“The device takes it apart on the seams. Boom. It broke apart fast after we got off, and we only got off because I ordered it. I think they might have been okay with us dying.” He smiled. I didn’t know why. There was nothing remotely happy about what he was saying. “It transports people faster than any ship can. It makes the ship we’re about to find sort of a stationary object. It doesn’t need to be a ship per se, except that it has to be able to get to where it’s going to begin with.”

  I looked between them; I didn’t understand. “I’m missing this. Can you explain?”

  “They can transport troops very fast.” Kellan ran a hand through his hair. “It eliminates the need to move ships to get people here. They can build up ships right there next to that one and just move their troops in. Cuts their time to get across the Hole considerably.”

  Blaze stretched his feet out in front of him. “Cuts it by years. They can be here in days. But it works in both directions. If we can get on that ship and get on the device, we don’t have to travel this Hole. We can be there tomorrow.”

  13 Trust Your Gut

  “Then it’s even more important we impress upon the leadership that they not do this, not keep coming at us.” I walked to the window to look out at nothing. It was something to do. I had to move my body. “If they can get to us so much faster, then it’s even more pressing.”

  Blaze nodded. “I agree. The trouble is that unless they’ve changed it, we can only move through one at a time. That means we’re in an incredible amount of danger until each of us gets through. I’m not worried about me. But now it seems the time to tell you what I hadn’t planned on saying until we get there, which is that I have no intention of putting you in danger, Sienna. We need you. I hate to put it like this, but you were absolutely here to bait them. You knew it too. Suggested it more than once. But I had no intention of letting you near danger, despite your strength. You are too important.”

  I wasn’t any more so than any of them, but there it was, that was how they loved me. They all put me first. I nodded. “Nothing you’ve said surprised me. I don’t agree, but I know that’s how you feel.”

  “Right. Now we get on that ship and get to Evander. We’re either leaving you here on this ship alone while we travel through the galaxy or we’re taking you into danger.”

  Wade cleared his throat. “Ari said she had to do this. That it had to be her. The estrogen. I know that doesn’t mean anything to you guys because you’re just seeing the battle, but I keep thinking about it. In what ways is she not the same as you are? How is it different?”

  “Wade?” Trenton rocked back on his feet. “Go on.”

  “I tried to keep her from getting anything but the immunity from the nanos. It didn’t work. I thought it was because I was bad at my job. But we followed the model that Ari used when he took out Canyon’s eye alterations that were screwing up his brain. He left some in there to help repair. With instructions just to repair. They did that. So why didn’t it work for you?”

  I didn’t know. “I’m sure it’s not your fault.”

  “You’re sweet, my love. But it’s absolutely my fault and not because I fucked up recoding nanos. I didn’t and Cash double-checked my work. He’s really good. Did both of us get it wrong?” He put his hands on his hips. “No, we didn’t. And nanos aren’t so unpredictable that they just do things like that. Unless…”

  His voice trailed off, and this time I was actually able to fill in the blanks. “Unless Evander didn’t make female Super Soldiers for a reason.”

  “Exactly.” He took my hand in his. “The coding of the nanos that alters the genes, enhances them, it seems to be affected by the estrogen in your system. It is simply doing what it wants to do. They wouldn’t like that. Too hard to control. And maybe that is why it had to be you. Why Ari said that it did. Because at the end of it, it’s really about you. Not us. There is something about you that will scare them enough that they will back off our quadrant.” He looked at Blaze. “I don’t love her any less than you do. I can assure you of that. I’d gladly die for her, too. But we may have to bring her. I have more trust in Ari than you do. If he said it, he meant it. And you guys know Canyon? Would he lie?”

  “In a heartbeat,” Devil answered for Blaze. “If it kept Waverly and the kids alive. But I don’t think they were lying. That’s not how they’d have gone about it. If they needed Sienna dead, they’d have come back and killed her. They had ample time to do that.”

