Page 9 of Into Orbit
Elswyth raised my hand and cupped it between hers. Her skin was cool – cooler than mine – but my body warmed instantly at the gesture, then grew hotter as she pressed my fingers to her cheek in a gesture that was unexpectedly tender. ‘I won’t let them hurt you, Maeve McCarthy.’
The doctor and Ashton watched. Willow’s face stayed expressionless, but the big male glowered before glancing away.
I gathered my courage. ‘Do I need to sit down?’
‘No, you –’
The doctor stepped forward and shoved something in my ear.
It burned like seven bloody hells and I gave a pathetic-sounding yelp before my instincts kicked in and I spun, slamming my palm straight into the doctor’s unprotected throat. He reeled back a few steps, his eyes going wide and his blank expression giving way to one of shock. Ashton slid forward a bare moment later, and with a swift, unnerving grace, spun me around and locked me against him, his arm around my neck, all before I could stammer out an apology.
Unfortunately for Ashton, I didn’t like that very much. I wrenched my body around to face him, jabbed him once in the stomach and once in the crotch with my fist, then shoved him backwards, pulling free from his hold. He didn’t fall, but he did stagger, so I followed up with a punch to the jaw that sent a shockwave of pain through my hand and arm.
His eyes lit with challenge, the rich brown burning gold, and I realised that he didn’t have a pupil. I had a moment to processthatlittle discovery – and to realise that Elswyth and Willow didn’t have pupils, either, and my mind had just filled in the omission so I could cope with the weirdness of my current situation – before my head throbbed like a bastard and I yelped again, bending double and clutching at one ear as the doctor stepped forward and jabbed something into the other.
I went down like a sack of rocks, crumpling in a heap. Elswyth fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around me, holding me up as fire laced through my brain. It was worse than an ear infection, worse than a migraine, and I shut my eyes and let Elswyth hold me as I whimpered. The pain came in rolling waves, one after the other, each washing from my ear into my head and down my neck.
Maybe this wasn’t a great idea.
‘It’s all right. You’re all right.’
The soothing voice was steady and deep, and it took me a few long moments to realise that it wasn’t Elswyth. I wrenched my eyes open to see the doctor crouching near us, close enough to touch, but he didn’t reach out.
He gave me an endearingly crooked smile. ‘There we go,’ he murmured. ‘You’ll have a headache for a day or so, I’m afraid, but the sharp pain should fade.’
His mouth made a series of movements that didn’t look anything like the words I’d just heard, and my mouth dropped open in shock. ‘It’s working,’ I blurted out.
‘Indeed.’ He graced me with another smile, his teeth white and even, and my stomach performed a series of small flips. His eyes flickered upward; I stared at them openly, still coming to terms with their missing pupil. ‘The Captain is on her way. Would you prefer to stand?’
That sounded serious, so I shifted to stand upright, swaying a little when I got there. Elswyth came with me, leaving her arm around my waist. I didn’t know whether it was for support or another reason entirely, but I didn’t care; it felt nice, and she could leave it there as long as she wanted, as far as I was concerned. I glanced down at her; her expression was tight, and she shook her hair around her face as if to hide behind it. Ashton stepped up to stand at her other side, his hands held loosely at his sides, his jaw darkening from my punch in a spread of deep green.
I blinked.
No pupil. Green blood?
‘Elswyth!’
A voice rang across the hangar; every Tirian worker who hadn’t already been watching our drama straightened at the sound of it and stopped what they were doing.
Elswyth took an audible breath then forced her shoulders straight, lifting her chin and fixing her eyes on the female storming towards us.
She was lovely, with jet black hair and eyes of a deep forest green. Like Ashton, she wore the tiny triangular plates over her cheekbones, but she also had a ridge of them over each eyebrow and along the line of her jaw. When her hair shifted with her movement, I saw that the shell of her ears was lined, too, making them pointed at the top.
When she rubbed her jaw in irritation, I realised something else.
They weren’t piercings, or decorations, or anything cosmetic, as I’d thought. When I glanced across at Ashton’s cheekbones, and then down at Elswyth’s ears, visible through the curtain of her hair andpointed, I realised that the tiny plates moved when their skin moved, shifting with expressions and as they spoke.
They werethorns. Not plates.Thorns.
What. The. Fuck.
‘What do you think you were doing?’ the black-haired female shouted at Elswyth. ‘And where did you learn to dismantle the Pod’s tracker? We didn’t know where youwere, didn’t know if you weresafe, didn’t know –’
‘I’m back now,’ Elswyth interjected.
‘The Forest has already started to wilt, Elswyth.’
Elswyth winced. ‘I’m not a prisoner,’ she said hotly. ‘And I’m not one of your crew. I left –’
