Fatal Extraction Page 21

  Alden had already tried out the shoe size and fitted the mask. This would make their entry via the moat so much easier. Nirvana leaned down and gave Ching a kiss and a tight hug after he was done helping her with her shoes.

  Ching had always been generous with her, and the fact that he continued to do so even though they were not together anymore spoke volumes about him.

  “They loaned them. For free?”

  Ching nodded. “But if you damage the masks, you have to go to Nayrie and get the Beafel gills so they can make another.”

  Nirvana nodded gratefully. “I’ll get them the gills anyway when I’m done with this mission.”

  “That’ll be great! It’ll probably clear my debt to them for loaning these.”

  Beafels were ferocious deep swamp creatures found only on the planet Nayrie. Their gills were prized for the ability to filter air from dirty water and the creatures were notoriously difficult to hunt. Nirvana could understand why Jiang would rather loan than sell his set to them.

  She was thrilled that Jiang’s wife Luciana’s shoes and mask fit. Ching went through a few more things he had brought for them, mostly climbing gear, before they put everything away to continue with their discussion.

  The planning sessions, this time, revolved mainly around rescue plans should Nirvana and Alden get caught. Nirvana could feel the anxiety threatening to explode out of Zane, especially when he was detailing the different methods of torture used by his father to interrogate prisoners.

  To Nirvana’s relief, Zane held himself together well; he maintained a calm façade throughout. He didn’t have any appetite for dinner, and there were a few occasions during the discussion she thought would tip him over the edge, but somehow, he managed to grit his teeth and carry on. By the time the meeting concluded, his hands shook visibly while he packed the equipment.

  She hadn’t spoken to him directly since the tattoo, but she was significantly less angry with him. She just hated the way she was manipulated into so many things lately, and the main culprit was him. She really hoped to hell that the tattoo would be the last stunt he was going to pull on her.

  Anger and frustration aside, the way his fingers trembled, and the troubled look on his face made her worried that he would need his medication soon.

  Do you want to have sex? she asked him. He sputtered and coughed a little, causing everyone to look at him. Clearing his throat, he raised his hand to signal he was fine and went back to packing the equipment.

  I can’t believe you’re feeling horny after all this, he laughed at her.

  You look like you could use a vigorous session to help you relieve some tension.

  Zane didn’t reply this time but those long dimples of his were already creasing his cheeks.

  You didn’t have much for dinner. Shall I get you something to eat so that you have energy for a workout later?

  I’m not hungry. Maybe you could work up an appetite for me.

  “Alright, I’ll see everyone tomorrow. Going to call it a night,” Nirvana announced and went over to her room. She headed straight to the shower to wash the day’s fatigue away.

  Zane followed and joined her in the shower. He held her and stood wordlessly under the blast of the hot water for a long time. She gently nudged herself out of his embrace and soaped him. Even though he had shut his thoughts from her, the fact that he was still unaroused despite being in direct skin contact with her said a lot about his state of mind.

  She made him sit on the shower seat and washed him methodically from head to toe. After she was done rinsing him, she dried him, wrapped him up in a bath robe and nudged him out of the bathroom while she finished up her own shower.

  When she came out, Zane was just sitting on the side of the bed staring at the floor. She decided to go straight to him instead of dressing herself.

  “Hey,” she said gently as she straddled him.

  It woke him out of his trance almost immediately, and he returned an affectionate smile.

  “Don’t get lost in your thoughts.” She gave him a peck on his lips.

  “I didn’t. I got lost in yours.” He nuzzled her neck as he shrugged his robe off.

  “I wasn’t thinking anything,” she said, feeling a little puzzled, and very distracted.

  “That’s the wonderful thing about you. You were just focused on shampooing my hair, scrubbing my back, thinking where to wash next. It was really calming.”

  “You were in my head the entire time?”

