40. Rhaek
RHAEK
" T en."
I was on my feet before the number finished, eyes going straight to the pod across from mine.
She was there.
Her back to me. Shoulders moving, head going side to side. Her hand found her jaw. Then her neck. Pressed, released, moved on. Alive and taking stock of it.
The other males were not taking stock of anything.
The blue-grey one had both hands flat against his pod glass, his face pressed close, his expression the kind that usually preceded significant property damage.
The others — reset, restored, woken up to find the Games still running and still unfinished — were in states of fury that the glass was doing an excellent job of containing.
I didn't look at them long.
She was turning.
Slow. Still working her neck. One hand at her jaw where I had hit her, pressing lightly, finding nothing that wasn't going to be fine. This place didn't do permanent. I had known that. I had felt it like a blade anyway, doing harm to her, and I was going to feel it for a while yet.
She finished turning.
Found me through the glass.
The look arrived in stages.
First: level, long. The look of someone who had woken up in a pod with a clear memory of being punched in the face by her own rescuer. Her hands went to her hips. Her chin came up. She held it there, the full weight of it, giving it the time it deserved.
I held still.
The corner of her mouth twitched.
Then she was laughing. Head dropping, one hand over her mouth, the other pointing at me, the finger wagging. Her shoulders were shaking.
Something in my chest came loose.
I grinned back at her.
The blue-grey male hit his pod wall with both fists.
Neither of us looked at him.
She straightened. Wiped her eyes. Shook her head at me slowly, still smiling.
Human females.
Strange creatures.
Wonderful, entirely unreasonable, strange creatures.