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Light glinted off the barrel of Akksul’s gun.
“No.” She heard Jaal’s voice—more whisper than anything. Strange to hear him so muted. For all that she had seen him angry, suspicious, happy, and excited, she had never heard his voice so laden with fear before.
Good fear, she remembered him saying to Vetra. There was no shame in fearing what should be feared.
And she was afraid.
Not of the gun aimed at her, but at the gun aimed at Akksul.
If Jaal shot him, it would prove everything that Akksul was saying. That the Milky Way aliens were tearing the angara apart. For one of them to shoot down another—
“Jaal,” she said, her voice shaking. “Don’t.”
She heard Vetra’s intake of breath.
“You have involved yourself with an alien,” said Akksul. “You are a traitor to our people, to our cause. And now, I will end it.”
Everything happened so quickly.
A brilliant flare of light, a blur of movement, and then she was plunged into darkness.
Fire lanced across her cheek.
Time passed—an eternity before she realized she was on the ground. Her fingers touched cool stone, and her legs were crumpled beneath her. She smelled ozone and fresh rain, two scents she associated with Hvarl. Sound returned in a rush—shouting, a scuffle, and then her name.
Her head ached as if someone had taken a crowbar to it, and it felt like her face was on fire.
And then she was lifted into the air. Fingers cradled the back of her head, and she was moving, a dizzying blur of sights and sounds. She blinked—and then she was aware of the smell of the Nomad—metal and plastic.
“Darling one. Can you hear me?”
She heard and felt the rumble of Jaal’s voice. It was only then she realized that she was pressed up against him. “—Should have killed him,” Vetra was saying. The engine revved.
“It would only have made him a martyr,” said Jaal, a grim note in his voice.
“He shot Ryder.”
“I’m fine,” Sara tried to say. Her mouth moved a little sluggishly.
“Hush, dear one.” Fondness shaded the worry evident in Jaal’s eyes. “You’re bleeding.”
She blinked and the world blurred.
She was aware of being moved, of the coolness of a medical table being slid beneath her—or perhaps she was being placed upon it. Then Lexi’s voice.
“—Whiplash, possible concussion. What were you thinking?”
“She told us—”
“If she’d told you to let her walk off a cliff, would you let her?”
“That depends,” came Jaal’s rumble, “how how high the cliff was.”
Lexi replied, but Sara didn’t catch it. She tried to sit up, and pain flared in her head. “Don’t.” Jaal’s face appeared above her, and his gloved hands were gentle on her shoulders. “The doctor is still looking you over.”
Finally, Sara felt well enough to swing her legs over the side of the bed. She blinked several times, trying to clear her vision. “I still have my head. I assume Akksul’s aim is worse than his public speaking?”
Jaal’s expression went oddly flat. “He clipped your cheek. Your head snapped back and you fell.”
“Cracked your head against the floor,” said Vetra, her voice rougher than usual. “After everyone saw what Akksul had done—shot an unarmed alien—most of his followers walked away.”
Sara looked to Jaal. “Your family?”
His mouth thinned, pressed together. “They went home,” he said simply.
She thought of his brothers and sister and a pang went through her. If it had been Scott… she wasn’t sure what she would have done. “You should be with them. You should be with your family.”
She felt his fingers on her cheek. They slid over the bandage with care, the touch so light that it didn’t hurt. “Darling one. I am.”
She flushed and looked down.
She was allowed to return to her own quarters, provided that SAM alert Lexi to any change in her health. I detect no concussion, came that familiar metallic voice. But I will wake you every hour, nonetheless.
“Not necessary,” replied Jaal. He followed Sara through the sliding doors. “I will do it.”
He helped her out of her armor and part of her wondered if she should be embarrassed that he would see her in her underwear. But then again, maybe not.
When she slid into her bed, he went to the desk. “I need to contact my mothers,” he said. “You need rest. You—I am unsure of how much blood a human can lose.”
She smiled and her cheek ached. “Much more than that, Jaal. But it’s sweet that you worry.”
He dimmed the lights, so that the only illumination came from her email screen. She watched him being typing out a message, and then she must have drifted—for the next thing she knew, Jaal was sitting beside her on the bed. “Has it been an hour?”
“Two, actually,” he replied. “You looked so peaceful. I’ve never watched a human sleep before.” His head tilted slightly. “Do all of you dribble from the mouth?”
She hastily wiped at her mouth. “Um. No. And it’s polite not to mention it.”
“I see.” He nodded. “SAM said I should ask you if you have forgotten anything. Do you know the date?”
“Depends,” she answered. “My calendar or yours?”
“Do you remember how you were injured?”
“A fanatic shot me in the face.”
“You seem to be remembering well.”
She did—the glint of the gun in Akksul’s hand, the flare of her own adrenaline, and a blur in her vision. A question nagged at her, and she was so tired she decided to give voice to it. “Jaal, can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
She hesitated. “Akksul was right in front of me. I should be dead. Why am I not dead?”
The dim light played across Jaal’s eyes. His pupils flared. “Because the moment he began to pull the trigger, I lunged for him.”
She could see it in her mind’s eye—that odd blur she hadn’t been able to place. Blue and purple. Jaal striking Akksul with his body, the bullet glancing off her cheek, and then the pain.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“For what?”
“I put you in a terrible position,” she said. “Me or your people. He made you choose.”
“He put me in that position,” Jaal corrected. “Akksul made his decisions, and so have I.” He leaned close, touched his forehead to hers. “And I would make the same again.”