  “I was about to have a panic attack earlier during the discussion when I decided to just hop into your thoughts to see how you could remain so calm while discussing your possible capture.” He looked at her like she was his world. “You’re truly a remarkable woman, Nirvana. The way you’re able to deliberate so calmly, break all the problems down into simple pieces and solve them so systematically, is amazing. So every time I’m about to get worked up, I just hop into your head for a short while. When I feel better, I hop back into mine. It’s like rebooting.”

  “Oh! I guess that’s a better solution than sex…” She wriggled her bottom to tease him.

  He smacked her butt playfully. “It’s a good replacement for pills and jabs when sex is not available.”

  “I miss your hair.” Nirvana reached out and scratched his head, prickly with newly grown stubble. “You can’t cut it anymore without my permission.”

  An overwhelming sense of melancholy filled her so suddenly that she gasped and clutched her chest.

  “Sorry, that was me,” Zane said hoarsely. Holding onto her, he moved back and lowered them onto the bed. He rolled himself on top of her and promised her in a shaky voice, “If we make it, I’ll keep my hair as long as you want it to be.”

  Nirvana pulled him down and kissed him deeply. We promised each other to be positive about this. We’re going to make it. You must believe in it too.

  I’m scared, Nirvana. I want so much more time with you.

  You will. We will have all the time in the world. She rolled him over to his side, sat up and pulled the covers over them. Come inside my head. We’ll meditate, then we can have sex later.

  Settling into a spooning position behind him, she scooted upwards so that she could cradle him better in her arms. The poor man was shivering, so she bundled them under the covers as much as she could and held him tight.

  I hate that I’m such a weakling.

  You’re not a weakling. You were fine when you handled Dein, Ching, and me. Get out of your head now before the spiral starts.

  Nirvana filled her head with beautiful images of the galaxy and controlled her breathing. Somehow, she felt Zane’s presence with her and reached out for him. She pictured the both of them in the cockpit of her new craft, sitting back and admiring the majestic views of space, until they drifted into sleep.

  Chapter 42

  Zane managed to fall asleep following Nirvana’s meditation cues and got a good six hours of sleep before a nightmare woke them both up.

  “Sorry.” He kissed her head and breathed in the scent of her hair, trying to calm his pounding heart.

  She lay in his arms and rubbed her palm around his heart, eyes closed. “Your father is really a piece of work. Do your other brothers get nightmares?”

  “I don’t know. Even if they do, they don’t talk about it. It’s a sign of weakness.”

  “How did your father know about yours?”

  “He spends a lot of time with my mom, and he often heard me screaming at night. He thought maybe if he gave me more hell I would slowly become numb to it, and the nightmares would stop.” He kissed her again and mumbled, “Sorry, go back to sleep. We have a long day ahead of us.”

  “It’s ok. I don’t usually sleep very well before a job—no one does no matter how experienced they are. We’re not totally indifferent. I’m pretty sure Alden is awake by now, or if not, waking up soon.”

  “There’s something about Alden that unnerves me,” Zane admitted. “I’m not entirely comfortable with you going
in with him.”

  “Alden unnerves everyone. He’s the most detached member of my crew. My father knew a bit of his backstory, but he wouldn’t tell me, only that Alden had gone through a lot. I try to talk to him sometimes but it’s hard to go beyond five sentences with him.”

  “I don’t know how to describe it, but his eyes are void. There are no emotions in them. It’s like he would kill you in a second and go back to having his meal, completely unaffected.”

  “Which is why he’s the best person to go with me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him afraid or worried. Besides, he’s been enhanced.”

  “Enhanced?”

  “The fight club in Jetar modified the bodies of their fighters to make their fights bloodier and more entertaining. Alden’s insanely fast and strong. He heals unnaturally fast, too. I don’t really know what else they did to his body, but you should feel very safe that I’m with him. I do.”

  Zane sighed

  “I’m going to see Eryn.” Nirvana yawned and sat up. “I need a period delay jab. Wouldn’t want to get extra bloody on the job.”