  Anders groaned. He clearly still had a headache. I could see it in the way he lifted his cheekbones slightly. “Of course, then they’d have had to kill all of us because we’d have slaughtered them.”

  “Then they’d have done it while we slept or knocked us all out. I assure you, Canyon and Rohan were well trained in murder.”

  Blaze groaned. “Yes, I’m the one who trained them. Better yet, they’d have gotten us all on this ship and blown us up. Let’s assume they didn’t have murderous intent. Let’s assume that Wade is right. We need her. Why not tell us? Hey, we need Sienna because she’s a woman to xyz. Why the vagueness?”

  “That’s not how the time travel messages work.” Trenton sighed. “From what little I know, they say just enough so that we fit into certain criteria without fucking it up. Too much information can make things go badly.” He threw his hands up in the air. “But I only know bits and pieces of this shit, so I could be totally wrong.”

  I held up my hand. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t need to do something important.”

  Just then the ship jolted left. We all fell toward the wall except for Blaze, who was seated. He spun in his chair, and with a total calmness I only associated with him, spoke to us. “Battle stations. The ship I found has found us.”

  I didn’t have anywhere to go in a battle. This was a pretty consistent problem for me during these times, but there was nothing to do about it, so basically my job consisted of getting the heck out of everyone’s way. If I followed Wade, he’d have to concern himself with me, too. That left me basically putting myself in my room and sitting tight.

  Someday there would have to be something more to do with myself than this.

  I ran down the hall and abruptly stopped. In front of me were three men who had not been there before. It was like they were a blur, and then they were on the ship. The machine that Blaze spoke about. It wasn’t on our vessel, so how were they suddenly here? That was beyond my understanding. I had finally figured out the lights.

  I darted left and jumped over the men just as they noticed me. They stared at each other and then back at me. Okay, they hadn’t known I had my abilities, but they did now. I ran.

  “They’re on the ship,” I shouted as loud as I could, knowing that was overkill, but Wade and Trenton couldn’t hear as well as we could.

  This wasn’t like when Kellan chased me. There was nothing exciting about this, it was terrifying. I was strong and capable but totally untrained, and these were men who lived their days and nights to be able to capture someone like me.

  “Hey,” Corbin called out to them, and they swung around to stare at him. One of them lifted a device I’d never seen before.

  In two seconds, Corbin had plowed one into another and grabbed the device. “Fuck, no. You are not taking me out with one of those things again.”

  Those things? I remembered suddenly about the devices on the planet that had taken down the guys. Some sort of neurological disruption. No, we didn’t need that. I rushed over and grabbed the one on the bottom of the pile Corbin made.

  “What do we do?”

  “Give him to me.” Anders rushed down the hall and grabbed the one I held. “You get safe. Where you were with Kellan yesterday. Go there. Now.”

  I nodded. Fine. Nothing had changed much. The best thing I could do would be to not get caught or in the way. I turned to run again, but two more men stood there. “Guys.”

  “Fuck.” Corbin called out. “Devil, we need you here now.”

  “Little busy.” Whack. Wherever Devil was, he was obviously in a fight.

  But I was never without my own ability to save myself. I zapped the two new men, hard. They both hit their knees. A little bit of dizziness overtook me, and I held on to the wall. That wasn’t good. I’d zapped harder than I ever had before, and I hadn’t rolled with it, like I might have wished. No, it was still a bit of an ordeal.

  Corbin was at my side. He gripped my arm, a warm strong presence. “You okay?”

  “Give me two seconds and I will be.”

  He nodded. “Take two. No one is getting near you.” Artemis jarred left, and Corbin hit the wall. “Damn it, Blaze, get them away from us.”

  My dizziness stopped. “Why is Blaze flying and not Trenton?”

  “He’s shooting,” Corbin supplied. “Sienna, listen. This isn’t the best time, but…”

  Whatever he was going to say, I never got to hear. Two more men appeared. That was interesting. They kept coming in twos. How were they getting here? They ripped Corbin away from me before they pulled out the device. It was loud, deafening, and I no more got to hear Anders shout a warning before it happened. Corbin hit the ground in front of me, and Anders toppled over.

