Kristi Helvig - Burn Out

I stared at the group. They didn’t deserve to sleep where she did. But they sure as hell weren’t sleeping with me. I sighed. “Two of you could sleep in here.”

“Great. Guess I’m stuck with one of you, since James needs his space, and I’m not about to sleep on the couch out in the open,” said Britta to Markus. She glared at me like I had developed a master plan to kill her while she slept.

Kale nodded at them. “You two take this room, James can have his space, and I’ll take the couch.”

James needed his space? What did that mean? Maybe he and Britta had been an item and now he wanted to get away from her. If that was the case, he had some serious bad taste in girlfriends.

Across from this room was a small recreation room, with a motion machine and several other pieces of equipment. My father deemed it important to stay healthy since we had no access to medical care aside from our first-aid kit. His long-term plan involved our relocation to a magical new planet—I think he overestimated the chances of finding one just as much as he overestimated Markus. In the meantime, Dad said forty-five minutes of exercise per day was optimal, so that’s what I did. I didn’t do a second less, but I didn’t do more either. And in truth, my activity on the motion machine was more what I would call creative walking than running. I didn’t see the point of running if someone wasn’t chasing me.

The hall ended at a small closet. I didn’t want them to get suspicious, so I took them there. It contained assorted blankets, linens, and towels—all made from a variety of the plastic fibers that everything else in our world was made of. If the inventor of heat-resistant thermoplastics had survived, they’d be a bazillionaire. “Extra bedding if you need it. Nothing exciting.”

They couldn’t see the small lock on the back wall of the closet. It opened up into a large room. “The room of lethal weapons” as I called it. I shut the closet door and turned to the group. “And this concludes our guided tour for today. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get some sleep.”

I started to move down the hallway when Markus cleared his throat. “Seriously, Tora, I’d like to keep you company. You must be lonely having spent all this time without people around.”

He sounded shockingly sincere. I didn’t respond to him or even acknowledge him as I headed to my room. When safely inside, I pressed my thumb against the square to lock the door and exhaled, my head leaning against the door. I climbed onto my sleep pad and curled up. Markus was right, in a way. But it wasn’t about being lonely. Despite being surrounded by more people than I’d seen in years, I’d never felt more alone.

A WHIRRING SOUND INTERRUPTED MY DREAMS AND I SAT UP with a start, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Although there were no windows, I knew it was night without even glancing at the clock. No one had knocked on my door. Maybe they left to retrieve their water without me. Maybe they decided to try their luck and run for it, see if their ship could outrun the government ones. I jumped down, powered up my gun, then pressed my ear to the door but heard nothing except the faint noise.

I tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear and pushed my thumb to the lock. The soft click sounded loud to me, but after a minute, I moved into the hallway. Kale snored loudly from the couch, but the front room was otherwise empty and so was the bathroom. As I moved slowly down the hallway, the whirring sound grew louder. Turning to my left, I noticed the empty study. Had James changed his mind about needing space?

As I got closer, I recognized the sound. The motion machine. So that’s what it sounded like when someone actually ran on it. Someone had decided that extra exercise was more fun than sleeping. I knew these burners were crazy. To my right, I heard someone grunting in their sleep. Markus. The room looked dark underneath the door. At least one of them was sleeping. I reached the half-closed door to the recreation room.

I peered through the small opening in the door and saw James. James with his shirt off, running as if an army of rabid soldiers was chasing him. His body was solid muscle. Sweat dripped down his face, his chest, his arms … he wasn’t just sort of cute, he was hot. My gun bumped against the door and it swung open. James’ head jerked toward the door, where I leaned in an obvious spy pose. Blood rushed to my face.

He pressed a button, turning off the power to the machine. “Sorry, I thought I’d get a run in before tonight. Did you want to use it?” Although he looked like he’d been running for hours, he barely sounded winded.

I stood up, trying to regain my composure. “No thanks. Holding on to rocks in gale force winds is enough exercise for the day in my book.”

A hint of a smile crossed his face, which caused that strange fluttering sensation again in my stomach. Ignoring it, I pressed him. “Didn’t you sleep at all? Aren’t you tired?”

“Nah, I don’t get tired. And yes, I did sleep … a little.” Sweat continued to run down his body, a body I was trying very hard not to look at. He grabbed a towel he must’ve found in the linen closet, and rubbed the sweat from his face and hair.

He was just a guy, like Markus, so why couldn’t I seem to take my eyes off him? It’s not like I had any trouble keeping them off Markus. James stopped wiping himself and stood there, watching me watch him.

He smiled and stepped closer. “What about you? Sleep well?”

I racked my brain for a flippant remark but came up blank. Where was my sarcasm when I needed it most? My heart thudded like crazy. Walk away from him, now . My body wasn’t listening to me. “Uh, I guess.”

James eyed me as he ran the towel through his hair a final time. He took another step toward me and spoke in a low voice. “Look, I know it might not seem it, but I’m not one of the bad guys.”

“Then I’d hate to see what the good guys are like.” My trusty defense mechanism had kicked back in just in time. I’d been in danger of letting my guard down and actually talking to the guy.

Kale’s booming voice startled me. “Well, it’s about that time. You two ready?” I’d been so busy trying to tear my eyes away from James that I hadn’t heard Kale come down the hall.

“Yes, sir.” James walked toward me, and I felt frozen in place. He touched my arm lightly, and I inhaled the scent of his sweat. It reminded me of the ocean. Or at least like the smell of the digital ocean I’d spent hours of my life enveloped in. “You ready?”

“Yes,” I answered. I fought a strange urge to touch a drop of sweat rolling down his neck. Get ahold of yourself. I guess not being around boys much explained the attraction, but how could I think someone was hot at a time like this? Just because the world is ending doesn’t mean you’re blind .

Britta complained she’d barely slept but kept throwing coy glances at Markus. Oh, good God, no way. He must have worked his magic on yet another female survivor.

We made our way up to the front room, as Markus stretched and yawned. He touched Britta’s arm with a sly smile on his face. They apparently had quite the night. Remembering my promise, I stopped in my room to get their guns. While donning our suits, Kale went over the basic points of the plan. The only part that really caught my attention was when he said I’d be with James. Britta and Markus would be paired—now there was a match made in heaven. Kale would go first and provide cover for us.

“What about her weapons?” Britta asked.

Um, did she not understand the part where I said I wasn’t giving over the guns?

Kale shook his head. “My ship is too far and I’m guessing the weapons would weigh us down.” He looked at me. “Are there a lot?”