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“Give us the room,” Serihk sharpened his tone, and the diplomat shut his mouth and gathered his tablets without another word. Heads down, everyone shuffled out, leaving the brothers alone. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s clotting.” Sazahk had accepted the gauze and medical tape from the nurse who’d chased him and bandaged the back of his neck as he’d raced across the station to the Senate offices.
“It’ll get infected.” Serihk set his tablet down on a desk against the wall and started toward him.
“It won’t.” Sazahk plucked a tentacle from the floor’s molding and brandished it in front of him, making Serihk stop. “The gauze is sterile, and no qesh has died of an infection in centuries. But I’m not here for that, Serihk, I?—”
“I know why you’re here.” Serihk clasped his hands behind his back. “But there’s nothing I can do.”
Sazahk dropped his barrier, and this time, he approached his brother. “You can get them out.”
“I can’t.”
“Of course you can.” Sazahk stopped short of grabbing him, hovering at arm’s length. “You’re the most powerful man in the Senate?—”
“I’m really not.” Serihk flushed orange.
“You can call someone or threaten someone or bribe someone or manipulate or?—”
“Is that what you think I do?”
“Or pull strings somewhere in your vast network of power”—Sazahk waved a hand and tentacle around to encompass the amorphous currents of authority that all seemed to converge through his brother “—to remove them from this situation.”
“I can’t change Human law and I certainly can’t change Andrew Wate.” Serihk swiped a hand through Sazahk’s imaginary web of influence. “As barbaric as they are, Human laws are very clear. Trespassers forfeit all rights to life. Dominic Turner is on Wate property illegally, and Wate has every right, and believe me, every desire, to kill him.”
“It’s—” Sazahk choked up as the well of emotions overflowed into his throat. “It’s not just Dom.”
Serihk frowned and blue speckled across his cheeks. “What do you mean?”
Sazahk couldn’t shake the picture Patrick had painted for him: Garin and Dom pinned down behind the bulletproof door of a Wate Group server room. Nothing between them and death but stainless steel and Dom’s ability to hack the security system enough to keep it there. They could be injured. In the time it had taken for news to reach Sazahk and for Sazahk to reach Serihk, they could already be dead.
But it wasn’t Dom Sazahk’s mind circled, as much as he cared for him.
Garin overtook every signal Sazahk’s every neuron fired. All Sazahk could think was that two days ago Garin had been fine and now Garin might be dead and a part of Sazahk, a terrifyingly large part, felt like it might die with him. And he knew that was illogical, because one didn’t become truly attached to another person in as short a time as they’d had together, but to have no more time? For the possibility to be wiped completely away?
It staggered him.
“Sazahk.” Serihk grabbed Sazahk’s shoulder, grounding him, and Sazahk realized his brother hadn’t touched him in ten years. “What do you mean, it’s not just about Turner?”
“I mean, he’s not the only one there. He’s not the only person the Wate Group has their murderous sights set on.” Sazahk swallowed and swayed into Serihk’s hand. “They have his bodyguard, too. Kevin Garin.”
Serihk’s eyes narrowed as he searched Sazahk’s face, clearly not following Sazahk’s train of thought. And why would he? He didn’t know about Sazahk’s feelings. He probably didn’t even know about Garin. Because for all Serihk’s championing of civilians and the common man and for all his fury and indignation over Human oligarchs and nepotism, he still assumed the only figure of any note in the current situation was the Turner. “And that man is important to you?”
Sazahk nodded mutely and the muteness more than the nod likely made Serihk pull back, eyes widening.
“Oh.” Serihk’s throat flooded with blue and gray. “He’s—You—” Serihk put his other hand on Sazahk’s other shoulder and squeezed. “He is important to you.”
Sometimes Sazahk forgot Serihk had known him longer and better than anyone. “Please, brother, help me.” Sazahk grabbed Serihk’s wrists. “Just help me this time.”
Serihk winced, the first true crack in his brother’s armor Sazahk had ever seen. “I didn’t know, Sazahk.”
Sazahk frowned, thrown by his brother’s wrecked voice and the gray and orange spiraling up his throat. “About Garin? You couldn’t possibly have?—”
“No. About what they did to you.” Serihk dug his fingers into Sazahk’s shoulders, then loosened his grip with a shuddering sigh. “You think I’m this all-powerful being who knows and dictates everything, but by the time I found out they’d detained you and taken your implant, it was already done.”
“That’s not true.” Sazahk released Serihk’s wrists and stepped away, but Serihk held on. “That’s not true. You arranged it. You thought you were negotiating a deal for me, you?—”
“Yes, I arranged for you to be cut off from the Archives and stripped of your access and position instead of being incarcerated, but I didn’t arrange for them to mutilate you.” Serihk bared his teeth, red and black slicing through the orange gathered on his jaw. “I wouldn’t have let them do that to you. If I had known, if I could have stopped it, I would have.”
