Free Ouroboros 4: End by Odette C. Bell Page A

years, perhaps. Her thoughts were no doubt focused on Remus 12 and the woeful destiny of the Vex.
    Carson sighed. It was heavy, it was hard, and it felt like moving a ton of brick as he shoved his chest forward and back.
    It was all he could do right now. Just when he’d thought this situation was becoming controllable, it wriggled out of his grip.
    Nida looked up. ‘You’re tired,’ she said as her eyes slowly focused on him.
    He pressed his lips together, one side kinking up as he shrugged. ‘I thought you were in another world there,’ he remarked. ‘Or on another world,’ he added softly under his breath.
    It took a while for her to respond, and it was clear she had to pull her attention off whatever was bothering her. Giving a sigh of her own, she hooked her loose hair behind her ears. ‘I just . . . .’
    He stared at her, hopeful she was ready to open up.
    ‘What if there’s another way?’ she ground to a halt, stopping so suddenly he had to put his arms out to balance, lest he stumble into her.
    ‘What?’
    ‘The Vex . . . I can’t help thinking that when we do this—remove the entity from their timeline forever—we’ll be condemning them.’
    He had to tread carefully. He wanted to remind her the Vex destroyed the Coalition in the future, and were a cold-hearted race, but he stifled his words.
    Reminding her what was at stake wouldn’t help her; she already knew what the Vex were capable of. No, what Nida needed was support.
    ‘Hey,’ he lowered his voice, glancing over her shoulder to ensure their conversation remained out of ear-shot of the officers and scientists passing through the corridor, ‘I know this is difficult. But you’ve got to trust the Coalition, you’ve got to trust me,’ he added passionately, even clamping a hand to his chest. ‘We’ll find a way to make this right. Our first priority has to be to ensure the Coalition is safe. We must repel the Vex’s attack. That doesn’t mean we’re going to completely abandon them, though. Once the immediate threat is over, the Coalition will look into their situation. Remus 12 and its broken timeline will be studied. I can’t promise you we’ll find a way to save them tomorrow, or even a year from now. But eventually, given enough time, we’ll figure out how to fix what the entity broke.’
    Initially she looked unconvinced, her round lips pulled in until only a thin line of pinkish-red remained visible. Yet as he spoke, and his tone spiked with emotion, she shifted. Staring up, not blinking once, she managed, ‘. . . really? We won’t abandon the Vex?’
    ‘Really,’ he nodded firmly, resisting the urge to hold her shoulders and pull her in. They were smack bang in the middle of the Command building. While he’d revealed his relationship with Nida in front of Harrington, kissing her here would be different.
    If Forest saw, Carson would get more than an ear bashing. This was a critically serious time for the Coalition—the head of the Force didn’t have time to hang around and pash cadets in corridors.
    Still, the idea kinked his top lip, and he watched as she loosened up. He could see her neck muscles untangle as her shoulders deflated. The frozen, terrified look in her eyes slowly drifted away too. With a sigh, she blinked her eyes closed. ‘I know I shouldn’t feel sorry for it, but I do.’
    He didn’t need to ask who she was referring to.
    The entity. That cursed being wrapped around her soul.
    How she felt sympathy for it, he couldn’t begin to imagine. It had manipulated her from the beginning.
    He pressed his lips firmly into his teeth and didn’t say anything.
    ‘I still do though,’ she opened her eyes, one at a time, ‘I’m not absolving it of all the terrible things it’s done. I just . . . can’t get past how guilty it feels. How desperate it is to fix this,’ as she said the word fix, he swore her tone changed.
    It stretched somehow.
    His back chilled, a cold sweat darting up his skin and making