The Complete Razia Series, page 69
But there was one person waiting for her when she disembarked. And Lyssa was more than happy to see him.
"Hey, Lyss, how are you feeling?" Vel was Lyssa's little brother, although he could no longer be called little by any stretch of the imagination. Nearly eighteen, he towered over Lyssa as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder. He was in his last year at the Academy, and she was going to be rather sorry when he had a real job and couldn't spend as much time with her.
"Like shit," Lyssa responded, leaning into him. "What are you doing here?"
"Lizbeth told me you were on your way."
Lyssa glowered, still not happy with the "Lyssa-Call-Action-Network" that Lizbeth seemed to have established between herself, Vel, and Sage. Though, she supposed she should count herself lucky that Lizbeth had called Vel instead of Sage. She wasn't sure she could handle seeing him while feeling like the inside of a garbage bag. He might want to take care of her.
"How's school going?" Lyssa asked as they made their way over to the lift.
"Nearly done," Vel said with a wide grin. "I can see the finish line."
"Then it's off to Dorst's lab?" Lyssa asked with a little jealousy. Dorst was their second eldest brother and also Lyssa's supervisor. He'd taken it upon himself to pull in all of the Peate siblings under his wing to mentor them, including, surprisingly her after her first supervisor "disappeared."
"Maybe." Vel shrugged. "Maybe there's another Peate who would hire me."
She closed her eyes. "Who?"
"You?"
Her eyes snapped open again. "Why'd you want to work for me? I'm barely here."
"I know, and that's…well…maybe if I worked for you, I might get a little…you know." Vel blushed bright red.
"What?"
"Notoriety that's not associated with our last name," Vel said with a slight wince. "I mean, not that you're not notorious but—"
"I get it," Lyssa said, swallowing to brace her stomach. The motion of the lift was making her dizzy again.
"Would you think about it?" Vel asked.
"Nothing to think about. You're welcome to use my name however you wish. Take the lab, too. Take the sensors, take…" She breathed again.
"Which leads me to my next question," Vel said, and she cracked an eye open at the nervousness in his voice. "When are you going to stop being Lyssa?"
"When I die."
"Rephrasing: when are you going to stop coming to the Academy?"
She shrugged. "Haven't decided yet. Don't have to decide yet. But if or when I do, I'll make sure Sostas's lab comes to you."
"That's not why I asked." Their conversation came to a halt when the lift doors opened to the infirmary and they had to navigate the nearly impossible maze of the medical wing, a series of interconnected hallways designed to accommodate the wide breadth of species needing medical assistance. When they reached the right wing, Lyssa signed in and plopped down on a nearby chair, surveying the room for the nearest bathroom or potted plant for her to empty her stomach into.
"This place brings back memories," Vel said. "Hope we don't run into any U-POL here."
Lyssa groaned. Running was the last thing she wanted to do, a true testament to her sickness. Instead, she leaned her head on Vel's shoulder and closed her eyes.
"Wake me up when they call my name."
***
Two hours and three trips to the toilet later, Lyssa and Vel were finally led back to the long hall of examination room doors. She didn't even protest when he joined her in the room, opting to curl up into a ball on top of the paper and whine loudly about how sick she felt. Vel teased her a little about showing weakness and she threatened to vomit on him. This back and forth continued until the doctor arrived, a young woman barely older than Lyssa who didn't lift her eyes from the tablet in her hands.
"Dr. Lyssandra Peate," she read. "Showing signs of nausea and weakness. Have you been to any planets recently?"
Lyssa shook her head. "Only D-8…er…no. I've been at the Academy."
The continued down her checklist. "Any exposure to foreign species or unknown substances?"
"Nope."
"Sexually active?"
Lyssa nearly fell off the table. "What does that have to do with anything?"
The doctor gave her a look, then glanced to Vel before setting down her tablet. "I'm just going to take a quick blood test."
