Starborne

Chapter 36

Koryn sided with me almost immediately, as soon as I relayed my conversation with Akara. Despite being initially uncomfortable, he allowed me to touch him long enough to begin patching up some of the more painful wounds and bruises. I rushed through the plan as I hastily tried to communicate everything of importance. Finally, with barely ten minutes left, I turned to Stefin.

"Your turn." Stefin still seemed less than impressed, but the sparkle of hope had returned to Koryn's eyes.

"You're much crazier than I thought, Holly. But this is going to work."

"No." Stefin crossed his arms and glared.

"No to the med paks or no to the plan?" I reached out my hand to him slowly, but he flinched so hard I let it fall.

"No to both. We don't need your help."

I rolled my eyes at how stupid he was being, and Koryn followed suit.

"I can't even argue with you if that's where you're going to start." I sat up on my knees, leaning forward to get closer to his eye level.

"Let's just begin with how lucky you are that I happened to be on this ship at all."

"Luck had nothing to do with it," Koryn muttered, but Stefin cut him off.

"Are we supposed to commend you for going on a suicide mission then?"

"Well there wasn't really anything else for me to do, was there?" It was my turn to raise my voice.

"Your life was so devoid of meaning you decided to enlist to kill yourself, and now you're taking us down with you."

"I-," mortified, my voice was cracking, "I did this because I wanted meaning. You were never supposed to be here."

"Well here we are, Holly." Stefin gestured to the dank cell, the chains, the evidence of blood and torture, all of it. "We are here, trapped, and you still have nothing to live for."

It was cruel of him to say, but hurt more because I knew it was true.

"You may be right that I'm not worth anything to anyone anymore."

"Holly, he doesn't mean that-" I cut Koryn off, I had no need for anyone to soften the edges of the mess that I made.

"I took this mission to help people. I messed up and gave away too much when I saw you here, I admit that. But, Stefin, I swear on everything I believe in that I would have normally taken any beating they could throw at me before revealing the village."

I practically begged him to believe me, forgive me, arguing my case despite knowing it was futile. "I had ALYX hidden on me, and I couldn't risk them breaking the drive. We would have been trapped here and they would have killed you -" my voice embarrassingly hitched, and I tried to cover with a cough.

"All that aside, you have to believe me that this plan will work. What other choice do you have?"

I offered the bandages to Stefin, a meager peace offering.

There were a few moments of silence punctuated by the loud beating of my heart, seconds slipping away while my watch ticked down to only minutes remaining.

Koryn was fiddling with his bandages, marveling as the med paks healed his bruises with unnatural speed. He got up and walked to the end of the cell, stretching his sore muscles and being very obvious about giving us space, for whatever reason.

Stefin stared somewhere over my head, contemplating. I tried to tamp down my frustration, giving him as many moments as I could to process everything I'd revealed.