PERSONAL RECORD: DESIGNATION ZETA4542910-9545E
CTS THALASSA, LUNAR ONE
478.3.1.03
Eric stood in the doorway, any vestige of a smile gone. “Zeta? I’m here on behalf of Elliott Ross.”
A deep scowl marred Elinor Anne Williams’s features. “And whyever would he have the audacity to ask anything of her?”
I touched her hand and stood.
Eric’s jaw ticced. “They’re on the way here. The captain is allowing him to say goodbye.”
“They?” Elinor asked.
“Local law enforcement. I think they call them militia on New Triton,” he said. “He’s headed to trial. I know he’s made some pretty awful mistakes—”
Elinor huffed.
“But would you come with me? He asked for a specific number of people, and you, Kye, and Ross are at the top of the list, though I’m not sure the captain will let Ross go.”
Before she could protest further, I put my hand on her arm and said, “Elinor, I must.”
He waited while I pulled on my black jacket and grabbed my cane. We headed toward the shuttle hangar doors, and Cam and an ever-larger Tia joined us. She flashed Eric a tight smile.
“Thought you might need backup, Eric,” Tia said. “He was your first friend, right?”
Eric nodded, but no one else spoke until we reached the hall where Lorik had taken me into custody.
Kyleigh stopped pacing and offered us a wan smile when we joined her. I counted one hundred fifty-seven seconds before she whispered, “Is it true that they strip names and brand people once they are sentenced?”
“No,” I said. “They are tattooed, not branded.”
“Yeah,” Eric said, the lilt in his voice stronger than usual. “Cheekbone or forehead. Depends on the crime.”
Cam winced.
“On their faces?” Kyleigh blanched.
“Makes it easier to see the number when they’re in helmets,” Eric answered.
Tia touched Eric’s arm. “Isn’t there a chance he’ll get off? He saved Kyleigh and Zeta and tried to save Freddie and the Elder. He smuggled out that information, then paid for that with those people nearly killing him. Doesn’t that matter?”
“I doubt it,” Cam said quietly. “People will be angry and frightened over the whole virus thing, and I don’t see—”
He broke off as footsteps drew near. Lars and Elliott Ross turned the corner.
Elliott’s time in the tank had served him well, though with Cam’s words ringing in my ears, I wondered to what purpose. Bruising and lacerations gone, broken limbs set and healed, Elliott stood tall. Any scarring would have been covered by the white jumpsuit he wore, but he neither limped from the roach bite nor carried his arm carefully from where he had been shot. His rich brown hair, brows, and lashes had begun to grow back for a second time, but he no longer appeared gaunt.
“Moons above, he’s tall,” Tia said under her breath.
Elliott’s ice-blue eyes jumped to her, then the young man beside me. His jaw fell. “Eric?”
“Hey, El.” Eric cleared his throat. “Came to see you off.”
“It’s good to see . . . How—no, that doesn’t matter, but I’m . . .” A flush suffused his lean face, and he swallowed convulsively.
“It’s all right,” Eric said.
Elliott nodded, then drew a deep, deep breath. “Kyleigh. Stars, Kye, but I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I was so stupid, that you and Freddie got sucked into this nightmare. That he’s gone.”
She blinked rapidly.
“Recorder, I’m sorry for everything. Freddie was right.” The corner of his mouth drooped. “He usually was. I was so busy trying to earn respect or love or whatever it was that I didn’t do what I knew, deep down, was right. And in the process, I hurt the people that mattered most.”
“Lars,” Kyleigh said without taking her eyes from Elliott, “I need to hug my friend.”
The tall marine glanced at me. “Recorder-who-isn’t?”
I nodded, and he moved back.
Kyleigh approached Elliott slowly at first, then charged forward to wrap her arms around him. He held her for a moment, then set his hands on her small shoulders, stepped back, and dropped to his knees.
“I found it for you, Kye,” he said, looking up at her face while he reached into the neck of the jumpsuit and pulled out a gold chain. “They wouldn’t let me have visitors, and I didn’t deserve them, but here.” He took her small hand and poured the necklace into it.
Her mouth fell open. “My cross.”
“To be honest,” he murmured, “I’m rather glad I had it with me. Helped me focus, you know?”
“Yes,” she said.
“So you forgive me?”
Gold sparkled when she hugged him again, this time resting her head on his shoulder. His eyes closed.
Kyleigh straightened, and then placed the chain and pendant in his large hand. “You keep it, Elliott.” She cast a glance at the four of us, standing silently against the wall. “He can keep it, right?”
“I don’t know,” Eric said quietly.
Elliott grimaced. “Depends on where they send me. Dad kept his contract ring. He wore it on a chain under his shirt, but I can’t risk losing this, Kye. It means too much.”
“Yes, you can, because I can’t risk not sending it with you. Hold still.” She took it back and fastened it around his neck.
He cleared his throat and stood. “Eric? Can you tell your mum and dad, and your sisters that . . . I’m sorry?”
“Consider it done, ey?”