Before Lyssa could react, the doctor pricked her arm with a small needle and sensory machine. The machine beeped while it was processing then chirped loudly, displaying a green light.
"I thought so," the doctor said, turning to smile brightly at Lyssa. "Congratulations, you're pregnant."
CHAPTER TWO
"P…pregnant?"
The word, at first, made no sense in Lyssa's brain. She repeated it in her mind a few times, knowing it meant something truly awful.
"You're just a few weeks along, so you'll need to visit a specialist to make sure. We have some OB/GYN facilities here, but between us, you would be better off finding a personal doctor to monitor you and your baby's progress. If you use the Academy's doctors, you'll be seeing a different physician every time."
Baby. Pregnant. Meaning she was pregnant. As in having a baby. As in…
"Shit."
"Dr. Peate?" The doctor finally noticed the look of sheer terror on Lyssa's face and softened. "I can tell that this is a…surprise."
Lyssa's stomach threatened again and she wrapped her arms around herself. There was a buzzing in her ear as the shock wore off and panic set in.
She was pregnant, meaning she was PREGNANT.
The doctor turned to Vel, who had a similarly shocked look on his face. "So you're the father, then?"
"Leveman's, I'm her brother," Vel said with a disgusted look.
Father. Lyssa groaned loudly and placed her head in her hands. Not only was she…Sage was the… This was so far removed from anything she'd ever thought she would be thinking that she couldn't even process it. Didn't want to process it.
"This isn't the end of the world." The doctor was addressing Lyssa again. "The Academy is very accommodating to expectant mothers. I would notify your supervisor as soon as possible so that you can be placed on maternity leave if you choose. I wouldn't recommend doing any more excavations, although some do choose to work until they can no longer do so—"
"I don't want it." Her voice sounded odd coming out of her own mouth. "I can't have a…" She swallowed, closing her eyes. "I don't want it."
"All right then," the doctor said, hoisting her tablet up to type. "I'll make an appointment for—"
"Not here," she croaked. "I don't…I don't want this on my medical record."
The doctor quirked a brow. "These records are sealed from your supervisor."
"Nothing is sealed," Lyssa whispered. Anything associated with her name could be hacked into by pirates. The only safe way to prevent anyone from knowing about this was to create a new alias and to do that, she'd need to go somewhere no one knew either Lyssa or Razia. "I just…I want to go somewhere else."
"Very well." The doctor scribbled on a paper pad, tore the top sheet off, and offered it to Lyssa. "Here are some facilities nearby that perform the procedure."
"Thank you." Lyssa snatched the paper and stuck it in her pocket so she wouldn't have to look at it. If she didn't see it, none of it would be real. Perhaps the doctor had made a mistake. Perhaps she was in some sort of horrible, fever-induced nightmare.
"Look, I know that you....seem pretty sure about this," the doctor said. "I can only assume the father doesn't know."
That 'f' word struck as loudly as the other four-letter one in Lyssa's mind. Fathers and…mothers. Parents. The evil creatures that had made her life miserable and left her to die on pirate ships.
"I'm going to be sick," Lyssa said, pushing herself off of the bed to hurl in a nearby trashcan. When her stomach finished emptying itself (surprising considering she hadn't eaten anything), the doctor helped her lie back down on the bed and fished a bottle and syringe gun out of a drawer.
"This will help with the nausea," the doctor said, pressing the small gun to Lyssa's bare arm. A prick later, the syringe had emptied. Lyssa took a deep breath and knew the medicine wouldn't do much to fix the turmoil in her stomach.
"Before you make any decisions, you should probably talk with him first. You never know...maybe you'll change your mind."
"I won't, trust me."
The doctor nodded, and picked up her tablet. "After it's done, please schedule a follow-up appointment for a psych eval—"
"We're done, thanks." Lyssa cracked one eye open. The medicine had already taken the edge off of her sickness and she felt a bit more like herself. "I don't need a shrink."
