Page 36 of Succumb to the Storm
Epilogue
On daysix we sit and watch the skies. No one comes.
On day seven I do the same while Indiz hunts. He doesn’t stop me from watching. It’s something I need to do, and he knows it. He’s done this all before.
His back is almost healed, but there is a tension between us. Aside from the kiss after the ship fell, he hasn’t reached for me. And I haven’t reached for him, not wanting to aggravate his back. But as I check and treat it, I want to run my hands over more than his back. When I sleep in his arms, I want him to do more than hold me. But how to ask for more when I’m the one who told him I didn’t want a mate?
I’m about to give up on my vigil when something catches my eye. At first, I think it’s the first star glimmering in the sky, but then I realize it’s moving. It’s not hope but horror that blooms as the storm clouds gather in what had been a clear sky. The ship is more than a speck now, it’s the size of my thumbnail and getting bigger. I will them to turn back before it's too late.
Lightning tears across the sky.
I don’t need to watch, so I close my eyes. But I hold my breath, hoping that the ship turns around and gets away. The bang reverberates through the air as the ship is hit.
I open my eyes to see the silver ship spinning out of control as it careens through the sky away from me. I track its fall until the mountains block my view. The ship will crash hundreds of kilometers away. I’ll never know if anyone survived. Or how many survive the one hundred days in the wild before one of the elemental tribes takes them in.
“They came for you,” Indiz says from the bottom of the slope.
I don’t know how long he’s been watching, maybe this is bringing up bad memories for him as no one came for him. Or maybe he needed to be busy while monitoring the sky. He’s caught two fluffy brown things, their long legs dangle from the staff. It’s much harder to eat meat now I’ve seen where it comes from. But I’m in no hurry to eat insects or algae again either.
“Yes.” And they damned themselves. If they survived the crash, then they have a chance. I turn away, there’s nothing more to watch and nothing I can do to help. It would take weeks to hike to the crash site, assuming I could find it. I shake my head. The company didn’t care that I was lost. They cared about the ship and the survey. “No…they would’ve only come for the data.”
I am nothing to them, but to Indiz I am everything.
This planet is the prize, and it needs protecting.
I hold my hand out to him, not wanting to keep the distance between us. “Shall we go home, mate?”
His clawed fingers close around mine, and he smiles. It reaches his dark eyes and I know he’s been waiting for me to accept my fate. The last few days we have worked together, and I know we’ll last the days in the wild. Together we’ll return and I’ll take my place as part of the Storm.
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