I rushed along behind the gurney as it hovered down the hall with Charlie perched on my hip. She was still sniffling. I think I'd stopped most of her bleeding with the part of my shirt I'd ripped off, so my biggest concern was Jackson. His breathing was ragged and caused considerable pain despite a heavy dose of painkillers administered by the medics that attended to him at the scene. I ignored the insistent beeping in my head coming from my Halo. It would stop once my heartrate and cortisol levels fell.

Focusing on Jackson and Charlie distracted me from my guilt at suggesting he let her die. I knew I hadn't meant it like that...or at least I thought I knew. My back ached from carrying the girl, but I wasn't about to let her out of my sight before her father found us. I'd taken on responsibility for her care like it would absolve me of my earlier sins.

Jackson wasn't bleeding, but considering the size of what hit him, I knew there had to be major internal damage. I'd only seen an accident like that once before when a transport blew up as it was preparing to leave the bay. Those people didn't make it and, remembering their deaths, I was struck by an overwhelming fear that I would lose Jackson, too.

Once we reached the med bay, we were bombarded by a flurry of activity as medics, doctors, and nurses flitted around from one injured person to the next. I covered my mouth and nose with my free hand to try to stop the sensory attack of antiseptic that had my eyes watering. A doctor ripped Charlie from my arms while another demanded to know what happened. An older nurse snapped at me to move away from the bed. My Halo beeped wildly in my ears as I was pulled between different people all insisting on my undivided attention. I told the one working with Jackson all I knew, but it wasn't much. The other doctor whisked Charlie around a corner. I craned my neck to see where he took her, but they were completely out of sight.

A man sitting on a cot behind me spoke up. "I don't know how he got to her so fast. He dove for her – the child – and I knew he wasn't going to make it. Next thing I know she was flying across the hall. She hit her head on the screens about the time the rig hit him. I was a good three meters away from him and I still heard the crunch when the wheels went over." The man's face was pale and he looked like he was going to throw up. "I didn't expect to find him alive."

"What hit him?" The doctor grabbed his body scanner from his pocket and ran it over Jackson's battered body. I took a step back just to be safe. The doctor was aiming his question and his demanding glare at me.

My eyes went wide and I shook my head. "I don't know what it was. It was a huge piece of machinery with some kind of boom arm attached." I chewed my lip, crossing my arms over my chest.

"It was a heavy container handler they brought up for the new lab equipment. They were trying to move it to the main hangar bay and it got away from them." A female security officer said as she rushed by me with two men clinging to her shoulders, the scent of blood wafting after them. Her hair was pulled back in such a severe ponytail, I wondered if her eyes would close when she took it down.

"Why in the worlds were they moving it through a student area?" The doctor asked as he ran his hand over Jackson's chest. He pressed on one spot and Jackson groaned through the medicine that should have knocked him out cold.

"Hard to say. Heads are probably gonna roll over this, though. Not as many injured as could've been if it had happened just a few minutes sooner." The officer plopped each man on gurneys across from Jackson's. Both men had injuries that looked painful, but not too serious. "Ran over a few feet, got one guy in the shoulder. Stopped when it came to a junction. Too bad for the woman that was standing there when it hit." Her words fell from her mouth like rocks over a hill, one tumbling on top of another, which was jarring considering her otherwise calm demeanor.

"Did she..." I asked, unable to put my fear into words.

The officer looked up, apparently just realizing I was there, before returning to her triage assessment of the men. "Yeah, she didn't make it. There really wasn't much to tell she was a woman except for the people that saw her standing there before it hit. Damn shame." She shook her head gently as she shined a flashlight in one guy's eyes. "This one hit his head pretty hard on the glass so you might wanna keep him overnight. The other one might have a broken leg. I gotta run back and make sure everything is handled and get my report out. The President is already on her way up to assess."

"Thanks, Gemina. We've got everything under control. Surprisingly, this one isn't hurt nearly as bad as I expected. Besides a couple broken ribs, I don't see much internal damage. There's not even a scrape on him." The doctor had already transferred his scan data to the projector on the wall. Gemina stopped as she passed.

"Is this the one that saved that girl?"

"Yeah." The doctor rubbed his chin as he stared at the display. He wasn't moving nearly as fast as before and seemed confused by what he was looking at on the display.

"I heard he got ran over by it."

"He did."

"Considering what happened to that other woman, I'm surprised he even made it." The woman examined his scans along with the doctor. She must have had emergency responder training. Employers usually cross-trained station employees for this very reason.

"You and me both, Gemina. One rib punctured his lung, but I'm not sure how that thing didn't crush him completely. Those haulers weight what, nine hundred kilos?"

Gemina nodded. "Roughly." They both turned and stared at Jackson. I wasn't sure how much I'd helped, but there was no way I could mention any of that to them right now. Jackson would kill me. I didn't fully understand the things that had been happening lately and I knew that if anyone besides Jackson found out, I'd be turned into a lab rat. It was a testament to his protection and power of persuasion that I hadn't been boxed up and shipped out already.

