“This contract?” Kalie stumbled back, glancing at the pulser holstered at Mira’s hip. Ice flooded through her veins. “Where are you taking me?”
“One sec. Cy, have you found that regenerator?”
Cybel grunted, and Mira sighed. “I was hired to find you before Carik did. I picked up your signal when you sent a message to your uncle at the spaceport—that was stupid, by the way. The first time theChimaeradropped to pick up a connector, I teleported on. I kept an eye on you from a distance. I was coming to help you in the mess hall before this one caught the legionnaires’ attention?—”
“That was her, not?—”
Wells yelped as Mira touched the oozing gauze to his hissing red wound.
“Oh, stop acting like a child, playboy. Anyway, I saved the idiot over here and offered to split my score if he helped me get you. Little did I know he’s making a few hundred times what I’m getting.”
Kalie narrowed her eyes. “Who hired you?”
“I can’t say much, but you have a powerful ally waiting to meet you.”
The sight of Mira’s gleaming pulser sealed her throat. She swallowed and lowered her eyes to the floor. “I don’t suppose you could just take me back to Dali?”
“Sorry.” Mira shrugged.
She breathed in deeply and glanced at Wells. “But you aren’t working for the Federation.”
Mira’s lazy posture went rigid. “Hell will freeze over before Ieverwork for those bastards.”
“If there’s a record for killing Feds,” Wells muttered, “she’s probably won it.”
A drawer slammed shut, and Cybel’s footfalls thumped against the vibrating floor. The aibot held out a regenerator to Mira.
Kalie’s brows shot up. The bulky handheld device, with an opening at the top and three buttons above a small glass screen, didn’t look like anything special, but thecost… Mira had to be a thief. There was no way someone with a ship this dingy could buy a regenerator and okul salve, let alone a cybermod and a transporter.
“Hannover, there’s painkillers in the bottom left drawer.” Mira powered on the regenerator. “Hand me the bottle.”
“No,” Wells said sharply.
Kalie froze with her hand on the drawer.
“Zane, this isn’t a graze,” Mira chided, dribbling salve into Wells’s wound. “The blast tore right through your arm, and it’ll hurt like hell to mend?—”
“No. No pills.”
Given that Mira was the one with the weapons, Kalie took the pills from the drawer anyway. Wells’s glare could’ve frozen fire.
“We can’t wait until we get to the station?”
Mira huffed. “It’ll be twelve hours. Do you wantto bleed out?”
Wells almost looked relieved. Kalie frowned.
Mira’s brows pressed down, and she opened her mouth as if to lecture him, then shut it. “Fine. No pills. Maybe this’ll convince you that you’re being stupid about it.”
“I’mbeing stupid? I’m not the one scared shitless by needles?—”
“That’s different.” Mira’s expression darkened. “Hannover, put the pills away and grab me that leather strap, would you?”
She pursed her lips. She had a new level of sympathy for her maids on Dali.
Bite marks creased the leather strap. Wrinkling her nose, Kalie pinched the corner between her cracked nails. Mira rolled her eyes as she took it, but Wells didn’t comment. His jaw was clenched tightly, and his body was rigid, as if he was focused entirely on bracing himself for the pain. He opened his mouth just wide enough for Mira to slide the strap in, then he bit down and closed his eyes.
“Okay. Cybel, you have the regenerator and his arm. Hannover, hold down his legs.”
