Page 55 of Taken By the Alien Killer
“Four,” I say. “Two are useful.”
“How many cameras in this courtyard?” she asks, glancing at the corners where vines hide little glass eyes.
“Three,” I say. “All between blinks at the moment.”
She steps forward until the leaves throw both of us into that mottled half-dark that makes a person feel like they got away with a secret. We stand too close and too far, both. The cicadas buzz. The house exhales another schedule.
“Say it again,” she says, voice small and big. “The thing you said up there, when you let go.”
“We’re back in the cage,” I say. “For now.”
“For now,” she echoes, as if she can force the words to set like concrete by saying them enough times. “I don’t like cages.”
“I don’t either,” I say. “I only know how to open them without getting everyone inside shot.”
“We did okay,” she whispers, chin up, mouth stubborn. “We’ll do okay again.”
“We will,” I say, because I am more careful with promises now, and because this one I can keep.
She steps closer until there’s no ambiguity left about what being here means. Her fingers find mine. It’s the gentlest rebellion we can afford. The contact is small and devastating. My hand dwarfs hers. She turns our palms so the lines meet and hum like the ship’s engine when CynJyn kisses it and tells it to be brave.
“Tell me something true,” she says.
“Which truth,” I ask.
“Any,” she says. “All.”
“I hate that you’re in pain,” I say, simple. “I hate the way this house makes your breath shorter. I hate that I rehearsed polite ways to lie at your parents when what I wanted to say wasshe’s not a treaty; she’s a person I love and I will set the curtains on fire before I let you forget it.”
Her breath catches. “And you?”
“I,” I say, and then choose a clean edge, “will not let go again unless it keeps you from harm.”
“Good,” she says, and her mouth curves, then steadies. “My turn. I’m scared of how easy it will be to be good for them. To put on the dress and make the smile and let the doors close and tell myself it’s noble. I don’t want noble if noble is small.”
“It isn’t,” I say. “Noble that is small isn’t noble.”
“You should tell father that,” she says, then softens the barb with a small squeeze. “I wanted to kiss you when you saidfor now.”
I close my eyes for a count and open them because I will not be a man who flinches from the thing he wants. “I want to kiss you more than I want air,” I say. “But three cameras are blinking very slowly, and Sneed is somewhere pretending he’snot listening to the house breathe, and there are times for teeth and times for patience.”
“Tonight is patience,” she says, rueful. “Much as I hate it.”
“Tonight is patience,” I agree.
We stand with all that heat wrapped in restraint and let the night be a witness we can trust. Crickets chirp by the herb garden; somewhere a servant whispers to another about inventory and romance and no one hears them but the house. Star leans her shoulder against my arm, a sideways surrender that feels like winning. I bend just enough to brush my knuckles along the edge of her sleeve where skin begins.
“What did the patrol say?” she asks after a breath. “About the burst you sent. About Brozen.”
“‘Acknowledged,’” I say, assigning the word its proper disdain. “They will file bounties, sniff around the wreck, declare victory in a memo. Khong will go to ground. He will surface uglier.”
“We’ll be ready,” she says.
“Yes.”
“Do you think Kaspian knows?” she asks, then shakes her head. “He knows something. He always knows something.”
“He thanked me,” I say.
