Page 84 of Shellshock

“So what do you think I should do?” he finally asked.

Why did he have to ask her that question, out of all of them? She shook her head, as lost as he was.

“I have no fucking clue.”

CHAPTER16

LUCCA

She roused from dreams of home to a watery flash of light on the ceiling. Caligher entered the dark bedroom and shut the door.

He’d been so restless earlier that he’d gone back out.

“Cal?”

He disappeared into the bathroom, switching the water on. When the faucet switched off, her stomach knotted. She could taste it in the air—something was still wrong.

She pushed herself to her elbows to find him stepping back into the bedroom. His eyes fell on her like two dark, sad beacons.

“Are you feeling any better?” she asked. The question came out plaintive and worried, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted him to be okay.

Walking over, he suddenly leaned over her, making her heart somersault.

“Sorry for waking you,” he murmured, planting a quick kiss on her head. His hands sank into the mattress on either side of her, shielding her with his body.

“I asked you a question,” she repeated, blinking rapidly at all the armored chest in her face. The side of his throat was pounding with his heartbeat. She studied his eyes and carefully reached up, pressing her palm over his heart.

The stone on his body was inflexible to the touch, yet his sharp intake of breath made it change shape—before he went totally still. Even his heartbeat slowed down to the occasional thrum.

That pulse restarted, breath resuming. His shadowed eyes held her focus. “Are you awake enough to go somewhere with me?”

“For what?”

Rather than answering, he stood upright. She rose from the bed and joined him at the door, where he hesitated, considering her.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Do you like me, Lucca?”

She tilted her head in surprise. “Of course I like you. I care very deeply about you.”

His eyes fell, brimming with conflict. His focus shifted behind her through the window as a glow fell over them, framing the shadow of Lucca’s outline against his torso.

She twisted and saw the great ravine and the city.

The demolished human ships were in the center, swarming with activity. Ternetzis were picking the broken crafts apart. Dear god, that made things… uncomfortable.

Even more than they’d already been.

Caligher’s hand linked with hers, palm-to-palm, drawing her back. The connection was like a link from her heart’s pulse to his. It was intimate but soat odds.

Silently, she went with him.

He brought her to a narrow room at the end of a vacant hallway. Beyond the final doors awaited a startling sight that had her backing out—only for her exit to be blocked off by Caligher.

“Whatisthis?” she gasped.

Across the narrow room was a male Ternetzi, bound to the wall and gagged with some industrial-looking metal thing. His eyes were pinned to the moving lump on the ground—which Lucca was trying very hard not to acknowledge with her own two eyes.

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