These Broken Stars (Starbound #1)(91)

By the time he returns I have forced myself into my clothing, put my wet hair into a knot that drips ice down my neck, cleaned my teeth, sipped enough water to give these chapped lips a semblance of color.

Tarver pauses on the threshold as he enters and smiles at me.

“Lilac,” he says. He thinks I don’t see how he starts to reach for me and stops, the movement so quick it’s barely there. My thoughts scream at him not to use that name. Lilac. An echo.

Without him to say the name, I could just fade away.

He busies himself trying to make the bare dormitory habitable, oddly domestic. I know he’s doing it for my sake, but he’s also not used to being helpless. He sees me falling apart, little by little. He’s torn, wanting my help to sort through documents and try to bypass the locking mechanisms, and wanting me nowhere near the underground station and its weakening influence.

He doesn’t know I want him to touch me, that I want nothing more than to throw myself into his arms. My body’s still raw but I don’t care anymore. I want his fingers in my hair and his lips on my face—I want his warmth and his strength so much it hurts. I want it every moment, for as long as I can, before I’m gone forever.

But I am not his Lilac. I can’t think about what I am or who I’ve become, or let him touch me—all I have is what drove me before I died in the clearing. All I have is the need to find rescue and get him home. If I’m to be dust at any moment, and I can’t fight it, then at least I can finish what I started when I blew the doors off the station.

I can save him.

He’s better able to tolerate the strange energy field in the bowels of the station, the power radiating from behind that door. He’s not the one who knows electronics, though, so I’m slowly dismantling the wall panels, inspecting the circuits, trying to bypass the lock electronically. I think the only reason he hasn’t forcibly dragged me away from the round door in the basement is that he thinks getting through is our only hope. Everything that’s happened here has led us to that door, and he thinks he can use what’s behind it, if only he can get to it. He thinks whatever’s behind the door will save me.

But how can you save someone who’s already dead?

I’m beginning to think I know what’s behind the door. The shakes, the metallic taste, the dizziness that touched me every time I received a vision or a dream—the sensations are overwhelming when I come close to the door.

I can almost feel the whispers behind it. Desperately wanting something, but unable to do anything but reach for it in our thoughts. Trapped there. Waiting.

And I’m starting to understand what it is they want from us.

After all, I’m a prisoner now too, in a body that’s falling apart. I understand better than Tarver what an agony it is to be so trapped.

I can’t keep this up. It’s harder and harder to focus. I can’t help but imagine that their pain is like my own, trapped as they are between life and death, unable to reach past their own torment. When we get through that door it will be all I can do to use whatever’s there to power the distress signal, and not succumb to the urge to give them what I know they want.

Because while that tiny part of me wants him, and only him, the rest of me wants what the whispers want. An end to it all.

During the day, at night, while we eat, he watches me, and I can’t—my mind doesn’t work. I can hear him trying to get my attention.

“Lilac, you okay?”

My spoon is in my hand. We’re eating dinner, and a bowl of rehydrated stew sits in front of me. I’d forgotten.

I stare at him, blank, confused.

“Lilac?” His voice is softer, his brows furrow. His left hand twitches where it rests against the table, as though it might reach across the gulf between us and take mine.

“Don’t call me that.”

“What?” He’s staring at me, bewildered. “It’s your name, what else should I call you?”

“I don’t care. But you can’t call me that. I’m not your Lilac. I’m a copy.”

“Are you serious?” Shock gives way to anger, hurt, confusion. His voice is ragged. “You’re you. You have your memories, your voice, your eyes, the way you speak. I don’t care how it happened, you’re you. You tell me what the difference is.”

Breathe. I force myself to watch him. Lilac would’ve looked away. Somewhere inside my mind she’s desperate to get out, to go to him, stop torturing him like this.

“The difference is that she’s dead.”

I can see him warring with himself. The urge to go to my side. The urge to shout. The urge to give up, just for a little. I will him to let the latter win, let us both rest. Just for a little.

“You’re you,” he repeats, his eyes full of grief. “You’re the same girl who crashed on this planet with me, who I dragged through forests and over mountains, who climbed through a shipwreck full of bodies to save my life. You’re the same girl I loved, and I love you now.”

Stop. Stop. No more. Please.

My throat seizes.

“I love you, Lilac.” His voice is soft, intent. “I love you, and I should’ve told you before you—”

I listen to the way his voice catches, feeling the break in it deep in my own chest. I close my eyes.

“You’re my Lilac.”