  “Are you due?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Never been regular, with all the space travel, time difference, jabs before jobs, I don’t keep track.” She got off the bed and headed to the bathroom.

  Suddenly, Zane remembered something important and went into the bathroom behind her. “Are you on contraceptives?”

  Nirvana stopped brushing her teeth and looked at his reflection in the mirror. She stared at him for a moment too long before she replied, “Yes.”

  He wanted to ask her why she took so long to reply when he realised the conversation would lead to nowhere, so he nodded and left the bathroom.

  He went to his duffel bag and rummaged through for clothes to wear. They were heading to Chikara in the evening and he would need enough clothes to last the entire mission. Nirvana had bought quite a bit for him while he was in surgery, and they should last him a week without having to do laundry.

  “We’ll get more after this.” She came up behind him. “I didn’t really know what kind of clothes you wore, and these are all Atharian garb.”

  He shrugged. “Clothes are clothes.”

  “We’ll move around and get more. We can probably stop by Liberty to get some space-travel suits custom-made for you.”

  Zane was about to say that they could do that if they survived the mission but he controlled his thoughts and gave Nirvana a quick peck on her cheek instead. “Go do what you need to do with Eryn. I’ll toy around with the hovershoes and masks to see if I can link them up with my control panel.”

  Nirvana smiled. “I’d say be careful not to ruin them if I didn’t already know you were a genius.”

  After she left, he took a shower to freshen up and hopefully settle his nerves. He went over to the crew’s suite and grabbed breakfast with them. After that, he tinkered with the mechanisms on the hovershoes and masks. Surely the Simas needed a way to track and communicate with their engineers while they were working under water for long periods of time. It was the most basic standard operating procedure for safety.

  Zane willed himself to focus on the project at hand; working with Ramsey helped distract him from the growing discomfort in his chest. He’d never had friends growing up, relying only on his brothers for company. Since they didn’t go to school, they were each other’s only playmates. Eventually, they were split up to work in different departments of the stronghold.

  Everyone in Zane’s department knew who he was and kept him at arm’s length. He really missed his brothers.

  He imagined Ramsey would be what having a friend felt like. He matched him intellectually, shared the same interests, and didn’t think that Zane’s mental illness was an issue because, according to Ramsey, all geniuses are a little eccentric.

  They managed to link up the tracking chip in the shoes to Zane’s equipment so they could monitor Nirvana’s and Alden’s location in the moat and help with navigation. They also hooked up the communication panel of the masks so they could talk underwater.

  Zane and Ramsey were ecstatic they’d managed to do it.

  “How long did it take?” Ramsey asked.

  Zane checked the time. “Three hours maybe?”

  “We rock!” Ramsey gave Zane a fist bump. “We need to work out a special high five for every time we nail something like that!”

  Zane grinned and nodded. He couldn’t wait to share the news with Nirvana. Speaking of which, where was she? Maybe medical checks for women took longer. The rest of the crew had already left to load the equipment onto the spacecraft and prepare for the mission. Maybe Nirvana was with them.

  Hey, he reached out.

  No answer. The uncomfortable feeling he’d forgotten earlier came back.

  Nirvana? Are you alright?

  I’m fine, she replied. You’re done with whatever you were doing?

  The uncomfortable feeling had grown two-fold. Yes, I’m done. Are you still with Eryn?

  No, I’m in our room.

  “Ramsey, can I leave the packing to you? I need to check on Nirvana. She doesn’t…feel right.”

  “Oh?” Ramsey looked at Zane in surprise. “Go ahead. I’ll move the things to the ship. Is she ok?”

  “I don’t know. She’s in our room. I’ll go check.”

  Ramsey gave him a thumbs up, and he rushed over immediately.

  “Nirvana?” he called out as he entered the room. She was lying on the bed, fully geared for the mission, and staring at the ceiling. “Is everything ok?” He sat down beside her.

  She pushed herself up to a sitting position and looked at him with an expression that was difficult to read. He tried to feel her, but she had locked him out of her head. Carefully, she reached for his hand and held it.

