A Million Suns (31 page)

67

ELDER

I SEE IT ALL IN SLOW MOTION, WITH EVERYTHING FUZZY around the edges. The bang from the gun bursts out; a cloud of acrid smoke evaporates quickly, leaving behind only the smell of copper and burning. Doc crumples, an explosion of red erupting from his leg. Amy dives forward, soaring through the air, smacking a pale green patch on Doc's arm.

Another bang. Another gun. Doc's gun.

Another burst of smoke and blood.

Amy crashes down, clutching her arm. Dark red blood seeps through her fingers.

She pulls her hand away, presses her wi-com. Shouts.

She staggers to Victria. Drops to her knees beside the body.

 

I see it all but can't move, can't react. Everything's so heavy and slow. I just stare as Amy screams, choking on her own sobs. Amy presses both hands into the blossoming red stain across the front of Victria's tunic. Blood leaks out of Amy's own sleeve, but she ignores it, intent on putting pressure on Victria's wound.

I move my head and stare impassively at Doc. His dull eyes meet mine. The green patch on his arm ensures that he just lies there, ignoring the bullet in his leg.

I turn back to Amy and Victria.

“NO!” Amy says.

Victria's hand reaches toward Doc. No. Toward Orion.

“NO!”
Amy screams again.

She throws her weight against Victria. Blood pumps between her fingers, spurting out in bubbles of crimson.

“No,” Amy whispers.

Victria's hand goes slack.

 

My face is wet. I raise my hand and touch my cheek. The tears drip from my fingers like the blood dripping from Amy's.

68

AMY

MY HANDS ARE SOAKED IN BLOOD. IT'S STILL WARM, JUST LIKE Victria's body. I move to shut Victria's staring eyes, and some of her blood—or my blood, I can't tell which—drips on her face and slides down her cheek. I don't close her eyes. Let her stare at Orion.

I stand, wiping Victria's blood on my pants. I pull down the neck of my tunic, staring at the bleeding wound in my left arm, just below my shoulder. Doc fired the gun as he fell. The bullet grazed me—and killed Victria.

I shut my eyes, trying to block out the image before me, but all I can smell is gunpowder and blood. I push my wi-com again. Kit answers immediately. “I found the hatch,” she says, breathless. “I'll be there soon.”

I rip the green patch off Bartie, who is standing closer to me, but I don't wait for the light to return to his eyes. Avoiding Victria's body, I cross the genetics lab to reach Elder. When I peel the med patch from his neck, I leave a line of red on his skin.

I bury my head into the soft spot between Elder's chest and arm. My blood seeps through his shirt, but I don't care. I just stand there, willing myself to be as emotionless as he is, even if it's just because there are still trace amounts of Phydus in his system.

When I feel his arms raise and wrap around me, I break. I sob into his chest, wild, loud, uncontrollable sobs that leave me breathless but still aren't enough.

“What the frex happened?!” Kit shouts from the doorway. Her eyes are wide and shocked, jumping from Bartie to us to Doc and finally to Victria.

She drops to her knees beside Victria, ignoring the blood that seeps into her trousers.

“It's too late,” I say.

Her eyes rove across the room, and at first I'm worried that she's too shocked to do any good. I realize, though, that she's evaluating all that's happened and all that needs to be done. She closes Victria's eyes. I've heard people say that dead bodies look like they're sleeping. But not Victria. She had peace and serenity when her eyes were focused on Orion, but now that they're shut, she looks well and truly dead.

Kit reaches into her pocket and tosses me two pale yellow patches. “Antidotes for Phydus,” she says, moving immediately to Doc.

“Don't give him one,” I warn. Kit opens her mouth to protest, but when she sees my look, she nods.

“Perhaps it would be best for him to stay on Phydus,” she says in a worried voice. “He must be in a lot of pain, and the Phydus will dull it.”

“I don't care about that,” I say, my voice cold and hard. “But keep that patch on him.”

Kit's hand hovers over Doc's wound, and she searches my eyes. Finally, she nods slowly, understanding my meaning. She cuts off Doc's pant leg and bends to examine the wound—right where I aimed, just below his knee. Blood pulses from the bullet hole.

