Bytes of Passion

Chapter 20

"Are they still following us?" Skylar asked looking out the ship's window. She couldn't see anything nearby, but Teegan was more tense than usual as he sat in the pilot's seat.

"Yes."

She took the co-pilot's seat beside him, but he wouldn't look at her, as had been the case since they boarded.

"Who are you, Teegan?"

He continued staring forward, with the occasional glance to the navigation board, but he said nothing, so she continued talking. "I used to think my real parents would come for me one day, back on Quintero. I didn't remember them, but I dreamed none-the-less. And then one day I was living in the Goldsmiths' house, as their daughter, with no recollection of how or when I'd arrived. Yet none of this seems to surprise you. You know more about me than you're letting on."

He remained focused on his instruments. Apparently, he wasn't going to tell her anything. She'd lost him, if she'd ever had him. He had some plan that affected her, but she was just a pawn in his game – had been since the start.

"Don't go," he said as she rose to leave. Then his hand was on hers, warm and inviting. Familiar, like home would feel if she ever had one of her own. A real home, not a cold station or big empty house where people claimed to care about her. At some point in her life she'd have to learn to let go of those dreams and move forward. She couldn't fall for Teegan again. He'd betrayed her once already, and this arrangement with Dennison... she hadn't been given a choice, by either of them. They wanted her to betray the only people who'd taken her in and given her a home, even if the people were cold and distant to her... even if they'd... done things to her.

The moment she pulled away from Teegan, an emptiness invaded her soul. Her eyes clouded with tears as she raced through the corridor. She ran as far as she could go on the small ship, to the cargo bay where there were no windows to remind her of space and where she was headed. Teegan had a small gym set up in the corner, so she sat down on the weight bench.

The swoosh of the door opening startled her, but it didn't surprise her. "I don't know what you want from me," she said as Teegan drew closer. "You told Dennison that I'm your ticket into the Goldsmiths' estate, but I know you can get in without me. You don't need me."

There was a hardness to him, as there always had been, but he looked torn somehow. Grey eyes held a fear she didn't understand. "Nothing you could ever say could be as far from the truth, Skylar. I need you, but it has nothing to do with this deal I made with Dennison or gaining access to the estate."

The words stuck in her throat, so she shook her head. He didn't need her, and she didn't need him. Yet her body, her soul... wanted him, like nothing she'd ever wanted before.

"You sold me..."

"But I didn't leave you," he said, his voice soft. "I followed you and Garrox, and I watched everything he did."

"Not everything." She rubbed the tracks on her arm.

His body tightened. "No," he said, barely a whisper.

"I can feel the liquid as it courses through my body, like a fire spreading so fast my heart has trouble keeping up with it. Eventually the fire subsides, but that's when the fog enters and I worry what memories will be gone when I wake." She didn't know why she was telling him any of this, only that she needed to, perhaps so he would understand what she went through each time, what she'd gone through while his face had been stuck in her head, reminding her that she had meant nothing to him.