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I gasped for air. Light from the ceiling’s fluorescent light strip poked my eyes like pinpricks, dancing between the leaves of my vines. Whispers, I still heard whispers...
“You’ve almost got her back, Gwen.”
Gwen? How could she be here?
I squinted against the light. It was so much brighter than the murky red of that organic airship.
“You’re going to be all right, Jenna.” Quin’s voice cut through the constant murmur of engines. “The airship is safe. The airship is secure.” My muscles relaxed as the tentacles dissolved around me.
“Come on, Jen...” Lance whispered, his voice strained.
Huh. I never thought much about whether I’d start hallucinating while dying. Kind of felt like Lance was holding me. I snuggled against that thought, succumbing to the quiet, tingling numbness.
“You’re not in whatever memory is trying to attack you,” Lily added, her voice urgent.
How many people were in this stupid hallucination?
“You’re safe here.” Could’ve sworn that was Quin again. “This isn’t the Legion Spore. You’re not part of a legion. You’re an individual. You’re Jenna. Can you hear me? You’re a member of the Coalition of Freedom.”
I sagged into the warmth of imaginary-Lance’s arms. I never expected to hear any of my team members while being eaten alive.
“Gwen,” Quin said, “I think you can pull her back now.”
Don’t pull her into this, I thought wearily. She doesn’t deserve—
My eyes snapped open. I bolted upright, caught within Lance’s arms. He held me against his chest and wiped my forehead of freezing sweat. My teeth chattered. My breath was shallow.
But Lance was warm and alive. I was alive. I wasn’t dying, and I wasn’t being eaten by some creepy monster. I stuck my nose into his neck and didn’t care if anyone saw me. “I thought...”
Lance softly shushed me. “It’s okay.”
I choked on a sob. At some point, my room had filled with everyone who must have been nearby when the attack started. I curled into Lance’s arms, trying to hide. For the love of the Community... They had seen my panic attack, or heard it, and I couldn’t even keep myself calm. I didn’t want them here; I didn’t want them to see me like this.
It’s all right, Jenna, Gwen thought to me. Her thoughts were nurturing.
Full of warmth.
Singular.
Thank the Community her voice was singular.
Quin handed me a tissue and stepped back. He took a deep breath, his shoulders sagging as if he was as worn out as I was.
Lily glanced anxiously between me and Gwen. “Is she going to be okay?”
Gwen nodded. “Luckily, her vines protected her from doing too much damage to herself at the onset of the attack.”
My vines sported torn leaves and broken tendrils on the far wall. I grimaced and retracted my plant power within myself. That couldn’t have been helping the sense of pain.
“All I wanted was to find out what we’re facing.” I mumbled. “I didn’t think reading a research paper would be that bad.”
“It’s okay.” Lance stroked my hair and held me tighter. Once I finally had enough energy to sit next to him, if not quite on top of him, I asked what happened. According to Gwen, she’d heard me screaming and slamming into my bedroom wall. She wasn’t the only one—Lance, Lily, and Quin had also come running. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to safely enter my mind, Gwen suspended my life to see if that would pull me free from the attack. It didn’t have quite the intended effect, and explained why I’d thought I was dying.
I glanced up at the battered vines again and cringed, their leaves crushed where I had repeatedly shouldered into them. “I actually started acting out the memory?”
Lily rubbed her elbows sheepishly. “Yeah. Please don’t do that again; it’s actually quite terrifying. Lance held you once he got here, and kept you from smashing any more vines.” She twisted her lips, looking like she didn’t know what to say, and then hurriedly offered me a glass of water from my desk.
I gratefully gulped it down. Once my throat didn’t sting quite so badly, I turned back to Gwen. “How did you get me out of the memory?”
“Quin used his persuasion to calm you,” Gwen explained. “He convinced you that you were safe, which forced the memory attack to subside.”
“Feeling better?” Lance righted the flower charm from where it had snagged itself on the back of my shirt.
“A little,” I admitted.
“Maybe you should have one of us read about the Legion Spore instead,” Lance suggested, gesturing to where the tablet still sat on my bed. “It’s good to know your enemies, but maybe... maybe we should have you step out of the room when we discuss the Legion Spore at tonight’s meeting.”
I stared at him. “You want to exclude me?”
“No, but—”
“It’s your choice,” Quin interrupted, “meant only for your benefit. We could have Gwen summarize the details, since she knows what triggers these attacks.”
I clenched my fists. They couldn’t keep me out of these meetings; I wouldn’t let them!
But I still felt cold and sweaty, and all my muscles felt loose, like I wouldn’t be able to stand without falling over from dizziness.
“A summary might be nice,” I admitted, defeated.
“Do you think you could help with that?” Quin asked Gwen. “Give her just enough information to keep her informed, but not so much that the attacks start again? You could let her know when it’s safe to come back into the meeting.”
“Safe,” I muttered, my hands crossed over my chest. As if dealing with beasties and the Legion Spore wasn’t bad enough, these stupid memory attacks were making me a threat to myself.
Lance pulled me tighter.
“I can do that,” Gwen agreed.
Despite my frustration, relief snaked through me and the tension in my shoulders relaxed. I would still be involved. I’d just need to take it easy until I could understand these memory seeds better. At least I hadn’t accidently broadcasted the attack with Lady Winters’ charm.
Do you still want to have our evening session? Gwen asked privately.
Of course I did. At this point, nothing would be better than overcoming Lady Winters’ memory seeds with her own blasted artifact.
