Fiona looked skeptical. She turned the blood bag over in her hands. “I’ve already got a few purifying herbs distilled in fairly high quantities. Detox stuff. I could do some experimenting, but without an actual sick person to test anything on, I’m not really sure what it’ll be worth.”
I nodded. “I get it. I won’t get my hopes up. Just see what you think of that ingredient by itself and then think about what might help slow or stop a viral infection.” I shoved my hands into my pockets, trying to look casual and probably failing. I never put my hands in my pockets. What a time to start.
“Sound good?” I asked.
“I’ll get right on it,” Fiona said, starting to seem eager, despite her warning about the chances of success.
Maybe it wasn’t the best idea, but I added, “There’s more where that came from. Just let me know what you need, and I can get it.”
“Okay. Great.” She moved toward her lab station and put the blood into a small cooling unit before using an antiseptic wipe to clean off the shiny metallic surface of her worktable.
“Did you ever think that if there’s an outbreak on Starway 8, it’s to draw you there?” she asked without turning around.
Unfortunately, the thought had crossed my mind. I was trying not to let it stop me. “Bridgebane thinks I’m dead.”
“Bridgebane knows you were after large quantities of vaccines. He also knows where you grew up, because he’s the one who put you there.”
I rubbed my arms, feeling chilled. “Could anyone really do that? To children?” It was despicable.
Fiona turned, her brows lifting in question. “You know him better than I do. Could he?”
Infect thousands of kids with something awful just to draw me out on the off chance I hadn’t been squashed by the Black Widow?
My last meal churned in my stomach. “Yeah. I think he could.”
Funny how I still remembered a time when he hadn’t seemed like such a terrible person. He’d brought me toys. Played with me. Talked with Mom. Maybe it had taken a while for my father to brainwash him.
“Then going there is a bad idea,” Fiona said.
A bad idea had rarely stopped me. My only fantastic idea had gotten me caught and locked up.
“Just see what you find, and then we’ll discuss,” I said.
Fiona nodded, already setting up her most powerful microscope. “I’ll let you know if anything looks promising.” She straightened, her face brightening again. “And once the Endeavor is up and running again, we could always slip into the Fold and then get someone else to take the solution over to Starway 8. Someone no one is looking for.”
That wasn’t a bad idea. I hated sending anyone else into danger, but I also knew that a lot of rebels lived for this kind of thing—the daring deed that made them feel as though they’d accomplished something in the endless fight against the Overseer’s regime.
But who could get into the orphanage more easily and safely than I could? I knew the gigantic structure like the back of my hand and could run through the whole place blindfolded. Also, I wouldn’t get sick with whatever was raging through the children.
“Asher. Frank. Macey…” Fiona looked at me over her shoulder again. “Caeryssa’s always up for anything.”
When they weren’t out wreaking havoc, Fiona’s old friends from 17 would lie low in the Fold, popping in and out, just like we did. They were Nightchasers, too, moving food, weapons, equipment, sometimes people. Undertaking anything on a deadline was incredibly stressful, though, because you never knew if you’d find the Fold quickly, or if it would take days and days of searching. But the Fold’s random movements were part of what made it so safe, one of its inexplicable self-defense mechanisms.
“Coltin is Asher’s nephew,” I said. Coltin’s health as a young child had been really iffy, which was why Asher hadn’t adopted him. He’d wanted to, but things had been so touch and go at first that he’d known Coltin had a better chance of survival with Surral looking after him.
Surral had done the doctoring, but I’d ended up doing a lot of the rest. That was how things worked on Starway 8—the older kids stepped in when and where they were needed. I’d been helping out in the orphanage’s sick bay and had seen a young man dropping off an infant. He’d looked so devastated about it that I hadn’t been able to walk away. From the day Coltin had arrived at six weeks old to the time I’d left when he was nearly three, I’d spent more time with him than with anyone else, even Gabe. He’d just seemed to need me. I’d fed him. Rocked him. Heard his first words. Seen his first steps. It had almost been like being a mother.
“Asher could go to Starway 8, then,” Fiona said. “If a patrol stopped him and things started to get sticky, they could verify the connection—no problem.”
That was if Asher was around and easily found. And thinking about Coltin in a box full of sick people made me nervous enough to want to check on him myself. He was healthy enough now, but his breathing was always a bit labored, even when he was just sitting still and listening to a story.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” I said, touching my hand to the panel that would open the door.
For some reason, Shade Ganavan also came to mind. Mr. Space Rogue Phenom was probably pretty good at getting in and out of sticky situations without getting himself stuck.
Chapter 12
Shade wondered what the hell he was doing when he went back to the Squirrel Tree before he had Tess’s parts. He also wondered why the hell he was even getting Tess’s parts. He kept telling himself it was a waste of time to fix her ship. He didn’t mind hard labor, but it was a pain in the ass to do it for no reason.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t quite been able to slap the cuffs on this one yet. It was more than just having met Tess before he saw the job. That first day of repairs, he’d been willing to put in some work just to scope out her ship, her crew, and how things were on the three-hundred-and-fourteenth level of the fucking rip-off Squirrel Tree. He’d wanted to see if he could figure out anything about the stolen goods. But then she’d brought him coffee, and they’d talked.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such an interesting conversation with anyone. Maybe with Susan, but she was more like an eccentric aunt, fluttery and easily distracted. Tess made his blood heat and his mind soar back to the things he used to dream about before he’d gotten himself into a situation where he needed to make a lot of money. His legacy was falling apart in the hands of Scarabin White, and he needed to buy it back before the asshole ruined everything his family had built. Some of the older docking towers were barely safe at this point. Without repairs, people’s lives could be at stake.
Shade zoomed up to the Endeavor in the elevator tube. He stepped out when the lift opened and looked around the platform. No one on watch. The ship’s door wide open.
How the fuck did these people stay alive?
At least the stairs weren’t down, as usual. He knew the crew hardly used them, because he’d been keeping watch. He’d started to feel like a stalker by the fourth flyby of Tess’s platform today, but he’d needed to make sure things were still quiet, and that none of the other bounty hunters had sniffed her out.
A scowl pulling at his face, Shade walked to the open cargo cruiser and rapped hard on the metal floor, calling out a hello as he did.
A small woman showed up a moment later, her long black hair swinging when she leaped back at the sight of him.
Was he that scary?
She set her jaw, looking almost like she was gearing up for a do-over, and then stepped forward again.
“Is Tess around?” Shade asked.
“Name, please,” she said like some clerk at a reception desk. Her hand hovered over the panel that would slide the inner door shut, leaving him closed out on the dock.
“Shade Ganavan.”
He thought she relaxed. “Do you have something for the ship?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No, just a question for Tess.” He’d decided that instead of just watching her, he should try to talk to her. Maybe it would help him figure out what to do next.