“She also noted that the documentation is, and I quote, ‘the most thorough sabotage case file she’s seen in fifteen years of practice.’ Her words, not mine.”
“Good.”
“That was a compliment. Most people respond to compliments with something other than monosyllables.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re doing that thing where you pretend you’re fine because admitting you’re not fine would require acknowledging that something affected you, and acknowledging that something affected you would require dealing with it.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
She blinked slowly at the console. The green trajectory line stretched out toward her home sector, a bright, safe path away from the Summer League. Away from the R’Tevs and their assassins. Away from Raaze.
Then, between one heartbeat and the next, she saw it.
Her whole damn life, she’d stayed. Every time her father looked down his nose and called her weak, and every time Kian had done something to undermine her, she’d taken the hits. She’d just dug down and tried harder. Hell, she’d taken the Parac’Norr job, a suicide run no one else in the company would touch, just to prove that she could.
She was the one who didn’t quit. The little sister who took every punch and kept showing up for the next round, even if she got knocked down again. That was her entire identity.
Until today.
The first time something genuinely broke her, the first time someone got close enough to actually hurt her…
She’d run.
Raaze had looked her in the eye and admitted she was just a convenient mark. Instead of fighting it, instead of getting up in his face and calling him an asshole and a bastard, she’d thrown him out the airlock and run.
Her throat tightened, a sharp, physical squeeze that made her swallow hard.
That wasn’t who she was. That had never been who she was.
“You are deviating from optimal oxygen intake,” Fred commented in a low voice. “Your respiration rate is disordered.”
She didn’t answer.
“Cait?”
She didn’t answer, just kept looking at the distance ticking down to home base.
“Your silence is becoming concerning. Should I run a diagnostic on the life support systems?”
“The contract was mine,” she said finally. Her voice sounded strange. Distant.
“Yes?”
“The route was mine. The repairs were mine. The work was mine from the first signature to the last bolt I tightened on that landing strut.”
“Also yes.” Fred’s tone didn’t change. “I’m not sure what point you’re making, but I’m confident you’ll get there eventually.”
“I’m flying away from a job I built with my own hands.”
There was a pause. A pause that was a lot longer than Fred’s usual processing delays.
“Well, technically the delivery contract is complete. The cargo was logged at Parac’Norr. Payment will process upon?—”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know what you mean. I’m choosing to pretend I don’t because the alternative involves discussing… feelings.”
