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SNEAKING IN THE SECOND time was harder, even with Grace using all her tricks and secret passages. The people at the facility were more on edge, as if they could sense that something was wrong. “This entrance is connected to the labs,” she said. “The researchers use it to transport test subjects and other material.”
“It’s a hangar.” They were still outside, but Oz knew a building as big as what they were looking at could only be one thing.
“That it is,” Grace agreed. “Now come on. I’ve got security codes and I’m hoping they haven’t been disabled yet.”
They hadn’t.
The hangar was nearly empty when they got in through a side door. It had clearly housed small vehicles before, but now only two were left, along with several stacks of boxes sitting on palettes.
Oz felt exposed and he wanted to slink along the walls, as if that would disguise his presence. Grace didn’t seem to have the same issues as him. She walked as if she owned the place. But when the door they were heading for opened, she froze.
A man walked out and Oz struck. There was no hiding, no waiting. He pulled on his spark and attacked.
But there was something wrong. His spark felt... muffled. It wasn’t the same as the mission that had seen Cru injured, but similar. He’d worry about it later. He still had enough power to take out one person.
The man went down, but he wasn’t alone, and another walked through the door, Emily held in front of him like a shield.
“Oz!” she cried out.
He wanted to run to her, but before he could, blasters shot at him and Grace and they had to fall back to one of the stacks of boxes. It wasn’t much cover and the wood started smoking immediately. They wouldn’t last long.
But the guard on the other side had no cover except Emily.
Why wasn’t she using her own spark? She knew how to call it, he’d seen her do it.
Was that why his own was muffled? Had they done something to her?
Beside him Grace cursed. “Can’t hit him without taking out your girl.”
Oz stole a glance and saw the same thing. There were training scenarios for these types of situations, but none of them were palatable.
“If you shoot her I will end you,” he warned.
“Shooting the hostage is a terrible idea,” Grace shot back. “Last resort,” she promised.
“I’ve got a terrible idea of my own. Stay here.” Oz didn’t give her time to argue. He stood tall and raised his hands. “I just want to talk!”
The guard grunted in surprise, but Oz only had eyes for Emily. She seemed unharmed and he was going to do his best to keep it that way.
“I don’t want trouble,” said Oz. “Just want her. Hand her over and we’re gone.”
The guard’s arm tightened around Emily and his blaster didn’t waver. Oz wondered why he wasn’t using his own powers, but that was a question for another time. “You’ve already given us trouble. She’s just a human. Worthless.”
Oz would have struck out at that if it weren’t for the look of terror on Emily’s face. “If she’s worthless, let her go.” The word was ash on his tongue. Emily was everything.
“Not going to happen.” He shot his blaster, but there was no hope of hitting Oz with the way he had to angle his arm around Emily.
She used the opening, jamming her elbow into his side and making him grunt. But the guard got her back, hitting her with the side of his blaster and making her slump forward.
That was the opening Grace needed. She got a shot off, hitting the guard’s neck and sending him crashing to the ground. Oz rushed them, spark ready to lash out if the guard so much as breathed hard. Emily was moaning beside him, but when Oz turned her over her eyes focused on his and she smiled.
“Hey,” she said. “You found me.”
“I’ll always find you.” He held her close and breathed deep, letting her scent envelope him.
Emily pulled away and sat herself up fully. She held up her arm and he saw an ugly black band around her wrist. “He said it would dampen my spark. We need to get this thing off.”
“Who said that?” The guard beside them wouldn’t be getting up again, but Oz would kill him a hundred times over if he’d done more harm to Emily.
“Ratface,” she scowled. “One of the researchers. You took him out.” She nodded to the first man who’d come through the door.
There was no complicated mechanism to remove the dampener, but it did require two hands. Oz slipped it off Emily’s wrist and bashed it until the pieces were unrecognizable. He didn’t want anything like that used against his woman again.
“Okay, he-man, it’s alright.” Emily kissed his cheek and hugged him.
“He-man?” he asked.
“I’ll explain later.
“This is a nice reunion and all,” Grace broke in, “but I’m sure that guard has friends. So let’s get out of here before they find us.”
Oz helped Emily to her feet and she was a little unsteady. He wanted her head checked out quickly, but there was no way that was happening until they got back to the ship. And it would be hours before Solan could send one of the shuttles. But Grace wasn’t heading for the door.
No, there were two vehicles in the hangar with them, and she was heading for the closest one. “Let’s see if these things work. I don’t want to wait for a rescue.”
“They’ll have tracking software,” Oz warned.
Grace actually laughed at that. “It’s like you don’t even know me.”
He didn’t, not really, but right now he’d gratefully take her help. He and Emily found their seats, and Oz was even able to find a med kit. He applied some healing cream to her wounded temple and hoped it would help with any swelling. In just a few minutes they were off.
He’d never been happier to leave Kilrym behind him.
