Unravel (8 page)

As they went in through the door, Elissa instinctively braced herself against the usual blast of air-conditioning, but it didn't come. They walked into a corridor scarcely cooler than outside, and lit to a gray dimness by low-energy strip lights.

Cadan pushed through another door and they entered a dining area, all shiny steel and smooth white-surfaced tables. It looked like every dining area in every public-funded facility Elissa had ever seen, but at the same time there was something a little alien about it, as if the drink machines and nutri-machines were props, set dressing rather than part of a real room that people used.

Here, although the room was nearly as dim as the corridor, and was already filling with people, no electric lights had
blinked on.
Aren't their sensors picking up that the room is occupied?
A scatter of sand fell from Cadan's boots and Elissa's shoes onto the floor, but no quick blast of suction from the vents at the base of the walls vacuumed it hygienically away. The room's auto-settings—light, hygiene, temperature control—had been turned off.

And now Elissa caught on to the reason that, even before she'd noticed those things, it hadn't felt like a real room. The constant low-level hum she'd subconsciously expected to hear wasn't there. Tiny lights shone steadily from each of the nutri-machines ranged around the room, showing that the power wasn't off entirely, but the room settings—the settings of the whole building?—had been turned to their most economical. The refugee population was rationing energy as well as food. It made sense, of course, but it seemed so . . . drastic, a decision made in a world Elissa had never lived in and that she didn't recognize.

The crew of the
Phoenix
was sharing a table with Lin, Miguel, and some other people Elissa didn't know. There were a few places left free—one of them next to Lin. On Sanctuary, and on the flight back to Sekoia, that was something the crew had seemed to do without conscious thought—always leaving a space for Elissa and Lin to sit together. It was an allowance no one seemed to make for Cadan and Elissa, even though the whole crew knew they were dating—just for Elissa and Lin.

And even though, when she thought about it, it seemed weird that it even mattered, Elissa was usually glad to take the seat next to Lin. Doing so felt . . . right, as if it were somehow making up for the years they'd spent apart, when she hadn't even known Lin was real.

Right now, though, Elissa didn't want to so much as look at her sister. She went toward one of the places at the far end of the table, then realized abruptly she didn't want to sit at the same table, either. Not yet, not until her vision had stopped blurring with furious hurt at just the awareness that Lin was
there
.

She should be hungry. The rest of the crew was eating, and Cadan had gone straight to one of the nutri-machines. And when Elissa thought about it, she knew she
was
kind of hungry, but it was a vague sensation, like hearing a far-off noise. She didn't want to sit at the table, but nor could she face getting herself anything to eat just yet. She went to the nearest drinks machine instead of the nutri-machine where Cadan stood, and dialed herself a hot chocolate. When it was there, sugary-sweet, curling steam up into her face, she didn't want that, either. But the heat of the cup felt good in her hands, and at least it gave her something to focus on, something to stop her gaze sliding to where Lin sat.
How could you do that to me? How could you do that when I said no?

Her fingers tightened on the cup. She looked past the table to where Cadan still stood at the nutri-machine, waiting for the dinner he'd dialed. She couldn't even
think
about Lin, not yet. And anyway, having gone through those horrible ten minutes of refusing to consider the possibility that Cadan might be dead, she could really do with a few minutes of being close to him instead. Close enough to remind herself he was alive. Safe, and alive, and in love with her.

She left the drinks machine and went toward him. She had to go past where Lin sat, eating her food—a bowl of long noodles and crispy protein. The scent of soy sauce, chili, and ginger, sticky-salt-and-sweet, came up to Elissa, and
she couldn't help but be aware that as she went behind Lin's chair, Lin looked around at her, appeal and hurt showing in the way her head moved, the hunch of her shoulders. But Elissa still couldn't respond. Lin was doing better than she was, for God's sake. At least she could bring herself to
eat
.

Elissa went to stand beside Cadan. He glanced down and put his arm around her.

