Purity Read online

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  K felt like her heart was going to burst as she walked down the corridor. She couldn’t stop seeing the pain in Boone’s eyes, hearing the agony in his voice when she told him she was leaving and never coming back.

  I had to, she told herself over and over again. I can’t stay with him and expect him to give up touching and love and sex and everything he wants so I can train the suit for five long years. And I can’t take the suit off because I’ll kill him. This is for the best. It’s the only way.

  But if it was all for the best, then why did her chest feel so tight? Why were her eyes stinging with unshed tears?

  K fought grimly to keep them back. She was almost out of here, almost to the airlock where the small shuttle Hesler had loaned her was docked and waiting for her return. She only had to keep up this ruse a little while longer and then, the minute she was safely locked inside the shuttle, she could give in to the emotions that were threatening to drown her.

  If only I could have hugged him one more time…felt his hands on me, his mouth on mine just once more…

  K pushed the thought away savagely. There was no point in entertaining such useless wishes. But she couldn’t push aside the emotions they engendered quite so easily. Love and longing and loss flooded her, making it hard to think, hard to move, hard to breathe, when she just wanted to sink down and die right here in the middle of the hallway.

  Purity but it hurt to feel—hurt so much.

  “K,” she heard Boone shout and knew he was coming after her. She couldn’t go through another scene with him and maintain her composure—she just couldn’t. Walking faster, she tried to keep ahead of him.

  When I get back to the Tainted ship I’ll have Hesler start the training on my suit right away, K swore to herself. I’ll do what he does—turn off the emotion. I’ll never let myself feel ever again, not if it means feeling like this.

  Suddenly, a strange, high-pitched sound came echoing down the corridor.

  K turned, her hand automatically going to her hip and the hilt of her blaster. But before she could draw it, something small and incredibly fast was under her feet.

  She tried to keep her footing but the thing was too quick for her—just a blur of motion. And then another one joined it. K couldn’t help herself. Suddenly graceless, she found herself falling.

  “Purity!” she gasped. “What—?”

  But before she could finish her sentence she was flat on her back. Then one of the things attacking her pounced on her chest.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Boone stood in the doorway for a long moment, shoulders slumped, eyes burning. God…to think he had lost her just like that. How was it even possible? How could it be that they had gotten to her in time to keep her from getting purged—killed—and he had still lost her?

  Slowly, his head came up.

  “No,” he growled, his voice thick with rage. “No, I don’t fucking accept this. I can’t fucking accept this. K,” he shouted, striding after her down the metal corridor. “If you think I’m going to just let you walk out of here, walk out of my life forever without—”

  His words were interrupted by a thumping sound and a muffled exclamation of pain. Then he heard K yelling something and…was that barking? What the hell was going on?

  Boone broke into a run. He rounded the corner and skidded to a stop when he saw K lying on her back on the floor with something small and furry dancing all over her chest. Another animal just like it was prancing around her feet.

  “K?” he asked, bewildered. “What the hell…?”

  “They tripped me.” Her black-on-black eyes were wide. “The first one ran right under my feet and tripped me so this one could jump on me!”

  “Oh, you naughty boys!” Mom came racing up the hallway, completely out of breath. “I’m sorry, Boone!” she gasped, panting. “I know I shouldn’t have taken them but we were halfway from Minotaur when I found them hiding under my bed and then they were so sweet and quiet I just couldn’t bear to give them up. Really, they’ve been no trouble at all until just now but when they heard K’s voice on board again they just seemed to go crazy. Especially that one.”

  She pointed at the small furry animal enthusiastically licking K’s face.

  Finally Boone’s stunned eyes made sense of what he was seeing. He took a closer look at the tiny furry animals with their big pointed ears and bushy tails and understood.

  “The voxes!” He bent down to scoop up the excited little creature still prancing around K’s outstretched legs. It immediately began bathing his face with its long pink tongue. Its eyes whirled like jewels, flashing colors at him—deep gray, muddy brown, angry black…

  My feelings, he realized suddenly. It’s showing everything I feel. And right now he felt gutted—completely destroyed and enraged at the thought of losing K.

  K!

  Quickly he turned to her. The vox she was holding on her chest looked up at him and howled mournfully. Its eyes spun even more quickly than the eyes of Boone’s vox. Stormy bluish-gray, bruised purple, sickly green…the vox’s eyes registered everything she felt.

  And what she was feeling was a far cry from nothing.

  Suddenly K seemed to realize she was being watched.

  “What are you doing? Why are you staring at me?” she asked sharply, scrambling to her feet with the howling vox still in her arms.

  Boone gave her a long look. “I always said these little guys told on you, didn’t I? That’s why you didn’t like them.”

  “What are you talking about?” she demanded.

  “You know what I’m talking about.” He reached out with a free hand and cupped her flushed cheek. “K…”

  “Boone, I…” Her voice began to tremble and a single tear escaped one of her black-on-black eyes. She brought her hand up to his. “Oh, Purity, I can’t do this. I’m sorry. I…I…thought…”

  Boone took the vox from her gently and handed both of the yipping little creatures back to Mom. “Here. Take them away—K and I have to talk. Really talk this time.”

  “I don’t…I can’t…” K protested as he led her back toward his quarters.

  “You can and you will.” Boone closed the door and sat her firmly on the sleeping platform. “Now talk. And this time don’t lie to me about what you feel. This time tell me the truth.”

  * * * * *

  “I don’t know what you expect me to say.” K looked away from him, her insides churning. To be caught in her lie so easily! To be told on by those yipping little creatures she’d warned Boone about back on Minotaur! If only…

  “I expect you to say you love me,” he said softly. “Because I love you and I think—I hope—you feel the same way.”

  “I told you…” K took a deep breath. “I don’t even know what love is.”

  “Then just tell me how you’re feeling—what you’re feeling. Right now. And don’t lie and say nothing,” he said sternly. “We both know that isn’t true.”

  “All right.” K’s shoulders slumped. “But it won’t change anything. It’s just…just going to make things harder.”

  “Nothing could be harder than thinking you don’t care, darlin’,” Boone said gently. “Go on…tell me.”

  “I feel…I feel…like I might die when I think about life without you,” K started in a low, broken voice. “I want to be with you all the time…touching you…feeling your arms around me, holding me. But I know…I know that can never be. Because even stronger than my desire to be with you is my desire not to hurt you.” She took a deep breath. “That’s why…that’s why I couldn’t shoot you. The drugs from my suit, the High Sentinel…everything from the outside was telling me I had to blast you. But something in here…” She put a fist to her chest. “Wouldn’t let me.”

  “Oh, baby…” He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. “Sounds like love to me.”

  “It doesn’t matter if it is or not.” K shook off his touch. “If I take off my suit and finish out my cycle, I’ll kill you.