Page 10 of How to Steal a Galaxy

Rian glowers at me as if he can guess my thoughts. He probably can; I don’t mind if he sees this about me. I like to watch him twist. I like to be the one to make him annoyed.

Nothing I did during my time on theHalifaxwith him was illegal. TheRoundaboutwas a salvage, so taking anything from it wasn’t stealing. Nothing I’ve done here at the MIH, so far, has been, either. And much as he thinks he can pin something on me now, he’s wrong.

Even when I’m standing right in front of him, he still doesn’t see what I’m doing.

• • •

After that night I left the protective enclosures at Yellowstone, for shits and giggles and just because I wanted to, I hacked into the security sys and downloaded the feeds the drones outside recorded.

It’s important to know: To me on that night, there had been nothing but triumph and stars.

But on the feeds?

Another story. A different reality.

The night vision cams used old tech—it was just the staff living area, after all; the park wasn’t spending bucks on our security. So, the image that fed back to me was eerily ghost-like, my body bouncing in happiness, oblivious to the pale shadow padding silently behind me, the green eyes glowing with unwavering focus on my unprotected flesh. Timing was the only thing that saved me. I slipped back into the physical border just as the cougar crouched to leap at me, and even after the door was closed and locked, she prowled, tail lashing side to side, fury at her missed meal evident.

I had paused to gaze at the night sky and then trotted around outside without once even knowing that a beast was trailing me. I had felt so powerful, looking at the stars, but when I saw the cougar on the feed, I tasted ashy mortality on my tongue. My muscles, slim as they were, trembled.

I had not known I was being hunted.

And just because luck had drawn me to safety before the claws eviscerated my flesh made me no less prey.

I had felt victorious—that was the emotion threaded through my panting breaths and bright eyes. Triumphant joy. But it was only ignorance that had given me that false pretense, and every twinkling star in the black void reminds me of that moment, of how my insignificance does not extend to the possibility of my being a meal.

I turn now in the luxuriously appointed, hallowed halls of the Museum of Intergalactic History, my movement languid, sea silk swishing over my hips, glittering in the bright light of a planet lightyears from the shattered remains of the last place I felt safe.

Rian leans against the wall, waiting for me to make a move, watching, watching.

He thinks he’s stalking me as I clack my silver heels from display to display. He thinks his law is as powerful as fangs and claws. He thinks I don’t know an escape route, that I will have nowhere to run when he springs his trap, whatever that may be.

I have been hunted before. The difference is: I never felt the eyes on me, not like I feel Rian’s eyes burning through my silk, searing into my skin. But there’s a beautiful synchronicity to that, no?

His eyes never leave me, but all that does is confirm that even if he thinks he’s hunting me, he’s wrong.

I’m the predator here.

And he has no idea what I see.

5

Ilinger in the Egyptian antiquities room. The display is structured so that permanent museum items and information about the ancient empire are along the wall, with the auction item in the center—a canopic shrine and chest made for Pharaoh Tutankhamun more than a thousand years before the Common Era.

“I’m not going to steal it,” I tell Rian. He’s a few paces behind me, but when I speak, he gets closer. Good. I like him close to me. I like the way it makes my heart jump.

“I don’t suppose it would fit in your purse.”

I swing my reticule around as I take a step closer to the center display. As I watch, the number beside the canopic chest shoots up. I subtly look around, but it’s impossible to know who’s added to the bid. It might not even be anyone in the room. The people today are here to see and be seen. They may make token bids on some items—a random jewel from a random crown from a country no longer a sovereign nation, perhaps, or a piece of art from someone long dead—but thereallyvaluable items have already been previewed by thereallyrich people, all of whom had an early showing of the displays away from the commoners who had to pay for the luxury of attending a charitable fundraiser.

Remote bidding.

“You do realize that this is a charity event,” Rian says, but I’m not sure if it’s to make conversation or if my face has betrayed my disgust. “To helpyourhomeworld.” Ah. The face, then.

I glance around the room. A few people I recognize—a Gliese-Earth politician, a singer, another feed star. There are more, some vaguely familiar, but I can’t pin a name to any of them. Still, there’s a chance I’m the only person in this gallery who was born on the same planet as Tutankhamun.

And there’s a chance I’m the last person from Earth who will ever see this shrine.

“Can you imagine?” I ask Rian.

---