  The two who had appeared didn’t. They had something in their ears to prevent hearing the noise. I panted from the pain but didn’t fall over. The man in front of me was tall—not surprising—and blond. He tilted his head. “How are you upright?”

  I didn’t know the answer to that, but even if I did, I wasn’t going to explain it to this ass. I acted with instinct. The one holding me was distracted from the fact that I was okay, and that meant I got to swing right at his face. I’d never punched anyone before, and it hurt. In fact, I was pretty sure I’d broken my thumb from the wrenching pain that followed, but he doubled over, and I kneed him hard, right in the gut.

  Some things, it turned out, were just instinctual.

  “How are you doing that?” Strong hands grabbed me.

  “I don’t know,” another new person answered, “but we need to bring her back. They’re going to want to see her.”

  I kicked and scratched. No one would say I didn’t try. But there were five of them now and one of me. Corbin and Anders were still not moving, and that sound they’d blasted had probably taken all of the guys down. I couldn’t even blame us for getting caught like this. How were they getting on Artemis? If we’d known, I’m sure they would have blocked their ears.

  “I’m going to be okay.” I didn’t know if that were true or if anyone who loved me could even hear me. But I needed to say it just in case.

  “Oh no.” The man holding me laughed. “You really aren’t.”

  All Evander ships looked the same. I was convinced of it. Pods. Dead-eyed men wandering around following orders. Smaller leaders with attitudes giving those orders. Metal everywhere. I sighed. Bad things happened when I went into space. I was more and more convinced I had to stay on a planet, barefooted, with the sun on my face. Of course, I’d never been barefooted outside, but that was neither here nor there.

  Unlike last time, I wasn’t scared. I was fucking annoyed.

  My guys were still on Artemis. They weren’t dead. I was sure of it. Like me, they were survivors, and if anyone could figure out how to get them all out of this, it was Trenton. That man had an incredible ability to dart and weave. I doubt it had even taken him down.

  As if to confirm that, the ship I was on dropped and then shook beneath my feet. Yes, Artemis was firing them on. That meant they were all going to be fine.

  But that didn’t alter anything at the moment. I was on this ship; they were on Artemis. We were in a black hole, which wasn’t normal space. And to get me back, they’d have to disable this ship without killing me. If they even knew I was gone yet.

  So much not fun. Plus, whatever the machine was that was moving them through space so fast made me want to puke. That feeling hadn’t ended.

  “Mr. Vice President,” the asshat holding me said, shoving me forward. “She made it through the device, and she’s strangely strong.”

  Yes, I was. I’d broken his nose. If that made me more than just a little bit happy, that was fine. I didn’t have to justify my feelings to anyone. Maybe I was more violent than I realized.

  “How is that possible?”

  The man in front of me was tiny. Smaller than me. I wasn’t used to that with the men around me. They were all huge. I had to look down to speak to him. That didn’t mean I judged him for being short. No, it was more the fact that he was that high up in Evander that made me get on my judgmental bandwagon.

  Stupid ass…

  “I don’t know, but I think we should get her home before the competition gets her.”

  I stared at him. The what? I wasn’t going to ask. But that seemed like an important piece of information. By competition, they couldn’t mean us. We weren’t that.

  But then it dawned on me, as cliché as it was, as though a light was going off in my mind. A bell ringing. Evander was a corporation. A business. Even where we were from, we had them. Small versions. If one person selling shoes undercut the cost of shoes, all the stores had to do that.

  Who was Evander competing with for sales? They wanted our side of the galaxy for our commodities. One of which was me.

  “Oh you don’t want to lose me.” I smiled. I needed them to think me valuable so that I could be kept alive long enough to either figure out how to save myself or to be rescued. I didn’t care which as long as no one I cared about got hurt.

