ELEVEN
OLIVIA
I stared at the datapad in my hands the following afternoon. The pale blue light from the screen illuminated my face in the otherwise dim medical archives. The numbers told a heartbreaking story. Three women dead. Five babies who never took their first breath. All within the first year of the colony’s establishment.
“Jesus,” I whispered, swiping through another case history that made my stomach twist painfully.
A shadow fell across the screen. Aeon stood beside me, his broad shoulders blocking the overhead light. His presence was no longer as threatening as it had been those first days, but it still made the hair on my arms stand up—though I wasn’t entirely sure it was from fear anymore.
“Our efforts have been... insufficient.” He leaned forward, close enough that I caught the clean scent of whatever soap they used here. His blue eyes searched my face. “You understand now why we brought you?”
I set the tablet down with more force than necessary. “You mean kidnapped me? Because your medical knowledge is so catastrophically limited that women and babies are dying?”
His strong jawline tightened, a muscle jumping beneath his tan skin. “Yes.”
That single admission knocked the wind from my righteous anger. No excuses, no justification. Just acknowledgment of their desperate situation.
“Your protocols are medieval at best,” I said, gesturing to the screen showing their current birthing procedure. “This wouldn’t pass a first-year medical student’s practical exam.”
“We lack your training and knowledge.” His voice dropped, revealing the vulnerability he tried so hard to hide. “These deaths... they weigh on us. On me.”
I looked away from him and back to the medical files. They had been trying. God, they’d been trying so hard with such limited knowledge. What they’d cobbled together from the information they could extract from Earth’s systems before they were disconnected, and their experience this past year, was woefully inadequate for the complexities of childbirth.
I looked up at the ceiling. “I just want to go home, Aeon. I want my life back.”
“But these women need you. The colony’s survival is dependent on your help.”
“I know.” The weight of that truth settled on my shoulders. “And I can’t just... let them die when I can prevent it.”
His hand moved, hesitantly covering mine for just a moment before pulling away. “Then you’ll help us?”
I finally met his gaze, those piercing blue eyes that seemed more human each day. “I’ll help the women. But this doesn’t mean I forgive how I got here.”
He nodded, something like relief softening his features. “Fair terms.”
“Not terms. A human conscience. Something you seem to be developing, despite yourself.”
His lips quirked in what might have been the beginning of a smile. “Perhaps we’re both learning new things on this planet.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
He suddenly straightened, his head turning toward the door like a predator sensing movement.
“Commander Helix is here,” he said, his voice dropping to a lower register. “For her scheduled examination.”
I glanced up from the medical files, my heart quickening. “Now? You could have given me some notice.”
“She’s early.” He shrugged those impossibly broad shoulders, the light catching on the scar that ran across his collarbone, visible above the collar of his fitted black T-shirt.
Before I could protest further, the doors to the medical archives slid open. Commander Helix strode in with a grace that belied her heavily pregnant form. Her normally stern face was lined with tension, dark circles under her eyes speaking of sleepless nights.
“Doctor Parker.” She nodded curtly, one hand resting protectively over her growing belly. “I trust you’re settling in better.”
“As well as any kidnap victim could,” I replied, but the bite had gone out of my words. The medical files had changed something in me.
“Let’s proceed with the examination.” Helix sat on the edge of the medical bed I had moved into the archives for convenience.
I guided her to lie back, and as I prepared the portable scanner, Aeon loomed over my shoulder. His warmth radiated against my back, uncomfortably intimate yet somehow reassuring.
