Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle #1)(41)

13


    Scarlett




Marc de Vries. Ex-boyfriend #29. Pros: built like a brick wall. Cons: brains like a brick wall.

“Mmmmmaybe,” I murmur.

[store]

Tré Jackson. Ex-boyfriend #41. Pros: looks like Adonis. Cons: knows it.

“Nnnnope.”

[delete]

I’m sitting on our Longbow’s bridge, feet up on my console, my uniglass in hand. The ship is quiet except for the low hum of the engines, the occasional ping from the LADAR sweeps we’ve got running. We dropped out of the Fold through the gate at NZ-7810, and we’re now cruising on low power through a random, low-rent system out in the Neutral Zone. Cat programmed a course to keep us close to the gate before she retired to her boudoir. Just in case we need to run.

Everyone else is in quarters getting some sleep, but lucky me, I drew first watch. So I’m using the time to go through my contacts and delete some of my exes.

Memory was getting full.

Riley Lemieux. Ex-boyfriend #16. Pros: madly in love with me. Cons: MADLY in love with me.

[delete]

It might seem an odd time for the squad to take a nap. My hands are still a little shaky when I think about everything that’s happened in the last day, and I can’t imagine what comes next. But grabbing some beauty sleep is a good idea—everyone needed some rest after the chaos aboard Sagan station and that TDF destroyer. Besides, Tyler thinks better after sleepy-bo-bo’s, and the decision he makes next will probably be the most important one of his life.

No pressure, baby brother.

We’re outlaws. Probably wanted criminals. A Legionnaire squad gone rogue. Though we’re technically under Aurora Legion command, we still broke out of a TDF ship. Attacked Terran personnel. Our own people. And for what?

I chew my lip, eyes flickering over my uniglass screen.

Alex Naidu. Ex-boyfriend #38. Pros: biceps!!! Cons: unknown.

“Why did I break up with you again?”

[store]

I must admit, when I signed up for Aurora Academy, this isn’t exactly how I pictured my career panning out. To be honest I didn’t even really want to join the legion. But Ty was hells-bent on “making a difference,” and there was no way I was letting him join up alone. We grew up without a mom. Dad got killed at Orion when we were eleven. Damned if was I going to lose my twin brother, too.

I remember standing in line with Ty on New Gettysburg station. Both of us thirteen years old, waiting to shuffle up for our turn with the recruiting officer. I remember asking Tyler if we were doing the right thing. If it would all turn out okay.

“I don’t know,” he’d said.

Then he touched the Maker’s mark at his collar and shrugged.

“But sometimes, you just gotta have faith.”

I can cram with the best, so I did okay on my exams. I might’ve actually been good if I tried. The cadet guidance counselor once told me the term if she applied herself had appeared more times on my assessment sheets than on any cadet’s in academy history. But I hated it.

Hated the rules, hated the routine, hated the station.

The boys were fun, though.

Jesse Broder. Ex-boyfriend #45. Pros: A$$: 9/10. Cons: A$$hole.

“Hmmmm …”

[store]

What can I say, I’m a girl of simple tastes.

I hear the soft whisper of the bridge door opening, glance up expecting to see Zila come to relieve me from my shift. Instead, I see our resident stowaway, Aurora O’Malley. The girl out of time.

The girl out of bed?

“How’d you get up here?” I ask.

It might’ve seemed a little mean, but Ty had wisely insisted our young Ms. O’Malley be secured rather than be let loose to roam the ship. Whatever he’d seen aboard that TDF destroyer while rescuing this girl had my baby brother shaken up good. So after she, Kal, and Ty cleaned up, Finian secured Aurora inside the hold with a blankie and extra encryption on the door, which apparently he forgot to lock, because she’s totally standing here in front of me and she sure as hells shouldn’t be.

I remind myself to give Finian some sass about that later.

“Aurora?” I ask.

The girl doesn’t reply. Her hair is mussed from sleep, that thick white streak through her bangs treading the fine line between chic and weird. Her eyes are almost closed. Lashes fluttering. Her right iris is the same bleached white as her bangs now, sadly falling off the line between chic and weird and tumbling right down into spoooooky.

Her movement is stiff, her body language all kinds of weird, and my first thought is that she’s sleepwalking. But that doesn’t explain how she broke out of the hold. Unless Finian’s encryption is so bad that a girl born two centuries ago can break it. In her sleep.

Yeah, I’m really gonna sass him about that one. …

Aurora turns her head, as if surveying the room. It’s hard to imagine what’s going through her head. Two centuries out of time. Nowhere she was supposed to be and a galaxy gone all the way sideways. But she shouldn’t be up here.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

She starts walking, making a beeline for Cat’s pilot console. It’s about now I decide that, whatever the deal is here, our beautiful heroine Legionnaire Scarlett Isobel Jones has just about enough of it.

My hand slips to the disruptor pistol at my waist, and I climb to my feet.