Page 25 of Phoenix's Last Heist
“Well, I don’t really want to be here when he gets back to the dock. He’s probably armed,” I say.
“Probably,” Orion agrees. I see the impish glint in his eyes and his stalwart determination not to smirk, and try to ignore the funny things they do to my insides.
I shake my head. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Good idea,” Orion replies.
As we make our way up the gangplank to the ship’s outer bay, Orion draws a feather-light touch across the angry red mark on my arm, left from Ianthos’s grip.
“Lyra, about earlier…” he begins, but I wave him off.
“It’s fine, Ranger. I know you don’t have any reason to trust me. But I still want you to know, I don’t use myvelliawilly-nilly. I only use it when I’m really in trouble. I never,everuse it to manipulate or steal. I mean, I do those things, but I don’t use myvelliafor them, and I just…need you to know that,” I say.
He nods and reaches behind his back, producing a small plant in a pot about the size of my palm.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “For earlier. I was a jerk. I know you don’t have much of a reason to trust me, either, but I’m hoping we can at least call a temporary truce. Novellia, no threats of Federal incarceration until this is over. Deal?”
“Deal,” I agree. “So, um, this is…?” I point to the odd specimen in his hand. The plant has black thorns and a gaping, garishly red maw dripping with some kind of clear, viscous fluid. It looks like something that’ll creep into your room and bite you if you don’t water it regularly.
“I’ve been reading your books. Your Earth romances. I understand human women like to receive flowers after they’ve been wronged,” he says.
“This isn’t a flower,” I say slowly, so overwhelmed by a simple, stupid gesture of kindness all I can do is state the obvious. “It’s a carnivorous plant.”
“The options in a port run by pirates are limited,” he replies, chagrined. “But I can get rid of it if you want.”
“No, no! I like it,” I say, offering him a small smile. I’m dizzy with the effort of trying to remember the last time anyone’s given me anything without an agenda attached. Brill’s gifts were always more painful than pleasant. My lovers only ever took. My parents, maybe? Surely there were birthday presents when I was young, but…strangely, nothing comes to mind. Pressure builds in my chest, warm and fulfilling—akin to indigestion but…pleasant.Nice.“‘Thank you’ is what I meant to say. I love it. Apology accepted.”
His expression warms at that and I seal the doors to prepare for takeoff.
Rather than hide in his berth, Orion chooses to sit next to me in the navigator seat. I turn over the engines and engage the thrusters, setting my new little plant in a cupholder on the center console.
“Ada, we’re up and running! Let’s make it a quick trip to Minaris,” I say, trying to muster some enthusiasm for leaving the port city behind, but it’s difficult.
Iathos’s words play over and over in my head—an endless, looping record of the selfsame doubts and fears I’ve harbored for years.Brill won’t let you go. Freedom’s the kind of promise men like Brill sell to girls like me. And stars help me, I keep buying it.
I knew it was only a matter of time before Brill sent me after the Dark Star, but I thought I’d kept my father’s connection to it and pursuit of it well guarded. How would he know what my father only confided in the margins of his journals?
I can’t think about that now. I just have to deal with whatever challenge lies in front of me at the moment. And getting to Minaris—getting Orion safely in front of the Triumvirate there…well, that’s the next challenge.
“So…your friend back there. Iathos.” Orion makes a show of staring at the hologram chart in the cockpit that shows our route to Minaris. He studiously avoids my eyes.
“Tread carefully, Ranger,” I warn.
He rubs a hand over the stubble sprouting on his chiseled jawline. “He mentioned Brill. Should we be worried?”
A bitter chuckle trips from my lips. “I’m always worried about Brill. Whetheryouhave the good sense to be worried about him is up to you and your gods. As to the ‘we’? Well, I guess you can be glad our arrangement has an expiration date.”
The gravity of his frustration pulls his brows and his lips down.
“You know what I mean, Lyra.”
“I’m sure Kraxis has already told Brill we left Xylothia together and I’m sure Brill has figured out we have the idol on us. He probably thinks we’re trying to sell it, so I’m betting he’ll send someone to Epsilon-6 since he knows I was negotiating with another interested party. Iathos is a lying, cheating, thieving, selfish fuck but he’s not a lackey like Kraxis. He’ll only offer Brill information if the price is right or if he’s sufficiently pissed off to want more than a revenge fuck,” I utter darkly.
Orion’s head snaps up at that. “A revenge fuck? You slept with him?”
“Hey, I told you—space can get pretty lonely,” I reply, strangely defensive. “Was it my finest moment? No. Did it end up costing me more than I ever would have paid for a few hours of pleasure? Big time.” The truth cuts sharper than I mean it to. I can still see the blue of his skin in the starlight, the curve of his grin right before he walked out with my payday—and my future. I’d thought he wanted me. Turns out he wanted what I’d stolen.
I don’t tell Orion that part. I don’t tell him that Iathos knew things about my father no one should’ve known—or that maybe that’s why he was really on Amphitreas. Not for me, but for the Dark Star. If I admit that, I’d have to admit how close I came to trusting him, how stupid that makes me, and how scared I am that Brill knows more than I do.
