Page 4 of Survivor
Tide fixed his silvery-gray eyes on me, and I caught the waver.
Seriously? “I’m not stupid.”
He sighed. “Fine.”
He stood and walked over to me, and then used the crook of his finger to tilt my chin up. “I’m trusting you, Rogue. I can’t lose you. Promise me you’ll stay indoors.”
My throat pinched. It was the first time he’d said something like that to me. Opened up like that.
I nodded. “I promise.”
He pinched my chin and ran his thumb across my bottom lip. “We need to be patient.” His throat bobbed. “Just a little longer.”
As he released me and walked away, I couldn’t help but think there’d been a double-entendre to that statement.
2
Light slanted in through the holes in the wall of our temporary home. It dappled the room and the two alien guys sleeping in it. Lore and Tide were sprawled across their bunks, their huge bodies hanging off the sides of the tiny metal-framed beds. They’d given me the best mattress and set up a nook for me with screens to give me my own space.
The light came from one of the nearest suns but only hit the port every sixteen hours. The port turned on its axis, mimicking a twenty-six-hour day. The light meant that Vex and Xavier would be back soon.
My legs were jittery, and the paper and ink the guys had provided for me to sketch and write with weren’t enough to keep me active. I’d done several laps of the ship, two hundred push-ups, and spent thirty minutes scrubbing the bathroom.
I was going insane.
We needed off this rock. I’d been a prisoner on Vesper, and I’d been an unwitting prisoner on the Athion ship. I was so done being locked up.
The door opened, and I rushed out to greet Vex with a body-slam hug.
He lifted me off my feet and slanted his mouth over mine in a heated kiss.
“Whoa,” Xavier chuckled. “Leave some for me.”
Vex set me on my feet, almost reluctantly.
Xavier slipped around him and pulled me into a hug. “How was the day?”
“Boring.”
He kissed the top of my head. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.” I stepped out of his embrace. “There’s been no sign of Marick or your Athion boss, though, has there?”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Tide said from his bunk. When had he woken up? “They could have people working for them, people we wouldn’t see coming.”
“Plus Kellon mentioned a noir ship docking yesterday,” Xavier said.
This was a new thing. “A noir ship?”
“Pirates,” Lore said. “The scourge of the stars. Chambers was talking about them. They’re here to trade and to stock up, and they’re staying in the Cogs.”
The Cogs was the other side of the hub, the less pretty, less affluent side where the long-timers lived and played.
“If the noir are here, then you know the bounty enforcers won’t be far behind. There’s always a hit on one pirate or other,” Lore added. “If Athion has put out a warrant for our arrests, then it’ll be on the enforcers’ systems. If they see us …”
Shit. More pressure.
Xavier slung an arm around me. “It’ll be okay. We’ll keep a low profile, and we’ll get through this.”
