“I think you’re making a mistake. Yeah.” He waved a hand to shut her up as she opened her mouth to argue. “I know—it’s good money, but I have a bad feeling about taking this job.”
“It’s too late now.”
“No it’s not—we can shove the bastard out of the airlock.”
“You want to shove the Leader of the Known Universe out of the airlock?”
She studied his face, trying to decide whether he really considered it a viable option. You could never tell with Rico. He could come across as a smooth charmer, but beneath that lurked a darkness. No one managed to survive for over fifteen hundred years by being nice.
“We should consider it.”
“And what do you reckon that would do to my chances of getting the Meridian treatment?”
“I’ve never really understood why you were so set on joining the Collective. You’re a loner, and they’re about as close a group as you’re likely to come across. They’re in each other’s heads. I’m not sure you’d cope with that.”
“Skylar has broken away.”
“She’s still in contact. I think it’s something she’ll always need.” He didn’t sound too happy about the idea. “So why? Why do you want it so badly?”
“I don’t know.” She studied her fingernails. “Okay, I do know—but it’s a bit pathetic.”
He raised his eyebrows, and she pushed herself to go on. “I have this one happy memory of my time in the research station. I’d only been there about a year or two, and there was this visit by a member of the Collective—”
“What were the Collective doing there?”
“How the hell should I know? I was only six at the time, and they didn’t exactly discuss policy with me. But anyway, she was like an angel, so beautiful and nice—she gave the children chocolate and…” She shook her head. “You don’t know what it was like in that place.”
“I saw some of it, and I can guess the rest,” he said softly.
“She just stuck in my mind. I lived with the fear of dying every day—they taunted us with it—how we would end up in the mines and everyone knows that’s a death sentence. So I had this dream that I’d get the Meridian treatment, and I’d be immortal, and I’d never die.” She shrugged. “I told you—pathetic.”
“There is another way to get immortality.”
At last, she knew where this was going.
“After the god-awful mess I made with Bastion, I promised I’d never change anyone again,” Rico said. “But I’ll do it for you. Just say the word, we’ll toss flyboy out of the airlock, and I’ll give you immortality.”
For long minutes, she stared at the toes of her boots while she considered what to say to him. After that first time, Rico had never bitten her again, never even hinted he wanted to. She knew he was immortal, but she’d also seen what else he was, the hungers that drove him. He’d once told her that sex helped him keep the darkness at bay. She never wanted to be like that. Never!
“I can’t, Rico. I appreciate the offer, but really I can’t.”
“Why? There’s no pain, and I’ve never known anyone not to survive.”
“I don’t want to be like you.” She bit her lip.
“Really,” he drawled. “You’d rather be like that arrogant bastard?”
“And Skylar,” she said quickly. “Skylar is Collective. So, they’re not all bad.” But Rico was her friend, and he deserved to know the truth. She took a deep breath. “I don’t like being touched, and I can’t face sex. Back in that place…” A shudder ran through her and she took a deep breath. “In the research station—”
“They raped you?” he interrupted, his tone harsh.
“No. They would have had to see me as human for that, and most of them didn’t. But they did experiments on us. Week after week, year after year.” She hated this; even talking about it revived the memories. Waking on a table, strapped down, while they—No, she wouldn’t think about it. “I thought maybe I was over the fear. But just now, Callum kissed me and—”
“He did what?” Rico’s outraged question cut off her flow. Maybe she should have kept that to herself, if only for the sake of shipboard harmony.
“He kissed me.”
Rico jumped to his feet. “Where is he? I’ll kill the bastard.”
For the first time since Callum had kissed her, she smiled. “Goddamn it, Rico, you’re not my freaking father.”
After a long moment staring at her, he sat back in his chair. “You’re right. Finish what you were saying.”
“There’s not much else—he kissed me, and I was right back in that cell. It was as if the last fifteen years just vanished. I was so full of fear and rage. You told me once that you use sex to keep the darkness at bay—I don’t want to live with that choice.”
Lips pursed, he looked at her for long moments, then nodded. “Okay.”