I rip open one of the yellow patches and rub it into Elder's skin until I see him wince in pain. He blinks, his eyes clearer.

“Back again?” I whisper.

He nods, a grim expression filling his face. He eyes linger on Victria's body, and I wonder how much he saw and understood while under the influence of the Phydus patch.

“You shot him,” he says, his eyes darting from Doc to me again.

I did. But if I hadn't—maybe he wouldn't have fired his gun either. Maybe Victria would still be alive.

“I had to shoot him,” I say, hoping to convince myself of the fact too.

He nods again. I can't tell if he doubts me or not. Does he blame me for Victria's death?

“How bad is it?” he finally asks, jerking his head toward my arm.

“Are you hurt too?” Kit says, looking up from Doc as she sprays foam on his wound. The foam bubbles up and turns pink as it disinfects the wound. Kit starts to wrap Doc's leg in a large bandage.

“I'll be fine,” I say.

“She's shot,” Elder says. “In the arm.”

He takes the other yellow patch from me and moves over to Bartie. Bartie's eyes are glued on Victria's body the whole time as he shifts from drugged to aware, and once the Phydus has truly left his system, he tries to say something but chokes on the words. He lunges toward Victria, but Elder catches him, and the two stand there, their arms wrapped around each other, all rivalry forgotten in the death of one of their last childhood friends.

“Here,” Kit says.

I jump, surprised—I hadn't noticed that she'd finished with Doc. Kit cuts away the sleeve of my tunic and cleans the wound with the disinfecting foam.

“Is it bad?” Elder asks as he and Bartie break away.

Kit rips open a pale purple patch.

“No,” I say immediately.

“It's for pain.”

“No patches.”

She shrugs and starts to wrap my arm. The bleeding hasn't quite stopped, but it's slower—I probably won't even need stitches. It's Victria who got the full force of the bullet.

“Come on,” Elder says to Bartie.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“We're sending Victria to the stars,” Bartie says.

“Let me help.” Kit tugs the bandage around my arm, tight, and I hiss in pain.

Bartie holds Victria by the shoulders, and Elder stoops to pick up her feet. “We can do this alone, Amy.” Elder's voice is kind, and his eyes beg me to understand. Bartie and Elder need to say goodbye together. They need to remember Victria the way she was before Orion was frozen, and she drowned in her love for him. Before I was unfrozen.

The two men silently carry their friend's body out the door, toward the hatch, leaving only a bloodstain behind.

69

ELDER

BARTIE SLAMS THE HATCH DOOR SHUT, AND I PUNCH IN THE code. We both stand at the window and watch as we send our last childhood friend to the stars.

Through the bubble glass window, we see Victria's body fly up. The pull of the vacuum makes her rise and float backward, her face obscured by her black hair, her arms and legs reaching to me even as they are pulled farther and farther away.

And then she's gone.

 

Kit approaches us as the hatch door closes. Doc—with the green patch still on his arm—limps beside her. Kit tries to use her weight to support Doc, but he's much bigger than she is.

“Let me help,” Bartie says, taking Kit's place under Doc's arm. His voice is gravelly with unshed tears. When I meet his eyes, I know—what's happened in the last three months cannot overshadow what's happened in the last thirty minutes. We're friends again.

“Make sure that patch stays on,” I say, and Bartie nods.

Kit and Bartie take Doc toward the hatch. I think about giving them a hand—it's going to be hard getting him up the ladder—but I don't want to help Doc. I don't ever want to see Doc again.

I go back to the gen lab. Amy, her arm swaddled in bandages, stands in front of Orion's frozen face.

The memories of what happened while I was patched are hard to sort out in my mind. It's the difference between swimming in water and swimming in syrup. But I do know one thing: Doc killed Marae and the others because I'm not as good a leader as Orion would have been.

Amy said Orion had a plan for everything, and I'm starting to think I should have one too. Because I don't know what I'm going to do now.

“You kept those wires,” she says as I step beside her. “The wires to the Phydus machine. You had them the whole time. You went straight to the machine—”

“Doc had patched me,” I say. “I don't think I could have helped but go to the machine.”

