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"Emby?"
"All I'm saying is that I don't want you to be a target!"
"A target for what? For whom?"
"Shhh! Keep your voice down!"
She looks again at that book he was reading, trying to piece it all together, but there just aren't enough pieces. She gets close to him, forcing him to look at her. "I want to help you," she says. "I'm worried about you. Please let me help you."
He darts his eyes back and forth, trying to find an escape from her gaze, but he can't. Suddenly, he bridges the small distance between them and kisses her. She did not expect it, and when he breaks off the kiss she realizes from the look on his face that he hadn't expected it either.
"What was that for?"
It takes a moment for him to get his brain functioning again. "That," he says, "is in case something happens and I don't see you again."
"Fine," she says, and she pulls him into another kiss—this one longer than the first. When she breaks it off, she says, "That's in case I do see you again."
He leaves, awkwardly stumbling out and nearly falling down the steel steps to the ground. In spite of all that just went on between them, Risa has to smile. It's amazing that something as simple as a kiss can overpower the worst of worries.
* * *
Lev's troubles appear to be of a different nature, and Risa finds herself frightened by him. He comes to infirmary call that morning with a bad sunburn. Since he's a fast runner, he's been assigned messenger duty. Mostly, it involves running back and forth between the jets carrying notes. It's one of the Admiral's rules that all messengers wear sunscreen, but it seems Lev is no longer bound by anyone's rules.
They make small talk for a bit, but it's awkward, so she quickly gets down to business. "Well, now that your hair is longer, at least your forehead and neck seem to have been spared. Take off your shirt."
"I kept my shirt on most of the time," he says.
"Let's have a look anyway."
Reluctantly, he removes his shirt. He's burned there as well, but not as badly as on his arms and cheeks. What catches her attention, however, is a welt on his back in the faint shape of a hand. She brushes her fingers across it.
"Who did this to you?" she asks.
"Nobody," he says, grabbing the shirt back from her and slipping it on. "Just some guy."
"Is someone on your team giving you trouble?"
"I told you, it's nothing—what are you, my mother?"
"No," says Risa. "If I were your mother, I'd be rushing you off to the nearest harvest camp."
She means it as a joke, but Lev doesn't find it funny, "Just give me something to put on the burns."
There's a deadness to his voice that's haunting. She goes to the cabinet and finds a tube of aloe cream, but she doesn't hand it to him just yet. "I miss the old Lev," she says.
That makes him look at her. "No offense, but you didn't even know me."
"Maybe not, but at least back then I wanted to."
"And you don't want to anymore?"
"I don't know," says Risa. "The kid I'm looking at now is a little too creepy for my taste." She can tell that gets to him. She doesn't know why it should, because he seems proud of his new creep factor.
"The old Lev," he says, "tricked you into trusting him, then turned you in to the police the first chance he got."
"And the new Lev wouldn't do that?"
He thinks about it, then says, "The new Lev has better things to do."