That evening, we gathered in the training room for dinner. Pops announced that, in four days, we would stop in South Africa to resupply—we had a deal with their government that gave us better prices there than with the OA or in the territories—and Jack insisted on checking with a local game shop to research the Spectator fellow who had been following us—though Inese snorted and said he was really just going for the comics. Once it came time to discuss the Legion Spore, I stepped into the hall and paced the corridor. Gwen gave me little tidbits of information as they discussed what they knew about the vessel, the ongoing attacks in Japan, and what it might mean for us.
Unfortunately, without knowing the Camaraderie’s plan for the Legion Spore, there wasn’t much we could do. For now, it was decided we would continue to lay low. Resupply, find out what was going on with our Spectator stalker, and rely on other rebel factions to provide us information about the Camaraderie’s movements and any news about the time stones. Hardly a step in the right direction of ending beast transformation, but given the circumstances, I couldn’t expect much more. This Legion Spore issue was bigger than anything we could deal with on our own. How were we supposed to stop a vessel that was potentially more powerful than anything the OA could throw at it?
I didn’t know, and neither did they.
After the meeting, Lily caught me on my way to Gwen’s room.
“Jenna?” She flipped her braid over her shoulder as she hopped off the last stair to the deck. I peeked behind her, expecting to see Quin, but she was alone.
“Yeah?”
She started to speak, caught herself, and then blew air through her mouth. “Can I talk to you? In private? I mean, it’s nothing bad, actually it’s good, but I’m not really sure how to say it.”
I frowned. My vines twitched on my arms. “How to say what?”
She huffed. “Look, well... Quin said I should thank you.”
“For what?” I raised an eyebrow. Normally I stayed out of the mercenaries’ ways.
Lily took a deep breath. “It’s—oh, hell with it. Thank you for saving my life. And... I apologize. For that comment about you being a pacifist. Quin said you killed one of the guards while going back for me.” She crossed her arms and raised her chin. “There, I said it.”
I blinked. “You’re welcome? I don’t know that they would have killed you, though. They shot you with a tranquilizer dart.”
Admittedly, given her powers, it was likely they wanted her alive so they could turn her into a beast instead. I grimaced at the thought. She might have been a merc, but I couldn’t picture her as a beast. It didn’t suit her.
“I’m a mercenary who betrayed them,” she said flatly. “I mean, I might be able to pull the ‘spy’ card as the reason for going with you, but that wouldn’t explain why I kept shooting at them. I’d be lucky if they turned me into a beastie and didn’t have any other fun methods of execution.”
Like the Legion Spore.
I squirmed—I still couldn’t believe the Camaraderie actually let it eat people. Sure, it was efficient, but ick. I’d hate to be the person that operated that thing.
Lily stared at me, waiting for a response.
If she was telling the truth, then she had very little reason to betray us—not that I’d count on that quite yet. “Tell Quin ‘thank you’ for rescuing my father,” I said.
She snorted. “Tell him yourself. I’ve been trying to find you all day—well, except for when you had the memory attack. I figured that wasn’t the best time to mention it.”
I flinched. If she could get past the awkwardness to say thanks, maybe I should, too. But still... my stomach twisted into a knot at the thought of trying to talk to him. Sure, he had done a lot to help with the memory attacks, but his use of persuasion...
“Sorry about that,” I said. “I’ve been busy with Gwen.”
“Yeah. Memory seeds. Have fun with those. Um... I was thinking...” She scuffed her shoe on the floor, and then hurriedly rubbed away the resulting dark streak. “Maybe we should hang out more.”
I cocked my head, confused.
“It might help with the attacks. You know... having friends you can talk to.” She rubbed the back of her neck, a pink tint settling in her cheeks. “I’ve heard South Africa has a lot of places to go. Maybe we could hang out there. Give us both a break.”
She had a point. I wasn’t exactly comfortable talking with Lance, since he seemed solely focused on us “dating,” and everyone else on the airship was either gung ho rebellion, or completely Community and unlikely to understand where I was coming from.
Lily seemed to be less... well... she wasn’t as obnoxious as Val, to put it simply. Actually, I didn’t feel any distrust for her that I felt around Val, even if she was a mercenary. Maybe it was because she actually stated her mind—and didn’t seem so quick to hide behind a chipper facade.
Perhaps we had both been too quick to judge each other.
Lily worried her lower lip. Her brown eyes were wide, as if she was afraid I’d say no. It must have been lonely on the airship, with few people to trust her and her brother. As lonely as I had been when I first arrived.
“Okay, sure,” I said. “Sounds like a plan.”
Her eyes lit up, and she grinned brighter than Lance after he found a new favorite comic in Jack’s stash. “Great, it’s a date!” She grabbed my hand to shake it. She stared at our hands a moment, and then quickly retracted her hand, her cheeks bright red. “A calendar date.” She cleared her throat and toyed with her dark braid self-consciously. “Old saying. I’m not sure if you’ve heard it before. Anyways, I’ll catch up with you later.” She bolted back up the spiral stairs.
I stared at her, a half-smile tugging on my face. I really could use a friend. Someone who understood what I was going through, or was at least willing to try.
I rubbed my hand, still smiling, warmth settling in my chest.
Even with the Legion Spore, I’d find some way to make the Community safe. And if I had someone on my side...
Maybe that’s what I needed, even more than getting rid of these memory seeds.
