Chapter 8
Eot
“Do you think she’s dead?” I ask Rin, watching the steady rise and fall of the female’s back. She’s not moved for a quarter hour, not even when Keelo and I separated into our individual forms.
Rin gives my question serious thought, studying our new arrival with a furrowed brow. “No.”
“She probably wouldn’t be breathing if she were dead,” I agree. “What’s she doing, then?”
More importantly, what is she? Not any species I’ve seen before, for all that we share many similarities—two arms, two legs, the sensible number of heads.
“Sleeping?” is Rin’s suggestion.
As she is lying on her stomach with one cheek pressed to the floor, I can see little of her face.
Her long, dark hair, sprawled around her shoulders, reaches partway down her back in what must once have been neat rows of braids but which now are decidedly frizzy.
Her breeches are cut short at her thighs, displaying slim brown legs, while her sleeves are pushed up to mid-forearm so I can count each of her ten fingers—nails, not claws.
In fact, I can see no physical traits with which she could defend herself.
No tusks, horns, stingers, pincers, or tails. No protective plates or scales.
In my current form, smell is no longer my dominant sense.
Sight is. But I can easily remember how obsessed Keelo and I had been with this female when we shifted into our monstrous form.
The faint smell of her infiltrated our thoughts more thoroughly than any other single scent for as long as we’ve been able to shift. The memory is…intriguing.
I kneel, intending to brush her braids away from her face, but the overhead intercom crackles with static.
“Eot.” Keelo’s voice echoes along the passage, and I pause with my hand still outstretched. I feel as if I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t be, even though I know Keelo can’t possibly see me from his position in the cockpit. “Once again, you’ve left me to do all the work.”
“Akh!” I straighten, partly because he isn’t wrong; I should be helping. And partly because there’s something about this female that makes me jittery. Her absolute vulnerability. Her child-like trust. Our reaction to her scent when in our monstrous form.
“Watch her,” I instruct Rin, and then join Keelo in the cockpit.
He doesn’t acknowledge my arrival as I slump into the copilot’s chair. Nor as I check the help wanted flyer for job coordinates and enter them into the navigation panel.
“She can’t stay here,” Keelo says, eventually breaking the silence.
“Sure, she can.” Whatever the female’s situation, it must’ve been bad if she’s willing to sleep on the floor of an unknown ship, surrounded by strangers, without so much as introducing herself.
He gives me a long look, twisting in his chair to more fully face me.
“T-minus twenty hours,” I say, pretending innocence and continuing my nav checks.
Ever after all our years together, he’s still so easy to anger, as if he’s learned nothing of my temperament. Then again, we didn’t choose each other. We had no say when being forced to pair, and perhaps we’ll never fully suit when in our individual skins.
It’s a depressing thought but not a new one.
“That didn’t sound like agreement,” he says. “That sounded like you patronizing me.”
“Me, patronize you?” I press a hand to my chest. “Never.”
Pointing a finger in my face, Keelo reiterates, “She’s not staying.”
“That’s not fair.” I scowl. “It was your idea to steal Rin. Why can’t it be my turn to steal someone?”
“You can’t steal someone who came with us willingly. Besides, she mightn’t even want to stay. Have you thought about that?”
I hadn’t, and I instantly dismiss the idea. “Of course she does. We’re—”
“We’re outlaws,” Keelo growls, like there’s the possibility I’d forgotten that critical fact. “We’re on the run, and now you’re suggesting we make our lives even harder by inviting along a fourth.”
“Or easier. She’s obviously better at keeping Rin out of trouble than we are. She could help us—”
“No. I know you, Eot. You’ll trick yourself into thinking everything will work out for the better, but that’s not how the universe works.”
“But—”
“No.”
I sink lower in my chair. It’s no fun arguing with him when he gets into this mood. Sometimes I think he has endless energy when it comes to saying “no.”
“If you’re going to sulk—” he begins.
I interrupt because, “Yes, I am going to sulk.” And I want him to know it.
He sighs the most over-the-top, dramatic sigh I’ve heard, and it makes me feel a fraction better—knowing he’s as annoyed by me as I’m annoyed by him.