  It was amazing, really. I hadn’t wanted anyone hurt for me, but my heart had changed on that issue. I didn’t care if any of these men here had bad things happen to them. That might sound awful if I said it aloud, but in my thoughts, I was totally comfortable. From this moment, there was us and there was them. If they weren’t part of us, they were them. Innocents could be us.

  That wasn’t these guys.

  Fuck. Them.

  “What?” The Vice President walked toward us. “Who are you?”

  “I’m the woman you guys have been trying to get for some time on the other side of the galaxy. I’m a big get for you.”

  He blinked. “The one they made sick.”

  “Yes, they did, but I beat that. I’m amazing. I can do it with my brain.” I pointed at my head. “You really don’t want to mess with me.”

  His mouth fell open. “That’s not possible. I heard that they dosed you with everything.”

  I smiled. “They did, but I’m just kind of awesome.”

  He shook his head. Being an asshole must come as a job requirement for Vice Presidents in this place.

  I zapped him. Not even a hard hit, and he fell to his knees, grabbing his head.

  “Oh, yes,” the one holding me said, a bland tone to his voice. “She can do that, too.”

  No way had he forgotten that part. It was a pretty substantially strange thing for a person to be able to do. Did he want me to zap the Vice President?

  He had no idea how much worse I could do to all of them. I stared at my wrist. It still read zero. But would it if I opened myself to taking their emotions? Could my body continue to hold the virus at bay and do that? Could I trust myself that far?

  What would Wade say if he was standing here?

  That was sort of obvious. He’d say stay alive, Sienna. Wait for us to save you. We’re coming. Don’t be stupid. Don’t do that again. Something along those lines.

  The Vice President stumbled to his feet. He looked a little bit like a rag doll, like he couldn’t make the bones in his legs work. How hard had I zapped him? I’d been going for easy. I had no resulting dizziness, so it couldn’t have been that bad. Maybe he was just… not strong.

  I didn’t know, didn’t care. What I wanted was to get out of here and fast. They had to stop firing on Artemis. She held everyone I loved in the universe in her strong structure. I wasn’t going to lose any of them.

  “Stop firing on Artemis, or I’ll zap you again.” I leaned forward. “Harder.”

  His voice cracked when he finally found it. “Stop firing.”

  I turned slightly to the Super Soldier holding me. “I love the men on that ship. They’re Super Soldiers, like you. They have a life. They have me. You can have it, too. So just know that there is more than this. You don’t have to listen to this man.”

  The Vice President’s eyes widened. I let myself listen to his heart. There were incredible benefits to this ability. He was terrified. His heart raced much faster than it should. If I cared if he lived or died, I would actually be worried about this.

  But I didn’t.

  He was afraid. Of me. I smiled, slowly. “You don’t need to mess with Artemis anymore. I’m the most interesting thing you were going to find there.”

  “We know that ship. Every time we find that ship, whoever is on it causes us endless problems.” His chin shook.

  I leaned forward as far as I could. “Stop firing on my ship, or next time I’ll make it hurt.”

  “Stop firing,” he practically shouted. “Stop.”

  I could have laughed. Every person on this ship, including me, could have heard him if he whispered, and he had to shout to get what he needed done. That was pathetic. Real leadership shouldn’t need this. The Super Soldiers here didn’t respect him, they tolerated him. That meant it would be pretty easy to take off his head. If I wanted that to happen.

  I didn’t. I just wanted them to leave me alone.

  “We… we can’t let this woman on our ship.” The man hollered again. “She’s going to turn your head. Make you all want to fuck her.”

  I blinked at him. Okay. Now that had come from left field. I hadn’t considered that. There were risks with the fact that many of these people had maybe never seen a woman before. But then again, they were put in machines that chemically castrated them every so often so they wouldn’t have those urges. I hadn’t met the five Super Soldiers I loved until they’d worked through much of this.

  Did the Vice President want to scare me? It wouldn’t work. I straightened my back. “I don’t believe that anyone on this ship would be so awful. Don’t you have control of your men?”