Page 53 of Alien Burn

“I know what to say.”

“Of course you do. You've had plenty of practice.”

Roemary smoothed the fabric she had just touched.

“But he's clever. Everyone says so. And all those connections. If he became curious, really curious, there would be so many people he could ask.”

She did not need to say the name Sereya had given her aboard the ship. Sereya heard it anyway.

“I'm trying to spare you that.”

The worst part was that Dhomhes probably could find things out. He was a Gol-Vett. People answered him. The history Sereya lived by had been made to survive ordinary questions, but she had never been able to stop wondering where it might fail.

She had liked sitting beside him enough to forget that.

Roemary saw her expression and softened her voice.

“There. You understand. Let me handle him.”

Sereya took her comm from the couch.

“I need to have my hand checked.”

“Now?”

“It's the time they gave me.”

Roemary's mouth tightened. Then she glanced at the dressing and stepped aside.

“Don't wander off afterward. I may need you.”

Sereya closed her fingers around the comm until its edge hurt.

“I'll be back.”

The medic said her hand was healing well.

Sereya watched the old dressing come away. Under it, the cut looked smaller than it felt. The medic cleaned around the edges and asked whether she'd been keeping it dry.

She had. She answered that question easily. When the medic asked whether she was sleeping, she took too long.

“Some,” she said.

“If that doesn't improve, come back. You don't need another injury to come through this door.”

“Thank you.”

Outside, she sat on a bench to fasten her cuff over the fresh dressing.

The comm lay in her lap.

For a moment she wanted to switch the comm off and leave it in her room. No questions while she was trying to remember how to breathe.

But he would call. He had asked to, and she had said yes. He deserved an answer from her, even if she could only tell him she was frightened.

Roemary had made the promise sound foolish in less time than it had taken to make it. Sereya remembered how he had waited for her hand. She opened the comm before she could let Roemary's voice replace his.

She opened his contact.