Page 41 of Survivor
What? How was he here?
I dropped the pincer and took a step toward him, but my knees gave way.
He caught me and swung me up into his arms. “I got you. I got you, Rogue.”
Vex was here. Why? “Have to finish. Need to win.”
But the world was spinning, and exhaustion claimed me.
* * *
“She’s waking up. Give her some room.”
Lore? I opened my eyes to three concerned faces. Lore, Tide, and Xavier.
“What happened? Did I win?” My brain was fuzzy, and then memory came rushing back—blur guy, the monsters, leather face and pincer guy attacking, and beast mode helping me kick their asses, but then …
My gaze flicked to Vex. “What the fuck? Why’d you pull me out? What …” I tried to sit up, but my body was still weak from berserker mode. My arm throbbed a little where the ratspiders had cut me. But when I reached up to touch the wound my fingers met fresh bandages.
“You’re healing quickly,” Lore said. “The bandages are just a precaution.”
But I didn’t care about that. The wounds didn’t matter because I’d lost. We’d lost.
“I had it. I had them … what the fuck?”
My eyes pricked with heat. I squeezed them shut. I would not cry.
“Braker was never going to let you go,” Tide said softly. “Vex overheard his crew talking. We had to get you out.”
Not let me go? God, I was so stupid. I was a one-percenter, an anomaly. I was money in his pocket, but he’d loved someone like me once, and I’d allowed that to cloud my judgment.
I ran a hand over my face. “What are we going to do?”
Tide held out his hand. “Can I show you something?”
I gave him my hand and allowed him to help me up. My legs trembled, unsure whether they’d hold me up.
With a growl, Vex swept me into his arms and followed Tide out of the room … Wait a minute, this room … These weren’t the arena quarters.
“Where are we?” I looked up at Vex and noted the hint of a smile on his handsome face. “What’s going on?” My chest fluttered with anxiety and excitement.
No … don’t jump the gun …
We were in a corridor. Gray walls, strobe lights on the ceiling.
My pulse kicked up. “Are we on a ship?”
My question was answered a moment later as we stepped through a set of double doors and into space. At least it felt like it. The stars winked down at me from above.
“You like it?” Xavier was sitting on a cushy seat in front of several monitors. “Cool feature, right? Now you see them, now you don’t.” The stars above vanished and a ceiling replaced them.
My throat tightened. “This is the bridge of a ship. I thought we didn’t win?”
Xavier vacated the seat, and Vex lowered me onto it.
“It is,” Tide said. “Braker’s ship. We stole it.”
“What?”
