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“Joan?”
“Garrett?” Joan’s voice came back worried and a little accusingly. “Did you just take off in a storm?”
“There were extenuating circumstances,” Garrett growled back. “But Joan?”
Something in his voice must have tipped Joan off even through the radio static because she paused. “What?”
Garrett glanced at Maxwell’s body, still wrapped in a blanket but now pressed against the back wall after their mad escape, and he had to swallow the razor blade in his throat before replying. “I need Leon. I need Leon as soon as I land.”
* * *
As promised, when Garrett rolled his ship to a stop on the beat-up landing strip of the Carta sky port, he saw Leon Hess standing on the tarmac in a wide, solid stance with his arms crossed over his chest. Just the sight of him looking focused and in charge made the tension in Garrett’s body—the only thing still holding him together—release, and he started shaking as he powered down the engines.
Flanking Leon were some of Garrett’s most familiar faces from the Resistance—Colin, Jason, Evan, Bonita—and as soon as Garrett released the gangway, Leon jerked his chin toward the ship, and they all swarmed onto it.
Garrett had managed, in halting and broken sentences, to explain the basics of what had happened back on Thule to Leon, and so he didn’t get up to warn the other Resistance members about what they would find on the ship. He heard the commotion behind him, but it wasn’t anything more than surprise at the sudden people striding onto the ship and maybe some relief. Within seconds of their landing, he saw three people striding away in front of him from the windshield: Jason and Evan, with the qesh held firmly between them.
As they passed under the windshield, the qesh looked up at him, and Garrett quickly looked away before he could meet his eyes.
A split second after that, the cockpit door slid open, and Garrett spun his chair around to face it. “Leon.” Garrett reached for him, knowing his legs wouldn’t be able to hold him if he tried to stand.
“Garrett.” Leon rushed forward and pulled Garrett against him, and Garrett pressed his forehead into Leon’s stomach, squeezing his eyes shut.
Garrett kept shaking as Leon carded his fingers through his hair. “I hate Thule.”
“I know.” Leon hooked one of his hands around Garrett’s neck and petted his skin with his thumb. “I didn’t know Joan was sending you down there. I wouldn’t have let her. I’d have sent someone else.”
Before Garrett could say anything, hurried footsteps approached the open cockpit door and then suddenly stopped. He lifted his head to see Colin, wide-eyed with a hand over his mouth, staring into the corner, and Garrett knew exactly what he saw.
Colin took one more shaky step forward. “Is that…”
Leon shifted to block Garrett’s view of Maxwell’s body when Garrett tried to lean around him. “Yes. Take him to Sazahk.”
Colin shook his head slowly. “I don’t think there’s anything Sazahk can—”
“Just take him,” Leon snapped, and Colin jerked a nod and hurried to agree. When Colin lifted the bundle of blankets into his arms, Garrett swayed forward and started to push to his feet. Colin couldn’t take him. Garrett wasn’t ready for Colin to take him.
But Leon firmed his hands on Garrett’s shoulders and kept him down, and Garrett watched, his heart bleeding into his chest, as Colin disappeared out of the cockpit.
“Leon.” Garrett grabbed at Leon’s shirt as he nearly fell forward off the chair. “I…I saw it. All I could do was watch as he…as he fucking shot him.”
“I know.” Leon held Garrett’s head tightly against him. “It’s not your fault.”
Some part of Garrett knew it was ridiculous to cry and shake in Leon’s arms over having seen someone get shot and killed. Garrett had seen plenty of people die. He’d killed people, and he’d lost people. But this had been different…
“Come on.” Leon squeezed Garrett’s shoulder. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Garrett nodded and let Leon pull him to his feet and support him out of the cockpit and down the gangway as though he couldn’t walk for himself. The passenger cabin was empty, everyone rescued from Tava already having been swept away by the veritable army Leon had brought with him to greet the ship, and Garrett was thankful not to have to put on a brave face or a show for anyone else.
Leon walked them in silence back to his and Sebastian’s room as Garrett watched the ground pass under their feet. He didn’t know what to think. He was too scared to think about anything. Every thought felt dangerous and slippery and painful. By the time Leon closed the door behind them, shutting them away into actual privacy, and sat Garrett down on the chair at the desk, Garrett only knew one thing to be true.
He dropped his head into his hands and hunched his shoulders. “I don’t want him to be gone.”
He didn’t want to never see Maxwell’s indulgent smile or his raised eyebrows or the way his lips twitched and he looked away when Garrett said something outrageous so that Garrett wouldn’t see just how amused he was.
He didn’t want to never hear his voice again or the patient, kind, firm way he spoke to people.
He didn’t want to never just be with him again, basking in that aura he had that always made Garrett feel calm and simple and nice and safe.