***
EMILY AND OZ GOT SEPARATED once they made it back to the ship. She wanted to cling close to him and never let go, but he had duties. The cream he’d slathered on her face when they got in the stolen vehicle seemed to have dealt with the swelling and pain, and she didn’t need more medical treatment, which meant she got to go straight to reuniting with the humans from the lab.
There were mixed responses. Some were upset that she, Lena, Luci, Zac, and Joel had taken off without them. Others were just happy to be rescued. They all had questions about what would happen to them now, and everyone was talking at once, trying to figure out what was going on. Grace sat quietly off to the side, and Emily wasn’t sure if the other humans knew what part Grace had played. She didn’t think it would be right to reveal it. Not yet.
But Grace seemed to be tired of keeping secrets. “Everyone be quiet and I’ll answer your questions!” she yelled over the crowd.
That only made everyone get louder. After all, as far as most of them knew, Grace had been on the side of their captors, earning special favors and alienating the rest of the humans.
Lena, however, had the group’s respect. “Quiet, please,” she said. She didn’t have to yell, and though it wasn’t immediate, the group did calm down. “Please, Grace, talk.”
The two shared a pointed look, and Emily got the sense they didn’t like each other. But that was a worry for later.
“Why should we listen to her?” Julia, the woman who’d wanted a gun when they broke out, asked. Some of the other humans were nodding.
“Because I’m from Osais and I can tell you about your new home and what’s been going on,” Grace said, frustrated.
“New home?” Emily couldn’t see who was speaking, but it sounded like a man. “We want to go back to Earth!”
Did Emily want to go back to Earth? Was she really ready to consider leaving Oz? Would he consider going with her? Her heart hurt to even consider walking away after everything they’d been through, even if it had happened so quickly. She couldn’t even imagine trying to live a normal life back home.
Grace winced. “Of course you all don’t know. Why would you?” She shook her head. The words seemed spoken more for herself than the crowd.
“Don’t know what?” Lena asked.
“There’s no home for you to go back to.” Grace tried to deliver the news gently.
Gasps went up around the room. “What?” someone demanded. “What happened to Earth?” Again they descended into a chaos of sound.
But this time when Grace raised her hands, the room quieted. “I apologize. That was poorly stated. As far as I know, Earth is fine. But you were all put into cryosleep for decades to bring you here. It could have taken anywhere from fifty to eighty years, depending on the speed of the ships. Even if we could afford to send you back, it would take decades. Everyone you know would be dead.”
Bile rose in Emily’s throat, but it wasn’t as strong as she thought it should be. She’d known something was wrong from the second she’d found out that she and the others came from different years. Maybe even before then. But to hear Grace say it like that hurt in a way Emily didn’t know it could.
She couldn’t go home. That associate job she’d worked so hard for was long gone. She’d never know if she’d passed the bar. Whatever friends she had would have thought she’d disappeared, and they would never know the truth.
What did it say about Emily’s life that that was all that mattered? A job? What her friends thought happened to her? Did she really have nothing else back home?
Grace kept speaking, but Emily couldn’t listen. She’d heard enough. And there was someone else she needed answers from.
She snuck out the back and found her way to Oz’s quarters. She wasn’t sure if he would be there, but luckily he was. And when he got a look at her face, his own crumpled.
He knew.
He’d known.
“Were you ever going to tell me that it was impossible to go back to Earth?” She wanted to yell, but her words got caught in her throat and she couldn’t manage more than a harsh whisper.
“I’m sorry.” He sounded physically pained. And under other circumstances Emily might have cared. But not now, not when he’d betrayed her by keeping this truth from her.
“Why?” There was the yell she was looking for. “I talked about going home! You could have said something then. You could have gotten me prepared. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Is it really so bad?” He looked at her before jerking his head away and pacing back and forth, not that there was much room to do so in his small quarters. “Am I really a monster for hoping you’d choose to stay with me?”
“But I didn’t have a choice!” How did he not see it? “It doesn’t matter whether I wanted to stay or not because I couldn’t go home!”
“You want to stay?” That brought him up short.
Did she? Had she? “It doesn’t matter,” she bit out. “You should have told me that I’d have to, no matter what. What other secrets are you keeping from me? How much of that Matching and bonding stuff was lies?”
“None of it, I swear.” He took a step towards her, but Emily did her best to back away. If he touched her, she didn’t know what she would do and she didn’t want to find out. “I didn’t want to hurt you, and everything happened so fast—”
“Save it, Oz. And stop lying to me.” Tears pricked at the back of her eyes and Emily squeezed them shut. She wasn’t going to cry. Not now. Not in front of him.
“I won’t,” he promised. “Never again.”
He looked wrecked, but lightning flashed fiercely in his eyes. Emily wanted to give in then. This wasn’t her. She didn’t fight. But anger still surged inside of her and she couldn’t let it go. Oz had known and he hadn’t told her. He hadn’t trusted her with the truth about her own future. She couldn’t just let that go.
There was probably some parting jab she could make, some words she could say to hurt him to the core, but Emily couldn’t find them. She shook her head one last time and walked away.
She’d find somewhere else to sleep.