I scanned the open clinic as the medics did their jobs. The other doctor was still checking on Charlie a few curtains down. She'd been bandaged up and he was playing with her toy, drawing out a ghost of a smile. Someone had pulled her short black hair away from her face with a band and washed the bloodstains from her chubby cheeks.

The overhead lights were too harsh and pulsed slightly. Energy was hard to control on a station this size and allocation was a nightmare. The antiseptic smell wasn't as bad now and the energy around me was calming down. Focusing on little details kept me from worrying myself to death.

Once he was cleared, I walked back to Jackson's side and ran my fingers through his auburn hair, brushing some gray carpet fuzz from his forehead. I said a thank you to whoever might be listening for sparing his life so far. I didn't know how easy it was to overcome a broken rib and a punctured lung, but it was sure better than being crushed into an unrecognizable mess.

Jackson moaned softly and coughed. Either he had a high tolerance for medicine, or they hadn't given him enough.

"Charlie?" He rasped then grimaced. His breath came out in a wheezy sigh.

"Ssh, she's fine. Just a little bump on the head."

"Anaïs, I'm so sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

He tried to take a breath, but it was an obvious struggle. "I shouldn't have left you."

"You had to get Charlie, it's okay. I'm fine. Now rest and don't try to talk."

"That's not what I mean. I'm sorry for leaving you with them." I looked at the Nanode patch on his arm and wondered what he was being given.

"You're not making any sense, sweetie." Something about his clenched muscles and twitching eye movements through his closed lids caught my attention. I jerked my head up, looking for the nearest medic. The nurse that yelled at me earlier walked by and I grabbed her by the arm. Her skin was thin and papery with age and her black hair had wisps of gray running through it. She looked at my hand gripping her arm, then trained her dark, unforgiving eyes on mine.

"You have to get him off this medicine." I pleaded.

She carefully extricated her arm from my grasp, patting my hand condescendingly. Her maroon lipstick was bleeding into the cracks around her lips, making her look like a theater actress left to bake in the stage lights a little too long. "He's fine, honey. He just needs to rest. That medicine will help him do that."

"You don't understand; he can't be put too far under."

Her features tensed. She scanned his ID and started flipping through his records on her handheld. "Does he have an allergy we weren't aware of? We don't usually treat his kind around here."

"What do you mean, his kind?"

"You know, qítā. He's from the outer rim. They're different. Does he have an allergy or what?" She was getting impatient with me and as much as I hated to deal with a classist like her, she was the only option I had at the moment.

I watched as she scanned his records, trying to find the words to explain the problem. "No, not really. It's just that he...he has these...dreams."

The nurse's head shot up and she put her hand on her hip. "Dreams? Seriously, girl? This is about some bad dreams?" She stuffed her handheld in her pocket and turned on her heel, disappearing around a triage bay without another word. I fought the urge to chase her down, along with the one telling me to rip the Nanode patch from his body. Severing the connection could do irrevocable damage to his neural network, especially if they couldn't flush all the Nanites from his system in time.

Jackson's incomprehensible murmuring drew me back to his side, despite the nagging feeling that I needed to find someone who could help.

"He will find you this time, Anaïs. You can't run from him any longer."

"What are you talking about, Jackson? You're scaring me. Who's going to find me?"

"The man even the darkness is afraid of." Jackson's voice dropped an octave, the bass of it vibrating in my chest. My body trembled inside and I gripped the frame of his bed to support me against the sudden dizziness. My worry was bordering on terror and becoming almost tangible in its intensity. I had to wake him up.

None of the doctors or medics were around so I bent down, touching my forehead to his. I had to focus, but the pounding in my chest was distracting. I breathed in on a count of six and breathed out on a count of ten, willing my mind to relax so I could find him. This wasn't something I was good at on a normal day, which only made my anxiety worse.

I focused on the foggy ether as it started to fill my mind, sensing formless entities around me. I pushed further. A caustic smell filled my nose and I knew I was close. Suddenly, a burst of light filled my existence and as it faded, I saw Jackson standing in front of me. We were on a flat prairie with jagged, snow-capped mountains in the distance. Storm clouds gathered above us in an open sky. A distant rumble echoed off the peaks, but it wasn't thunder. Thunder didn't sound tinny like someone rolling heavy balls in a metal-lined room. Black smoke boiled in the distance, staying close to the ground. Jackson turned to me, his face solemn and gaunt.

"I can't see a way out of this, Anaïs. You die here. I can't find another way."

I reached my hand out to him. He had to take it willingly. I'd learned that the hard way. "Jackson, we have to go back. You have to wake up."

"The dreams are getting worse because they're getting closer."

"Who?"

"Not who." Without turning, Jackson pointed at the blackness beyond the reach of the prairie grass behind him. It was a pot about to boil over. The rumbling grew louder. It was feet pounding toward us. Massive, dangerous feet.

"Jackson, we have to go! NOW!"

He dropped his arm as a tear fell from his eyes. "I'll have to watch you die again. I wish it was me this time, but it's never me."