  This did not feel good at all. The discomfort in his chest turned into rising anxiety.

  “I went to Eryn for a jab earlier,” Nirvana articulated the words carefully. “Usually before the jab, she’d scan me to check my hormone levels to determine how close I am to my next period.” She paused and bit her lower lip.

  “And?”

  “I might be pregnant.”

  “YOU WHAT?” Zane shot up from the bed and stared at her. Then, he started pacing around. He was shocked, for sure, but he didn’t really know what to feel about it.

  “Doesn’t feel good to deal with a dropped bomb, huh? Now you know how I feel,” she mumbled with a huff.

  “What? Is this a joke? Payback for what I did earlier?”

  “No, it’s not. Sit down. Listen to me,” Nirvana told him calmly. “I’ve been thinking about this since I finished with Eryn. We’re going to have a calm discussion about it. Do you need a pill?”

  Zane took a deep breath, exhaled, and took another breath, closed his eyes and exhaled before he walked back to the bed to sit down.

  She reached out for his hands and squeezed. “Eryn did the usual blood test, and she noticed my hormone level is a little off. She can’t tell for sure because it’s too early, but she thinks I might be pregnant since we did start having sex about two weeks ago. I usually get a contraceptive jab just before I come back to Athar because… you know… Ching and I… I was planning to get it done in Panderon but everything just spiralled out of control from there.

  “I know we didn’t plan for this. I should’ve been more careful. We should’ve been more careful,” she said when she saw him about to blame himself. “But I want you to know that I’m not exactly upset about it.

  “If we do make it back from this job, we’ll sit down and work out plans for the future. If we lose the baby along the way, we’ll see if we want to try for kids, assuming our relationship works out. If we don’t, then we don’t.

  “If you don’t want to have any kids, then we’ll—”

  “I do!”

  “Ok.” She breathed out.

  “I do, Nirvana.” Zane knelt down in front of her and held her hands, gaze searing into hers. “I don’t want you to
wear my insignia just for this mission. I want you to be my wife for real—”

  “Wowowow! Hang on a minute. Nobody is talking about marriage—”

  “But the baby—”

  “Eryn didn’t confirm I was pregnant. She just gave me a jab to stabilize the pregnancy if I was. We’ll figure out about the kid after this.”

  Zane’s shoulders slumped as his eyes turned downcast. “I know I’m not good enough—”

  “Hey.” Nirvana held his face and made him look at her. “I don’t like how I’ve been rushed into everything lately. It makes me feel like my life is out of control. You’re partially responsible for making me feel this way. I’m not going to marry you because you put a baby in me. In the first place, I never believed in the need for marriage. It’s got nothing to do with whether you’re good enough for me or not, but I need a breather from everything that has happened lately. I want to get back some semblance of control in my life. Do you understand?”

  She was right. He’d been lucky enough she’d let him get away with everything so far, and he shouldn’t be pushing her boundaries any further.

  “Let’s just forget about this whole thing. We’ll go somewhere and settle down,” he said.

  In a few hours, Nirvana would be walking into his father’s hell, and in those hours, he could lose the love of his life, and now, his child.

  She raised an eyebrow and gave him a wry smile.

  He sighed. “You’ve already decided for us.”

  She cupped his face. “I’m never going to be that woman who settles down, has kids, cooks, and whatever else it is that domesticated women do. I hope you know that.”

  Of course, he knew. He pushed her legs open to move in and hug her. It should be more than enough that she loved him.

  “Yet, it’s man’s nature to be greedy.” He nuzzled her neck. “I promised you I’d let you take the lead.” He loosened his embrace and looked at her.

  The happiness that suffused her face told him that he’d said the right things. She cupped his face and leaned in to give him a passionate kiss.

  “Wow,” she gasped as she broke off for air. “We actually got through this without an argument or a pill. All this time I was more worried about your reaction than anything.”