She’d been so close. If she could have killed the Rocinante, they would never have found her. If she’d died on it, they’d never have been sure, and Holden would have gone down in history as the smug, self-righteous bastard that he was. But her father would have known. All that way away, he’d have heard what happened, and he would have guessed that she’d done it. His daughter. The one he could finally be proud of.
It occurred to her that the other prisoner had gone quiet. That was fine. He was annoying. Her knees ached. Her temple hurt where it pressed against the floor. They called bedsores pressure sores. She wondered how long it took for skin to macerate just from not moving. Probably a pretty long time, and she was basically healthy. She wondered how long it had been since she’d moved. It had been a long time. She found she was oddly proud of that.
The footsteps came again. More of them, this time. The plastic boots made a satisfying clump-clump, but there were other ones now. High, clicking footsteps, like a dog’s claws on tile. She felt a tiny flicker of curiosity, like a candle in a cathedral. The boots came, and with them, little blue pumps. An older woman’s ankles. The bars clanked and swung open. The pumps hesitated at the threshold, and then came in. Once they were in motion, the steps were confident. Sure.
The woman in the pumps sat, her back against the wall. Tilly Fagan looked down at her. Her hair was dyed, and her lipstick the same improbable red that made her lips look fuller than they were.
“Claire, honey?” The words were soft and uncomfortable. “It’s me.”
Tension crawled up her back and into her cheeks. Tension, and resentment at the tension. Aunt Tilly didn’t have any right to be here. She shouldn’t have been.
Tilly put a hand out, reaching down and stroking her head like it was a cat. The first human touch she could remember since she’d come to. The first gentle one she could remember at all. When Tilly spoke, her voice was low and soft and full of regret.
“They found your friend.”
I don’t have a friend, she thought, and then something deep under her sternum shifted and went hollow. Ren. They’d found Ren. She pulled her arm out from under her body, pressed the back of her hand against her mouth. The tears were warm and unwelcome and thick as a flood. They’d found Ren. They’d opened her tool chest and found his bones and now Soledad would know. And Bob and Stanni. They’d know what she’d done. The first sob was like a cough, and then the one after it and the one after, and Tilly’s arms were around her. And God help her, she was screaming and crying into Tilly Fagan’s thighs while the woman stroked her hair and made little hushing sounds.
“I’m sorry,” she shrieked. The words ripped at her throat. They had hooks on them. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“I know, honey. I know.”
She had her arms around Tilly’s waist now, burying her face against her side, holding on to her like Tilly’s body could keep her from sinking down. From drowning. The guard said something, and she felt Tilly shaking her head no, the motion translated through their bodies.
“I did it,” she said. “I killed him. I thought I had to. I told him to look at the readout so that he’d bend, so that he’d bend his neck, and he did. And I—and I—and I—Oh, God, I’m going to puke.”
“Trashy people puke,” Tilly said. “Ladies are unwell.”
It made her laugh. Despite everything, Clarissa laughed, and then she put her head down again and cried. Her chest hurt so badly she was sure something really was breaking. Aortic aneurysm, pulmonary embolism, something. Sorrow couldn’t really feel like a heart breaking, could it? That was just a phrase.
It went on forever. And then past that, and then it slowed. Her body was as limp as a rag. Tilly’s blouse was soaked with tears and snot and saliva, but she was still sitting just as she’d been. Her hand still ran through Clarissa’s hair. Her fingernails traced the curve of her ear.
“You put the bomb on the Seung Un,” Tilly said, “and framed Jim Holden for it.”
It wasn’t a question or an accusation. She didn’t want Clarissa to confess, just to confirm. Clarissa nodded against Tilly’s lap. When she spoke, her voice clicked and her throat felt thick and raw.
“He hurt Daddy. Had to do something.”
Tilly sighed.
“Your father is a first-class shit,” she said, and because it was her saying it, it didn’t hurt to hear.
“I’ve got to tell the chief,” the guard said, apology in her voice. “I mean about what happened. He wants me to report in.”
“I’m not stopping you,” Tilly said.
“You need to come with me,” the guard said. “I can’t leave you there with her. It’s not safe.”
A flash of panic lit her mind. She couldn’t be alone. Not now. They couldn’t leave her locked up and alone.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tilly said. “You go do whatever it is you need to do. I’ll be here with Claire.”
“Ah. That girl killed a lot of people, ma’am.”
The silence was just a beat, and without shifting her head, Clarissa knew what look was on Tilly’s face. The guard cleared her throat.
“I’ll have to lock the door, ma’am.”
“Do what you need to, Officer,” Tilly said.
The bars shifted and crashed. The lock clacked home. The footsteps retreated. Clarissa wept for Ren. Maybe the others would come later. The dead soldiers on the Seung Un. Holden’s lover whom she’d beaten and brutalized. All the men and women who’d died because they’d followed Holden through the Ring. She might have tears for them, but now it was only Ren, and she didn’t think she would stop in her lifetime.
“I deserve to die,” she said. “I’ve become a very bad person.”
Tilly didn’t disagree, but she didn’t stop cradling her either.
“There’s someone I’d like you to talk to,” she said.
Chapter Thirty-Two: Anna
The security force had come first, three soldiers in a shuttle with guns and restraints for Melba. Or Clarissa. Whoever she was. Then, much later, a medical evacuation had come, taking the Rocinante’s crew.
Anna’s own ride arrived almost a day later, not an afterthought, but not a priority. The way things had all come about, she thought not being a priority was probably a sign things were going well for her.
When she arrived on the Behemoth, she had expected to see someone from that ship’s security team. Or, if they were well enough, maybe Naomi and the other two crewmen from the Rocinante.
Hector Cortez stood in the shuttle bay. He smiled when he saw her and raised his hand in a little wave of greeting. The motion reminded her of her grandfather in his failing days: careful and a little awkward. She thought Cortez had aged a decade in a few days, then realized he must have been injured in the catastrophe.
“Anna,” he said. “I am so glad to see you.”
The Behemoth’s massive drum section was spinning now, creating a vertigo-inducing false gravity. Anna’s feet told her that she was standing on solid ground. Her inner ear argued that she was falling over sideways, and kept trying to get her to tilt her body the other direction. It wasn’t enough to make her steps unsteady, but it did make everything feel a little surreal. Having Hector Cortez, celebrity and minister to the powerful, kiss her cheek didn’t make things any less dreamlike.