“Ha, ha.”
I slipped my free arm around his neck and squeezed him in a gentle headlock.
I’m really glad you didn’t get blown up.
“Get off,” he complained, trying to squirm loose. I pulled him closer, and planted a kiss on his cheek just before he got away.
“Blech,” he muttered, wiping the spot.
We’ve got to lie low for a while, I told him.
I expected him to argue, but he didn’t. He nodded, staring off toward the sky like an intense, mini-Dragan.
“I know.”
I’m going to finish this smoke, and then we’ve got to go, okay?
“Yeah,” he said, still wiping his cheek.
We sat in silence for a while. Him staring, and me smoking.
Look, I told him. I know things haven’t always been so great. You lost your home, and now it feels like you’re getting shuffled around.
He blew air through his nose.
I am getting shuffled around, he said.
I admit it’s not perfect, but we care about you. I know we’ve both been distracted, but we both really care about you. Try and understand.
You act like you don’t want me here.
I saw his eyes shimmer a bit, and took his small hand in mine.
I’m sorry if we made you feel that way, Alexei, but it’s not true. Things will calm down, and you’ll see. Give us a chance.
Alexei shrugged, looking down at our hands, clasped together. We want you to be happy, I told him.
He started to say something, and then stopped. I could see the frustration on his face.
I’m… He paused. I want to be. I’m trying, but…
He shook his head, and sighed, pressing his forehead to his knees.
Let us help you, I told him. Not the gonzos. I know you’re into them right now, but—
They care about me.
Maybe, but you don’t know Hangfei well enough to be at a rally like that one in Render’s Strip.
I can take care of myself.
I sighed, blowing smoke through my nose, watching the cigarillo cherry reflected in the glass window in front of me. I held the cigarillo tucked in the corner of my mouth, and stroked his hair with my free hand.
I know you can, Alexei, but there’s a history there. A quarter million people died within spitting distance of that rally today. Some of the old folks in Render’s Strip lived through the Impact. You can’t just show up there and tell people it’s going to happen again.
Alexei’s cheeks flushed red. His eyes were defiant, but he didn’t say anything.
Seriously, I said. You rile up that many people that bad and what do you expect to happen?
“Do you think that’s why the bomb went off?” Alexei asked, his voice cautious.
“Huh?”
“You think it was someone mad at the church?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does Dragan think that?”
“I don’t know, Alexei.”
I could tell there was more on his mind, but he was still rattled, and he didn’t say it. He’d almost died today. Even dodging that bullet, there was a moment where he thought he’d lost Dragan, or me, or both.
Never mind. It doesn’t matter, I told him. It wasn’t your fault, okay?
I scooted a little closer to him, letting our shoulders touch. After a minute, he reached out and put one hand on my arm, and leaned against me a little. We sat like that for a while, before he piped up again. When he did, he sounded distant, and unhappy.
“Gohan wants me to tell you to go see him.”
“He does, huh?”
“Yes. But don’t.”
“Did he say why?”
He shook his head.
“Sam, I want to tell you something.”
“Sure, Alexei.”
“Before, in Render’s Strip, I…”
“You what?”
“I was…”
He never finished. Suddenly, I felt him slump. It wasn’t in a tired or defeated way either, all the life went out of him all at once.
“Alexei?”
His head lolled, and then he crumpled. He slid off my shoulder and fell down onto his back with a thump.
“Alexei!”
I spun around, crouching over him. He was still breathing, I could see that, but his body had gone limp, with one cheek pressed to the glass of the office window next to him.
“Hey,” I said, giving him a shake. When he still didn’t move, panic welled up in my chest. “Hey, what’s wrong with you?”
I shook him again, harder.
“Alexei, wake—”
“He’s fine,” a voice said. “Don’t worry.”
I turned back toward the starry sky and saw that two large points of light phased into view, standing out from the speckled background. They floated there like coals, and I realized that they weren’t actually part of the starscape but right in front of me. They’d appeared in a patch of darkness that blended in with the night sky, a freestanding gate that had opened silently only a few meters away.
The lights were a pair of haan eyes. Instead of the normal red, orange, or yellow, they were a pretty shade of sunset pink, and my breath caught.
Nix.
“He’s only asleep,” he said, the light on his voice box flickering in the dark. “I didn’t want to startle him.”
He stepped through the gate. His movements were jerky, and he shook a little like he had some kind of tremors, but it was him, I had no doubt. His suit trailed behind him, rippling in the summer breeze, and as he approached I saw his heart as it pulsed in his chest. His face looked exactly the same, handsome without being overly so, with the frozen expression of a mannequin, but something wasn’t right. I could feel it, and it grew worse the closer he came.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he croaked. I just stared.
“You are alive,” I whispered. “It’s really true.”
His head lolled as he closed the distance between us, and he held up one shaking hand to point down at me as his voice box flickered, and his voice sifted through like gravel.
“I’ve come to warn you, Sam,” he said. “Something terrible is going to happen.”
Chapter Fourteen
For a minute, I forgot all about Alexei. I stood, stunned, as Nix reached for me, but before his elegant fingers could touch my cheek I took a step back. His signal came in strong, cut by hesitant stops like he couldn’t control it, which felt strange because he’d always been cool, and a little distant. This felt intense. It left me staring, with the cigarillo dangling from between my parted lips.
“I thought you were dead,” I said. “All this time.”
“No. Not yet.”
Nix approached again, his boots clacking on the graviton plating. The closer he got, the stronger the feeling grew. It felt as though he had something bottled up inside, some pressure building that he didn’t know how to release. Up close, it made me a little nervous. It felt like, at any moment, he might snap.
“Nix, what’s wrong with you?”
A gust of wind blew his smell over me, a dank, sour smell that tingled in my nose. I felt his hunger, even as he fought to control it, and the pulses of desperation that bled through in the wake of it. Beneath it all, I felt his fear.
“Nix,” I said. “Hey…”
His footsteps rapped to a stop on the plating and he stood, his draping suit fluttering in the wind like a cape while his sunset pink eyes watched me.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t come before now,” he said. “I’ve been cut off.”