Nova, Chapter One

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Sennett

Station 86, six years before our story takes place.

Sennett expected Lo to be annoyed with her, but instead, he laughed. “I thought you said you wanted frozen yogurt. Isn’t that the whole reason we came down here?” He was holding two dishes in his hands, his lovely crystal-like hands. She didn’t take one.

The overhead lights on the station were dimming, it must be after six. Some people who’d been to Earth said it looked like something they called twilight. The colors shifted from yellow-white to blues and purples. Lo looked so beautiful in that light. His broad, strong shoulders shook as he laughed at her disdain. His rose-pink complexion was somehow a richer hue when he laughed. His wide nose wrinkled, and he seemed to almost glow.

“Yeah, but I wanted it from Harlequin’s frozen yogurt,” she said. “They’re the only ones that don’t have that weird aftertaste.”

Lo’s face fell. “Harlequin’s is on the other side of the level,” he said. “It’s the farthest one from the transit station.”

Sennett put a hand on her growing belly. “I cannot control these cravings,” she said. “Your child has a discerning pallet already.”

“Honey, it’s been such a long day,” he said.

She sighed and took one of the paper bowls from him. “Alright, maybe this will hold them over.”

Lo put his arm over her shoulder, and they started walking toward the transit. The market level was as busy as it ever was in the evening. People stopped by after work for things that just couldn’t wait. Shops were closing down, and the people who worked in them were heading in the same direction as Lo and Sennett. People were coming the opposite way to start evening shifts at overnight shops.

Sennett ate a spoonful of her yogurt, then leaned against Lo. “What do Khloe crave when they’re pregnant?”

“That’s not how things work with Khloe,” he said. “We don’t really do the whole pregnancy thing.”

“Guess that’s why you were so confused when I was trying to explain it to you,” Sennett said.

He laughed again, and it made her smile. His laugh was another reason to love him. It was deep and loud and vibrated through his whole body.

“That was a surprise. But, you are always full of surprises,” he said.

The crowd around them thinned as they drew closer to the transit station. A train was just pulling away, taking those who had already been waiting. So the two of them had the platform to themselves.

Sennett sat down on a bench and applied herself to her yogurt. Lo stood just at the safety line, watching down the tube for the train to arrive. “You in a rush to get home?” Sennett asked.

He turned towards her, about to answer.

Then there was a sound that didn’t belong on the platform. Didn’t belong anywhere anymore. It was a sound from another time. Sennett didn’t recognize it, had never heard anything like it before. It was loud, so immensely loud, and sharp. Sennett’s ears rang. She dropped the paper cup on the ground to cover them. Then she looked back at Lo.

He didn’t have part of his face anymore. What remained was ragged, bloody, almost as though something had reached out and ripped half of it away. He fell backward, onto the transit track.

Someone was running away. Sennett saw a woman in a denim jacket with brown hair. She didn’t have time to do anything about that. Instead, she went to the edge of the platform. There wasn’t any way for her to get down to where Lo was lying. He wasn’t moving. His glow was gone. “Help!” she screamed. “Someone, help!”

Sennett didn’t find out until later that the sound she’d heard was a gunshot.

Now

The brown hair Sennett remembered was longer. It was pulled back in a dirty bun. The denim jacket had been replaced with an oversized grey sweater that looked like she’d slept in. The woman standing in front of her was a mess. Of course that wasn’t enough for her to mistake Candace sitting on her front step, with a beat-up backpack next to her.

Candace stood up when she saw Sennett, eyes downcast. “Um,” she said.

Sennett froze, still as glass. If she’d been alone, maybe she’d have killed the woman who had no business being here, not at her house and not on this station. But she wasn’t alone. Her family, the people she cared about were around her. Her brothers were there, Mason and Russell. She and Russell share the same dark complexion, though his hair was lighter than her black braids. Mason, her adopted brother, was paler than normal. Godfrey was there, almost as good as a brother, his dark brown curls completely unmanaged after their escape from Station Central. Liam was there. He was tall enough to see above all of them, with reddish-blond hair. And Sennett didn’t want Candace anywhere near this man she was only starting to love.

Finally, April was there. April, the baby who’d been nestled under Sennett’s heart while this woman killed her father in cold blood. For no other reason but that he was a Khloe and she, Candace, had been ordered to do it. April, who had the same pink complexion as her father, with wild hair that she got from Sennett.

“Mason,” Sennett said, “take April inside through the back door.”

“Mommy, what’s going on?” April asked.

“Come on,” Mason said. He picked the child up and hurried past Candace, not even looking at her. April’s AI terrier Bailey trotted after them.

Sennett was still too frozen to speak, but her brother Russell wasn’t. “Candace, what in God’s name are you doing here?” Russell asked.

Of course, he knew her. They’d been raised in the same terrorist group, The Core. He probably knew Candace better than he knew Sennett.

“I, um,” Candace said. “I tried to message you, Sennett. I didn’t get any answer.”

“That’s because I didn’t send one,” Sennett snapped.

“Wait, this is Candace?” Godfrey asked. He put a hand on Sennett’s shoulder. Whether it was to give his best friend comfort or to hold her back was unclear.

“Sorry, who’s this?” Owen asked. It was maybe the longest sentence he’d spoken since Station Central, his home, had been destroyed.

“Someone who really shouldn’t be here,” Godfrey said.

“If you’re here to offer some sort of apology, you can shove it up your ass,” Sennett said. “I don’t want to hear it, and you don’t deserve forgiveness.”

“No,” Candace said. “I mean, you deserve an apology. You deserve a lot more than that.”

“She deserves to live the rest of her life without having to think about you,” Liam said. “So why don’t you take off now.”

“I, I will,” Candace said. “But Sennett, I have to tell you something. It’s important, or I wouldn’t be here. Everyone here in Station 86 is in danger. I came to warn you.”

“Us being in danger isn’t exactly new,” Godfrey said. “Is this about the Hollow Suits? We know about them already.”

“The what?” Candace asked. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what that is. But this is-.”

She stopped. She put a hand to her head, as her eyes glazed over. Then, she sat down again on the step, hard.

Pain engulfed Sennett’s head. She thought she might fall like Candace had, but instead, she lunged for the other woman. Liam and Godfrey together barely held her back as she reached, screaming and clawing for Candace. She needed to get her, to grab her and rip into her flesh with nails and teeth.

Russell yanked Candace up, and shook her, hard. Candace’s head flopped around until she seemed to come back to the present. When she saw Sennett reaching for her, she pulled away as though she’d seen a monster. “What’s the matter with your eyes!” she cried.

“Maybe you should get the hell out of here!” Liam yelled. “You’re making it worse, not better.”

Sennett didn’t see Russell hustle Candace off. She only saw red, until she only saw black.

Copyright © 2024 by Nicole C. Luttrell

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