The machine hummed, tomato soup pouring into the cup waiting on the dispenser ledge. She leaned against him, smelling dust and burned rocket fuel, and, almost hidden underneath, the scent that was Cadan. When he tipped his head so his cheek brushed the side of her forehead, stubble scraped against her skin.

“I'm glad you're not dead,” she said.

She felt him smile. “Trust me, me too.” He took the full cup of soup from the dispenser and set it on top of the machine. The display blinked to let him know its next item was on its way: Baked Potato Cheese Meal. “Lissa?”

Even with her nose trying to close itself off from the burned scent that clung to him, there was a ton of comfort just being here with his arm around her. “Mm?”

“Thanks for not freaking out when I sent you all back to the ship. If you'd made a scene . . .”

“You'd have been completely distracted. And you might have ended up dead.”

He laughed a little, quietly, into her hair. “I do most sincerely hope I'd have avoided being quite
that
distracted. But yeah, pretty much.”

The platter containing Baked Potato Cheese Meal—a steaming, bland white mound that probably, Elissa thought, didn't retain even a cellular memory of being a real potato—slid out
of the machine. Cadan disengaged his arm from Elissa and was digging a fork through it almost before he'd taken it off the tray. She had a sudden memory of him and Bruce as constantly starving fourteen-year-olds, hacking into the programming of the stove in her mother's kitchen so they could get it to produce unlimited amounts of pancakes. She hadn't seen Cadan eat like that since he'd finished growing a couple of years ago, but she guessed a high-stress fight like the one he'd just gone through burned a whole lot of extra calories, in fear and adrenaline if not actual physical work.

“Lis? You having anything?”

She screwed up her face. “I'm not trying to, like,
diet
or something. I just . . .” she reached over to scroll up and down the menu, her throat sticking at the idea of actually eating any of the options on it. “I keep thinking I'll be sick if I try. Although I guess, like you said once, electrokinesis does use up energy fast, so I really need to . . .”

Cadan swallowed a mouthful of potato so big Elissa had been vaguely surprised he could fit it on the fork. “That
was
you, then? Both of you?”

She scrolled back to the top of the menu before speaking. She'd assumed he knew. Somehow, having to tell him, having to admit to it, was worse than if he'd already guessed. “Yes.”

“Okay.” His voice didn't betray anything. He picked up his soup with his free hand, blew on it, and took a gulp.

Her insides cramped. She hadn't looked up at him and couldn't hear any emotion in his voice. But if he were feeling the same horror at what she'd done as she was . . .
If Lin has made Cadan look at me differently I will never forgive her, never, never, never. . . .
“You didn't know?”

“Well, I wasn't certain. It made sense, sure, but I've seen Lin do some pretty impressive things by herself, too. And . . . I guess . . . it seemed more like her style than yours?”

Elissa opened her mouth to reply, and realized that she was right on the edge of tears. She clamped her mouth shut, clenching her teeth so hard her jaw twitched. Hell. Hell and hell and
hell
. She had to get control of herself or she was going to cry. And she was
damned
if she was going to cry in front of everyone—in front of Lin, who'd done this to her. She lifted her cup to take a sip, needing to do something to distract herself, but her hand was shaking enough that a little of the hot liquid slopped over the edge, sploshing onto the floor.

“Lissa.” Cadan put down his own cup and plate, and both his arms came around her, one hand steadying hers. “What is it? What's wrong?”

“I can't . . . ,” she said, her voice a whisper, a thread holding back the tears. “I can't
talk
 . . . not here . . .”

“That's no problem,” said Cadan, and then somehow he'd gathered up her drink and his own food and, arm still around her, he was turning her away from the table, turning her so they wouldn't get a glimpse at her face, steering her toward the nearest door. “Markus,” he threw over his shoulder, “Lissa and I need some fresh air. We'll be back in thirty minutes, okay?”

Over at the other side of the table, Ivan chuckled. “Fresh air is what you kids call it nowadays, is it?”

