Page 126 of Cage of Starlight
“You know, I swore I’d die before I’d come back here.” Sharp tines of fear rake down his spine.
Once he enters the Compound, his NOVA will almost certainly be within range. If Kirlov sees Sena, if he visits the Monitor Room to examine his compass—
“Why change your mind? There’s no accounting for taste, but Tory seems a bit of a . . . work in progress.”
Sena smiles. “Yeah.”
Niela’s hand settles on his sleeve when he tilts, vision fading. “Be careful. Those injections might help the pain, but they’re a stopgap at best. I couldn’t heal Randall,” she whispers, “and I can’t heal you. I’m sorry.”
Sena tries on a smile. “Go ahead, find your mom.”
“And you go find your idiot.”
They enter STAR-7. Niela goes right. Sena goes left.
Not too far in, he runs into a huddled, murmuring group of Seeds. They pin him with a stare as he passes, like they’ve seen a ghost. Sena’s probably looking at them the same way.
“Lieutenant Vantaras, we thought you’d—”
It’s easy to fall into the role he’s played for so long. “Rumors poison the mind,” he snaps. “Why aren’t you at training?”
“I—we—”
“Where is Arknett?”
The spokesman of the group opens his mouth, then closes it. He ducks into the group and whispers furiously. Another guy, gangly and tired, speaks up.
“Saw him running down the halls earlier like his ass was on fire.”
“Which direction?”
The guy points, and Sena follows.
They sink into whispers as soon as he’s put them behind him, but he has no time for them. The hallway blurs past, dizzying and too bright. In the Compound, everything is clear-cut and flooded with cold light. Squinting, Sena scans every room he passes. He doesn’t linger, doesn’t dare contemplate what the light reveals about him.
He doesn’t see Tory. Doesn’t see anyone who can tell him where Tory is.
A soldier stops dead as Sena passes, and Sena can’t help meeting his shocked eyes. The man hurries away at a near run. Wherever he’s going, it can’t be good, but Sena has neither the time nor strength to pursue him.
He loses his breath when Tory, pack hanging from one shoulder, stalks across an intersecting hallway ahead of him.
Sena quickens his pace, takes a right down a familiar short corridor: Tory must be heading for the tree.
Sure enough, the click of the door to the central garden spears the silence as it opens.
He grabs it before it can close and freezes there, trying to breathe.
He’s here, and Tory’s here, and he’s not the least bit ready to see him.
He opens the door anyway.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Of course Toryturns the moment the door opens. Sena should have known he would.
His shock is almost comical, his hair a mess, mouth half-open. The bruises under his red eyes say he’s probably been sleeping about as well as Sena has.
Sena opens his mouth and can’t speak, frozen with the awful, selfish desire to take more than his hands can hold. It was easier being apart.
