Cress

Then, a shudder—a sensation different from the drop—and she heard the brisk sound of nylon ropes and hissing and there it was, the sudden jerk that seemed to pull them back up into the sky. She cried out and gripped Carswell Thorne tighter as her shoulder smacked into the underside of the bed.

The fall became a sinking, and Cress’s sobs turned to relief. She squeezed Thorne’s prone body and sobbed and hyperventilated and sobbed some more.

It took ages for the impact to come and when it did, the jolt knocked Cress into the bed again. The satellite crashed and slid, rolled over and tumbled. They were slipping down something solid, perhaps a hill or mountainside. Cress clenched her teeth against a scream and tried to protect Thorne with one arm while bracing them against the wall with the other. She’d expected water—so much of the Earth’s surface was water—not this solid something they’d hit. The spiraling descent finally halted with a crash that shook the walls around them.

Cress’s lungs burned with the effort to take in what air they could. Every muscle ached from adrenaline and the strain of bracing for impact and the battering her body had taken.

But in her head, the pain was nonexistent.

They were alive.

They were on Earth and they were alive.

A grateful, shocked cry fell out of her and she embraced Thorne, crying happily into the crook of his neck, but the joy receded when he did not hold her back. She’d almost forgotten the sight of him hitting his head on the bed’s frame, the way his body was thrown across the floor, how he’d slumped unnaturally in the corner and made no sound or movement as she’d hauled him beneath the bed.

She pried herself away from him. She was covered in sweat and her hair had tangled around them both, binding them almost as securely as Sybil’s knotted sheets had.

“Carswell?” she hissed. It was strange to say his name aloud, like she hadn’t yet earned the familiarity. She licked her lips and her voice cracked the second time. “Mr. Thorne?” Her fingers pressed against his throat. Relief—his heartbeat was strong. She hadn’t been sure during the fall whether he was breathing, but now with the world quiet and still, she could make out wheezing air coming from his mouth.

Maybe he had a concussion. Cress had read about people getting concussions when they hit their heads. She couldn’t remember what happened to them, but she knew it was bad.

“Wake up. Please. We’re alive. We made it.” She placed a palm on his cheek, surprised to find roughness there, nothing at all like her own smooth face.

Facial hair. It made sense, and yet somehow she’d never worked the sensation of prickly facial hair into her fantasies. She would amend that after this.

She shook her head, ashamed to be thinking of something like that when Carswell Thorne was hurt right before her and she couldn’t do any—

He twitched.

Cress gasped and attempted to cushion his head in case he jerked around too much. “Mr. Thorne? Wake up. We’re all right. Please wake up.”

A low, painful moan, and his breaths began to even out.

Cress pushed her hair out of her face. It fought against her, clinging to her sweat-dampened skin. Long strands of it were pinned beneath their bodies.

He groaned again.

“C-Carswell?”

His elbow lurched, like he was trying to lift his hand, but his wrists were still bound between them. His lashes fluttered. “Wha—huh?”

“It’s all right. I’m here. We’re safe.”

Thorne dragged his tongue around his lips, then shut his eyes again. “Thorne,” he grunted. “Most people call me Thorne. Or Captain.”

Her heart lifted. “Of course, Tho—Captain. Are you in pain?”

He shifted uncomfortably, discovering that his hands were still tied. “I feel like my brain’s about to leak out through my ears, but otherwise, I feel great.”

Cress inspected the back of his head with her fingers. There was no dampness, so at least he wasn’t bleeding. “You hit your head pretty hard.”

He grunted and tried to wriggle his hands out of the knotted blanket.

“Hold on, there was that knife…” She trailed off, scouring the clutter and debris around them.

“It fell off the bed,” said Thorne.

“Yes, I saw it … there!” She spotted the knife handle lodged beneath a fallen screen and went to grab for it, but her hair had gotten so wrapped up around her and Thorne that it yanked her back. She yelped and rubbed at her scalp.

He opened his eyes again, frowning. “I don’t remember being tied together before.”

“I’m sorry, my hair gets everywhere sometimes and … if you could just … here, roll this way.”

She grabbed his elbow and nudged him onto his side. With a scowl, he complied, allowing her enough movement to reach the knife handle.

“Are you sure it’s over—” Thorne started, but she had already draped herself over his side and was sawing through the blanket. “Oh. You have a good memory.”