d like Elliott, and her gentleness would be what Elliott needed. They’d be a family.
The door slid open, and the warm scents of cinnamon, nutmeg, and coffee tumbled out. Medea was already at their usual table, though she was sipping lemon water instead of her typical latte. Her quick smile patched the part of him the morning had damaged.
“Morning, Julian.”
“Medea, my lady.” He tucked his pack under his chair and skimmed the menu out of habit. Once they’d placed their orders, he held out his hand. She took it. “Dee, I have to—”
“Would you still love me if I got fat?”
That came out of nowhere. His brows twisted. “But you aren’t.”
“If.” She studied the lemon water.
“You won’t. But I’d love you whatever.”
“My mother got fat, and my father canceled their contract.”
He frowned. “That’s pretty low.”
“Yeah.”
Their food arrived, and Julian stirred cream and sugar into his coffee and offered to pour Medea some.
“Not today.” She took a dainty bite out of the lemon thing she’d ordered. “Julian? When you asked me something a while back, did you mean it?”
He cocked his head. “A little vague.”
“You asked me to contract.”
He choked. Void it—had she decided to answer after he had gone and blackmailed the provost? All the same, she wouldn’t have brought it up if she was going to turn him down, would she? He wiped suddenly sweaty palms on his pants.
Pink suffused her cheeks. “Did you mean it?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.” He straightened. “Do you have an answer?”
She glanced at the window. “Not yet.”
“Oh.” Deflated, he finished his bagel and poured a second cup of coffee.
Her eyebrows arched. “You never have a second cup.”
“Busy morning.”
“Your genetics class was that busy?” she asked dryly.
Don’t mess up, Julian. “I had a meeting.”
“With?”
All the practiced threats he’d laid out hours ago were easy compared to this.
“Julian.” Concern laced her features, and she slid her tiny fingers between his large ones, her thumb rubbing his knuckles. “You look like one of those dust storms that has the city scrambling to replace panels in the dome. All towering and dark. Are you all right?”
Get it over with. Void it. She was the best thing to happen to him since he’d reached this ugly planet.
He met her gaze. “I met with Provost Humphreys, Dee. I convinced her to let me have Elliott.”
“Elliott? Your brother?” She lowered her voice. “No one can have a kid unless they have a contract. Regulations.”
“I can.”
She jerked her hand away. “That’s impossible. People get booted from uni if they’re pregnant and uncontracted. You can’t have a kid or a guardianship and attend classes.”
Be nonchalant. “She sent the official documents to a Recorder and had them verified, then contacted Children’s Services. They already sent out an emergency request. He’ll be bound out on the next transport.”
She gaped.
“I think she knew I can handle it. Maybe she felt bad that a little kid with family would be shunted into the system.”
“Provost Humphreys has all the compassion of a meteorite. There’s no way . . .” Her deep-blue eyes narrowed. “Julian Meredith Ross. What did you do?”
He chugged some coffee, scalded his throat. “I presented my case and—”
“Stars,” she hissed, as she shot a glance over her shoulder. “You have something on her, don’t you?”
“What?” His face heated. “No.”
“Don’t you lie to me, Julian. I can take a lot of . . .” Her face drained of color. “That’s why you asked.”
“What?”
“You didn’t ask because you loved me.” Medea’s voice broke. “You were using me so you could keep your brother.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I asked you before my father’s accident. Remember?” Under his eyes, she shrank down into herself, and his panic reared up. “I brought a picnic to the top of the biology building, where there aren’t any spying Consortium cameras, and—”
“You . . .” Her pupils grew so wide they almost hid her blue irises. “You knew no one would see—no one would hear.”
“You think I wanted anyone else there? I wanted me and you. That’s all—”
“You wanted your brother.”
“Elliott was fine, Dee,” he protested. “He was with our father. And although you’ve always known I wanted both of them out of the mines—”
“I should have put it together.”
“You don’t get it.” He tried again. “I asked you because you’ve been the best thing that’s happened to me since I can’t say when.”
“And I fell for it. Stars. I really thought you loved me, or I wouldn’t—”
“I do.” Desperation set in. “Medea, look at me.”
She turned her head away.
“He’s only a kid,” he pled. “Not even as old as I was when we lost everything. No kid should be shoved into a system when someone can come to their rescue.”
“And you wound up on an asteroid with him and your father. You never told me what your dad did.”
His temper flashed. “Nothing. He didn’t do anything at all.”
“Because innocent people are always sent to the mines to pay off their debt to society.” She put a hand to her head and groaned. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Spacing right, you shouldn’t have.
“Fine. You want to know? Mum died when Elliott was about one, and—no!” he said quickly when her face drained of all color. “Dad didn’t kill her. It was established in court. It wasn’t his fault, but my aunt pressed for negligence charges. Recorders came and testified against him.”
She gasped.
He picked up his coffee mug and turned it around and around in his hands. “In a way, it’s my fault because I petitioned to keep us together after Mum died. I persuaded the courts my father was competent. And no one else wanted us. No one, not even Mum’s family. Don’t you see? With our father gone, my little brother will be caught up in the inner belt Children’s Agency’s machinations. They were spacing bad enough back on Ceres.”
“That must have been so very hard.”
She spoke so gently that his hope sparked, but he didn’t let himself reach for her hand again.
“Dad let his grief eat him up for a third of my life. He didn’t snap out of it until I was accepted here. A third of my life, Dee. His grief and the mines destroyed my childhood, and I can’t abandon Elliott.” He clamped his mouth shut before he revealed how he convinced Provost Humphreys to let him have custody of his brother.
“It doesn’t matter to me that your dad was a convict.” Her words sank down like lead. “But Julian, I need your honesty and your trust.”
“You have it, Medea.”
“But you’re lying about something—or hiding something. That’s as bad.”
“I—” Void it, she’d be as complicit as he was. He wouldn’t put her in danger. If anyone was going to be sent to the belt for this, it wouldn’t be Medea. They’d eat her alive out there. She wouldn’t last a ten-day. “I can’t tell you.”
She clenched her small hands into fists. “And therein lies the problem. If I believed you really loved me, I know we could be happy.”
“I do. You’re the first thing I think of every day. I can’t prove that, Dee, but I do love you.”
“More than your brother?”
That was the radiation burst he’d been afraid of. “Medea.”
“You have to love me if you want me to stay. Thin or fat. Better or worse.”
“I do.”
“Above all others.”
His heart slammed in his chest. “Dee, please. Don’t make me choose.”
Her tears spilled over. “You already did.”
She rounded the table and stood before him, ran her perfect hands through his hair and kissed his forehead.
“I love you, Julian.”
And she was gone.
Around him, customers finished meals, then left. Finally, the café manager tapped his shoulder, told him they were closing up.
That late? He’d missed Intra-system Economics.
Julian trudged out, his hands stuffed in his pockets.
Well, he’d survived losing Mum. He’d lost Dad twice, once when Mum died, then a few ten-days ago he’d lost him forever. Medea was safer away from him and his splintered soul anyway. He’d paid for his brother’s safety with a part of who he always claimed to be, but there wasn’t any other choice. Whatever happened, Elliott was family—Julian tried to expunge his thought that Medea could have been family, too—and family comes first.
Always.