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“Garrett.”
No mistaking it now. That was his name. His heart pounded in his chest. He couldn’t breathe.
“Shut up,” he managed to snarl. “And run.”
He waited until the qesh obeyed, falling and scrambling forward as though he didn’t know how to work his own body, before following after him. Halfway to the ship, Garrett’s heart had pounded its way up into his throat, clogging his breathing and making his head spin.
He was so fucking scared.
Everything was too much, and he just wanted to crawl under a rock and curl up and wail and wait for it to all pass him by.
But Leon had warned him about the feeling, and so Garrett put one foot in front of the other until one of them finally hit the metal of the gangway. He looked up to see Kira helping the sobbing old man into the ship and the qesh only a step above Garrett, hesitating and staring between the two of them.
When Kira looked back and saw the qesh, the fear on her face transformed into rage, and Garrett moved quickly to keep shoving the qesh up the gangway. “It’s not him,” Garrett yelled at her over the wind whipping in their ears. “It’s a torvar.”
Kira’s eyes widened, and she stepped back into the ship, then flicked her wide eyes to Maxwell’s body in Garrett’s arms.
Garrett’s knees almost collapsed at the implication, but he kept himself moving forward until they were all in the ship, and he hit the button to close the door. He didn’t wait for it to finish sealing before—still clutching Maxwell’s body to his chest—he stumbled into the cockpit, sat heavily down on the pilot’s seat, and spun up the engines.
That would be enough to start the air filtration systems.
It started up the radio too, and as soon as it came online, Patrick’s voice crackled out of it, heavy with interference. “We’re above you, but the storm has completely hidden you from view.”
Garrett slumped into his seat, his whole body heavy as he waited for the engines to finish turning on. “I don’t think they’re worried about us anymore anyway.”
“Roger. Did everyone make it out?”
Garrett tightened his grip on Maxwell’s body, cool now to the touch, and his eyes stung. “No.” Then he turned off the radio before he had to elaborate.
“Resistance.”
Garrett spun his chair to the cockpit entrance to see Kira next to one of the klah’eel guards who looked like he might faint with terror of the man he held in front of him: the qesh, with his arms twisted around behind his back, and his chin dropped to his chest.
As the fear receded in Garrett’s blood, rage rose to take its place, and he shoved himself up to his feet. “Who the fuck are you?”
The qesh’s whole body jerked away from him and back into the klah’eel who held his arms. When he finally looked up at Garrett, his dark, fathomless eyes were wide and black and maroon swirled across his cheeks and nose. Then those eyes flicked down to Maxwell’s body.
“No!” Garrett yanked Maxwell’s body back as though to shield it from the qesh’s insinuating gaze. “Don’t fucking answer that question.” He bared his teeth and stepped forward, and the qesh shrank before him. “We’ll fucking find out.”
Kira glanced between them but stayed steady in a way that reminded Garrett of Martha. “What do you want us to do with him?”
“Take him away and handcuff him.” Garrett turned back to the control panel. He couldn’t look in those eyes anymore. They were too scared, too hurt, too different, and too… He squeezed his own eyes shut and shoved away all the weird, tender, hopeful feelings that swirled around in his chest.
“He needs a collar!” the guard finally blurted out, his voice comically high and frantic for such a huge man. “Or he’ll get out and kill us all!”
Garrett snorted and waved the hand that didn’t still hold Maxwell against his chest over his shoulder before flicking a few more switches with it. “A collar wouldn’t keep him from doing jack shit.” Garrett had seen the wounds and scars on Sebastian’s various bodies. He knew a torvar—or at least one of Sebastian’s caliber—didn’t only need to enter and exit through the neck. “If he wants to kill us all, he will.”
“I won’t.” The qesh spoke for the first time a word that wasn’t Garrett’s name, and Garrett hunched his shoulders at the familiar drawn-out vowel.
“There, see, he won’t.” Garrett flicked a few more switches and then looked back at the door to see all three still standing there, and he fought down a growl of frustration. “Now go! We’re taking off.”
Once all three had finally left—without a glance back from the qesh that Garrett realized with a stab of self-loathing he’d been looking for—he dropped his face into his hands.
Fuck.
Fuck.
He dragged himself out of his seat, gently laid Maxwell’s body on the floor beside it without looking too closely at it, and then opened up the storage in the ship’s siding. He pulled out a thick blanket, then paused with the rough fabric gripped in his hands. The last time he’d touched this blanket, he’d been curled up in it with Maxwell wrapped in his arms.
