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Something tightened at the back of her waist.
“Alina,” he grunted beneath her, cinching his arm tighter.
She could see vague silhouettes moving all around them, but heard nothing over the buzzing in her ear. Slowly the buzzing turned to screeching… to burning… to fire.
If we jumped, this is normal,she subcommed through the NS.
Wasn’t it?
The ship was always destabilized after a jump, but this… this felt different.
Another jolt sent silhouettes sliding along the floor, down and down into blackness.
Gravity failure.
Or gravity success?
“We are crashing,” Threxin spoke her mind. He had fumbled futilely at the arm of the seat where the sampler should be. The sampler slot was open, but the needle was nowhere to be found. Alina tried to push herself up off his chest and reached over to help.
“Here,” she said, wet fingers following the thin tube to its final point. “Here.”
She clenched the needle in both fingers as she found his wrist, fumbling it in. It… it didn’t stick like it should, but there was no time to guess if it worked.
What could he even do anyway?
She kept her fingers tight against Threxin’s wrist, keeping the sampler in his port lest it should fall without the contact.
“I’m trying…”
Alina’s stomach dropped with that falling and rising feeling, indicating a change of elevation. The trembling smoothed slightly, but only for a few moments before the ship jerked to its other side and then rolled over. Alina and Threxin hung upside down, strapped together as she fought to keep her hands stable, keep the needle in the port.
The next time the ship flipped she heard the union of screams, both in and out of the command center. She didn’tknow if it was people, or if she was imagining it, or if it was the ship itself in its death throes.
Alina screamed as the next jerk ripped the harness through her shoulder. God, she was sure it must’ve broken. But they were upright now, bouncing in a series of screeching jolts. The sirens suddenly went silent, giving way to an escalating roar of sound that came from outside the ship as opposed to in. A crushing growl not unlike the guttural roar of an uhyre.
CHAPTER 59
ALINA
Moisture on her lips and tongue.
Fire sliding up and down her arm.
Wake up.
Nails drilled into her fingertips.
But I don’t want to.
A burning throb cleaving in her shoulder.
You have to, little human.
The familiar voice tempted her from the warmth of her slumber.
A palm on her cheek, water against the seam of her mouth. She licked it off her lips.
“There you are,” the deep voice murmured into her ear, ghosting over her skin.
