Page 137 of Sky Song
Lyle gently smoothed hair away from her face, such a tender, loving gesture. “You are not. You’re perfect. More than perfect… Only a tiny bit of Rix material is now a part of you.” He leaned down and kissed her lips, nibbled at her mouth like he used to do when they were first exploring each other, when he had had no urgency to him, and his twinkling eyes glowed with tender care and love. No matter that he scoffed at the word.
Everything in her life had been an illusion.
She pulled away and stared at his face in the darkness, willing to penetrate the gloom and see his expression even though she knew his expression didn’t change. She wanted to see the inside of him. “You came to kill me.”
“Hush.”
“You came to kill the subjects. Lyle, you came to…”
“Don’t speak. Don’t say anything more.” He put his broken hand over her trembling mouth. “There weren’t any left alive.”
“Except for one. I am still alive.” She said into his fingers.
“And you will stay alive, for as long as I breathe and thereafter.”
“You won’t kill me?”
“You know I won’t. You know if I wanted to, I would have, ten times over, without you knowing, without you feeling pain.”
“Lyle. Lyle…”
“I will die for you.” It didn’t sound like a promise; it sounded like a statement of fact.
“I can’t bear the thought.”
“It doesn't matter. I don’t matter.” He kissed her wet cheeks. “I can taste your sadness. It is tearing me apart.” There was a small catch in his voice.
She placed her hand on his chest where his multiple hearts were drumming an insistent beat in a perfectlysynchronized harmony. “Your hearts are beating. You do have more than one. I thought you lied about that.”
“Why would I lie about my hearts?”
“Don’t know. To make fun of me. To amuse yourself.”
“I never lied to you, my hearts.”
She sobbed his name and he caught in with his mouth. When they made love, it was just like she had dreamed about, had imagined it would be, in sync, tender, giving it all to each other.
Only later, once again laying sleepless in the dark, she was able to think rationally, and she knew. Lyle may have gotten the medical records but he hadn’t killed her, and in that, he had failed his mission. A surviving subject, she wasn’t safe from other Rix, specifically, from Simon. She was a sitting duck here on Meeus.
He knew that, of course. He’d taken out his implant and was prepared to go back to his original blueprint and to do things he’d forsworn, like stealing a spaceship, like flying… Because taking Cricket away from here was the only choice he had to keep her alive.
But at what cost?
Chapter 17
Cricket stared morosely out of the window that faced a neighboring building’s wall. Rosamma brought in a small tray with cut fruit and cheese, all artfully arranged, and set it on the chair next to Cricket. The kind gesture made Cricket frown with overwhelming gratitude and embarrassment. “You don’t have to wait on me, Rosamma.”
“Oh, it’s no bother.”
“You already shelter and feed me. That’s more than generous.”
Rosamma only shrugged. “I like to cook and run the house. I’ve read a lot on that, about all the rules on how to receive guests and serve a table, to cook and bake, to make fancy drinks. I have time to read, you know. Especially on my bad days, when my energy reserves dip low in winter, that’s all I do. I sit in my pretty room in my comfy chair with my soft throw across my lap, and I read about social life and families. Alone.”
Cricket idly picked up a slice of fruit. Rosamma’s story resonated painfully with her. They were eerily alike, and they probably mirrored thousands of other invalids of every world who could share similar stories where they sat alone and watched life go by, lived on by other people. They could dip their toes in it at times, but never dive in fully.
Rosamma touched her, sending a queer energy current up her arm. “Please, don’t feel bad. That would be terrible if Imade you feel bad. I’ve never had anyone to take care of, and I don’t mind. Truly.”
Cricket disliked being a dependent, but she didn’t argue. Instead, she resolved to find ways to make herself useful to Rosamma and maybe even to Ren who she knew was working with Lyle on the logistics of their escape. She could be useful to them, and she wanted to. She had an impression that their preparations were stalling, that something else was going on. If only she could talk to Lyle… except he stopped coming home.