"Very well. I'm sorry that I was the bearer of bad news, Dr. Peate." The doctor exited the room and Lyssa was left with her words and news and this new reality hanging in the air.
"So."
Lyssa's eyes shot upward to meet Vel's. She'd forgotten he was even there. Why did he always have to be around in her worst moments?
He looked furious. "When Lizbeth said I should accompany you to the medical wing, she seemed amused about something. Said you'd need some support." He spoke each word as if it were poison. "So she knew?"
"I…She…I didn't… I don't know how she…"
"She knew that you and Sage are together?"
"We're not together," Lyssa stammered.
"You've been together. And you didn't tell me. Neither of you did."
"That's because it wasn't… it wasn't…" Lyssa buried her head in her hands. She couldn't handle his angry face, his disappointment in her. She couldn't handle her own disappointment in herself. Her eyes became wet, but she refused to cry. Crying wasn't going to solve anything.
The mattress beside her dipped as Vel sat down next to her. He wrapped his gangly arms around her, pulling her closer to his chest. "It's going to be okay," he said, stroking her back. "You aren't going to go through this alone, I promise. Sage will—"
She lifted her head. "Sage can't know."
"You have to tell him," Vel said gently.
"I can't."
Vel stiffened beside her. "That's unfair to him. He deserves to know."
That was true, but she couldn't even imagine the conversation. Much like she was hoping to wake up from this nightmare, she could get rid of this problem without ever having to see Sage again. Hiding on a deserted planet for the rest of her life sounded tempting.
"You have a choice, Lyssa, either you tell him, or I will," Vel said, his tone harsh, but his embrace still soft. "I'll give you a day. Then I'm telling him for you."
She slumped lower. A day seemed such a short amount of time to gather the courage she needed.
"I'm not… This is your decision," Vel said. "But it's also his kid. And after all you've been through, he deserves a chance to know before…before you do anything."
She knew he was right, but that didn't make it any easier for her to accept.
He stood and walked toward the door. "Let's go find you some seltzer and crackers before you head out, okay?"
***
D-882 had never looked so alien.
As she walked down the dusty orange streets, Razia felt changed, like she no longer belonged there. She'd always had an inkling of otherness, but now it was magnified. As if everyone knew her secret.
It would have been easier to let Vel tell Sage. She could have simply done the thing and moved on before he was the wiser. But that little voice in her head—the one that used to sound like Vel, then like Lizbeth, and had begun to be more like herself—was fairly clear. This was something she had to do.
The message to Sage asking to meet up was queued on her mini-computer, but she hadn't sent it yet. He'd respond immediately—he always did—and then she'd have to talk to him. She'd have to force out the words that she'd been unable to say since receiving the news.
"Bad news, Lyssa?"
Her blood ran cold. She forced her nerves and panic down, plastering on her normal mask of indifference before turning.
Since his promotion, Opli had grown something of a sparse mustache, a dark brown fuzz that gave him an even weirder vibe than usual. He seemed more sadistic now, a little more confident in whatever he was plotting. Jukin had confidence, too, but Opli's was unsettling. Perhaps because Razia didn't understand his mind the way she understood her brother's.
Then again, she didn't understand Jukin's mind at all.
"Captain," she said with a nod. "How's life?"
"I believe I asked you first," Opli said.
"Same ol', same ol'." Razia shrugged. "Nothing to report."
"That face doesn't say there's nothing to report," Opli said with a knowing look.
It took everything in Razia's arsenal not to show the jolt of fear that raced through her veins. Had Opli been checking on her DSE record? Was her record even updated? The medical records were sealed, but…
He couldn't know, she decided. He was fishing for information. And she would give him none.
"Sorry, kiddo," she said, even though they were more or less the same age. "Nothing to see here."
"Mm." He nodded and kept walking by her. "Shame what happened to your friend Stenson, huh?"
"W…what happened?" Razia asked. Harms had said he'd retired.
