“No, why?” I wiggled away from her and braced a hand on the windowsill, blinking twice when the magnetic shield hissed under my touch.
The bad dreams had started four months ago when I boarded the mothership on my first tour to the Old Planet. Since then, I’d had the same dream with the same dreadful end—the man with the kind, green eyes writhing in pain, his blood everywhere, and screams that made me want to claw my eyes out.
“The best lie is the one everyone wants to believe.” His words always stayed with me long after I woke.
And every time, I ended up in the red quadrant, staring at the Old Planet in the distance. No matter how horrid the scene playing in my mind was, this need to see him was always there.
“You’re here. That’s why.”
“I had a free day. That’s all.”
“You can’t fool me. I know you come here when you see him. Your dreamy guy died again?”
Maybe the ghost pain in my chest had turned me reckless, or maybe it was the pull I felt every time I caught a glimpse of the Old Planet, but I wanted this.
“Take me with you.”
“What?” Her eyes burned with a purple tint around her irises, making her look even more beautiful.
“You have orders, don’t you? To download to the surface?” I glanced down at my hands.
The immortals with their flawless skin and indefinable beauty had a way to make the rest of us invisible. She looked like me, but she was stronger, faster, more graceful—better.
“Yes.” She cocked an eyebrow. “We are going down to the planet, but you know you can’t come. They need us for crowd control. That can get complicated sometimes. This is your first tour. You’re not ready for a mission like that.”
My heart drummed in my throat. This was a rare opportunity. A pod lander leaving the Epoch in the middle of the night, while my cohort leader slept, never happened. This was an insane idea, though. No matter how much I wanted to step foot on the Old Planet. Ry and I, we didn’t abide by the same rules.
As the oldest, when Mom was exiled from the City of Phoenicis, Ry inherited her immortality along with all her financials. Five minutes had made all the difference when we were born. I was the spare Mom never should’ve had. We were sisters, but the difference in our social status left us worlds apart.
While Ry could come and go as she pleased, I only had restricted access to the ship and the orbiter. If they caught us, I’d be the one spending the rest of the tour in solitary confinement. Solitary was no joke. Most people didn’t come out quite the same after a few weeks of it.
“Come on. Just tell me which transport pod you were assigned to.”
She sighed. “You think you’re going to find him down there, don’t you? This is not only dangerous but impossible. You can’t land on a hostile planet and instantly find a guy you’ve never met. Just because you see him dying on the Old Planet doesn’t mean he’s there for real. It doesn’t mean he’s real.”
“I know that. I know it’s only a dream. I just want to get out of here. Put my training to good use.” Did I constantly fantasize about saving him? Yeah, sure, but Ry didn’t need to know how deep my obsession for him had become.
“Catita.”
A stream of calm washed over me when she said my name. Influence came with the immortal package deal. Her serenity was literally contagious.
She took my hand. “How about some tea? In my quarters?”
It wasn’t a request. By the time I met her gaze, we were already on our way to her QEC-level room. She kept her arm around me while other commandos eyed me up and down. They could sense I wasn’t an immortal like them.
Ry pressed a hand to her door, and it retreated into the wall automatically. She was right. I should be happy with my post. I should stop asking to be more. I should be thankful I had her to protect me.
I plopped myself on the oversized comforter, tossing a few plush pillows out of the way. The white sleek walls and bedding were a stark contrast to the dark, sparkled sky outside the large circular opening. The entire QEC quadrant was filled with windows, comfortable furnishings, and oxygen that tasted sweet like ripe strawberries.
“Here.” She shoved a hot mug in my hand and sat next to me, facing the stars.
“At this hour, you can see Mars.” She pointed at a red spot on the right. “Do you miss home?”
“Not really. I’ve been waiting for this tour all my life. I hate that they held me back for so long.”
“Wela did it for your own good.” She petted my hair and pressed her hand to my tea to make me drink.
“Grans is just like you, thinking I can’t handle myself.” I took a big gulp of the brew.
Ry chuckled. “I dare you to call her that to her face.”
Wela didn’t like to be called Grans. She thought it made her sound old. As a one-hundred-fifty-year-old immortal, she was old. But I chose not to point out that fact, not to her anyway.
“Maybe when I’m ready to spin out of this world.” I laughed, and Ry glanced down at her hands. Hopefully, not soon but in time, I was supposed to die while Ry and Wela lived forever. “So a special invite to your fancy quarters, crazy good tea, and a night chat. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you have bad news for me.”
She clicked her teeth and started the process of removing her QEC armor. I liked this side of her better, the more human, more like me side. I stood and pulled off her boots and the rest of her gear until she was in her training tank top and shorts.
“Let me guess they turned
