He was always there in the background. Still. Waiting. Watching me with those dark, dark eyes. It should have freaked me out. It didn’t. I’m afraid of everything, but I’m not afraid of him. In my darkest moment, Danek was there, reaching for me, tugging me into the light.
It’s been thirty-five days since the doctors pronounced me healed. Whatever that means.
Thirty days since they moved me into this studio apartment. They’re trying to integrate me into their world. Alice comes by every other day to check on me. Three times a week, I wake up at the crack of dawn, and the two of us go for a run. I don’t talk much; I rarely do. I’m not much for social interaction, not any longer. Most days, I feel as fragile as a dried leaf. Alice doesn’t seem to mind. Like Danek, she seems willing to let me heal at my own pace.
Sixty days in the Rebellion. A milestone of sorts. My life feels marked with them. Some milestones are good, the result of choices I’ve made. The day I married Will, that was a good day. A good choice. I’d loved him deeply. I was thirty-one, and I’d sown my wild oats, and I knew myself. I’d wanted to marry him.
Other milestones aren’t planned. The cold January morning I got the phone call that would change my life—I would do anything to undo that. Will hit a patch of ice on his drive to work and crashed into a tree. He was killed instantly.
I hadn’t realized when we got married that I would only have a few short years with him. I hadn’t realized I would spend my thirty-fifth birthday at his graveside. But there it is. Life happens to us, whether we want it to or not. All you can do is control your response.
Launching myself into space—that had been one hell of a milestone. Will had been dead for four years. I was going to be forty. I was starting to feel like it was too late for crazy adventures, and so I took the biggest one, submitting my application to go to Zoraht.
That ended up not going as planned. I thought I’d spend my fortieth birthday sightseeing on an alien planet. Ending up in a torture chamber? Not my choice.
Then I’d met Danek. Most of my memories from the before-times are dim and foggy, but I remember clearly the expression on his face when he lifted me into his arms. He’d looked shocked. Shaken.
Another door. Another transition.
Setting the piece of charcoal down, I syn myself a cup of coffee. Once I empty it, I move to the closet that holds my meager possessions. The clothes I packed on Earth are long gone, and the contents of my closet are a gift from the Rebellion. I grab a grey jumpsuit before heading to the shower.
Alice and I went for a run yesterday, and I won’t see her again until tomorrow morning. The day stretches before me, a blank void with nothing to fill it. That’s a lie; there are plenty of things I could do. I could visit the recruiting office. Cassie did that last month, and now the young woman, who was a pre-med student back home, is training to be a doctor. Dor was a gamer; she’s now a pilot. I don’t really know what the Rebellion could do with me—I was a bank manager back in Bangor. I’m good at Excel, and at talking reassuringly to old people. Neither seems like a useful skillset, but Alice assures me that’s not a problem. “They’re hungry for help,” she’d said yesterday, after our run. “They’ll find you something to do. You need routine in your life, Naomi.”
She’s not wrong. I might mark the wall to keep track of days, but time is starting to blur together, and I can’t seem to care. “It’s a PTSD response,” Alice had said. “You were tortured for a very long time. You bore the brunt of it, shielding Cassie from it as much as you could. It’s going to take you time to heal.”
Cassie is only twenty-one. I wasn’t being brave, and I wasn’t being a martyr. I just couldn’t stand to see her get hurt. I’m older, I’m thirty-nine. I can take it.
Forty. You turned forty in that lab.
I could read a book or watch a movie. The aliens have hacked into the internet, and on my tablet, I supposedly have access to every book, movie, and podcast that was ever available online back on Earth.
The tablet is still in its packaging.
The bed is right there, beckoning to me. The sheets are invitingly rumpled. If I sleep, I might dream. Sometimes, they are nightmares, but lately, the dreams have been more varied. One night, I dreamed that I was flying, swooping in and out of clouds. Another night, when I closed my eyes, I was transported to my fortieth birthday party, surrounded by laughing friends and family, blowing the candles out on my cake.
And I dream of Danek. He rescues me, over and over again, and when he cradles me in his arms, a prickle of something that could almost be arousal runs through me.
It’s been sixty days, Naomi, a voice whispers to me. It’s long enough. Pick up the pieces.
I’ve heard this voice before. She spoke to me when Will died. She made me sell our house, get into my car, and drive across the country to start over. She made me apply to the space lottery. I don’t know if I hate her or love her, but when she speaks, I’ve learned to listen.
Pick up the pieces, she says. As if it’s that easy.
Take the first step, Naomi.
I make myself walk to my closet once more. On the top shelf, shoved into a far corner, is a tiny translator. My fingers tremble as I pick it up. My throat feels dry as I bring it up to my ear. And when