“But you had those wires with you the whole time.”

I did. “But,” I say, “I think I deserve some credit for never using them, even if I did have them.”

“Yeah,” Amy says, offering me a hint of a smile. “You do.”

We stare at Orion's cryo chamber.

“What do these numbers mean?” Amy asks, pointing to the LCD screen on the front of the box.

I watch the numbers tick down. “It's a countdown clock.”

“I was afraid of that.”

I bend down, examining the electronics. Apparently, Doc already started the regeneration process. Orion should be unfrozen within twenty-three hours and forty-two minutes. I try to stop the clock, but even though I turn the dial, the screen continues to tick away time.

“Just turn it off,” Amy says, bending down to look at the electronics.

“We can't just unplug it,” I say. I've definitely learned my lesson about that one.

“Well, make it stop.”

“I can't,” I say, fiddling with the dials some more. I notice the screen and keypad. “Doc's locked up the system.”

“Reset it.”

I hesitate. “That could be dangerous. If regeneration has already started, it could damage his body if we just stop it.”

“It's only been going on for twenty minutes,” Amy says. “It can't do that much harm.”

But I'm remembering how I froze Orion without preparing his body. He's already damaged from that. Messing with the cryo tube now might kill him.

“I don't care if it's dangerous. He needs to stay frozen.”

“Amy, it's not that simple. I
can't
. The cryo chamber is only programmed to go one way.”

“I don't want him to wake up,” Amy says in a very quiet voice.

I look at Amy and bite my lip. Because I do.

I don't know if it's because of our shared DNA or because I understand the choices he's made. Maybe it's because of the guns in the armory or the ship records in the bridge. Maybe it's because I'm starting to think Doc was right, and Orion would be a better leader than me. But Orion doesn't seem as loons as before.

Amy puts her hand on my elbow, drawing my gaze away from the countdown clock and back to her. “I couldn't kill him.”

I stare, unsure of how to respond.

“Doc. He had a gun on me. On you. I didn't know which of us he'd shoot.”

I touch the bandage on Amy's arm—not firmly enough to put any pressure on her wound.

“It's just a graze. But when the gun was pointed at us, I thought, ‘I have to kill him, or he'll kill one of us.' But I didn't. I couldn't.”

“Why are you—”

“Elder,” Amy says, “I believe in the bottom of my heart that Orion doesn't deserve to live. There are
some
people,” she adds, emphasizing the word, “that
don't
deserve a second chance. I haven't forgotten what it was like to drown in my cryo box. A day doesn't go by that I don't remember.”

I did that to her. Not Orion. Me.

“Two people are dead, and they died like I almost did. And
he
did that to them.”

“Amy, I can't stop the regeneration process.”

“He doesn't deserve to live.”

“Would you kill him?”

Amy's eyes dance back and forth between mine. She couldn't kill Doc. But her hatred for Orion goes deeper.

“You're right. Some people don't deserve a second chance. But Orion—” I pause, unsure of how to explain. “Orion was wrong, yes. But it's not like he went on a murdering spree or something. He had a reason. He acted out of fear.”

Amy bites her bottom lip, thinking. I know she's comparing Orion, who thought he was doing the right thing, to Luthor, who knew he was doing wrong.

I want to wrap my arms around her and erase the worry etched on her face, but I know it's not as simple as that. “Maybe,” I say, turning back to the cryo chamber. “I can't stop the regeneration. . . . But I can delay it.”

Amy steps aside and lets me focus on the controls on the chamber. I feel two sets of eyes on me: Amy's, begging me to keep Orion frozen, and Orion's, pleading to come back to life.

“I can do it,” I say finally. “I can slow it down.”

“Do it,” Amy says.

I punch the numbers in, adjust the dial, and the countdown clock goes from one day to three.

“Can we keep doing this?” Amy asks. “Every time the countdown clock gets low, can we just add more time?”

I nod slowly.

“That's what we'll do, then,” she says, her jaw set. “We'll just keep backing it up. He doesn't ever have to wake up.”

Amy stares into Orion's bulging eyes with a sort of fierce intensity. But I stare at Amy, unable to recognize this girl with such hatred in her heart.