"Someone found out about that long-standing murder charge from twenty-five years ago," Opli said, and Razia was pretty sure she knew who did. "Nasty business that. Killed an innocent waitress in an attempted robbery." He paused and inhaled deeply. "One down."
In spite of everything weighing on her mind, Razia was interested. "So that's what you've been up to. Digging up dirt on people to scare them into quitting piracy?"
Opli shrugged nonchalantly. "Everyone has secrets. Everyone has their pressure points. Some…are easier to find than others."
"You're going to tell everyone about mine any time soon?" Razia said. "Because I don't care—"
"I don't have to worry about you, my dear," Opli said. "You're too much like Jukin. I could see his implosion from miles away, same as I can see yours. You'll self-destruct, just like he did."
"Uh, he didn't self-destruct. I ruined his career," Razia said with only a hint of pride. "It was my testimony that—"
"Do you really think you were the only person who knew about Jukin's involvement?" Opli asked. "Did you forget about Jos and Harmon? Minister McDougall? Did it ever occur to you that they might testify about Jukin's involvement to save their own asses?"
Razia swallowed. It hadn't.
"That's the problem with you Peates. You're all so absorbed in your own family dramas that you don't see how your spats affect the rest of the universe. You don't look at the big picture until it comes careening into your worldview. Then you make it all about you." He sighed. "It's quite exhausting to have to deal with."
Razia doubted that, but didn't feel like arguing. She had worse things to take care of.
"As usual, this has been just tons of fun, but I have to go," she said, brushing him off as she walked past him.
He grabbed her wrist and spun her back to face him, peering intently into her eyes. "Oh yes, you've got something delicious, I can tell," he said, sounding almost intimate. "I can't wait to find out what it is."
She swallowed before she could stop herself, and he took a step back in victory.
"Until next time, Lyssa," he whispered, releasing her and disappearing around the corner. Razia's heart thudded in her chest, worry and panic and fear, honest fear pulsing through her body. She pulled out her mini-computer and pressed the send button, half because she wanted to release herself from the secret, but half because she craved Sage's comforting presence.
***
Lyssa and Sage had been using the same room on the fifth floor of a motel on D-882 for their secret meetings. Neither one of them checked in, however, opting instead to sneak in through the fire escape. Razia made sure no one had followed her to the motel before silently climbing the stairs. The window was already open, and she sucked in a long breath.
She was barely in the room when his hands were on her, his mouth covering hers in a sensual, hungry movement. Her worries evaporated in his safe embrace, and she forgot why she had been so upset. Everything always seemed less terrifying with him.
"Missed you," he whispered in her ear, trailing a long line down her neck as his hands fumbled with her pants. "Where've you been?"
She closed her eyes and moaned when he kissed that shiver-inducing spot. But reality returned as his hardness pressed into her hips. She pushed him away.
"Teasing me today?" he said hungrily, holding her from behind. His hands slid over her hips to join at her lower abdomen and she panicked, yelping and scurrying away.
"No, we're not…" She stammered, unnerved by the intimate touch. "That's not why I called you here."
His shoulders slumped. "That's mean, Lyss. Don't toy with me like that."
"I just said we had to talk," she snapped. "I didn't say—"
"The only time you message me for anything is to meet up, so sorry for assuming," Sage said, sitting on the bed. His body was tense, as if waiting for the go-ahead to take her back into his arms. She wanted to, more than anything. But she also knew she could never let him hold her again.
Her fear must have shown on her face, because a crease appeared between Sage's brow. "Are you all right? Harms said you barfed your face off last week at his bar."
"I…no…I…" Her tongue twisted in her mouth.
"Lyssa, what's wrong?" He nearly leapt off the bed, wrapping his arms around her gently. His hands ran up and down her back, and she closed her eyes, wrapping her arms around him and diving into the solace there. If she just stayed like this forever, she'd never have to tell him. Nothing would ever have to change.
"Whatever it is, it's okay, I can help, I promise," he whispered into her hair.
