Chapter 8
Irena
It felt like that whole conversation had taken a wild turn into crazy land.
Retreat had felt like the only option, but only three steps away from the brig, I already regretted it.
This was Flack, talking to me in his husky, gentle voice.
A hint of laughter, a bit of a tease, and a whole lot of heated innuendo.
It was in his DNA to talk that way, and I shouldn’t have let it scare me or overwhelm me, when that heat in his tone had gotten intense when he said the word mate.
Mate. It was a silly word, I told myself, as I made my way across the ship to bring the tray and empty injector back to the galley like I was supposed to.
Mate, that was something you called a buddy, a friend.
Like dude or homie or fellow. Not this. Not this primal thing that invoked images of wolves and wildness and claims that went far deeper than words.
It shouldn’t be a word that rattled me, but it had.
The whole day felt like that. As if everything I knew about this new world I was in had turned on its head.
It was supposed to be black and white: everyone was bad, and everyone wanted to hurt me or use me.
Trust, hope, those things felt as dangerous as the powerful attraction that simmered between Flack and me.
An attraction I could no longer deny. Damn it, the things he’d said, nobody was that good without meaning it, were they?
That kind of raw sincerity couldn’t be faked.
Now I wanted things that felt just within reach, and that was dangerous.
I was beginning to believe that Flack would escape that cell, and then he’d rescue me from this ship, and things would be better.
Having always been independent, strong-headed, and the one others came to for help, it was strange to now rely on another.
On him. A pirate, a self-proclaimed thief, an alien with more shapes than I could wrap my head around.
A thief with a dangerous reputation so dark, so bloody, every cell in my body should urge me to run away.
The galley was empty, but Trixom had once again done a good job cleaning up.
No, wait—not quite. There was a small bowl with leftovers on the counter, tucked into a corner where it was hard to spot, but left there on purpose.
It seemed for once the chef had decided to take pity on me.
The half-dozen bread rolls must have been forgotten days before, as they’d grown hard as rock.
Though my belly was now full thanks to Flack, I hurriedly tucked the stony rolls into my pocket anyway.
Then I retreated, crossing the ship on silent feet so I could hurry to my safe spot for much-needed sleep.
Not that I felt like resting right now; my heart still felt like it was racing.
Excitement, I knew, because Flack might actually manage to escape tonight.
What would happen then? Would he try to find me? Leave without me? Kill Dimon?
I recalled the nerve-wracking moment earlier that day when I’d managed to commandeer an abandoned comm station.
How scared I’d been to press the wrong button and set off an alarm, and how certain I’d been I’d failed to enter the right sequence until the call actually connected.
It had left me rattled, that encounter, because the alien who’d answered had been just like them.
The pirates. Brash, loud, rude, and swearing constantly.
It had been extra jarring because he’d said fuck so much, and that made it feel like I was speaking to a human even though the face on the screen was that of a terrifying skull with glowing red eyes.
I knew what he was, because there were two Asrai on the Vidu, but this one had seemed extra.
Dangerous, deadly, terrifying, and he’d seemed to like it when I sounded scared.
That wasn’t like Flack, who seemed to reserve this special voice full of heat and tenderness just for me.
But if he hung with a guy like that, didn’t that make Flack’s reputation and Dimon’s story more likely to be true?
Context, he’d said. Those acts were all taken out of context; they weren’t the whole truth.
So I clung to that, and I clung to the hope that when he said he saw home in me, that meant something, something huge. That meant he wouldn’t abandon me.
It had never happened before, my body always primed for flight, for danger.
I’d been so lost in thought, however, that I hadn’t stuck to my narrow shortcuts and rarely traversed routes.
Now I’d come too close to the crew deck.
I noticed it when it was already too late, and a figure stepped from a room just as I passed it.
Xathena. That was just my luck, of course, it had to be her.
I backtracked on silent feet, hoping she hadn’t seen me.
Her back was to me; I might just get away with it.
She appeared lost in thought, her head bent low and her long green hair partially obscuring her face.
Gold gleamed at the tips and danced along those mossy strands, like her hair had been coated with fairy dust. Unfairly pretty for a woman as mean and warlike as she was, which only made me feel more grubby than I already did.
She was staring at the comm on her wrist, still appearing oblivious to my presence, so I kept backtracking as silently as I possibly could.
My hand was on the wall as my guide, seeking the edge of the corner so I could duck out of sight.
Scared to move too fast in case that drew her attention.
Almost there, I counted my steps in my head, found the edge, and began to think I’d made it.
That’s when I bumped my back into something solid.
Hands closed around my upper arms, pinning me in place.
“What have we here?” a male voice demanded. “Worms aren’t welcome on this deck!”
Xathena’s head jerked up as she turned, her red eyes locking onto my face and narrowing. I was shoved forward roughly and tumbled onto the deck, my hands breaking the fall against the hard metal floor. I scrambled to my feet and pressed my back against the nearest wall so I could face both of them.
Speak of the devil, I’d been thinking of scary Asrai faces, and there one was.
I was pretty sure his name was Vaka: a big, brutish guy with bulging arms roped with muscle.
A malicious, dare I say superstitious, glare on his face.
He was wiping his hands on his already stained pants like he’d touched something foul.
He definitely bought the whole story that I was carrying some kind of human plague.
Xathena, however, had latched onto the side of my face with the mark.
Her red eyes perused that spot, narrowing, full of suspicion.
Not the same kind as Vaka’s, which just stemmed from ignorance and fear, but the kind that spoke of serious trouble.
She knew something had changed, I’d begun to heal.
Thanks to that tissue generator I’d pilfered, it was no longer a wound but a scar.
