LEGACY LOST by Rachel Eastwood Read Free Book Online

his parents long ago, his mother twelve years ago and his father five, both to cancers likely engendered in the mass production units where they’d worked themselves to death. Still, it wasn’t the type of thing you ever really “got over.” It was just the type of thing you got used to.
    Dax patted her hand awkwardly.
    “It’s fine,” Legacy murmured, ignoring the way her lungs – or her heart? – felt like an overfilled water balloon on the verge of popping. Involuntarily, however, her chest was oscillating in the style of a panic attack.
    “Legacy,” Dax called to her, somber.
    “I’m fine,” she reassured him. It was the last thing she could manage to say before the crack developed in her sternum – that mysterious cavern so filled with water – and the tears began to flow freely. Pulling to the side and drawing her limbs in toward her center, Legacy cringed and cradled her face in her clawed hands.
    Dax gently drew her toward him and wrapped his arms around her. Both were coated in a light sheen of sweat, but Legacy needed the comfort emotionally more than she needed it physically, and so she bowed her face against his chest and wept.
    Her fingers tangled subconsciously in his hair, and she buried into his neck, which smelled so pungently of Dax’s own aroma. Salt and leather and heat.
    “It’s okay,” he whispered, along with other senseless lies meant solely to calm. “It’s going to be all right.” He stroked her back and allowed her nuzzling, even though the stifling cabin made it hard for either of them to catch a good breath.
    Finally, finally, the pressure in Legacy’s ribcage abated. Like a drug, she wanted more. She felt better, and logically, if she pressed forward, she would feel even better, and could eventually totally blot her depression out. And this felt so good. To be in Dax’s arms again. To be allowed to let go. To forget all the bullshit. To just unravel.
    When her legs wound around his hips, Dax hesitated, but he allowed it. When her bare heels dug into the small of his back and he felt the subtle but provocative rhythm of her sex against his, he drew a sharp breath and slightly extricated himself from her embrace.
    “Leg,” he said, peering down at her with even greater concern. But when her eyes panned to his, they were frantic and mindless. He went to wipe the tear tracks from her face, but her hands moved too; they went to unfasten his rebreather.
    Legacy had never, ever approved of his removal of the device before, but now she pulled its strap loose without even asking and clutched his mouth to hers.
    For a moment, he responded with a strength and desperation that nearly matched hers, and then, as quickly as it had begun, the moment was over. Dax released his hold on her body and untangled her limbs from his trunk.
    “Leg,” he repeated, now grim. “We can’t – I don’t–”
    Legacy’s brow furrowed. “What?” she snapped. “We can’t what? You don’t what?”
    “I don’t want to do it like this!” he snapped back, refastening the leather mask onto his nose and mouth. He sat upright, arranging the sheet over his traitorous erection, and ran a hand through his hair. He took a deep breath, agitated, and coughed dryly. “I don’t want it to just be . . .” He frittered a hand in the air, signifying nothing, dust and wind. “. . . a way to vent, you know? Some coping mechanism.”
    “Forget it,” Legacy hissed, vaulting off the bed and scrambling into her old skirt and blouse.
    “You know I – Leg – I didn’t–”
    “I said forget it! I’m going to sleep in some other bunk! It’s daylight! People should be up, I’m sure there’s one to spare!”
    “Leg–”
    But she wrenched the door of the cabin open and exited, slamming it behind her.
                  Coal-Radia, having followed the couple by slinking along between the walls, watched them fly apart, wondering at the mention of this father she supposedly had. She’d never