Chapter 14
14
S hoving my way past a group of rowdy ankite, I race out into the main hall, using my ocular implant to scan the crowd for Paul.
Vash-ka , why did he run away? Did I offend him? I shouldn’t have flirted so much, but he kept asking questions and blushing so prettily. It was too much. I let my desire lead, like I do far too often, and now look at what happened.
I release a string of curses that earn a wary glance from the people around me.
He’s gone.
I promised to keep him safe, and he’s gone.
There’s no time to chastize myself. I’ll do that later. When I have him back and secure on my ship. Right now, I need to act.
Swiping open my comm, I pull up the signal of the tracking chip Bret’u gave him earlier. I felt a little guilty about not informing Paul when I had zir implant it while ze was giving him the boosters, but now I don’t care at all.
I scowl at my comm when I see he’s all the way on the other side of the hall already, in the opposite direction of the docking bay. Why did he go there?
My stomach sinks as I scan through the directory while I head toward Paul’s location. He’s right next to a bank of rentable comm units. The kind used for long-range communications. The kind you’d use if you were trying to reach someone on Spire.
Esh’et , there’s no way. He promised he wouldn’t. He’s been terrified the whole time we’ve been on the station. There’s no way he was faking that.
Or maybe that’s what you wanted to see, a cruel voice in the back of my head whispers. You fell for his act because you like being needed. You care more about playing the role of protector than paying attention to the truth or bothering to assess his emotions properly.
I crash right into the chest of a massive vuloi, my racing thoughts distracting me from my surroundings.
“Watch where you’re going, Y’thir!” they growl at me, grabbing my arms and glaring at me for a moment before recognition crosses their expression. “Hadrell?”
It takes me a moment to register that the vuloi gripping me is one I’ve met before. One I’ve slept with.
“Damn, you look good,” he says as he looks me up and down.
“So do you…” Void, what was his name? “Narem.” It’s a common Vuloi surname, so it’s as good a guess as any.
He lets out a booming chuckle and releases his grip. “Hah, you scoundrel! You remembered I hate being called that. ”
“Can you blame me for teasing?” I ask, hiding my relieved exhale behind a laugh.
“What are you doing on this dump?” Narem asks, his stacked eyes roaming over my body unabashedly.
Normally, I’d go with it. I wanted to get laid and from my vague memories of this vuloi, he was a decent fuck and a nice guy. Exactly what I was hoping for before Paul begged to join my outing.
Vash-ka , I flirted with the human and the whole time he was playing me. Since when did I become so gullible?
I give Narem my best disappointed frown. “Urgent business, unfortunately. I’d love to reconnect, but I’m afraid I have to get there before it’s too late.”
“Hah, of course. Another time. Let me give you my comm info before you go—in case you finish your business and have time for some stress relief after.”
If he only knew. “Will do, handsome.” I hold out my comm to tap against his. Maybe I’ll take him up on the offer if Paul hasn’t already created another mess for me to clean up.
As I head back off toward the wayward human, I get a ping on my comm.
“Your human is hiding behind a dumpster. Do you want me to get him?” Yaz’s oscillating voice contains a mixture of confusion and amusement.
In my panic, I forgot I asked my security officer to stay close in case I got separated from Paul. Maybe I let myself fall under the human’s spell, but I wasn’t a complete fool.
I consider for a moment how Paul will react to being approached by an unfamiliar aespian. There’s a pang of sympathy and worry in my gut, knowing how it will terrify him. Followed by the mental reminder that he might have been conning me .
Annoyingly, my empathetic side wins out. “Keep him there,” I sigh. “Don’t try to force him to do anything. I’m on my way.”
“Got it,” Yaz says and the comm ends.
I hurry toward their location. When I’m close, Yaz comms me again, and I hate that my first instinct is to worry that Paul got hurt somehow in the short time we were apart.
“He’s yelling at me,” Yaz murmurs, like he’s speaking under his breath.
“What—”
My question is cut off by Paul, who is shouting so loudly I can hear him through Yaz’s comm. “I won’t go down without a fight!”
“Who said anything about fighting?” Yaz asks in reply, voice calm despite the screaming human.
“I won’t let you fuck me, either! Go away,” Paul yells.
“If you could hurry up, I’d appreciate it. I think he might try to attack me,” Yaz mutters.
“You can handle it,” I scoff, even as I break into a jog. As our ship’s security officer, the aespian could easily subdue Paul with minimal effort. He probably knows five ways to knock a human out in one touch.
