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“Very funny. ”
He buckled the harness, hands quick and sure; then he looked up, staring at her thoughtfully.
His eyes were bloodshot, and fine dark stubble covered his cheeks. It wasn’t him. Unlike Perry, Roar didn’t like scruff. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. Like he’d never sleep again. The sorrow in his eyes seemed to go on forever.
“It’ll heal, Ladybug,” he said.
Roar was always giving her nicknames. Ladybug had come just over a week ago. They had been on a boat together, moving down the Snake River, when the ship’s captain had called her that. With this memory came others that made her stomach clench. Roar with tears running down his face. Roar unspeaking, buried under thick layers of grief.
He was speaking now. He was a dark, shifting force.
Would he ever heal?
Aria rested her hand on his, wanting to say something that would help. Wanting him to know that she loved him and was sorry about the tension between him and Perry.
Roar’s mouth lifted, a flicker of a smile that didn’t reach his dark eyes. “Got it,” he said.
He had listened to her thoughts and heard everything.
Her gaze moved over his shoulder. Perry stood by the entrance to the cockpit watching them, his expression unreadable. Roar turned and they froze, locked in a hard stare that had no place between friends.
A prickling feeling crawled up Aria’s spine. Somehow she felt like a barrier between them, and that was the last thing she ever wanted to be.
Buckled in the seat on the opposite wall, Brooke watched Perry watch Roar. The cargo doors closed with silent finality, and the sound of Soren and Jupiter’s bickering over the Hover’s controls grew louder, breaking the quiet spell that had trapped them.
Roar moved to the cockpit to guide them back to where he’d seen the Komodo. Perry followed, watchful and focused.
Soren lifted the Belswan off the ground with a stomach-dropping lurch.
Across the cargo hold, Brooke scowled. “I thought he could fly this thing. ”
“He can fly it,” Aria said. “Landing is the problem. ”
Brooke gave her an appraising look. Aria met it evenly, trying not to wonder what Perry had seen in her. What he’d acted like with her. She had no reason to be envious. She didn’t want to be.
“Roar said you met Liv,” Brooke said.
Aria nodded. “I knew her only for a few days, but . . . I liked her. Very much. ”
“She was my best friend. ” Brooke glanced toward the cockpit. “We were like them. ”
Perry and Roar stood inside, leaning against either side of the access opening. From her angle, she could only see half of each of them, and the open space between.
They were so different, inside and out, but they stood exactly the same way. Arms crossed. Ankles crossed. Their posture somehow both relaxed and alert. It was as close as they’d come to each other since Roar’s return.
“Like how they used to be,” Brooke amended.
“Has this ever happened before?”
“Never. And I hate it. ”
Incredible. They actually agreed on something.
Aria rested her head against the wall and closed her eyes. The Hover hummed along, and the journey had turned smooth, but she knew it wouldn’t last.
A team, Reef had called them earlier. But they weren’t. Not even close.
They were six people with at least a dozen different agendas between them.