Cadan laughed, as if everything were normal, as if the worst thing going on was Ivan trying to embarrass him. “Keep your comments to yourself, would you? You've surely seen me go get some fresh air before Lissa came along?”

“Actually, Captain, that's something I'm glad I always managed to avoid,” said Ivan, a world of suggestion in his tone, and Elissa heard several people break into laughter too as she and Cadan reached the door and he let go of her to slide it open.

“Jeez,” he said, as it snapped shut behind them, and now there was embarrassment in his voice, “I should have known I was opening myself up to that one, huh?”

They went along another of the dim corridors, then out of the building to where floodlights poured over the sand, colorless, and so bright that Elissa's eyes stung momentarily.

Cadan set their sort-of meal down on the sand and dropped to sit beside it, picking his fork up from where it had been standing upright in his potato plate. He patted the ground beside him, and Elissa sat. She picked up her cup, then put it back on the sand and hugged her knees to her chest.

“Tell me,” Cadan said.

Where she'd moved the cup, the edge of spilled chocolate on the bottom of it had left a semicircle of damp stickiness in the sand. She ran her finger along it, pushing the sand up to cover the sticky line. “It
was
both of us,” she said.

“Yes.”

“But I didn't want to. Lin”—she spread her hand, digging each fingertip under the sand, still warm from the heat of the day—“Lin made me.”

She heard hesitation in Cadan's voice. “You mean, like when they were doing the procedures on her and she dragged you into going through them with her?”

“No.” What Cadan was talking about—that had happened, and it had caused the pain and blackouts that had wrecked three years of Elissa's life. But she'd never blamed Lin for
it—it had been involuntary, a terrified, automatic reaction to pain that the human body wasn't meant to bear.

“No, not like that. She . . .” Elissa swallowed. It should feel like a relief to be telling someone, but it didn't. It felt like revealing an awful, shameful secret. “She exploded that first ship herself, and then she was trying to do the same with the next one. But she couldn't, she was running out of strength. She asked me to help her. I mean, no, she didn't really ask, she put her hand out—I knew what she needed me to do.”

She stopped, turned the cup around and around, screwing it into the sand. “I said no. I
couldn't
. I know they were attacking us, and I know it was pretty much self-defense, but I—I just . . .”

“It's okay,” came Cadan's voice above her bent head. “It's not a little thing, to kill someone, even if it is self-defense.”

She hadn't known if he'd understand. Tears burned in her eyes and she blinked them away. “So I couldn't. I said no. I said sorry. And she”—all at once, it was as if a huge fist closed on her insides, making her belly burn and tighten—“she said
she
was sorry too. And then she grabbed me, she wouldn't let me go. She forced the link, and then she used me to help her explode the second ship.” Within her, everything cramped, the huge fist clenching tight. “I felt it happen. I felt what she was feeling—the triumph. And now—”

She rose to her knees, shaking all over, her voice cracking. “Now it's in
my
freaking memory! Now
I
know what it's like to kill someone! Even though I wasn't the one who intended it, I wasn't the one who did it. I don't
want
that memory in my head!”

“No,” said Cadan, a single syllable, very calm.

Now that the words had come, they wouldn't stop. Elissa
knelt in front of him, still shaking, words falling over one another and tangling together, gesturing with wide jerky movements, punctuation to words that by themselves would never be enough to convey what she needed him to understand.

“It's not like she doesn't know! I said, way back, I'm not
okay
with killing people. I get, I
get
how if it's self-defense, that sometimes someone might have to do it. But I said
no
. I told her I couldn't. It wasn't like she panicked and didn't realize—it wasn't like how she used to reach out to me when she was in tons of pain and she was too desperate to know what she was doing. I said
no
. I said no, and she
knew
I was saying it, she
knew
. She said sorry and then she
did it anyway
!”

She threw her hands out, fury pouring through every nerve, so fiercely that it felt as if her fingers would throw sparks as she moved. “That's not sorry! It's not sorry if you do it
anyway
! It doesn't freaking
count
!”