Page 152 of Sky Song
“I’m not laughing. I just wish Lyle feels better soon, but… he needs more time.” Time, she was afraid, wasn’t the only thing he needed, but it was the only thing he had, and not a lot of it. The realization was crushing.
Cricket’s head was spinning, exhaustion catching up with her. She felt weak and very faint. Truly faint, like she was going to pass out. Shaking her head, she tried to dispel the weakness that had been plaguing her of late.
She had just recently figured out why.
“We’ll be waiting patiently. We can’t miss this chance.” Paloma grabbed her backpack from the floor and started deliberately going through her things piled in there. She wasn’t doing it for the first time, from the looks of it. “The records. Where’s the damn device? This is our ticket out of here.”
The dizziness passed, and Cricket slid back down to the floor. “Just make a new copy from Yanet’s tablet.” She motioned at it, laying on the table.
Paloma stopped, the backpack suspended from her still hands. “That’s the kicker. It’s been wiped clean.”
Chapter 18
The next couple of weeks were pure torture of helpless waiting. The sedatives helped calm him, but there was no question that Lyle’s condition was worsening.
This morning, after forcing herself to eat a small breakfast, Cricket went to Atticus, knowing that she wouldn’t come back to the apartment. She’d rather stay with Lyle at the mechanical room.
The club wasn’t open yet, and she walked through unobserved. She had to stop and take a couple of fortifying breaths before entering the mechanical room, and still the sight was like a punch in the gut. Her Lyle.
He struggled to rise when he saw her.
“My love.” Tears started, and there was nothing she could do to stop them. “Do you hurt?”
He kept his face turned toward her as she came near, but her question hadn’t registered. Something agitated him, and suddenly he shot forward with a roar. She braced for an impact, but by the time their bodies met, his momentum dwindled, and he wrapped himself around her smaller frame, whimpering.
“Hush, my love, oh, hush. I’m with you now.”
“For… long…” He couldn’t get all the words out.
“Forever.” She guided him to his corner and they slid down together. “I will never leave you.”
He blinked, his trademark lazy blink, but she wasn’t sure he could see anything out of those beautiful bottomless eyes. His breathing had grown labored, and his normally cool skin was hot to the touch. The blue tattoos at the base of his neck pulsated irregularly with the forceful beats of his four hearts that wouldn’t stop their inexorable overdrive.
She clung to him, unable to comprehend how it could have come to that. He was so resilient, he’d survived so much!
“I failed you,” he rasped. “No flying.”
“It’s alright. It’s alright…”
“I knew there was a risk…” It took Cricket a second to understand he was talking about pulling out his implant.
There’s always an element of risk. Always.
He may not be afraid to have lost, but she was terrified.
“Hush, Lyle. Everything will be alright. You just hang in there for me a little bit longer.” She smoothed his silky hair, angelic even in the disarray of his decline. No, not decline. It was such a terrible word. “When we go flying, we’ll go together. Only think about getting better.”
“Stay with them, with Paloma. Don’t want you… to be alone.” He writhed, restless. “I’m hot all over. So hot.” He clawed at his chest, leaving tears in the fabric of his shirt. “You smell divine. If I could smell more of you.” He nuzzled into her chest but soon subsided, too weak and disoriented to move.
Cricket spent all day with him, cradling his hot body in the corner of the mechanical room, listening to his breathing and the hum of the appliances across the floor. Dimly, she recognized the music when it started, and the din of a rowdy crowd as the club came to life in the evening.
Ren came in sometime at night. “Hey. You need to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
He stubbornly placed a small sandwich on the floor near Cricket. “Interesting news this morning. Kim Creek was arrested for the murder of Dr. Deja Nura.”
“What? Dr. Nura is dead?”
