Page 75 of Until the Stars Fall

A roar like a tornado rumbled outside the ship, and it rocked violently. Beck and I wedged ourselves under the railing.

It was machinery, and I was an advanced healer. Zola’s words came back to me. Your first mistake is separating animate beings and inanimate items in your head...if you’re clever, you can do healing work on more than people.

“Give me your hands!” I shouted, taking his hands and pressing them with mine against the feed system. “Join your magic with mine! Concentrate on clearing it!”

My magic and his both responded, and our hands glowed brightly against the feed system. I clenched my eyes shut and imagined the clean, pristine functioning of antimatter drives in the labs at work, and I focused our magic on the feed system that controlled the release of antimatter to collide with matter, focused all my thoughts and magic on the process. I had no rational idea if it would work, but I believed it would. It had to. It was our last hope. All of our last hope.

Within a few moments, the drive in my mind’s eye functioned like new, and the ship stopped rocking. It shimmied into a smooth track, and Summer’s whoops poured over the intercom.

“We’re inside! Cleared for travel to Nouvelle Orleans!”

I stumbled back from the drive and jumped up into Beck’s waiting arms, wrapping my arms and legs around him, celebrating our win with cheers and kisses.

With the bulk of our propulsion needs dipping, the lights flickered on.

“Come on,” he said, “let’s go see our new home!”

We took the elevator all the way up to the bridge. Everyone else was already there, gathered around the windows to catch our first in-person glimpse of Gaia. Beck and I got there in time to see a vast blue lake disappear past us. A mountain range, an ocean of pristine forests—just like the history books, but real—and blue skies stretching to forever.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Summer settled us down into the woods of Beck’s family property, and we all dashed to the massive cargo door that’d last been open when we left Earth two months ago.

Zola peered out the window as Beck manned the controls to open the ship. “I can see Noah!”

“You go first!” Eyre squealed, nudging Zola to the front of the line. “Y’all have waited way too long for some sugar!”

The ancient door struggled to open up from the floor, the growing crack sucking in a billow of the crispest, cleanest air I’ve ever breathed. The women rushed forward, but my legs wouldn’t move.

Not just my brother, dozens of people had come to meet us. I took shallow breaths through a tight throat. I didn’t deserve to breathe that precious, free air. My actions on Earth irrevocably tainted my fresh start. No money, no job, Madam Indigo to reckon with…shit, maybe jail time too.

My grip tightened on Beck’s hand as I scanned the crowd. Parts of it converged on Summer, Hannah, Zola, and Eyre as they ran. A small group with an older couple who both looked like Beck shaded their eyes against the sun, looking expectantly into the darker mouth of the ship where we stood. But not one police officer waited to cuff me and take me away. Where were they hiding?

Beck’s warm, comforting magic slipped tenderly into my hand. “Hey.” His soft voice in my ear.

“Beck, I can’t move my legs. I can’t—”

He kissed my temple and turned me towards him, setting both my palms flat against his chest, and his hands over mine. “You got this, and I got you. Just breathe. We can go meet our future together. We’ll be okay.”

He pressed his lips to my forehead, and I closed my eyes, counting five of his steady heartbeats on each inhale and exhale. Entwining our magic into one force, I pulled it through my body, using it for the first time in years to calm myself, to heal the tension ache from my jaw and shoulders. Our magic warmed me from the inside, intimate, loving…amorous.

My hips nudged against his, and he chuckled, his hands slipping around my waist.

I kissed him through my smile. “Damn, that turns me on every time.”

“Me too, but we’ll celebrate privately later. They’re calling our names.”

With Beck’s hand on my shoulder, I went down the cramped drop-steps, and we met Gaia in all her early fall finery. A wholesome chill gave the atmosphere a sweet, exciting bite and made the riotous fall forest—young yet from the terraforming—sway in broad strokes of greens, golds, and reds. This world was almost too beautiful to be real.

Stepping to the soft grass with my eyes still adjusting to the sun, I almost didn’t recognize Noah with that full beard. Zola was still in his arms, both of them crying and kissing over and over after nearly a year of being on literally different worlds. Except for my brother, I didn’t recognize a soul among the people shouting and cheering in the forest’s clearing.

“Mom! Dad!” Beck shouted, pulling me toward them as they rushed forward calling his name. “Come on!” he said, excited as a little kid on Christmas morning.

He let go of my hand to fall into a hug from both parents, the three of them laughing through tears.

“Gemma!” I turned at Noah’s voice and his hand on my arm. He wrapped me into the fiercest hug, and I hugged him back, gulping back a sob. Hannah hugged both of us, and we threw our arms around her too. I had my family again.

The crowd’s laughter and talking filled my ears, and all I heard was Noah say over and over, “You’re here!” Beck, Eyre, and Summer were engulfed by their families. For a moment, I was engulfed too, in the emotion of our new homecoming, the joy of the people embracing their loved ones again, and in receiving my siblings’ love, something I hadn’t thought myself to be worthy of ever again.

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