Page 65 of Meteor Storm

“This was just a learning experience for you?”

“Everything is a learning experience.” He tapped the panel and the room slowly began to wipe the terrain clean and return to its neutral state.

I wanted to slap him…

Not because I was angry, but because I was feeling something. Something strange and out of place. Because he was doing something to me that I never imagined someone could and I couldn’t use Mekah Prime as an excuse anymore as to why I was attached. He was filling my thoughts, distracting me. Consuming me. Turning me to mush when I should have been guarded. And our brief little game of tag only excited those feelings.

I shouldn’t have wanted to be chased, but it was him, and the butterflies in my stomach went wild at the memory of how he fucked me in the arena because he caught me.

It wasn’t just his warmth I wanted. I had a crush. Or maybe it was more than a crush. Whatever it was, it was problematic.

I hugged myself, cold and uncomfortable, and stared up at Thilar, my brows pinching in the middle.

He was surely oblivious to the fact that I was attracted to him.

At least… I hoped he was oblivious, but when his face relaxed and his eyes made a quick but thorough pass over my whole body, I had a hunch that he was catching on.

I swallowed nervously only to see his eyes move to my throat, attentive.

“Perhaps I made it too challenging,” he said, taking note of my shivering. “You are newly recovered from Mekah.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m the one that suggested it.”

“Humans, you say, don’t have simulations like this.”

“No, but I wish we did. They’d come in handy.”

“Did it stress you out too much? I did not consider that it might remind you of the games.”

“It did a little,” I admitted, though not the parts he assumed.

He turned, walking to a silver bench that had been buried in holograms before. His jacket was folded there and as he made his way toward it, my eyes dropped to his perfect, masculine strut and his firm backside again. I diverted my eyes, shaking my head at how ridiculous I was being, and slowly followed him, rubbing my hands together to get the blood flowing back into my fingertips.

Once he had his jacket back on, I was hoping I would feel less depraved, but he looked just as good with it covering his rippling muscles as he did bare-chested. I groaned with irritation, which caught his attention.

“I meant to ask,” he said, gesturing toward my midsection. “About what happened to make someone wound you like that.”

I shrugged. “It’s a really long story. The short version is that someone was responsible for my sister’s death and I tried to make them answer for it.” I cleared my throat, a sudden wave of residual pain echoing from my past. “I got into the military. Didn’t finish. It was too hard when I found out my sister died.” I paused again. “Natascha didn’t move on from things like I did. Our childhoods were different. She wanted to forget, so she used things to make her forget. And she got addicted to them. More than once. It got her involved with a guy that was really bad for her.

“When I joined the military, I thought it would make me stronger so I could protect people. But I couldn’t protect her. She wanted drugs and she did anything to get them. And it got her dead.

“Sanchez was dirt. He treated women like business investments. I became one of his investments to find dirt on him because everyone believed Natascha’s death was suicide. But he figured me out. Found out Natascha and I were in the same foster home and before he even asked questions, he arranged for one of his guys to put a few bullets in me on the street. He couldn’t even do it himself, the coward. He had me killed on a suspicion… which is exactly what I was going to do.”

I sighed, sitting down on the bench and rubbing my still-cold arms. “The media said I died, but they never found out I was revived. The world thinks Amelia is gone. I was military. I intended to eventually be a cop, so my death got people’s attention. Not like my sister’s. An investigation was opened and I was put into witness protection. They thought Sanchez would try to kill me again if he found out I was alive, so they sent me away. My name was changed to Penelope, I got a job on the Nexus, as far away from Sanchez as possible, and tried to forget about the whole thing.”

It stung thinking about it again after everything.

“For all I know, Sanchez is still alive. And I’m here… on a ship… in the middle of space.” I went quiet for a moment, reflecting on how twisted it sounded. “I’m sure that all makes very little sense to you. You fight a different fight every day. You fight wars.”

“It is true I don’t understand some of your words and some of your phrasing or your cultural practices, but I understand the situation left a mark on you. Not just physically. Monrians are trained for hardship, but we are also trained to know that others are not like us.”

“You saying monrians don’t feel emotions?”

“No. We feel quite deeply. But we are usually very good at controlling how it affects us.”

“Seems like a nice trick. Humans are not good at that. We are cursed with feeling a lot and then letting it tear us apart. We don’t take loss very well. I wish we did, but we don’t. We don’t take anything well, actually. Most of us are popping pills on a daily basis just to function. I’m sure that sounds ridiculous. After my sister died, I thought I’d be one of those people. If I wasn’t here, maybe I would have been.”

“Monrians do not know parents or siblings,” Thilar continued, sitting beside me on the bench. “We are raised by our superiors and trained where our strengths would benefit us most. I cannot relate to the bond you seem to have had with your sister, but I can relate to the sense of loss. The loss of control and perhaps what you thought was your purpose.”