“What did you do?” she demanded. Lunging forward, she tried to grab me, and I screamed instinctively at the sight of those black claws coming for my face.
Tucking myself into a roll, I drew on all the very mediocre self-defense training I could recall.
One silly class at a local gym, tailored for co-ed self-defense, wasn’t nearly enough.
I remembered rolling, being dead weight, elbowing, and maybe something about kicking at knees.
Screaming, that had been part of it too, but that part had come naturally.
Xathena winced back and reached for her ears, and I scrambled to my knees beyond her reach and burst into a sprint.
They were faster than me, bigger, and so much stronger, but there was one advantage here.
I was smaller, and I knew this ship far better than either of them.
As Vaka and Xathena gave chase, I ducked into a hallway out of sight, then shimmied behind a broken wall panel and dropped into the vents that ran below the deck.
I’d been so quick, and so well-practiced at getting in there, that they were too late.
I froze, lying practically beneath their feet but completely out of sight under the metal floor panels.
I heard them call out, furious, and the thumping of their boots on the floor—racing forward, then coming back when they couldn’t find me.
I did not move, terrified that even the smallest whisper of sound would give me away.
The air was thick and muggy, warmth making sweat trickle down my spine.
In the vents, the heat was worse, and it made my head spin.
It felt like forever, but it was probably only a few moments later that their footsteps retreated once more.
It might be wiser to wait even longer, but I couldn’t take it.
Turning onto my belly, I crawled forward through the twists and turns of the ventilation system until I could climb from the ducts into a maintenance shaft instead.
It was cooler there, but only marginally, and a few deep breaths allowed my head to clear.
When I reached my favorite hideout a short while later, I was still shaking from that encounter.
I crawled into the small space on hands and knees, then curled onto my side on the pile of blankets I’d created a soft nest out of.
It took me a while to recover enough to sit up and turn on a few of my lights.
Tonight, my small sanctuary just looked dreary and sad.
I was encompassed by stained metal and rusting pipes, a fan lazily humming overhead, only spinning around slightly too-warm air.
The Vidu was always too warm, but tonight it felt claustrophobic.
Now what? Xathena was never going to forget that encounter; she was going to make me pay for running.
I should have let her grab my face and get a good look, but I’d reacted on instinct.
If they decided I was no longer contagious, no longer distasteful vermin not worth their time or food…
My skin crawled at what that might mean for my future.
Not so long ago I’d felt so hopeful despite being scared to allow myself to feel it.
Now, I was awash with despair. It would be too dangerous to leave this spot; I was certain of it.
I could perhaps survive a few days on the bread in my pocket and the water I knew I could safely reach.
After that? I was shit out of luck. I had nowhere to go unless Flack came through for me.
For the first time since he’d insisted I heal my cheek, I resented that.
A sound drew me from my wildly spiraling thoughts.
I jerked upright and reached for the thick metal bar I kept next to my nest as a weapon.
Clutching the cool steel didn’t make me feel any better as I searched the various dark openings that led into my hideyhole.
Which pipe was it coming from? Three were big enough for me to crawl through, but several were even smaller.
One thing was certain: nobody on the ship was small enough to get in here.
It was already a very tight squeeze for me.
My fists grew slick and tight around the metal bar as I scanned each opening, my ears primed for even the slightest sound.
Had they figured out where I hid to sleep?
I didn’t think they cared enough to even think about that, but perhaps I’d really pissed off Xathena.
She was the kind of woman who held a grudge, so I wouldn’t put it past her.
I trembled, the bar feeling like flimsy protection against the force of nature that Xathena was.
The sound came again, and I crouched, bracing myself for a fight.
It came from the left, where three pipes led out into this little junction.
Only one was big enough to fit me, but it wasn’t that pipe the noise was coming from.
In fact, it was the smallest one, barely big enough for me to stick my arm into.
A scuffing noise, something that sounded like panting.
My improvised weapon began to lower as I stared at the narrow opening, a little incredulously.
This was not Xathena’s doing, or that of any of the rest of the crew on the ship.
Was it a rat? A space rat? My weapon went back up, but I was pretty sure there wasn’t any vermin on the ship.
I’d been all over it, and had seen neither hide nor hair for months.
A tuft of white appeared, a small, pointed snout.
The creature huffed as it pushed its head out of the narrow pipe, and a pair of big, tufted ears unfolded.
Paws pushed out, and then, with a light jump, it leaped onto the floor right in front of me, shaking out its body with a cute little wriggle and a wag of its long, tufted tail.
I blinked at it, then lifted a hand to rub my eyes because it was such a bizarre sight.
Had I fallen asleep without realizing? Was I dreaming?
It was a fox. A cute, tiny, silver-white fox with dramatic black lines around its eyes, the tips of its ears, and the tip of its tail.
The creature’s eyes were a beautiful, luminous sapphire blue.
Those eyes were striking and slightly familiar, and a thought began to unfurl at the back of my mind that felt as bizarre as the very presence of this creature.
“What are you?” I whispered, even though I was pretty sure I already knew.
I’d lowered the metal bar entirely by now and stuck out an open palm to the little fox.
It sniffed my fingers with a warm, wet nose, wriggled again, and then began wildly wagging its tail.
A sort of breathy chittering noise, interspersed with little huffs, burst forth, sounding a little bit like he was laughing at me.
It ended on a “Yip-yip!” kind of like an exclamation mark.
Before I knew it, I found myself petting silky white fur and cooing at the little creature.
That’s when I began to have my doubts. Had it stowed away when they captured Flack?
Was it native to the last planet we’d landed on?
I had to be mistaken in my first assumption, because there was no way a creature this small and this cute could possibly be him. No way at all.
Of course, that was when he shifted.