“I’m not going to be responsible for breaking the truce andstarting a war,” Amelia growled. “Let the Luminas have their people back, with a warning that we’ll kill them all if they attack a Fleet ship again.” At that, she shoved her gun roughly into the back of the blubbering man, who nodded vigorously.
“We won’t. We won’t,” he whined.
Business as usual.
Opula frowned, but dutifully hauled the man back to his friends. Despite his size, she muscled him around like he weighed nothing, shoving him as he hopped on his one good leg. Torian almost felt bad for him.
Almost.
The moment they were alone, Amelia rounded on Torian again.
Here we go.
CHAPTER 18
“Here’s a tip, Scrap. Next time I tell you to stay in the ship,listento me.” Amelia’s tone was as hard as her gaze.
Torian felt it was undeserved. “I wasn’t intervening with you. Someone was cutting through my ship.”
“We can patch a ship. We can’t bring someone back from the dead.” Amelia’s voice was rough, tightly furious. “This kind of shit is why I demoted you in the first place. Where in the hell are your survival instincts?”
Torian crossed her arms, her mood rapidly degrading. “Look. I told you I was terrible security.”
“You didn’t have to tell me, Scrap.”
Torian scowled. “Rude.”
Amelia seemed to realize things were escalating, and not in a good way. This kind of conversation had been simmering for a while, and Torian wasn’t surprised it was finally coming to a head.
But apparently Amelia, yet again, wasn’t ready to talk about things. Instead, she drew a short breath, closed her eyes for a moment, and said, “Come on. We need to find a mechanic.”
The fact thatshewas angry made Torian feel a bit irritated. Torian had listened to Amelia’s initial request. She’d stayed on the ship until she couldn’t anymore. It felt unfair to punish her for something that escalated out of hand.
But Amelia was already walking away.
Of course she was.
Torian jogged to catch up to Amelia. This wasn’t how she wanted their reunion to go, but she couldn’t help but continuethis argument. “You’re mad, and I don’t think that’s fair. He was attacking my ship; I had to do something.”
“You know what isn’t fair, Scrap? Pacing outside a med bay praying that my newest security officer isn’tdyinginside.”
It slipped out, clearly, because Amelia pressed her lips shut and scoffed, picking up the pace to avoid meeting Torian’s gaze. They were heading for the hangar’s exit, an innocuous door marked as such, but once they left this oasis, Colony 4’s unique festivities would ensure they didn’t get to chat again for a while.
Not about anything important.
So, Torian leapt in front of Amelia, physically blocking her. “Can we talk about what happened?”
“There’s nothing to say. I thought you were experienced enough. You clearly weren’t. I refuse to make the same mistake twice.” Amelia’s voice was hard, but she averted her gaze, her jaw clenched.
“He was going to shoot you.”
“And then he shotyouinstead.”
That hung between them, and they glared at each other. As always, Amelia’s anger was ice-cold, that mottled meteorite that would freeze Torian to touch. Torian’s started hot, but melted into misery the longer Amelia stared.
“I was doing my job,” Torian muttered.
Amelia massaged her brow. “Yeah, well. Yourjobscared the shit out of me.” That last sentence was barely audible, and Amelia shoved past her, stalking for the exit. Torian trailed behind this time, bracing for the public avenues of Colony 4.
