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“The beginning would be a good place.”
I shot her a look from behind the mask, even though she probably couldn’t see my face under the sun’s glare.
“She cute?”
“Beautiful,” I corrected automatically.
“Her scent is strong, but not like anyone I’ve come across here. Is she a Fanger?”
“No.”
“Is she visiting some family here?”
It was a valid assumption. Since we didn’t allow tourism or any new dwellers on our Star—our resources were strained enough with our current capacity—we usually only received new people when they visited family in our community.
“No.”
“Oh, come on, Cee.” The screwdriver clanked against the scaffold as Ana looked down at me again. “This is like pulling teeth. Convicted felons have revealed more information in a murder trial.”
I parted my lips to reply but couldn’t seem to find the right words.
A thought from the back of my mind slowly made its way forward. Ana had been a peacekeeper for two decades. She knew the law like the back of her hand. Could she help someone like Twyla—someone trapped and hiding—live her life like normal again? Would she be able to help protect Twyla legally against her parents?
Because make no mistake, the idea that the Oboids would simply give up searching for their only daughter was laughable. Their bank accounts ran deep and they’d probably already engaged the best hunters to find her, no matter where she hid. Hell, they probably assumed she’d been kidnapped. Based on what Twyla had told me, it was probably beyond them to even think she’d run away to escape her marriage.
I flicked my braid behind my shoulder and swiped at the sheen of sweat on my neck. When I hadn’t responded, Ana had sighed and gone back to work on the battery, muttering to herself about my stubborn ass.
“Maybe you could help,” I surprised myself by saying out loud.
She paused and looked down at me again.
“Can you force someone to marry you against their will?”
Ana’s head angled backwards sharply in shock. “If you think for one damn minute I’m pressuring some poor girl into marrying your sorry ass—”
“What? No, no, no.” I shook my head quickly. “The girl I’ve been...seeing...actually snuck onto our Star by accident. She was running away from an arranged marriage and ended up on my doorstep.”
“I’m going to need more information,” Ana said slowly when I paused.
So I started from the very beginning, going back to the evening she and I had hauled in the HumanoidGadgets package in the post. Ana listened intently, her head tilted at an angle, the side of one horn touching the scaffolding. She’d given up working on the battery momentarily as she focused on my story, brows furrowed.
I tried to be as brief as possible, but the story tumbled out of me in vivid detail anyway.
“I don’t know if I can ever let her go.” My throat hurt as I confessed that final statement. “But I think her parents won’t give up looking for her either. She’s their sole heir and a lot of their political connections rely on the marriage she ran away from.”
“Well.” Ana paused, seemingly at a loss for words. “You mean to tell me there was a human being in that box you received in the post?”
“Yeah, HumanoidGagdets creates the bots’ flesh from organic matter, so each box is programmed to support life for a short period of time.”
“Huh.” Ana’s brow crossed as she processed my words.
“I know it’s a lot. That’s why I didn’t want to bring it up.”
“First of all, you know you can speak to me about anything, especially if it’s something difficult. We don’t have much family left in the cluster and if we don’t look out for each other, who will?”
The burst of warmth her words provoked was unprecedented, and I reached for her hand, giving it a quick squeeze.
“Second of all, it’s not legal to force someone into a marriage, even by filthy rich Royal One standards. Would she be open to making a report? I know peacekeepers who have handled cases like this before. I can call in some favors.”