Consequences be damned, I grabbed his arm and pulled. It was enough to rip him out of his trance. He saw what was coming for us and wrapped his arms around me, tucking his head against mine. I held onto him as the acerbic smell filled me again and braced against the sensation of a vacuum sucking my chest into my body. With a lurch and a crack, I was back in the med bay, disoriented but safe. I blinked and steadied my breaths as the ability to take one came back to me. Jackson was staring up into my eyes, doing the same. The soft beeping of a machine signaled his elevated heart rate, but there was no other indication of our mental journey. I put my face in my hands, bracing my elbows on his bedside.

"See why I didn't want to get you involved?"

***

I returned to my room shortly after Jackson woke up, though I wasn't happy about it. I was afraid of what my father might do if someone else reached him before I did and informed him of the incident. He answered the transmission on the first tone and launched into a barrage of questions before I could even say hello.

"No, I'm absolutely fine, Daddy. You don't need to send any guards up here. It was an accident, but Jackson saved me. He'll be better soon and will be able to get back to duty. I don't need to come home." I answered all the questions I was able to catch. Hopefully, they would satisfy him, but I didn't have high hopes.

"What possessed him to leave your side for some kid?"

"Daddy! It was a five-year-old girl! She would have been killed!"

"You could have been killed! I am not paying him this kind of money to have him run off to play hero for some commoner."

"I can't believe you said that. He made sure I was safe before going to Charlie. He did the right thing and almost got killed for it. You should be grateful to him, not questioning his actions." I didn't stop the edge that was creeping into my voice which was unusual when I spoke to my father. My own guilt needled at my edges.

My father was quiet for a few seconds before sighing loudly. "You're right, dear. I'm sorry. This is all just very upsetting. How could such a thing happen on a station like that? Vespa Prime isn't a cheap university. It is the best in our system and they are supposed to have rules in place to prevent things like this." It could've been funny how my father equated "expensive" with "quality" if it wasn't so infuriating.

"I don't know Daddy, but it sounds like it was just a simple accident. A horrible one, yes, but one that could happen anywhere."

"Why was such a piece of equipment around students anyway?"

"Apparently, there was a shipment of equipment for one of the physics labs that could only be moved with that thing." I hadn't been able to figure out why it wasn't in a service corridor, either, but I wasn't going to bring that up now.

"Where did you hear this?"

"There were other men who were injured in the med bay when I was with Jackson that told me about it."

"Who? What men?"

I rolled my eyes since I didn't have video on. "No one, Daddy. Just some station employees."

"You don't need to be taking any unnecessary chances with random strangers, Anaïs. These are dangerous times."

"Oh, really? What's happened?" It was unlikely, but I hoped to sneak some extra information out of him.

"None of your concern, but I don't want you talking to anyone not on the company payroll from here on out. Do you understand me?" Damn.

"Yes, Daddy. But I promise you, I'm fine up here. No one is going to get me on the station." Please don't make me come back, please don't make me come back, I thought.

"Well, until Jackson is back on duty, I'm not taking any chances. I'm sending a transport up for you at the first available departure window. The Shareholder's Ball is in two days and I wanted you to attend that anyway. You need to be introduced to some important people before you take over your duties next summer." Double damn. I thought that thing was tomorrow. So much for lying to Kahil.

I couldn't stop the groan that slipped past my lips. Fuck. "But there's so much work for me to do up here."

"I've already talked to Nakamura and your other professors. You aren't expected back in the lab for a week, especially since turning in your prospectus already, and no one else will dare hold your absence against you." He read my silence like a book. "I appreciate you calling, dear, but you were obviously not the first. While you were playing the doting girlfriend to your hired guard, at least three other employees had already reported on the situation. Do not think that I don't know everything that is going on up there." My stomach knotted. I really hope he didn't actually know everything.

"There's nothing going on between Jackson and me."

"There had better not be, or he'll be transferred back out to that backwater planet I found him on in the first place." The warning in my father's voice was palpable. I didn't test it. "Be ready in two hours. I'll send a team for you at the first available departure window."

"Yes, Daddy."

"And Anaïs?"

"Yes, Daddy?"

"You need to watch your behavior when you're on that station. Dr. Nakamura tells me you were very close with Jackson this morning in his lab. You know how I feel about fraternization with people like him. You are well aware of how it reflects on me and my business."

"Yes, Daddy." It was the only safe thing I could say at the moment to keep myself from a world of trouble I didn't have the energy to deal with.

"Good. Reach me on the com as soon as you breach the atmosphere."

"I will." The line went silent before either of us said goodbye. I waited until I'd closed the connection before picking up the closest object and hurling against the far wall of my room. Just before it hit, I realized what it was. My throat ached with the sob I held back as I ran to pick it up. There was a brief flash of my mother's smiling face in front of an equally joyful tribe of Catarians before the image viewer went blank. It was the last image I had of her. My chest ached and I felt like I wasn't getting enough air into my lungs. As tears fell on the shattered screen, I wondered how different my life would be right then if that transport hadn't blown up and taken her away from me.