Page 203 of Red Scale Daddy
“Door in five seconds,” Roma says.
“Make it three,” I answer, looking over my shoulder as more shadows move in the fog.
“Do not rush art.”
“Your art is armed.”
The hatch jerks upward halfway and sticks.
“Damn it,” Pally says.
I shove between them, plant both hands under the door, and lift. The mechanism fights me, grinding against damaged tracks. My ribs scream, my shoulders burn, and the pressure rig creaks ominously across my chest.
Roma’s hand lands on my back. “Dux, your side?—”
“Later.”
“You are bleeding again.”
“Still later.”
The door rises another foot.
“Enough,” Pally says. “Go.”
Roma ducks through first, then Pally. I hold the hatch until they clear, then slide under as the mechanism fails and crashes down behind me with a metallic boom that shakes the passage.
We spill into a maintenance corridor lit in pulsing red. The air here is cooler, cleaner, and loud with distant alarms. Behind the sealed hatch, Reaper weapons fire strikes the metal in furious bursts.
Roma turns on me the instant we have ten feet of breathing room.
“You absolute, impossible, reckless?—”
I catch her face in both hands and kiss her.
She freezes for half a second, and then she hits my chest again because apparently that is part of the conversation now. Her fingers curl into the front of my rig immediately after,dragging me closer. The kiss tastes of smoke, salt, fear, and survival. It is too brief and too desperate and exactly enough to remind me why dying has become unacceptable.
She pulls back first, breathing hard. “Do not ever do that again.”
“Kiss you?”
“Die where I can see it.”
“I’ll make a note.”
“I am serious.”
“I know.”
Her eyes search mine, furious and bright. “I thought you were gone.”
“I know,” I say again, softer.
The anger in her face cracks just enough for the terror beneath it to show. I brush my thumb over the blood on her cheek and feel my whole damn life rearrange around keeping that terror from winning.
Pally clears his throat loudly. “As touching as this is in the most uncomfortable possible way, Throgg’s people are cutting through the hatch.”
Roma steps back, though her hand stays caught in one of my straps for another second before she releases it. “We need to reach junction seven. I routed most security away, but Throgg will correct soon.”