When I reach the dumpster Paul is hiding behind, I take a moment to catch my breath, then go around it to find Paul pressed into a narrow alcove. His hands are held up defensively, while Yaz stands there with his arms crossed over his chest, antennae twitching.
“Hadrell!” Paul gasps, eyes going wide. “Look out, they’re armed!”
Yaz turns to me and his wings shrug underneath his cloak. “He’s very concerned about my weapons.”
What Paul doesn’t know is that if Yaz wanted to kill him, he wouldn’t do something as inelegant as an alcove stabbing. Paul would never have seen him coming until it was too late.
“Thanks for keeping an eye on him.” I pat Yaz’s shoulder. “I’ll take it from here.”
Yaz nods and heads off without another word. He’s always a little cranky after a regeneration cycle, and having a human yell at you isn’t the most fun activity when you’ve just woken up.
Paul watches the exchange in confusion, but as soon as Yaz is out of sight, he rushes toward me.
For a split-second, I wonder if he’s going to try to attack me, and my body tenses as I prepare to deflect a blow. But Paul wraps his arms around my waist and lets out a sob.
“Fuck, I’m so glad you’re here. I th-thought—that aespian?—”
“Paul.” I say his name sharply to cut through his broken words. “Why did you run away from me?”
He looks up at me, eyes watery. His body trembles and his lip wobbles as he swallows heavily. “I w-wasn’t running from you. I couldn’t b-breathe. Needed air. I thought I was going b-back to the ship, but then all the aliens—and the noise—and I couldn’t think, so I h-hid.”
My chest aches from the shame and anxiety pouring off of the human clinging to me, but that voice in my head from before returns. Don’t fall for it again. You can’t trust someone you barely know.
“And this all happened to conveniently lead you to the comm terminals? Esh’et , Paul. Are all humans such good actors?”
He flinches like I’ve struck him and stumbles back, letting go of me. “What are you talking about?”
“You ran away from me the first chance you got. After you promised me you understood how dangerous it would be to try to contact the Consortium. Vash-ka , are they on their way here now? Is that why you were hiding behind the refuse, hoping you could shake me off until whoever got your comm showed up for you?”
The more I talk, the sicker I feel. It shouldn’t hurt this much that Paul lied. People lie all the time. I lie. But I thought we’d connected. I thought there was an understanding between us. I thought he might…
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Paul snaps, the fear in his eyes morphing into anger. “I have a panic attack and get lost, and you accuse me of doing it on purpose? I don’t know anything about these comm terminals you’re talking about, and there was no goddamn way I could’ve tried contacting someone even if I was some mastermind planning an escape. I don’t have any credits!”
“Yes, you do,” I sigh, catching him in his lie. I gave him a credit tab before we left the ship. Like a fa-shar idiot.
“No. I don’t. ” Paul grits out the words, his jaw clenched. “I left the tab in the pocket of Tari’s cloak. When I tried to get us more drinks, I realized I didn’t have it and…” His voice catches and a tear rolls down his cheek. “I wish this were an act. It’d be nice to have that kind of control of my mind instead of panicking at the smallest provocation.”
There’s no small part of me that wishes that I could believe him without checking. He’s so upset and if he’s telling the truth, looking in the pocket for the credit tab will only make things worse.
Paul drops his gaze to the floor, closing in on himself as the adrenaline of his indignance and fear for his life come crashing down.
I rifle through the bag we shoved his borrowed clothing in. When my fingers connect with the credit tab, guilt explodes within me like someone detonated a plasma charge in my stomach.
The tab is in the cloak pocket, like he said. None of this was a lie.
“ Esh’ et , Paul, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he says, voice monotone. He won’t meet my eyes.
“When you do the kind of work I do, deal with the kind of people I do, you have to assume the worst. Even if you want to trust someone.” The explanation tastes bitter on my tongue, despite how true it’s proven to be in my experience.
Paul doesn’t respond. When I notice he’s trembling, I take a step closer and reach out to touch his arm. “Paul…”
He finally looks up, wrapping his arms around himself defensively. It should be my arms around him, soothing him. He pushed himself, and I ruined it. Now he’s vacant behind his dark eyes. “Can you please take me back to the ship?”
“Of course.” I offer my hand to him and he hesitates for a moment, like he’s not sure if he can trust my help.
Guilt weighs heavily in my gut as I lead him to the ship, silently chastising myself for hurting Paul after he showed me such vulnerability and bravery.