CHAPTER SEVEN

“Elara and I have been taking a different direction each day to find you. We’re not far away. I’d only just left,” Thrym explained as they ran down the beach. Running in sand was a lot different to running on a treadmill. Her calf muscles were on fire.

“What happened to you guys?” she panted. She’d filled him in on what happened to her already.

“Elara and I were the only ones who didn’t lose consciousness during re-entry,” he puffed. “She deployed the parachutes and said we were slowing down. That everything seemed as all right as it could be.”

“Then?” Romy prodded.

The pair reached a stretch of rock pools.

Thrym picked his way across, Romy following in his footsteps.

“Then the ship tore in two. There was no warning—your part just disappeared.” His voice was shaking. “I’ve never felt so crazy in my life. We were strapped to our chairs and couldn’t even see where you’d gone. It was terrible.

Romy squeezed his arm.

He smiled down at her. “The parachutes did their job, but three of them were ripped away with you, leaving us with only one. We wouldn’t have survived if we hadn’t crashed into the ocean.”

Romy shook her head. “Why didn’t you drown?”

Thrym gave her a tight smile. “We had our suits on, remember? We had oxygen.”

“Of course,” she echoed softly.

“We had to go back for Deimos. He was stuck between his seat and the wall of the craft. It wasn’t easy. We’ve tried to strip the battler of everything useful. But we’ve run out of oxygen.”

If Thrym said it wasn’t easy, it must have been horrific.

They rounded the corner and Romy felt her legs give way for a second.

And then she was leaving Thrym in her dust as she flew towards Phobos, who stood at the edge of the tree line.

Phobos turned at her pounding footsteps and she only caught his widened eyes before she wrapped herself around him. She held on, determined to never let go of her friends again.

“Romy,” he said, disbelief colouring his voice. He squeezed her arms as though checking she were real. “You’re alive?”

“I am.” She choked on a sob. “Are you?”

“Still figuring it out,” he said truthfully, resting his head atop of hers. “My little Romy is alive.”

“I’m here. And you’re here. And I love you.” Romy kissed his cheek. “Please take me to Deimos.”

A shadow flickered across his eyes. A foreign expression for him.

She didn’t even want to ask. “He’s not. . . ?”

“Not yet.”

She shivered at the despair in his voice. Phobos had given up hope.