Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle #1)(46)

But I can’t.

I can’t pull away. He’s holding me too tight. And I can’t breathe and I can’t speak. I push hard, forcing him off me, but it’s like he’s made of tar. Pieces of him come with me as I pull back, long strings of him stretching between us like human taffy. Seeping in under my skin.

“Let me go!”

He looks me and smiles, and his irises are shaped like blue flowers.

“Ra’haam,” he says.

“Let go!”

“Ra’haaaaaaam.”

?????

“Aurora?”

I open my eyes, heart thundering, blinking in the light. Scarlett’s sitting beside me, Zila and Kal standing above me. My mouth is dry as chalk and I ache all over. But slowly, I realize I’m still here. Not there.

A nightmare.

I don’t know whether to be relieved or heartbroken all over again. I’m not home, not back in my room. I’m on a spaceship a million light-years from any of it. Everyone’s still gone, my dad is …

Scarlett hands me a cup of water, concern and suspicion in her eyes. It’s not lost on me that Zila has her hand on her pistol. That Kal is armed, too, watching me with those cool violet eyes from over near the door.

“Do you remember what happened?” Scarlett asks.

I blink hard. Images flashing in my mind. Me throwing Scarlett into the wall. Blood on my lips. Raised voices. My dad’s skin melting into mine like taffy. One image burning brighter than the rest. A name.

“Sempiternity,” I murmur.

Zila and Scarlett exchange a glance, and the redhead nods. “We’ve been Folding for almost four hours. We’re nearly there. Tyler asked us to bring you up to the bridge in case you … see anything.”

I blink hard to rid myself of that image of my dad. The pieces of him melting into pieces of me. Wincing as Scarlett helps me to my feet, I note we’re in some kind of habitation area. Bunk beds and lockers and gunmetal gray, Aurora Legion logos on the walls. I catch a glimpse of my reflection in a mirror. The shock of white in my bangs, the white in my right iris. I don’t know what any of this means, but it feels like a stranger looking back at me. Helpless. Angry.

“I know you all think I’m crazy,” I murmur.

“Nobody thinks you’re crazy, Auri,” Scarlett says, touching my arm. “You’ve been through a lot, we all know that.”

“The Hadfield was bound for Octavia III, Scarlett,” I say, low and fierce. “I studied years to get on that mission, you don’t forget something like that. Every spare minute was training—memorizing maps, rock climbing, orienteering competitions. And all of it with one word in mind: Octavia.”

She gives me a sympathetic smile, but shakes her head. “Auri, we checked the records. Octavia III is uninhabitable.”

“That’s what I said,” comes a small chirp from my pocket. “But does she listen to me? Noooo—”

I clap my hand over Magellan to shut him up. “Why don’t we go check it out, then? I know the composition of the atmosphere, the layout of the continents—I’ll show you where Butler settlement and the outposts are, I’ll …”

“Octavia III has been under Interdiction for hundreds of years,” Zila says.

“And the last time we set an alternate course, you almost destroyed the ship.” I look over at Kal as he speaks, and his expression is unreadable as always. But remembering that footage of me attacking Scarlett, holding the ship in place while it shook and my eye burned white, it’s hard to argue with him.

“Seems like this is where you’re meant to be.” Scarlett says. “And maybe we’re heading where we’re supposed to go, too.”

She touches my arm again, and her smile is warm and kind in comparison to Kal’s frosty stare. I can’t help but smile weakly in return. She voted to take me back to the academy, but now their course is set, I realize …

She’s trying to be nice to me.

“Come on,” she says. “Ty wants you on the bridge.”

I don’t miss the glance Zila and Kal share as we leave the room, or the fact that Zila’s hand hasn’t left her gun the whole time we talked. But together, we make our way down a long corridor, Kal in front, Scarlett beside me, Zila walking behind. My bones creak and my pulse is pounding and I’ve got one mothercustard of a headache.

As we step out onto the bridge, the others turn to glance at me, but only for a moment. Looking at the huge screen above the central console, I can see we’re coming in to dock at what must be Sempiternity. Cat and Tyler seem occupied navigating us through a maze of ships and docking stations and loaders and shuttles, surrounding the most amazing sight I’ve ever seen in my life.

The future is grimier than I expected. Dirtier than it was meant to be. Sempiternity kind of looks like an inside-out termite’s nest, with endless additions bulging in every possible direction. It’s huge, much bigger than any city I’ve ever seen. So many glittering lights and strange shapes and odd angles, thousands of ships molded and bolted and welded into one giant World Ship.

“Holy cake,” I murmur.

How did I know this place existed?

How did I know its name?

And how did I slow our ship, drag it to a halt and turn it toward this mashed-together world, made up of hundreds of thousands of ships that all ended their stories here?