It didn’t bear thinking about.
"That sounds like Miranda." His voice was harder now.
"I had to move out in three days. Couldn't afford the place on my own anyway. And it was Emily's name on the lease, Emily's deposit, anyway. I'd been paying my half into her account, but..." She shrugged. "Miranda didn't care about that. Miranda doesn't care about anything that isn't Miranda."
Thyaar's head appeared again. His eyes found hers, his expression blunt and unguarded. "The woman is a draanthing parasite," he said. "She used her own daughter's disappearance to?—"
He stopped abruptly, looking away. Then he disappeared back under the console.
"I took Barnaby because no one else was going to," she said quietly. "Emily loved that cat. If she came back and he was gone..." She trailed off. "Anyway. He's expensive, and he's a pain in the ass, but he's Em's. I wasn't going to let him end up in a shelter."
From somewhere under the console, Barnaby purred.
Thyaar pulled himself from under the console in one smooth motion. He was closer than she'd expected… close enough that she could see the smudge on his jaw and the way his chest moved when he breathed. He reached for a tool on the deck beside her, and his arm passed close enough to her shoulder that she felt the heat of his skin beating against hers.
He paused, his hand hovering over the tool, their gazes locked. Something darkened in the back of his eyes that made her breath catch. Then he picked up the tool and moved back, and the moment snapped like a wire. When he spoke, his voice was even and controlled. "The relay that feeds it is burned out. I can bypass it, but it'll take time."
"How much time?"
"More than I'd like." He wriggled back under the console, and she absolutely did not watch his abs out of the corner of her eye. "Less if your cat moves."
Barnaby, of course, did not move. Instead, he upped the ante, moving to lie across Thyaar’s chest, his ginger tail swishing back and forth.
“What the…” Thyaar sighed in surrender. “Okay, lie there then.”
She smiled and closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the wall again.
Barnaby trusted Thyaar, and Barnaby didn't trust anyone. He'd bitten three vets, drawn blood on her landlord, and once knocked an entire shelf of canned goods onto a delivery driver who'd looked at him wrong. But he'd curled up on the alien like it was the safest place on the ship.
Barnaby was a lot of things, but he wasn't stupid.
The relay bypass held. Barely.
Thyaar pulled himself out from under the console and wiped his hands on a rag before he checked the diagnostics one more time. The lateral drive wasn't fixed, but jury-rigged as best he could. The bypass would give them about sixty percent thrust if they needed to run.
When they needed to run. He wasn't optimistic enough for if.
Barnaby was asleep in the pilot's chair. He’d climbed off of Thyaar’s chest and claimed it hours ago. He showed no signs of moving, one paw hanging off the armrest, his whole body rising and falling with the slow, rumbling purr of an animal who knew the universe existed to serve him.
Amelia had fallen asleep as well.
She was curled against the bulkhead with her knees drawn up and her cheek pressed against the wall. He paused to look down at her. There was no way that was comfortable. Even bundled in his too-large-for-her clothes, he could see the sharp jut of her hips. She was way too thin.
He crouched in front of her and gently pushed the hair that had fallen over her face back.
“Hey… You need to sleep somewhere that isn't the floor," he said.
She didn't move.
"Amelia."
One gray eye opened. It was not a friendly eye.
"There's a washroom aft of the corridor," he said. "Clean up, and I'll show you where the sleeping quarters are."
“Five mo’ minutes,” she mumbled.
“No, you can’t sleep here.”
