These Broken Stars (Starbound #1)(24)

At this rate, we’re not going to have to worry about the owner of the big paw prints—though I wish I knew what left them—or the risk of injury or starvation. We’re going to die of old age before we make it a klick.

We’re on a deadline, and that knowledge drums through me like a pulse. If we can’t find a colony, we’re going to have to get to the wreck as quickly as we can.

Our pod will just be one of a thousand pieces of wreckage strewn through the forest, with nothing about it to show there are survivors nearby. And even if they do recognize it as a downed escape pod, there’s nothing to distinguish it from those that fell still attached to the Icarus. Nothing to say, We’re alive, come get us. We can’t rig up a smoke signal, because all around us are chunks of debris sending up columns of black smoke like an endless procession of funeral pyres.

The only place we can guarantee we’ll be found is at the wreck. That’s where the rescue crews will go, looking for survivors and salvage. That’s where they’ll set up their base of operations.

We have days of walking ahead of us. I don’t think she realizes how deceiving vast distances can be—but if she knew it’d be a week or more, I’m not sure I could get her moving at all. And I can’t afford to waste a moment. If we’re too slow, depending on whether they’re finding other survivors, they could pull out before we even arrive. I could make better time on my own, but if I leave her behind, I’m not sure she’d survive until I make it back.

It’s only through an exhausting combination of frequent rests and liberal insults that we make it through the next few hours. I could tell myself that I’m doing it because she’ll get back to her feet just to spite me—but the truth is, I really just want to piss her off. Keeping her moving is a bonus. I’m starting to think we might be able to make some progress when I hear a particularly loud gasp for breath.

I pause, staring ahead. It looks the same in front as behind, the same behind as to the sides. Uneven ground, underbrush with burs and scrub to catch at you, leaf litter, and straight, even tree trunks, like they were laid out with a laser sight. Slow breath in, slow breath out, then I turn.

She’s standing still again, leaning against a tree for support. I know she’s struggling, but does she have to stop every fifteen minutes? I open my mouth to try a new method of prodding her onward, but then I see her face—twisted with pain, not anger.

“How are your shoes?” I ask.

She swallows, regaining enough composure to scowl at me. “My shoes are fine.”

I consider the heels I saw slide through the metal grating on the pod’s floor. I know she’s lying, and she knows I know.

“Well,” I reply, using the calm tone I know gets under her skin. I wish I was noble enough not to enjoy it, but I came to terms with my lack of nobility long ago. “Way I see it, we have two options. Either I can take a look at your feet and try to patch them up a little for walking, or you can press on, descend into agony, get blisters, bleed, contract an infection, lose anything from a toe to your life, and end up being too slow for either of us to reach a colony or the wreck before we starve. Which do you fancy, Miss LaRoux?”

She shivers, looking away and wrapping her arms around her middle, squeezing herself tight. “Is this what you did on Patron? Terrorized them all with graphic threats?”

Kill me. She’s acting like I offered to shoot her, instead of telling her the truth. “Call me unsophisticated, Miss LaRoux, but it works.” I gesture toward a fallen tree, and she reluctantly sits.

Her feet are a mess, and I have to bite back a hiss when I see them. The straps have rubbed her skin raw, and her toes are puffy with blisters. The skin’s red and shiny, and there’ll be blood sooner, not later. Both her ankles are swollen.

Luckily for me, she’s busy staring into space, as though she’s too embarrassed to look at her own feet. That’s good, because I’m pretty sure she’s not going to like what comes next. I’m gentle as I slide the little straps through the buckles, unthreading the shoes and easing them off. I turn them over in my hands—such delicate things, probably worth a month’s pay each—and snap the heels off.

She looks down to see what I’m doing and gasps, one hand lifting to cover her mouth. But in whatever passes for reality for her, even she must see the shoes have done their duty. She’s silent as I hunt through the first-aid kit, carefully wrapping and taping the worst parts of her feet. In the end I have to let out the straps, and fasten the newly flat shoes around her swollen feet as best I can.

I offer her my hands, and she lets me help her to her feet. She does this without a groan, without a whimper. I’m not sure I could’ve made it this far on feet that badly torn up. Lilac LaRoux’s handled a forced march with more determination than some of the recruits I’ve taken out in the last couple of years, even if she seems to be doing it out of spite more than anything else.

I give her hands a squeeze. “There, see? When you get home, all the girls on Corinth will be dying for heelless high heels. I know you know how to set a trend.”

And there it is, against all hope, like the sun peeking out from behind the clouds. The smallest hint of a smile.

“Did you have any goal other than reaching the crash site?”

“You make it sound as though I conspired to get myself landed on the planet.”