Heart of Iron (Heart of Iron #1)(43)

But there was nowhere for her to go. Nowhere to escape to. Every corner of the Dossier reminded her of him. Every cranny, every nook. She couldn’t get away from his ghost.

The ache in her chest was so heavy she couldn’t breathe. Why didn’t the pain stop? When would it stop?

The door to the infirmary slid open with a quiet blip. On the floor in the corner lay Barger in a black body bag, the smell of blood soaking the air in a dark perfume, and beside him was the strange red-haired thing Robb had brought aboard. She couldn’t even look at it. If Di had survived, maybe it could have been an answer.

But now there wasn’t even a question.

On a gurney, not even human enough for a body bag, lay the shell of her best friend.

She could still hear the clank of his feet as he shuffled around the room, the deft way his hands worked, like a surgeon—precise. Exact. The sound of his core humming, the soft swish of electricity through his wires, the buzz of parts, the crackle of life, sweet and lovely—

She couldn’t set foot inside the room; she wasn’t strong enough.

The whoosh of the solar sails sighed through the ship as they caught the solar winds, bringing the ship into motion. She could feel it as sharply as she felt cuts and bruises.

She didn’t hear the captain until Siege was already behind her. “We’ll have the funerals tomorrow, darling. We have to keep moving now. The malware that took control of the Tsarina could have reported us to whoever created it. We’ll take our time to say good-bye on Iliad. I promise.”

Ana closed the infirmary door, locking Di inside. “Okay.” She pressed her back against the cold, solid metal, slowly sinking to the floor.

“Maybe, during the funeral, if you want you could say a few words—”

“Okay.”

“I could help if you—”

“I said okay!” Ana snapped as tears burned at the edges of her eyes.

Siege knelt beside her. “Darling, I know it hurts—”

“No you don’t!” She angrily wiped her tears away with the palm of her hand. “I just wanted to save him. I just wanted to save him and I ended up killing him. I kill everyone! I probably killed my parents too, didn’t I? Everything I touch I ruin—”

The captain took her by the shoulders. “Don’t you ever say that.”

“Even if it’s true?”

“Ana—”

She slapped Siege’s hands away. “Leave me alone!”

“But Ana—”

“Please,” she sobbed, curling her legs up to her chest. “Please leave me alone.”

For a long moment, Ana thought she wouldn’t leave. She pulled herself tighter into a ball, looking anywhere but at the captain, thinking that maybe if she pretended Siege wasn’t there, she’d go away.

And eventually, the captain did, and left her alone on a too-quiet ship in a too-quiet universe.

She sat against the infirmary door, waiting, waiting to hear her heart break.

Like heartbreak was supposed to sound. Like a mirror cracked in half, like a world tearing in two, like a galaxy crumbling, stars falling, crashing around her in the realization that tomorrow would not have Di. Or the next day. Or the day after that. That she could never see him again, never hear his voice, never press her cheek against his cool shoulder and savor the humming cadence of him.

He was gone. Not lost. Not broken. Because he didn’t have a soul. He wasn’t alive. D09 was simply gone. Gone in a breath, in a blink of an eye.

Gone.

And her heart beat on in a universe without him, a sad and useless organ in her chest.





Robb


It was an hour after the rest of the crew went to bed before Ana came back into the quarters and crawled into her bunk. Robb wanted to tell her that he knew what it was like to lose the one person who meant the world to you. Because he knew it better than most people. He still felt it, the hole in his heart now taped over with the image of his father’s corpse on the Tsarina.

But he was a Valerio, and he doubted she’d want condolences from him.

He waited one minute, two, until her muffled sobs sank into silence and he was sure she was asleep, before he shimmied out of his bunk. Jax was huddled underneath his covers, a pale hand peeking out from beneath the pillow. Robb had never seen him with his gloves off before. Long, thin fingers. No scars, no horrible burns. But all the same, the Solani looked fragile without them. He could still taste their kiss, soft and bitter, and the horrified look on Jax’s face moments after.

He hadn’t thought a kiss would hurt Jax. He hadn’t thought the wounded look would hurt him. He . . . didn’t know what he thought, actually. That Jax’s words were sweet? That, for a moment, he wanted to taste them. He wanted to trap them, claim them as his.

No one had said they cared about him before, not with the kind of protective look in those violet-red eyes.

Another throb of pain pulsed from his side, reminding him why he was up to begin with, and he slipped out of the room and down into the infirmary to find some more painkillers, ignoring the body bag in the corner, the red-haired robot, and the Metal on the gurney.

Finding some pain medicine in the first aid kit, he tore the cap off with his teeth and slammed the needle into his side and bit in a scream as he pressed the medicine into his skin.

The ache dulled to a sore throb.