“Ey.”
The subsequent awkward silence was broken by footsteps, and Jackson and Quincy turned the corner, Ross between them with his hands behind his back. For a moment, the fact that the one being taken away was unbound confused me, but there was a stark difference between Elliott’s calm and the wild-eyed look on Julian’s face.
“Julian.” Elliott’s baritone was almost inaudible. “You look a lot better.”
Ross’s eye twitched. “They can’t take you. Nothing was your fault.”
The younger brother glanced at me. “That’s not true, and it’s time I dealt with the consequences.”
Ross turned to glare down at Jackson, but the marine remained unmoved.
“Julian. Listen, it’ll be all right. I’m not worried about—”
“They can’t send you off to the mines,” Ross spat out.
“Can and will,” Jackson stated.
Kyleigh gnawed on her lower lip. “Jackson, that isn’t helping.”
“It isn’t like you murdered anyone,” Julian Ross said.
Elliott held his breath, then released it slowly. “I almost did.”
“You didn’t,” Ross reasserted. “I was the one who helped design that virus. Christine was the one who murdered that Recorder and Kyleigh’s dad.”
Kyleigh gasped, and Elliott caught her arm. My skin went cold, and for a moment, I was afraid I would collapse again. Tia and Cam moved closer to me.
“You knew?” Her small frame shook. “You knew and never told anyone, not even to—Why? Ross—she was my father’s murderer and you never told me? You let me eat dinner with her!”
He did not flinch.
“Julian?” Elliott demanded. “Is that true?”
“Yes, it is.” Kyleigh’s face flushed. “Zhen and the captain told me that she had, but you knew and said nothing?”
Julian Ross pinched his lips, then nodded.
“You let a murderer go free.” Elliott drew himself up to his full height and met his brother’s eyes. An echo of Ross’s sharp tones saturated Elliott’s usually mild voice. “Because you were working together on that virus, and you couldn’t risk losing that work? That was worth letting a brutal murder go unpunished?”
“No! I didn’t have a choice.”
Jackson cursed.
“Was she blackmailing you?” Kyleigh asked.
Ross gave a harsh laugh. “Of course she was. That is ironic, isn’t it?” He regained control and fastened his icy gaze on his brother. “She threatened to kill you. If I said anything, she’d—I knew what she could do. I saw what she did to Charles.”
“You should not lie.” My words burst forth with as little control as his laugh. “You were not concerned for Elliott. You were concerned for yourself. If you had gone to Gideon Lorde as soon as you knew, if indeed you did not know beforehand—”
“I would never have—”
“Countenanced the slaughter of millions?” I interrupted in turn. “Planned the deaths of children? Simply because of the way they had been raised?”
Tia wrapped her arms over her belly, and Eric moved closer to her.
All my repressed fear and anger boiling to the surface, I stepped toward Julian Ross. “If you had cared for your brother more than you hated people like me, you would have gone straight to Gideon Lorde. He would have kept Elliott safe, but instead your inaction enabled her to seed that virus. Nineteen of your coworkers on that moon died before they went into the tanks. And then you altered the programming and killed everyone else.”
His face drained of color, then flushed violently. “Gideon couldn’t even keep himself safe. Why else do you think I stopped her?”
The hall fell absolutely silent.
Julian Ross glowered at me. “I was the only one who could.”
Slowly, carefully, Jackson asked, “What did you do?”
“Performed an act of justice.”
Elliott went completely pale. “Julian . . .”
Behind us, the doors leading to the shuttle bay slid apart, and perhaps they stole the oxygen, for when I tried to breathe, I could not.
Julian Ross turned those burning, ice-blue eyes on me. “You killed a man to save someone you didn’t know. Crushed his skull. What would you have done for a brother?”
Someone who was either a contralto or a tenor said, “That’s a conversation to walk into. So which one’s our man?”
Jackson jerked his head toward Elliott.
“We usually restrain the one we’re hauling off,” the individual behind me said. “But if you say so.”
“He didn’t do anything,” Julian shouted. “You want the guilty party, you take me!”
“That’s for the courts, mate,” said the voice. “Though it sounds like Thalassa’s right crawling with criminals. Might have to make a few more trips.”
An unfamiliar tenor added, “We’re coming back for you later. Got a whole grand trial set up for you. Wheels’re in motion.” He cleared his throat. “So. Elliott Ross.”
Elliott stilled for a moment, then wrapped his long arms around Kyleigh, resting his cheek against her short, tight braids before brushing a soft kiss on the top of her head.
Ross hurled himself forward, and Jackson and Quincy hauled him back.
“I should have stood up for the right thing years ago.” Elliott hid the gold chain inside his jumpsuit’s collar, and his gaze flickered between Eric and Kyleigh. “Don’t worry, ey? Whatever happens, I won’t be alone.”
He turned and walked onto the shuttle, and the doors slid shut while his brother slung imprecations at the people holding him back and at the ones bearing Elliott away.
And with that, Elliott Ross was removed.